To say 2020 was the wildest year in quite some time would be a marvelous understatement. Nevertheless, it was my first full year running my bots live 24/7. There were ups and there were downs and I came out the other side a better trader. As always none of the below is to be considered financial advice and is simply me explaining and documenting my experience growing as a trader.
Quarter 1
The beginning to 2020 was rather strong start but I missed it. Due to one of my strategies first few trades after being turned on at the end of 2019 losing, having never experienced this, overreacted, and turned off the bot. In true from there were several one hundred and above percent winners at the start of 2020 that would have more than made up for the losses at the end of 2019. These gains would have been the perfect cushion for the impending collapse that was merely a small story on BBC News to me at the time.
Quarter 2
Went from +5% on the year to -7% in a week. All losses on the very edge of the expected range from back testing and it took every bit of me not to through in the towel. I never expected to have to deal with a black swan in my first year but here we were. Crypto was on the up and up again by the end of Q2 and my account had begun to recover. I discovered a few errors in my portfolio management, specifically pairs I was trading that I had not fully back tested and upon further investigation decided to cut them. Despite the speedy recovery this mistake would cost me.
Quarter 3
Things were on the up and up in my account. Despite the seemingly never-ending chaos in the world the bots kept grinding and clawed their way back. By the end of September I was in the black by over 10%. I took a lot of time this quarter to be outside, work out and enjoy the good weather. COVID was starting to wear on me.
Quarter 4
Well, BTC did a thing and was steadily rising and by the end of November we broke $20k and I was riding the momentum all the way up. By the end of January, the stats were in and I was up 24.8% in my USD account. Heck Yeah! This far surpassed my expectations and I was more than happy to not just lose my account but take-home competitive earnings. Now I know I did not beat buy and hold but on the crypyo trading side I was able to grow my BTC trading account 7%. Now neither of these accounts were of any significant size but I learned and mastered my process and excited to hit it even harder next year.
Stats
In total my bots made 192 trades over the course of 2020 with an overall win rate of 60%.
The best performing strategy was Iron Man, which is a mean reversion strategy on the hourly time frame. Iron Man made a total of 141 trades with a 71% win rate and accounted for slightly over half of my account gains.
Tech
I did not just turn on the bots and watch all year long. I was constantly focusing and honing my skills and tools to be even more prepared for 2021. I added to my current system and application and now even include AI as part of the tools I have at my disposal. I refined my process for strategy development and leverages computing power wherever I could to test on and compare as many assets as possible to help strengthen my portfolio.
Going Forward
Things are really getting exciting. This year I have a close friend who has been helping me on this journey also using my systems and applications to trade. It is a little nerve racking knowing that my code is working for someone else, but I am getting used to it and if it goes well might look at expanding to a signal service of sorts.
Some goals I have for this year would be to really focus on strategy development. I want a sell side crypto strategy to help smoothen out my equity curve, maybe a trend following AnyOlCrypto-BTC strategy and anything consistent in the stock market. I have my plan mapped out for the next few months and am looking forward to keeping everyone updated on my progress,
Until next time stay frosty out there!
Afterwards
Sorry it taken so long for an article it has been a wild ride this last month with crypto on the rocket ship as well as ironing out some bugs here and there. All is well at the moment and I am looking forward to doing some more research on various markets.