Ed Downs Elite    Posts: 645 Joined: 2/7/2007 Location: Austin, Texas  User Profile | To all in this thread.... I think this is an important issue, i.e., if a large number of users trade the same symbol at the Open, will that affect results? A few thoughts that I'd like you to consider, and an answer on this... 1) The Machine by Larry Connors has the same approach as ours, multiple Strategies trading specific symbols. The difference is the # of Strategies, which are mostly based on small variations of parameters. With the addition of new Strategies (like the ones last week) the effect of the same users trading the same symbols will become less and less significant. (Note: Users have said our approach is better than Larry's - see the Forum on competitors.) 2) Our trades are a TINY percentage of the market. Even with about 400 users in OmniVest, unless some people are trading multi-million dollar accounts (which I doubt) we are very unlikely to affect the market at this point. 3) Market on Open is Market on Open. If you are using a broker that supports MOO orders, market makers resolve all the orders before market open, and a fair price is posted. It is THE Open, not the OmniVest Open. 4) We have the most liquid lists in OmniVest - no penny stocks. In my personal OmniVest account, I further limit selections using Account Settings, to 0.5% of daily volume. Doing this, my results have improved a great deal. I suggest users look carefully at their settings and limit trades to the most liquid stocks if they are concerned about "slippage". Now, to answer your question... I find it a little odd that this item did not make the Enhancements Survey I just published. The closest was John W.'s request that we REPORT on fill differences among the various brokers - but no items (that I can find) related to managing trades differently from OmniVest. On this topic, here are my ideas... A) We can establish a Trade Processor condition that establishes Limit orders based on the Open. That is, wait until the Open passes and then establish a Limit price at the actual Open. B) As Mr. Jim Dean suggests, we could provide a quantity of shares that WILL be traded in OmniVest, so users can establish a filter that says, "Only take this trade if OmniVest volume is less than X% of the prior market's volume." But that requires multiple passes across all users. It's a circular process - not easy at all to implement. I see a lot of concern in this thread without a whole lot of empirical evidence, though I can see folks are trying to collect that, which is good. Everyone should know that IB is notorious for trading against customer accounts i.e., looking at demand and trading against the opening orders. So I'd be suspicious of IB if you are using them. We could expend the effort to generate GXTrader vs. IB Fills (per John W's request) and I think that would be instructive. Take a look at Brian D's post earlier in this thread, "hafnium has experienced no slippage on GX versus OV Open/Close values." All the "success interviews" were with GXTrader customers. Makes you think, doesn't it? The question is what we focus on RIGHT NOW. Look, you guys know me. I want this product to be as successful as possible for our members. What helps the most is constructive suggestions on specific things we actually can do in a reasonable amount of time. Extremely complex enhancements that require weeks to program don't help the mission. I mean it takes a user a few minutes to post a complex analytical idea that takes weeks or months to implement. I have asked before, "Do you want us to spend 3 weeks implementing something complex, or do you want us to add more ARM4 Strategies?" I'm putting out another survey next week for the 2nd tier issues. I suggest you guys formulate a specific enhancement regarding Broker Fills that actually addresses the issue, and submit it in the Enhancements Forum so we can get the user population to vote on it. I have to move OmniVest forward in this manner - i.e., the things that benefit the greatest number of users. I'm sure everyone is aware we could NEVER implement all the ideas that some users have posted. Would love to do it, but resource constraints are what they are. | |
