Draw down, Whipsaws and my 3 months trading!

I have something to share from the recent trading experience in this volatile market enviroment.

Let me first put down few questions related to mechanical trading.

What kind of drawdown you should be prepared to absorb to avoid getting out of your trade?

How many whipsaws you can survive to remain holding the position in a particular counter?

Is it worth to remain entering all the trades in the counter despite it sucks all your capital slowly but steadily?

I faced all these questions since Jan till early may and didn't have perfect answers though i knew them partly. Now, I beleive i have those answers and let me share here.

After turning out to be a pure mechanical trader, this is the first longer whipsaw phase I have witnessed in my trading career. After doing patch of trials and patch of real trading in 2011 based on a mechanical system, decided to load the guns fully in 2012. Started with more capital from Jan'12 and increased the trade basket size. I have settled with Crude oil and Silver and partly with Nifty. What happened then? When you expect something, it won't happen!

Let us find answers for the three questions at top, from my own experience.

Q # 1: What kind of drawdown you should be prepared to absorb to avoid getting out of your trade?

Ans: If you have a faith in your system and if you have earned money for some time, then be prepared to take any deep cut i.e. the very deep drawdown in your account. Since Jan till end April, I had 120% drawdown from my margin money. I beleive this is not the worst and i may have more draw down also in future when the volatility is going to be at its best.

Q # 2: How many whipsaws you can survive to remain holding the position of the counter?

Ans: If you are experiencing whipsaws means, markets are seeking direction. It has no signal from the market participants after a bigger move or pretends that it has no signal prior to bigger move. In a mechanical trading, it’s very hard to skip the whipsaws till you gain some knowledge and experience. Let the whipsaws run and do not count them as it’ll frustrate you. I had 21 consecutive whipsaw trades in crude oil which resulted in the drawdown I explained above. This phase was going on for three full months. The 22nd trade wiped all the loss from 21 trades and yielded extra profit of 40%. And the best part is, that profit was poured in just 3 days! 3 months of frustration was cured in just 3 days in a lightening speed. So, make it clear that whipsaws are part of the game and you don’t need to break down for the same.

Q # 3: Is it worth to remain keeping position in a particular counter despite it sucks all your capital slowly but steadily?

Ans: When crude oil was boiling my account with 21 whipsaw trades, Silver was also in competition with crude oil to beat it’s record. Silver was making its 20th whipsaw trade but I had to quit the position as I was in a position to remain in either one of the crude oil or Silver due to shortage of funds. Considering various factors, I have decided to say bye to silver and stuck with oil. When I left silver, my silver account was down by 70%. After couple of days, It had its bigger move and within a week and needless to say it has produced 120% of returns.Managed to pocket part of the profits here by entering in a mid-way.

This has become a routine with mechanical trader that he takes all losses in the whipsaw mode with the hope that “bigger move is here”! But, when he is in the kissing distance of such move, he exits the position. This was a repeating story for me in 2011 but I have made all arrangements and mentally set to avoid this situation this year.Still, I was able to sat tight only with crude oil but had to dump silver. So, it doesn’t matter how bad the whipsaws, you shouldn’t exit the position if you are following a mechanical system. Prepare youtrself in such a way!

Now, what am going to do to avoid all the above three situation as it would happen quite often month after month and year after year! That’s for sure!

Simple – I am going to trade only with 33% of my trading capital.

If you want to make money from the markets, do not fund your account with just little above the margin money. I was having the theory of keeping 100% of the margin money in reserve i.e, you trade only with 50% of your capital available. Now, I’ll make sure that I keep 2 times more than the margin money in my trading account i.e., I would utilise only 33% of my trading capital and the rest would act as the shock absorber to manage drawdown.

Note # 1: One must understand the difference between hope and trust. Hope sometimes is dangerous (thanks to shashank redemption). Do not blindly hope that after certain draw down or whipsaws, you will get windfall returns. You should have done your home work i.e, back test, paper trade or the real trading for some time which should reinforce your trust in the mechanical system you are trading. So, if you can trust your system, stay calm at such testing times but never blindly remain in hope!

Note # 2: Someone can have the doubt as “Is it worth to trade with only 33% capital?” My answer would be – It’s damn worth coz you are going to execute all the entries and not going to leave a single entry. This would make you richer than what if you would have traded with your 100% capital by missing few trades!

