Frequently Asked Questions 1. What kind of investor is attracted by THE GRAIL? THE GRAIL attracts open-minded, ambitious and independent thinking people. New and inquiring speculators are usually looking for a better, more profitable, more rewarding endeavor than can enrich their lives, not only with money, but also with experience, adventure and satisfaction. They have already been successful in some form of business and/or profession and as a result have accumulated excess capital that they are willing to risk in the markets. 2. How sure can I be that a trading system will continue to make profit in the future? A trading system that has a statistical positive expectation (a profitable average trade), is likely to be profitable in the future. However, because price patterns may not repeat in precisely the same way in future, a system may not achieve profits/losses similar to hypothetical testing. To overcome this problem, you must ensure that the system is robust. A robust system can handle a variety of market conditions, across many markets and time frames. A robust system is also not overly sensitive to the values of parameters and is also not an overly complex system with many rules which merely captures nuances within the test data, which may never repeat. THE GRAIL uses 2, 3 and 4 dimensional matrixes to identify profitable parameter clusters thereby ensuring the solution is robust. THE GRAIL also trade profitable on various uncorrelated markets, which is a clear indication how robust the underlying logic of the various systems are. 3. What is "curve fitting"? You are curve-fitting when you have so many parameters that you are optimizing in a model or trading system, that you are basically just fitting to historical data. A system which is curve fitted, will work well on historical data, but will not work on new data. Bear in mind that any kind of fitting of a model to data is a kind of curve-fitting. Most traders think that any curve fitting is bad. However, it is only when it becomes what is called "tautological curve-fitting" that it becomes bad, i.e. it begins to take advantage of purely chance idiosyncrasies that occur in historical data but will not necessarily hold up in future data. To avoid this particular kind of curve-fitting, you should keep the number of parameters and model complexity fairly low relative to the number of data points that are being used to construct the model. THE GRAIL only uses three/four parameters which limit the probability that a system is curve-fit to the data in the test sample. 4. How often does THE GRAIL trading systems trade? Depending upon which market and trading system you have chosen as well as the parameter settings, THE GRAIL may trade as often as once a day or as infrequently as once a month. On average optimal parameters should let you trade roughly twice a week. 5. How many markets can I trade with THE GRAIL trading systems? All markets which are being tracked by the broker-assisted program. 6. What is the Broker-Assisted Program? Striker Securities provide a broker-assisted program for THE GRAIL subscribers. The broker-assisted program is an excellent mechanism for clients who would like a broker to execute trading signals for them because they are too busy with their day jobs or other would like to diversify their trading activities. In addition, a broker-assisted program helps the client by:
Striker Securities Inc. provide superior execution & unmatched service in futures trading and system implementation. Please contact any of these two brokers for account forms and a detailed breakdown of all commissions and fees: Striker Securities: Contact Jerry Winter at 312-987-0043 (e-mail: jerry@striker.com). |
