Originally Posted by Big E 757

I have been involved at some level with stock, options, currency, and futures trading for years, and have had some good runs, but would always have something go sideways, and get out too late, and then I’d take a break, or slow down for a while. When Covid hit, I used that time to get more into automated systems for futures trading. I even learned how to write the computer code so I didn’t have to rely on a programmer. Not because I’m too cheap, but often my ideas evolve, or I want to try to add a function ( like I recently added a trend bias filter to keep my mean reversion system out of the way in a trending market, until the price advance or decline slowed down again).

I launched my newest strategy August 1st with real money and as of January 31st, I was up 500% without taking any big risk. I’ve since given back a bit, I’m only up 250ish% with the current market volatility but I’ve reduced position size and trade smaller until things stabilize. It’s been incredibly rewarding learning something like writing computer code, even though it’s not a difficult language (I use TradeStation and their Easylanguage has a lot of built in function and all the indicators are already coded in so easy to reference.) It’s not something I ever would have tried to learn had Covid not happened.

I really enjoy it and running an automated system on 8 different commodities, while it requires more time than I expected, fits me perfectly. I’m not in front of the screen all day, it’s something I can check on once or twice a day, and I run it on a VPS so if things seize up, which does happen if an order doesn’t get filled in 3 minutes, or the VPS just loses its connection, I get a text and email alert so I know to go on and reboot the program. It requires little time, but I do spend time backtesting every couple weeks, and I’m always testing different commodities to find the ones that would trade really well with my system. Other than the last month and a half, the profitability and stability where better than anything I achieved manually trading.

There have been a ton of posts about real estate investing, but only the one about trading, so I thought I’d share my experience. I do love these types of threads too. I’m always interested in what everyone does in their non flying time and how they manage it.
Great posts so far.