Note # 3: All the above are applicable only to the fellows who really can’t spend their full time in the markets but wants to make money using a mechanical system. If you are a full timer and can make more money by spotting trends and whipsaws, then skip this post :)

SAR, the Number , a math not a myth! A Trader's view on What is SAR Trading and How to Trade on SAR system – Post # 5

Click here to check the previous Post # 1,Post # 2,Post # 3 & Post # 4 on this series about SAR Trading. 

In this final post of the series, we will go through the Do's  & Dont’s when we adapt SAR Trading. I have to repeat some of the points which I have already given in the article. But thought of putting them all together below will be appropriate to finish this article.

Do's :

1.       Trade only with 50% of your capital. This might look impossible for beginners. But without following this rule, you cannot stay in the market for long time. Always make sure that 50% capital is reserved for MTM losses and whipsaws. If you have 1 lakh capital, trade always only 2 lots of Nifty. Many traders fail in this. As I said earlier, whipsaws are not at all avoidable in any good trading system. Whipsaws can drag your capital down by 50 to 75% in a single stretch. I have got trapped in many such instances and stayed out of the trade after 5-6 whipsaws due to shortage of funds. But the very next trade after my exit, showed greater profit which was much bigger than the loss incurred in 5-6 trades. If you have 50% capital in reserve, you will never feel the pain.

2.       Select minimum of 3 or at least 2 counters. Do not trade only one counter. This diversifies your risk and impact of MTM loss is minimised. Please make sure that both counters/contracts are different in nature. I would recommend nifty traders to try their hand with commodities too. Many counters like silver, copper are available with mini contracts which requires margin less than 10k. Holding positions across index and commodities makes your life easier. Just for your knowledge, please click here to refer my old post related to commodities trading. 

3.       Believe your system irrespective of the market environment. I know that most of the retail traders stay out from the markets during important events. If your system is perfect, you should stay in the market under any circumstances to ride the bigger movements. I personally believe that my system knows better than me about world economy, mind of the RBI governor etc.. I have a confidence that any good system will place its owner in the right direction before the world economy or RBI governor starts their move. 

4.       Make sure that you are always holding the position when you go home i.e, even if you have opted out for profit booking during the day, try to re-enter later and carry the position. Without holding overnight position, you cannot reap fortune from mechanical trading. I have back tested about 10 SAR Trading systems for Nifty and all of them were in buy mode when the 2009 election results gave a huge gap-up.

5.       Do hard work on back testing. As long as your back testing is perfect, errors in the real trading can be reduced. I was at one stage become more passionate to back testing rather than real trading and did so. This infused a greater confidence when I faced tough times in real trading. I referred the back testing data for similar tough times in the past and realised that later they all had a happy ending. It gave me the courage to sit tight with my positions.

6.       Commodity traders should be keener with the price levels. Give weighted importance to the operation of a major external market and its non-trading days for its cue on our indian market. Though we have markets open on Saturday, it is only to adjust the friday closing of the abroad markets. One need to adjust our friday price levels based on saturday prices if the price has variation. Do not apply the Saturday prices as is. It may affect TA in some studies. Same applies to international holidays when major markets are closed. If the previous day is a holiday with US and Europe markets, skip the corresponding day’s Indian commodity market’s values and stick to previous day’s values. Whenever you have high volatility in USDINR, try to work with the price levels of mother contracts i.e, prices in dollar terms.

7.       Though I have said not to attach any tools to your main system, keep looking on the price behaviors with various technical levels which are parallel to your system. You can adjust your system for better yield if corollary methods like part-booking or booking-out and re-entering at appropriate price-pull-back place is done. But I reiterate that it is only after you gained experience and earned your investment from the markets. That is, try out additions and variations to the system after you have earned out the capital you have invested into a trading method by trades done in that method itself.

8.       Try to have a partner or a group. I have a friend who is good in number crunching but fails to re-collect instances. I am good at recollecting faces, names and instances but do badly with numbers. This combination works well. He reminds me of importance of price levels and I reminds him of price behavior when prices reach certain pivotal levels. My sense of “entry” works well and he spots the “exit” perfectly. We both discuss several times and the discussion helped in many occasions to catch a huge profit or escaping from greater losses. Try to teach your partner or group the system. When you all together follow a system, you will get better idea as how to manage trades. Teamwork will also help in effective back testing and cross checking. But a partner or group should be dynamic, open minded and match your wave length. If you have a spoiler in the crew, then mission is failed. 

