None of the this article or anything else on this site is financial advice in any capacity and simply my own personal experiences in the market. With that out of the way there is a lot to cover so I am just going to jump right into it.
Below is a table indicating the performance of each of my live bots during the past three months. I chose the names from the Marvel Avengers franchise as when I started, I was super excited for Infinity War, that should give you an idea of how long I've been working on this.
| Bot | Number of Trades | Expected Win Rate | Actual | PnL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hulk BTC-USD | 5 | 48% | 60% | +78% |
| Iron Man BTC-USD | 3 | 90% | 100% | +4.0% |
| Strange BTC-USD | 6 | 46% | 66% | +15% |
| Black Panther BTC-USD | 2 | 74% | 100% | +11% |
| Hulk ETH-USD | 5 | 56% | 80% | +62% |
| Iron Man ETH-USD | 4 | 75% | 50% | +0.5 |
| Black Panther ETH-USD | 2 | 69% | 100% | +6.0% |
| Hulk LTC-USD | 5 | 38% | 80% | +35% |
| Iron Man LTC-USD | 5 | 77% | 40% | -1.7% |
| Black Panther LTC-USD | 1 | 74% | 100% | +4.0% |
| Iron Man BAT-USDC | 3 | 68% | 33% | -1.0% |
| Black Panther BAT-USDC | 3 | 73% | 100% | +3.7% |
| Iron Man XRP-USD | 1 | 79% | 100% | +1.1% |
| Black Panther XRP-USD | 2 | 64% | 100% | +6.8% |
No I know what you are thinking but the Profit and Loss (PnL) is based off of the unit size given to each bot during a given month. In April when I had fewer strategies about 15% of my account was allotted per trade. May was about 12% and June 10%. In back testing some of my bots had max losses around -20% though this was very rare I want to risk no more then 2% of my account on any given trade, thus about a 10% of my account per trade lets me sleep well at night.
Another cavate to the data is that most strategies, except for Hulk BTC-USD and Iron Man BTC-USD, were not traded for the entirety of the quarter. I paper trade each bot for 30+ days before it goes live to watch for any hiccups and to make sure it behaves inline with the back testing. Keeping this in mind I expect the underperforming strategies to start to see better days just as I expect those performing at 100% to not continue to do so for much longer.
Over all I made between 10% and 12% of my portfolio each month. This smashes the S&P 500 index, which only increased about +4.0% in the same time. However, BTC has gone up about +175% peeking at nearly +250% from April 1st to the end of June. Needless to say I need to better manage my positions or develop some strategies for the time that I am flat in the markets. Another thing to consider is that I am currently only going long, meaning that when price is falling all I can do is try to catch the falling knife, the ability to go short may be the next step to improving my edge.
Now for a little about the bots...
HULK
This is my first trading strategy and is a breakout strategy on the hourly time frame. It identifies certain levels in the markets and waits for price to cross them of "Smash" through them as I like to say. Then it hangs on for dear life until it is either stopped out or the move seems to have stopped. Believe it or not its based of the same type of strategy used by the turtle traders.
Iron Man
This is a mean reversion strategy that focuses on the hourly time frame. This little darling watches for price to become stretched beyond a certain point then latches on and hopes to get flung back to the green side, usually three to four times a month. No stop except for an emergency price that is way below entry. Relatively high win rate of constant small gains and losses however it is subject to some heavy draw downs, though they are very few and far between. In back testing this strategy was profitable in 2018, just 1% on USD-BTC but hey ill take what I can get. Rest in piece Tony.
Black Panther
This is another mean reversion strategy only this time on the daily. Same general idea only this one only happens once or twice a month, has huge upside potential but can also hit a few larger losers in a row. Was developed for alt coins but seemed to play well with the whole team so it is traded across all my pairs.
Strange
This guy... I have a bit of a love hate relationship with this strategy, more on that in a sec. Strange or rather Dr. Strange is a Ichimoku Cloud based strategy and it preforms quiet well and is based off of what i use to do back before I got into actually back testing and automating my strategies. It has made money in back testing, I've made money using it before, and its made money since going live. However, it only seems to work on BTC-USD... that's not to say it wasn't profitable in back testing on other pairs just not as much as I would like. It passed my paper trading test and has since continued to prove its self, but I'm still watching...
Wrap Up
All in all I am very happy with how my first quarter of automated trading has gone. I still have nearly an infinite amount of work to do, but as for tonight its getting late. If you like what you are seeing here please follow me on twitter at @DownToCrypto and download Brave.
Thank you, and remember to always trade responsibly.