A couple of trades

Below are a couple of trades I exited recently.

These trades were taken using a weekly system. Both AND & KCN were bought in June 2009 so they were well over a year old. Andean Resources (AND)was a profit exit, although it's really an option I don't use much with this system. AND are a takeover target. Both of these are in my Super fund.

Computers

I have changed desktop computers 3 times this year! I find myself drawn to AMD based systems. I tend to go for the underdog. I like the idea of having strong competitors to massive companies like Intel and Microsoft. AMD systems tend to be cheaper and work just as well. AMD offer more bang for my dollar and my old penny pinching habits die hard.

AMD is not really a struggling minnow and has been fighting Intel for quite some time, as shown by the $1.25 bn settlement last year. Dell has also been under the spotlight for their "symbiotic" relationship with Intel. I think that it would be true to say that the concept of fair competition has been stretched to the limits when examining the computer giants.

Many of the worlds supercomputers run AMD and Linux so I am not in bad company.

Microsoft lost the plot with Vista and triggered my interest in Linux. There is a massive amount of software for Linux based machines and most of it is free. In Ubuntu I just go to the Software Centre and search for what I am after, including very good photo software (Digikam and Gimp), excellent browsers (Chrome, Opera and Firefox), a number of Office packages (Open Office or Libre Office, Gnumeric, Abiword) Evolution for emails, not to forget such gems as Virtualbox, GnomeDo, Tomboy Notes and Lucky Backup. I even have a virus scanner, although I don't use it much. Some of the anti-virus software really bogs down Windows based machines.

The Ubuntu Software Centre is a little like Apps on an iPhone or marketplace on an Android phone.

I have Windows 7 running on a virtual machine for downloading share prices. Windows 7 is also essential for running Tradesim.

Running a Linux based operating system is a bit like being a member of an outlaw bikie gang. A one percenter, Outlaw nerd, that's what I am. More than 90% of computers run Microsoft Windows. It's amazing that Linux exists at all given the huge user base Windows has.

So why change computers 3 times in one year. One reason is because it was very easy to do. I just pulled the small (32gb) SSD drive that holds my operating system out of the old computer, along with my data drive, and plugged them into the new setup, booted up and away it went! Try that with Windows 7.

stevo

Spreadsheets & Amibroker

 The chart above shows system performance without a profit target versus the chart below that has a profit target.

I haven't posted for a while. I find myself becoming quite secretive about trading methods and system performance!

But I have decided that I am happy to share some stuff about what can be achieved with Amibroker and some spreadsheets. The series of charts above were generated using a dummy variable in Amibroker to produce a range of outcomes from the Explorer. I have mentioned this elsewhere in this blog.

I use a template spreadsheet and just copy the data from Amibroker straight into the spreadsheet and up pop the charts above. These charts were produced using Open Office, not the best spreadsheet software on the market but certainly the cheapest - free. It is quite capable for basic tasks like the one above.

These charts are created using frequency distributions. The intervals for the distributions are automatically generated.

A profit target between 200% and 400% for the long term system (ave hold time of 290 days) shown above works quite well. Not a lot is gained by setting a higher target, and drawdown is slightly worse.

Update

Whilst the market does what the market does I have been working on a few things of late.

Firstly I have turned comments off on the blog from (except for registered users) for the moment because of the spam that started to fly around.

I have also started implementing Praemium to see how it goes keeping track of trades and bank accounts. So far the trade recording has been great, with trades showing up in my online portfolio without me touching a keyboard. If the banklink side goes to plan I will should have very little paperwork to contend with.

I have also been dabbling in computers. I built an AMD based machine (Athlon X4 620, 8gb ram, 64gb ramdrive, 500gb hard drive) for around $800.

The most fun has been running Windows XP in a VirtualBox, with the physical computer loaded up with Ubuntu 9.1 (karmic koala). So I can run Amibroker or TradeSim on a virtual machine but have access to the free software that comes with the Linux distribution.

The screen-shot shows Tradesim and Amibroker running. I captured the screen whilst rotating it in Ubuntu. I will also be trialling Windows 7 on a virtual machine, although I am pondering as to whether I should get 64 bit Amibroker.

With trading systems I am still starting up my monthly time frame system for my super fund - it takes a while to get change over from one system to another. 2009 was a good trading year and many traders would have profited from the strength of the market.

stevo