9.       Apply price filters. Allow 0.1 to 0.2% of price filter with your SAR reversal levels. This would save you from whipsaw trades to some extent. I would ask brave hearts to keep mere small filters (for eg, just 3-4 points for nifty). I noticed that filters do not impact returns in a big way. 

10.   When you are ready to start trading with particular trading system, start with small quantities like mini contracts. This will help you not to lose control when you are practicing the system on the initial days. After some 3 months, if you feel that you have got some grip on the system, you can fire your gun with full load.

Don'ts

1.  Never over-leverage that a draw-down hits your finances beyond your holding capacity.

2. Don’t look around and lose heart. You may be in long position as per your system but you will see all technical gurus from media and all websites telling that there is no world tomorrow and you should sell everything. Simply ignore them. Everyone is having their own study and those studies and system must have prompted them to shout a “sell”. But, you have your system which consistently showed you money and when it says “long”, be in a long position. If there is real problem in a economy or market condition, no doubt that your system will also ask you to go short the very next day. So, just follow your system and do not bother about external noises.

3. Most of us do not understand the term “Follow the price”. We all tend to predict, what if RSI goes there and what if volatility index comes here, what if Fed increases interest rates etc etc… Never reverse your trade in advance with pre-emptive thinking i.e., before the system shows the reversal. Always reverse your trade only when the SAR number hits. Getting away from the position before it hits SAR is a bigger crime in SAR Trading. I have come across many instances that my trade was saved by just a few ticks. It will be hard to believe but it is the fact that one of my trade in silver was saved by just 1 rupee (Silver is king of volatility and it is trading at 52000 levels now. Average daily range is 1000 rupees) and saved me from a loss of Rs.40k per lot.

4. Don’t give-up when you are badly hit by whipsaws. Stronger the whipsaws, stronger the chances of brutal move in your favor. Have confidence and keep a close move with the system. I won’t sit on my trading terminal in the days when am taking more misses.  

5. Don’t fall in love with laziness. Mechanical trading makes yourself lazy especially when you take some money from the system. Don’t get stagnated into that sick dullness. Generate ideas to save yourself from rainy days. Try your hand with similar systems and other strategies to strengthen your system. Always try to study about the various financial instruments where you can deploy your system. Don’t hesitate to enter into new arenas. System is a system for any markets. So, when your system shows you money, slowly extend it to all possible zones without any hesitation.

6. Never ever increase your position when you are in loss and also never try intraday trades to overcome your positional loss. Both will add more pain as you are stressed out and not able to take decision. Your mind is well set to the positional trades and you cannot tune it suddenly for intraday trading. These intraday errors will finally lead you to stay away even from the positional trading temporarily. I lost three months of my positional gains just in a single day only because of vengeance trades.

7.  As your system generates buy and sell signals and you are making money, devil in your mind will sneak out. Because of your system’s success, you believe that you are smarter than your system. It’s not that way. You might be the creator of the system. But robots are more disciplined than the scientists who created them. So, never get an urge to overtake your system and make trades by trying this and that. If you do that, you will realize by the end of the year your capital remains at the same amount from where it started its journey. All your errors, by overriding your system, will swing your account up and down but you will not see any returns at the end. Just follow your system and rest all will be taken care of. If you want to try out new methods, try it with separate account and separate capital. Don’t mix it up with your regular trading account.

 Final notes:

In early 2007, I was not even able to make out anything when I saw the price tickers first time in the business TV channel. I started my investment with mutual funds in 2007 and later developed interest on the equity markets. Very second purchase was Orchid chemicals and my purpose was BTST. But, I had to keep it with me for 30 months to finally dump it at 30% loss. Since 2007 till early 2010, I have completely lost my capital thrice. Am in my 4^th innings now and this is the longest innings with some better batting average and success. My success in the 4^th innings is only because,

a)      I stopped trading for a while after my 3^rd failure. But watched market very closely. Spent time in searching for my system. This silent mode helped a lot in thought process as I could approach the market with an open mind and was able to generate ideas.

b)      I have honestly analysed my errors and I have made my set of rules for better trading life. I have listed here my set of rules .

c)       I have tried my level best to follow the rules I laid. It’s like a disciplinary code what I follow in my social life. 

I am in the stage to follow at least 75% of my own rules. If I can follow my own rules 100% , am sure I would be writing my 2013 New year article from somewhere in the hill station or island, relaxing in my own chateau or yacht !! 

