A "successful" trading day & Starlings

As a systematic, quantitative trader, my definition of what constitutes a "good" day's trading has a slightly expanded meaning compared to most people. Making a profit is not necessarily a sign of a good day. What really counts for me is that I have taken all of the trades that I was supposed to, at the time I was supposed to have taken and at prices that are in line with the fills that the system suggests should have been avaliable. If this occurs each day, then the profit or loss will take care of itself.

So really I have split the definition of "successful day's trading" into two components - the success of the systems themselves and my success in implementing what the systems say to do. I am perfectly happy with the first aspect - I've no doubt that the systems are good, it has been the second issue that I've found hardest.

But today I can say that I was successful in my goal of correctly accepting all trades between the hours of 6:00am and 9:00pm. Unlike the previous few days.

And just as well too. For once again, the last hour proved to have the best trades of the day, with the US equity markets dropping over 100pts in a single 10 minute spell around 8:20 and taking crude down with it (to a lesser degree). I would have been extremely unhappy to have quit early again and missed out on this.

That said, despite the gains at the end of the day, it was a small losing day today - but only around 20pts.

And so to starlings

Some while back I was looking at starling pictures on the internet - an amazing number of great photos of starling flocks in strange complex patterns. I put some of these on an earlier blog entry. It occured to me today that there is something quite abstract about multiple images of these flocks. So in a spare half-hour today I created a Word document consisting of a 4 x 3 set of text boxes into which I could place a starling picture. I am incredibly pleased with the outcome. So much so that I have replaced three of the pictures on the wall by my desk with these new ones (something that hasn't happened for quite a few years)

My next task is to see if they can be printed A3 size. They would look great as a set of three big pictures.
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The following pictures are not the finished items but give an idea of what I was doing - they are actually the "contact sheets" produced in Photoshop when I was first looking at how the images might look - I actually spent some time sorting out the precise location of each picture "for maximum artistic effect". But it gives an idea of what the finished pictures are like

Each finished picture is 4 x 3 landscape


I expect to be able to spend many hours gazing at the finished versions on my wall behind the PC screen on which I am writing this.