POLL: Manual or auto?

[SweetLyrics]

This got me thinking - How does everyone else trade? Manual, auto or a mix?

And why do you trade that way?

I'm 100% auto these days. I haven't got the patience to trade manually.

[sa7med]

I started off as auto but have been doing some manual trading lately. Mostly to inspire automation ideas but also to make more money Automation is the ultimate goal for me as it allows more free time and less stress. There's also no emotion involved in automation and zero chance of deviating from your strategy. Also, automations can run 24/7 and operate on several markets.

[ShaunWhite]

Automation is the ultimate goal for me as it allows more free time and less stress.
There's also no emotion involved in automation and zero chance of deviating from your strategy.

I spend more hours working now I'm automated than before, and giving all your hard earned money to a bot to play with all day can be as stressful as being in control of every click yourself.

At least when you trade manually you aquire a skill you can use day-in and day-out and adjust to what you see (like riding a bike), but when you fire up your bots in the morning there's no guarentee they'll work that day or ever again. It's a constant battle to keep profitable bots profitable while always searching for more things to replace the ones that fade or die. A good manual trader won't suddenly lose the knack and fail, but you can be a competant automated trader and if the profits and ideas dry up then it's game over.

As for emotion it's different but it's still there, but instead of it being something you learn to get over in 10mins and move on from, you get to spend all night starring at a chart wondering if it's failing or not. Afterall, there's no reliable, universal, predictive (or even contemporaneous) indicator of regime change/model death so even though you think you're moving into a world of statistical binary facts, feel, instinct and experience are still very much a factor.

On the bright side, automation allows you to work when it suits you rather than being tied to the clock and calender. I didn't like being told to be at my desk by 9am in a job and I felt equally miffed about having to be at my desk at a certain time to trade racing. I'd just swapped one set of shackles for another. I still do 50hrs a week but now it's when I want to. (hence the 4am comment posting time).

[sa7med]

Automation is the ultimate goal for me as it allows more free time and less stress.
There's also no emotion involved in automation and zero chance of deviating from your strategy.

I spend more hours working now I'm automated than before, and giving all your hard earned money to a bot to play with all day can be as stressful as being in control of every click yourself.

At least when you trade manually you aquire a skill you can use day-in and day-out and adjust to what you see (like riding a bike), but when you fire up your bots in the morning there's no guarentee they'll work that day or ever again. It's a constant battle to keep profitable bots profitable while always searching for more things to replace the ones that fade or die. A good manual trader won't suddenly lose the knack and fail, but you can be a competant automated trader and if the profits and ideas dry up then it's game over.

As for emotion it's different but it's still there, but instead of it being something you learn to get over in 10mins and move on from, you get to spend all night starring at a chart wondering if it's failing or not. Afterall, there's no reliable, universal, predictive (or even contemporaneous) indicator of regime change/model death so even though you think you're moving into a world of statistical binary facts, feel, instinct and experience are still very much a factor.

I didnt mean to suggest there's no work involved in automation, just that it allows for free time. I definitely put in a good chunk of time (more than full time) trying to find edges and tweaking bots though if I wanted to, I could go on vacation for a week and still be pulling in some profits. Edges can come and go though some are more resilient and I've seen users here mention they've had bots running for nearly a decade in profit. I personally find it less stressful because I don't have to be in control of every click. I haven't really had cause for concern leaving a bot to do its thing all day, or even all night, because you can adequately test and make sure %&*^ ups are quite rare.

As for emotion it's different but it's still there, but instead of it being something you learn to get over in 10mins and move on from, you get to spend all night starring at a chart wondering if it's failing or not. Afterall, there's no reliable, universal, predictive (or even contemporaneous) indicator of regime change/model death so even though you think you're moving into a world of statistical binary facts, feel, instinct and experience are still very much a factor.

I've definitely been there but at the end of the day emotion is not informing your trading when you are in auto. This may not be a factor for the more experienced manual traders but for me it still is. it'll be obvious whether or not an automation is failing or not in due time and no sense crying over spilled milk; though pouring over the reasons why it's failing can lead to more ideas/strategies. I just view it as part of the probing and profiling of the markets.

[napshnap]

Voted for "mixture".
I'm on transition period, planning to go full-auto.
Afraid, I'm not sharing others enthusiasm anymore. Absolutely full-auto bot is a dream cause of Betfair's constant api and market politic changes. You can go for vacation for a month and find out that Betfair changed a little api parameter which fckd up your bots. Or they can change how they mange "broken" markets due their technical problems which they shift on the customer's shoulders now: "Oh, market gone in play while being absolutely inaccessible cause api command constantly returned errors and timeouts and then suddenly in the middle of inplay market returns to life and some assholes get all your bets and you lose a small fortune? It's your problem, we silently changed our politic and don't void this kind of vulnerable bets anymore".
I can take markets changes (adjust my bots to the players behavior) cause that's natural, but it's pain in te ass to take those kind of regulator's (BF) changes.
And those goddamn PC2 make me feel like I work for Betfair now.
And it's not a less stressful than manual trading, cause reading your bots logs and looking at balance can stress you to the grave .
It's not a dream job for me anymore. It's still interesting brain gymnastics, but definitely not a dream job.

[jamesg46]

For me the best way is mixture...

Using Guardian & an automation file to basically be my right hand man... alerting to things I may not be seeing & taking responsibility for tasks where my time would be better spent elsewhere, such as getting the minimum stake through for a live stream.

Having alerts and other tasks taken care of leaves brain space to make decisions with less stress, pretty much taking an overview of what's happening in that moment and how strongly I feel about the information in front of me.

Its then all down to the Servants, using a Servant to action on an alert gives the added benefit of speed when entering and exiting as well as the flexibility of how you enter and exit.

I dont believe there is any benefit to being glued to your screen with fingers tightly gripping your mouse, it only leads to your mind making up false scenarios and a load of mental dialogue that clouds and distorts the reality, leading to actions based on fairytales in your mind.

Getting the right balance is important for me, I want to improve my level & my experience... I a fixed mindset isn't the way to do this, so mixture gets my vote.

[Crazyskier]

Due to my rather flighty emotional state and (well-documented hereabouts) reluctance to accept a loss, I now use automation pretty much exclusively. I have to discipline myself to sit on my hands and let what are proven profitable strategies over time run their course and not snatch at small greens when they've procced. As most things in life it's a work in progress, but I've been penny-pinching for years with small but consistent profits (when I can avoid spam-clicking in play to try to turn reds green!).

I hope this helps.

CS

[ODPaul82]

Mixture.

Horses - automated, setup the night before based on various extracts from proform

Football - semi-automated, have both guardian and excel automation for pre-game. In-play is manual on the 2.5 and correct score markets.

Tennis - manual. I know I could set up various swing type stuff in guardian but I've a much higher +EV if I'm watching a game as I'm trying to figure the mindsets of the players rather than going purely on stats/score alone. Automation doesn't pick up on body language.