John W Elite    Posts: 654 Joined: 10/11/2012 Location: Sydney, NSW, Australia  User Profile | The main advantage with random is during live trading, it reduces the likelihood we all trade the same symbols at the same time. It reduces the potential for slippage. I've stopped using alphabetical because too often I was just trading the early letters in the alphabet. Having reverse alphabetical reduces the likelihood we all trade the same stocks at the same time but then the symbols in the middle of the alphabet are still likely to be more lightly traded than those at the start or end of the alphabet. I really like Tom's list of 4 alternatives, it covers all the bases for live trading! A secondary possibility would be if several random simulations could be used to give confidence (or not) that a portfolio of strategies perform well in simulation. Perhaps Nirvana could extend such a random capability for live trading to also allow us to run 'n' number of simulations randomly to validate the performance of our favourite portfolios. [Edited by John W on 9/3/2014 6:57 PM] | |
