The automated trading system had it’s fifth straight day of gains, which is a new winning streak record. To commemorate the moment, I have decided to take Johnson’s advice and start calling it the ATM - which stands for Automated Trading Machine.
I was only able to withdraw $389 from the ATM today, even though it was up over 6R at one point (+$1400), as some short trades reversed at the end of the day.

The market got crushed today. That is the great thing about day trading - when the market tanks like it did today, you have a lot of opportunity to make money. And all of the profits are already booked on the run up yesterday. The automated trading system made 4.47R yesterday and 2.49R today. All (and more) of the profit today was made with a short of UAUA:

I’ve been looking at various stats of the system, now that we have almost 3 months worth of trading data. Last week, I posted the chart of the expectancy leveling off. This chart of the win-rate leveling off is also interesting:

A 34% win rate is nothing to brag about, but if it works - then I’m fine with it.
The best thing about these charts is that it gives you a good idea of how your system performs. Obviously, it can have streaks of different results - and you have to plan for this - but I like getting more data because it gives you a better idea of what you can expect.

May wasn’t the best month for the automated trading system, but it made a slight profit:

Mostly we just started off poorly (dropping down below -10R!), but had a steady recovery for the rest of the month. The ATS made 96 trades with a win rate of only 32.29% and an expectancy of 0.08. The 8R we made this month brings our total since mid-March (when we started) to +36.2R.
As I was looking over the results since we started in March, I found this chart of the automated trading system’s expectancy interesting:

It seems to have leveled off at the 0.15 area, which is fine with me. With an expectancy of 0.15 and an average of about 100 trades a month, we can expect to make 15R a month and 180R a year. If the current rate continues in the future, the ATS will reach the +100R mark around October.

The automated trading system made a new high in terms of accumulated R (risk per trade) and profit ($) today. It always feels good when that happens, especially after a nosedive start to the month of May. Now we’re up over 10R on the month with a 35.48% win rate and 0.16 expectancy.
Today the Damn Thing made a beautiful short trade on GA - I don’t think I could’ve done it any better:

The automated trading system has been running, without error, for two months now (starting on March 17). The month of May has been pretty choppy. We had a really good day today (+9.5R), but we are still only up 3.86R this month.
Here is a chart of the last two months:

It is interesting to see how the % and totalR are very in tune with each other at first, but they start to separate as we slowly increase the risk per trade.
We’re up 32.02 R, with an expectancy of 0.16R per trade and a win rate of 34.18%

I am seriously considering taking Provigil after reading this article.

I picked up a book about quantum physics and super-string theory I have been meaning to read for ages, for a column I’m thinking of writing. It had been hanging over me, daring me to read it. Five hours later, I realised I had hit the last page. I looked up. It was getting dark outside. I was hungry. I hadn’t noticed anything, except the words I was reading, and they came in cool, clear passages; I didn’t stop or stumble once.

Perplexed, I got up, made a sandwich – and I was overcome with the urge to write an article that had been kicking around my subconscious for months. It rushed out of me in a few hours, and it was better than usual. My mood wasn’t any different; I wasn’t high. My heart wasn’t beating any faster. I was just able to glide into a state of concentration – deep, cool, effortless concentration. It was like I had opened a window in my brain and all the stuffy air had seeped out, to be replaced by a calm breeze.

The age of cosmetic neurology is coming.
From wikipedia, here are the known side-effects:

* Common
   o Headache (34% vs 23%)
   o Nausea (11% vs 3%)
* Uncommon
   o Nervousness (7% vs 3%)
   o Insomnia (5% vs 1%)
   o Anxiety (5% vs 1%)
   o Anorexia (4% vs 1%)
   o Dry mouth (4% vs 2%)
* Rare
   o Chest pain (3% vs 1%)
   o Hypertension (3% vs 1%)
   o Tachycardia (2% vs 1%)
   o Vasodilation (2% vs 0%)
   o Dizziness (5% vs 4%)
   o Paresthesia (2% vs 0%)
   o Pharyngitis (4% vs 2%)

Even if you don’t use it regularly, it seems like it would be a good idea to have some on hand in case of an emergency.

My friend Mike was kind enough to offer me an invitation to tour the floor of the NYSE with him today, so we took the limo up to NYC from Philadelphia this morning.
When we got to Wall Street, and made it through all of the necessary security checks, we were given a tour of the floor from the head trader of one of the firms. I knew that the NYSE had been converted to the Hybrid Market, but I was still surprised at how quiet and mellow the place was. People were just sitting around, hanging out, chatting, and staring at the computer screens.
The NYSE has changed - everyone was talking about it. It isn’t like it used to be. No more screaming crowds. It’s just like this article in the New York Times from September says:

But even on its busiest days, the trading floor is a sideshow compared with the center-ring attraction it was several years ago. Most of the action in shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange happens electronically, between the computers of traders at brokerage houses, mutual fund companies and home offices in spare bedrooms.

The instantaneous execution of trades those computers allow has diminished the value of much of what the humans on the floor used to do. For the last several months, the floor has accounted for less than half of the trading in the 2,700 stocks listed on the exchange. Three years ago, that share was about 80 percent.

“The floor as we knew it is dead,� said James J. Angel, an associate professor of finance at Georgetown University. “The old days when Billy would trade with Vinny and swap information about orders so that they could get a better price for their customer are gone.�

The specialists lost a lot of money with the move to technology - which is a good thing for all of us. The markets are now more fair and efficient, and quick.
The people were all very nice - and as you can imagine, there are some characters. I met a trader who had been there for 47 years. And the guy giving us the tour - his father and grandfather were floor brokers. From these people, you get a feel for what the place used to be - and how it has changed.
I was surprised at how many of the badges that the traders wore had the Irish shamrock on it. There are a lot of Irish on the floor of the NYSE, and if you are Irish on the floor of the NYSE, you put the sticker on your badge.
I didn’t get to talk with many people, but I was glad I went by the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK-A) post. If you’re going to see one post, it might as well be that one I guess. There was an older guy standing there, I think they called him “captain” or something like that. He didn’t seem busy at all. I see that 810 shares were traded on BRK-A today.

One interesting thing on inspectd is that (if you have the option set) it will sometimes throw in random charts that are current. In other words, non-historical charts. This is interesting because it makes you think to yourself, man I just clicked buy on this stock - maybe I should really buy it. You can see my real-time trades here. And here is a screenshot of how I’m doing so far:

Unfortunately, I think I will try to keep this option turned off, because real-time trades aren’t survivor-biased, so it is possible that I could lose septillions of dollars and actually wipe my massive account out. As long as I buy the historical charts, I will never wipe out because of survivor bias.

Today was another disappointing day, even though the automated trading system did well, because our broker rejected some orders, including a short of SPWR:

When stuff like this happens, it makes me both happy and sad. Happy because the ATS is able to predict the future. It shorted SPWR before a bad conference call, which made the stock drop like a rock. It did something similar before with a short of TSRA. And sad because of all of the money in lost profits we missed because of a bug with the broker. Hopefully this will get fixed soon.

When I posted a message saying that I couldn’t get over $100 septillion, the site admin responded that he wouldn’t fix it:

Hi Mike, sorry, I can’t do that until I get a paid subscription model set up. It’s costing me too much in bandwidth and hosting to have people playing for thousands and thousands of trades.

I told him that I think it is a bad move to go the subscription route, but if he decides to do it then I hope I am wrong and he makes septillions of dollars. I’m just disappointed that I won’t be able to make a googol, as was my plan.