Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Theoretical Investment Strategy

I like to think about things, twist them around, and come up with theories.

It strikes me, that as long as a market continues to move up and down, such as the AUDJPY, that every time you take a position, you are guaranteed a profitable exit if you are able to wait long enough.

This leads to some interesting theoretical strategies if you are using a trading platform that doesn't penalize you in any way for executing micro-trades.

For example, if you take a small position with a predetermined take-profit setting, then you know that over time you will earn the return you've selected. So, in theory, you can drop one of these positions into the market every five minutes and determine your eventual average earnings per hour.

At the same time, as a carry position, you know you will be earning interest while you wait for the position to close out with a profit.

Additionally, perhaps the best time to embark on this strategy is after a significant unwinding in the carry market? However, keep in mind, that if you blithely throw your money into the market you will slowly end up with a large and vulnerable position during a long term down trend.

An alternative to help alleviate this concern is to buy positions at what you think might be a bottom. Then, if you are wrong, wait until another 100 pips or so have fallen by the wayside before trying again. This will let you avoid getting a large position on the way down. If you aren't wrong, execute a grid strategy, buying a new small stake for every N pip rise.

It seems "wrong" to buy on the way up, but this also limits your total position. You will be taking profit on the lower positions and accumulating new positions every N pips. With the downward and upward strategies outlined above you can calculate your total position and your total drawdown for potential market movements.

As a bonus, this type of strategy would be easy to implement using some type of automated trading platform.

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