Good luck to all!

Thanks to seniors:

I am very grateful to Moh. Without him, this post is not at all possible. He was the one who helped a lot in content of the article and for providing the beautiful charts. I picked up a lot and lot from his inputs to shape this article. Not only for this article, but even for my trading carrier, he is the driving force on many occasions. He is running this blog with such hi-fi charts, tables and data contents which is at par with any international TA sites. I don’t know how many of the readers can notice the treasures hidden in his charts and if someone can read well between the lines, he can have a great trading sessions. I feel happy to have this article written here at OJN.

I also thank Sri for his excellent inputs based on FA for this article.

SAR, the Number , a math not a myth! A Trader's view on What is SAR Trading and How to Trade on SAR system – Post # 4

Click here to check the previous Post # 1,Post # 2,Post # 3 on this series about SAR Trading.

Basement of SAR Trading – “Backtesting”:

To me, back testing is the backbone of the mechanical trading. It’s like sharpening the axe before cutting the tree. Longer and proper you sharpen it, shorter the cutting time. I have seen many traders just blindly following the trading system, which they found on the net, forums and from the textbooks. Of course you can do that but only after a thorough back testing that system. Each trading systems has its own pros and cons, which you will come to know only after back testing. On the first look, everything looks mouthwatering. But only when you do back test, you will understand the nuances in the trading system.

Going for longer and deeper back tests save lot of money and stress.Don’t be optimistic or over-confident when you see good returns in the back test, and don’t think you have got the Holy Grail. Go for real trades only after double/triple checking the back test.

I will consider the following important aspects while carrying out back test.

1.      Test your system at least for a 3-year period data. If you do it only for one year, you might be testing only some trend i.e, you might be only testing bull or bear phase of the market. What the back test shows you may not happen in the next year in real trading if that is sideways market. So, go for at least 3-year period, which has more probability to cover most of the market phases (a bull phase, a bear phase and a sideways phase).

2.      Test your system at least with 3-4 counters across different sectors. Results should be more or less in equal % with all counters. This makes sure that your system is somewhat capable of sensing and following the trend irrespective of individual nature of the stock. This will also help to correct the errors, if any, caused by testing on false data or wrong data by mistake. By doing this, you will get more confidence on reliability of the trading system. 

3.      If you want to go deeper, select multiple contracts, each one or two from equities, indices and commodities and if possible also with currencies. Of course, there will be difference in the returns across different vehicles but you should check if you are getting decent returns from all vehicles. If your system provides such acceptable returns in the back test, then it’s a sign that you have the system ready in hand to start with the real trading.

4.      If you get different returns with different contracts, filter the system only for the similar contracts where you got higher returns. Do not use that system for other contracts. For example, Moving Average based SAR system may show good results with Nifty whereas it may not perform well with Crude oil. I will stick to trade Nifty with MA based system and go for another system for crude oil.  

5.      If you wish to have good success in real trading, then spend at least 3-6 months on back testing. One might think why it needs so much time? Back testing is not merely entering formulas and dragging the values down in the excel sheet or making some code in AFL to check data. It is a process of going through each day’s price action and signals generated. Check every value and make sure that there are no mistakes. 

6.      Very important – Data what you have taken for back testing should be a correct data without any flaws. For example, many false open ticks in any counter can drastically change the value of returns in the back testing. Data might be showing some open high value whereas it could have actually opened with gap down and resulted a loss in real trading. So, always try to get clean data free from false and momentary spikes at open with low volume. Many forums would help you to get such clean data. If you cannot fetch such pure data, I would recommend paying and getting data without any false ticks.

Application of SAR Trading – “Real trading” :

Believe me, this is the easiest part for a true mechanical trader if he has done all his groundwork well. If your back testing is perfect, if you commit yourself 100% to your system without any doubt in mind, real trading is merely a cakewalk with the help of SAR Trading system.

 One should develop following three qualities to succeed in real trading.

