Tool For Trading At Random

[northbound]

Given my ineptitude with trading horse racing manually, I'll soon experiment with entering trades completely at random. I created a little tool for it.

It's a simple web page where you can click on "Back or Lay?" and it will randomly tell you what to do. You can click on it multiple times, no need to refresh the page every time.

https://tinyurl.com/backlay

[spreadbetting]

And this 'random' trading, is it on the favourite, making or taking a price.

I know trading can be frustrating when things aren't going to plan but for me taking the random elements out of what I did made me understand how the markets moved better. You generally want your approach to be as consistent as possible to spot any trends rather than throwing random elements into the mix.

[northbound]

And this 'random' trading, is it on the favourite, making or taking a price.

Not sure yet, but that's not the scope of this tool.

I do agree with you though about taking randomness out and understanding about why things move and how. I have no problem doing this on in-play football for example. But pre-off horse racing is way too noisy...

[ShaunWhite]

But pre-off horse racing is way too noisy...

Maybe you're just too 'zoomed in'? There're 'noise' in a every market, it's just the magnitude of it that changes.

I've heard this 'random' entry stuff before but I can't quite see how (as sb says) adding more random to markets that are already random helps. Wouldn't you learn more by, for instance, always backing and then looking at why some failed. Or, creating automation or a servant that makes a rules based back/lay entry descision, which you can start to tune once you can see which were more sucessful than others?

I'm not knocking any approach that works for someone, it's horses for courses, but personally I can't see what's to be learnt from it other than learning how to get out of the es aitch eye tee when the prompt says 'Back' and it's an obvious drifter.

[jimibt]

I've heard this 'random' entry stuff before but I can't quite see how (as sb says) adding more random to markets that are already random helps.

as an experiment, i think it's fair enough, but only to determine if randomness overlaid randomness produces some understanding.

i would be tempted to take an opposing approach on this and (if you have an api key), produce a set of runners for a race, one of which your algo has determined has a good chance of producing a result. then, based on the RANDOM selections that folk have chosen from your webapp, determine how close your algo came to going with the wisdom of the crowd.

having attempted to remove (as much as possible) randomness from my programatic code, i think your current experiment may not prove anything more than you already know, whereas, taking a structured approach and measuring that against randomness may give insights.

[ruthlessimon]

I far prefer focusing on optimising/improving data collection - then using Excel as a sandbox - which I can then do some various random experiments on - without spending unnecessary capital.

One of my very 1st proper spreadsheets (in reply to threedog I believe) was indeed only backing, vs only laying vs random (but with some controls). The results weren't particularly groundbreaking, but were interesting.

I don't particularly see why real money should be used to test something like this though - it's a guaranteed bank bleed

[ShaunWhite]

I don't particularly see why real money should be used to test something like this though - it a guaranteed bank bleed

For the initial proof of concept that's prefectly logical, but whether a strategy will migrate to live and still hold up comes down to the quality of your trading simulation. You know that though and there's probably no need to re-run that discussion again.

[ShaunWhite]

- without spending unnecessary capital.

It's about the bang for your buck.
Just sitting here doing nothing probably costs me a lot more than it costs you because I've got bigger overheads. 24hrs in Excel vs £50 spent on running some automation is a close call, I could be using that 24hrs to be earning some money from somewhere/somehow else, if that something else makes >£2 an hour then I'm quids in, people get fed, and I have more valuable info too. Your "time is at zero cost" lifestyle is enviable and usually only a privilage of the wealthy .

[ruthlessimon]

For the initial proof of concept that's prefectly logical, but whether a strategy will migrate to live and still hold up comes down to the quality of your trading simulation. You know that though and there's probably no need to re-run that discussion again.

Exactly But, I do like adding "error/delays" to strategies to excel. i.e. I can delay it by 10 ticks/10seconds & it still works = the perfect entry should work even if my analysis was dodgy.

But I love accurate data/sims - as you know

Also I look at it two ways.

(conventional) 1. Test with real money to confirm
(unconventional) 2. Predict something I don't yet know to confirm i.e. If my hypothesis is correct - that implies it should work here...

I've only had the 2nd one apply once so far, but I was mad hyped when it did

[jimibt]

ANYWAY

I think that my conclusion here is that blind randomness (i.e. back/lay as a prompt) is akin to The Dice Man (if you haven't read it -throw a dice to decide if you will ). i.e. two unrelated actions (the dice throw and the reason for throwing the dice) have no universal binding, other than in the individual that is undertaking the THROW.

in a word, we could do the same when choosing to acknowledge or ignore a red light - throw the dice.

[ShaunWhite]

"Time is money" is front and centre in my mind at the moment Simon, if suffereing from having yet another birthday today and that care home is nowhere near paid for. I'm kind of hoping to be treated nicely rather than being bullied and left in my own mess like so many poor unfortunates are.

You can see how cheery today is making me feel

[ruthlessimon]

It's about the bang for your buck.

Cutting out unnecessary expenditure is just as valid an edge as not losing as much in the market. That extra/saved money could go towards a/another trip to Hook

If it's an edge I've got no problem. But how does randomly trading with real money offer better insights than an accurate simulation of the trades that woulda been taken?

Trading only during when the spread is 1 tick, only market orders - a real £2 stake will behave pretty much identically to an "excel £2"

[ruthlessimon]

"Time is money" is front and centre in my mind at the moment Simon, if suffereing from having yet another birthday today and that care home is nowhere near paid for.

If it makes you feel any better, my CV would be.

Finished six form. Entered an indefinite gap yr....... that's about it

[spreadbetting]

Trading only during when the spread is 1 tick, only market orders - a real £2 stake will behave pretty much identically to an "excel £2"

Eventually you'd hope to ramp things up a little more than £2 though and that's where your participation in the market kicks off the "butterfly effect" and those stats go out of the window .

[ruthlessimon]

Eventually you'd hope to ramp things up a little more than £2 though and that's where your participation in the market kicks off the "butterfly effect" and those stats go out of the window .

But the context here is random trading

When talking about something believed to be a real edge, I completely agree