Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Survey Results - Mechanical Traders

Taken as a group, people who identify themselves as 100% mechanical traders are more profitable than either pure discretionary or hybrid traders.

Only 27% of pure discretionary traders reported that they were profitable the last 3 years.  The number jumps to 43% for hybrid traders, and then jumps again to 55% for mechanical traders.

So, according to this survey, you are twice as likely to be profitable if you are 100% mechanical, as opposed to 100% discretionary.

The other interesting point here is that mechanical traders who backtest for more than 1 year tend to be more profitable.  Not surprising to me, but hopefully it is enlightening to those traders out there who feel long backtests are pointless.



2 comments:

  1. Hi Kevin, thanks for sharing results. What was the sample size of this survey/how many participants?

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  2. Hi MBA -

    There were over 150 responses. Not sure it would pass all tests for statistical significance, so there definitely is some margin for error here.

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