1. Strong belief in his trading System.

2. Strict discipline to follow his system irrespective of market condition.

3.  Patience to travel with the system wherever it takes you. Take the lead from the system and never try to lead it.

Essence of SAR Trading – “Sitting tight”:

All the traders know the value of this term “Sitting Tight”. None of the succeeded trader can refuse to concede the importance of this term. I have realized it at least 10 times in the year of 2011. In a sideways market, if I had made 10 trades with 8 losing trades and 2 winning trades, in all the instances 2 winning trades helped me recover the loss from the 8 losing trades and in addition fetched me more profits too. In some cases, it paid me back twice what I have lost in 8 failed trades. But the miserable part is that all of us sleep with all the 8 losing trades without fail but exactly miss part or full of those 2 potential winning trades. Once you book out of a trade, you will never re-enter it. Otherwise, you will get trapped at high (when going long) or low (when going short) of that swing in the process of re-entry. 

It’s a fate of mechanical trading. Your system keeps you engaged in all your failing trades till the Stop Loss hits for reversal. But it will shake you to quit early from winning trades before realizing the full potential of the trade. It is because of the fear in your back of the mind of missing a good trade in the whipsaw. This results in bad returns from the trade.

To stop all these mess, simply SIT TIGHT. Longer you sit tight, quicker you become rich.

Nuisance of SAR Trading – “Whipsaws “:

This is the biggest headache to any mechanical trader and most of his time is spent on to find ways to minimize whipsaws. My advice to the beginners or to the lazy people (like me) is “Accept Whipsaws and don’t fight with it”. Don’t do anything in the initial stage to reduce whipsaws. All your attempts will go in vain and you will end-up with a mess. 

Biggest puzzle is, what should be done when price is beating SAR number quite often during the day?  I’ll reverse the trade on the very first trigger and I have no other thoughts or action for the day. I do not look for volumes, news etc when the price is triggering SAR number. Once reversed, it may retrace back heavily but its ok and situation would be in manageable condition in a day or two. 

Tackling whipsaws is the subject for the succeeded traders and not for the beginners. So, don’t break your head too much on this. Look the whipsaw like a loss in the business. All business is run with profit and loss. All financial statements are having credit and debit columns. Similarly all trading system will have loss by whipsaw trades. You cannot avoid it and should accept it. 

I have carried about 240 trades in 2011. All of my bigger profits came from less than 20 trades. If I delete these 20 trades from my diary, then my trading record shows a huge deficit. To catch these 20 winning trades, I had to participate in all the 240 trades. I did not know which of the trade among the 240 would have got me huge money. One should not omit a single trade due to whipsaw fear. To run the system successfully, you need to accept whipsaws and run with the system. 

Art of surviving whipsaws cannot be taught as it varies among trading system and trading counter. Am sure you will find a way on your own once you dissolve yourself in your trading system. Mom is the best person in the world to know about her kid.

    

     Hindrance of SAR Trading – “Part booking”:

My friend and me trade same trading system. All through the year, I have traded with same quantity. My friend enters into each trade with double the qty than I do. He off loads 50% with some profit and carry remaining position till the next signal. By end of the year, both our trading books stand with more or less same profit. How can it be possible as he made part booking in many trades? Ok, that was one rosy side of the picture.  What about the other side? Whenever we had to reverse the trades with loss or at the time of frequent whipsaws, he had to reverse the trades with double loss than mine.  

I do not mean that part booking should be avoided. It is suitable only for the experienced hands and deeper pockets. To the beginners who trade with small quantities, part booking is a hindrance, as they cannot survive emotional part. They cannot bear the pressure when the loss is maximized with the additional qty and also cannot sit idle when the profit is flying off after the part booking. So, till you become an expert to spot the reversal at resistance and support or to call the trend of the market rightly, do not put your hands in part booking.

“Position Sizing” & “Add-on methods for better performance in SAR Trading” :

In the back test of crude oil, I started the testing with 1 lot and whenever paper showed more profit, I kept adding quantity. After testing one-year trade, I noticed that there were total of 120 lots in trading in the 9^th month but by the 12^th month it got reduced to 4 lots due to the loss incurred between 9^th and 12^th month. Most people say that when you are sure with the trend, add more qty and when you are less sure about it, reduce the exposure. If am able to judge the trend, why would I still be looking for holy grails?

Position sizing cannot be done this way. You mostly end up with loss i.e, your trades are hit badly when you have high exposure and market in favor of you when you are holding small qty.

You need to trade with fixed quantity for fixed time. I normally go for 6 months time frame. One year is far better. Organise the fund, select your trading counters and fix the quantity. At least for a year, never miss a trade and never change the qty. You will for sure feel better after a year. 

Many would get tempted to refer additional tools thinking that it can help to boost gains or reduce loss. But mostly, any additional tool to any mechanical trading system results in an adverse way. One should not attach many tools to his system. It’s like adding more weight to the racing car.

Lesser the weight, better the performance.

Ok, final break before closing this series. Will come up with “aye” and “nay” list for successful SAR Trading in the next post. 

SAR, the Number , a math not a myth! A Trader's view on What is SAR Trading and How to Trade on SAR system – Post # 2

Click here to check the previous Post # 1 on this series about SAR Trading .

Why SAR Trading?

As I said in the previous post, successful transformation of the trading experience turns us to be winning trader.

SAR Trading is the most convenient way to transform your experience for your growth, without missing a drop of it.

Every experience is unique. Success lies in using all the experience in execution when you face similar situation again. Every experience should be remembered and effectively used in trading to save you from crisis or to make you rich when opportunity arises. Better way to utilise all your experience is by travelling in the same path. This may sound stupid as mostly we hear that “choose the path never travelled”. This concept does not fit with our own trading business. 

Choosing different path every time might give you the pleasure, when you are travelling to a particular city. But travelling through the convenient same route again and again makes you clear with the travel plan. It helps you to plan better and leads to the destination quickly and efficiently. It also allows you to reduce your expenses and you will be ready with alternate plan by default incase of any problem.

Trading is not for pleasure but to make profits. So, do travel in the same route and get familiar with the route to reach the destination efficiently. You have to find a system and do your trades consistently based on that system to gain enough experience. 

SAR Trading is a system which takes you through same path repeatedly and makes you aware of the obstacles in the journey towards your destination.

Its same market, same errors and same frustration. Many of us fail to promptly apply our experience in trading. This is where combination of SAR Trading concept and Technical Analysis helps. A SAR Trading brings you the quality of disciplined approach and Technical Analysis helps you to learn the price behavior. Mechanical trading system constantly provides entry/exit signals after observing price action. Your job is just to follow it. 

By adapting the SAR Trading, you can understand character of markets and learn trading psychology better and faster than discreet trading. 

What are all can be a SAR system?

You may come across many SAR systems and wonder that everyone is making fortunes except you. Please understand there is no real Holy Grail system. Purpose of this article is to destroy such kind of hesitation in trader’s mind and make everyone feel that trading system is not everything.

 I always used to tell my friends that you can make profits even with a daily business newspaper. Every business newspaper carries a stock picks column. If you follow any one newspaper’s stock picks consistently for a year without skipping any of the recommendations and strictly following their stop loss, you will attain 100% return by end of the year. This is also a mechanical trading. 

Any number can be a SAR number. Any system can be a SAR system. Mostly, Moving Average numbers are used as SAR number and it can be any of the Simple Moving Average, Exponential Moving Average, Weighted Moving Average, Hull Moving Average, and Triple Exponential Moving Average etc..  

There are plenty of the systems that can be adapted for SAR Trading. Few of which are listed down. 

1.       MA Close values – 3 day or 5 day SMA or EMA etc..

2.       MA High values – 3 day or 5 day SMA or EMA etc..

3.       MA Low values – 3 day or 5 day SMA or EMA etc..

4.       Pivot Point Averages

5.       Mid or Median Point averages

6.       Donchian midpoints

7.       3 or 5 day or 20day high (Donchian High)

8.       3 or 5 day or 20day  low  (Donchian Low)

9.       3 or 5 day higher/lower close

10.   Moving Average Cross overs ( Eg: 5 EMA on 21 EMA)

11.   TenkanSen or Kijun Sen Ichimoku clouds system

12.   Ichimoku Kumo Cloud emergence.

13.   Bollinger bands or Midline

14.   5 day or 10 day volume profile and its POC

15.   VAH and VAL of market profile

16.   Volume Weighted Average Price

17.   Average True Range

18.   Future expiry price (Havala)

19.   Daily, Weekly and periodical ORB

20.   Keltner Channels

And many more you can add. Even 100 day or 200 day SMA can be taken as SAR if you are a real long-term player like saving for your newborn kid. Just see the below 5year  chart of Nifty to know what kind of comfort you can have when you trade with such slow moving average SAR number.

I have given the above list just to give an idea as to how you can spot your mechanical trading system. Some of the above may give poor performance when it comes to SAR Trading with certain counters. So, do your back testing (explained later in this series) before following any of the above systems blindly. As I said, above are just a few ideas. Once you started searching for your system, you will see many good systems on the way of your search.

Not only “Any Number” but also a “Specific Methodology” such as “4 week rule ” can also be used as  mechanical trading (of course, even the daily newspaper recommendation numbers ! )

I have given the above examples, which mostly do not require constant monitoring of the markets throughout the day. You place the order once in the day and the trade is over. Next day, you wait for fresh signal to manage the trade.

Which is the best trading system i.e, Holy Grail?

Nothing or everything!

Trading system or methodology is merely a vehicle. It’s your disciplined approach, your understanding on your trading system and most importantly the consistent application are the fuels to drive your vehicle sucessfully. Without these fuels, you can only simply sit in the seat of the vehicle and can’t move at all!

Presentation shown below will clearly establish what kind of importance one should give to a trading system. I have made the below presentation with the 3 year Nifty EOD chart along with four of the successful SAR systems.

I have personally tested many SAR numbers and all of them have given more or less same returns in the long term. That is, over a period of 2-3 years. Most importantly all the SAR systems catch the bigger moves without fail. There may be a slight lag in the entry or exit among the systems which is absolutely negligible compared to the returns in the long run. For example, at the time of euphoria when Nifty made a high of 6339 on diwali-2010, all the seven SAR trading systems I have back tested had switched to buy trend simultaneously. 5 systems had triggered a buy on the 01^st Sep ’10 and 2 systems signaled buy on 02^nd Sep ’10.  All the systems turned into buy mode in the price range between 5419 and 5495.

Above presentation and example clearly shows that any SAR system can clearly capture the trend. One should understand that success mainly lies ONLY in the approach and not in the system.

Let’s close now with the above. I’ll come up with the following in the next post.

What are all cannot be a SAR system?

A point to note while selecting a SAR system :

What are the markets/contracts/ counters suitable for SARsystem?

SAR, the Number , a math not a myth! A Trader's view on What is SAR Trading and How to Trade on SAR system – Post # 1

I thought of sharing my experience on mechanical trading@SAR Trading. And, try to solve some of the puzzles about SAR Trading, to the best of my ability. I post it with the hope that it would help everyone in a small way.

As a trader, in our initial days all of us tend to read a lot about SAR Trading. We do practice and test everything we read. We come across several doubts and obstacles when we learn or do our initial trades. We mostly end up quite confused and finally leave the system half-heartedly as we could not cope up with the system.

SAR Trading is the concept followed by several traders to keep the trading life peaceful and profitable.If you have a good guidelines and positive approach, no doubt that SAR Trading is the best way to make consistent profits.

This article is mainly,

• For the beginners who are in the first phase of their trading career.

• For the ones who gained some experience but still struggling to place their foot strongly in the markets.

Most of the suggestions, I have made here are keeping the above two category in my mind. I request all the well experienced and succeeded traders to bear with me as you may find some of my opinions are strange and weird.

Ok, who is a Beginner?

• A person who has only traded for about a year in the markets and struggling to find his rhythm.
• A person who is experienced in the markets but still not able to get even 25-50% annual returns from his investment.

Why do we Trade?

To earn money.

This is the foremost agenda.Passion and addiction to trading comes later. We gather knowledge prior to trading. Later in the process of trading, we earn experience from the way we earned or lost money.Successful transformation of this experience turns us to be winning trader. Who fails to utilise the experience effectively becomes loser and continue his search for a Holy Grail. But the fact is, he will never meet such Holy Grail in his life time, if he fails to use his experience.

What is SAR Trading?

SAR Trading is one of the best trading strategy to survive in the markets, especially for the beginners.

SAR Trading is Stop And Reverse trading. It is a mechanical trading system, which is to be followed without any interruption by the discretionary decisions. We stick to one system and one plan and follow that religiously throughout a year or a specific period to reach our financial goal. It is as simple as doing Buy and Sell as per the signals/indications from trading system found or developed by you.

You can do severe interrogation when you are in the stage of developing your system. But once the system is tested, developed and set into action, there should be no doubt and interruption to follow the system. You have to just simply follow the trading system to initiate trades.

SAR Trading keeps you engaged in the trade “always”based on a specific trading system. You remain holding the trading position under all circumstances.

“Consistency pays” is the bottom line and success formula of the SAR Trading concept.

Planning to make series of posts on SAR Trading. We will go through the following in the next post tomorrow.

Why SAR Trading?

What are all can be a SAR system?