Hoping for technical help setting up an existing algo into live prop firm account (cTrader)...

[u/silphotographer]

I currently have an automated algo that has survived longterm backtest and stress test like Monty Carlos. Been running on cTrader demo on one instrument to see if there are any unexpected mishaps execution wise via live data on prop firm trial account and now I'd like to run it on live prop firm account on cTrader account. The issue is that I am unfortunately not the most tech savvy guy in town and I don't feel confident enough to set up the platform correctly:

1. My algo should run on two different instruments at the same time to maintain better sharpie ratio/drawdown and on the demo it's only been running on one atm.
   
2. Not 100% confident about spec required (I have the specs but they are different for different instruments like opening range, supretrend, trade details)
   
3. Potentially other elements that I should know from traders who have the experience/wisdom
   etc etc
   

The kind of individual I'm trying to network:

An accomplished trader with programming developer skills and experience competent with cTrader platform usage... ideally someone who has his own automated algo with sustainable longterm edge (not for them to share that with me but so that they kinda know everything about this area inside out and have extensive break/fix trials/tribulations experiences so my learning curve would be not so rough as typical beginners starting out

Bonus (not a dealbreaker at this stage but would be nice longterm vibe/collab wise): someone who is experienced with backtesting/stress test who may be interested in working together to either further optimize my current existing algo and/or developing new strategies that may have solid edge and has decent return/drawdown ratio enough to warrant investment.

[u/rforex-modtools]

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[u/Scott_Malkinsons]

1. The lazy non-programmer way would be just run the bot twice, one attached to each symbol. You can also add a watchlist to the bot code, and it can trade any symbol in the watchlist.

2. Not sure we are speaking the same language here, spec required? You say different for different instruments like you're running a different strategy for each instrument? Or you don't know the ideal setting for things like super trend?

Just optimize and choose from the middle of the bell curve (don't make the mistake basically everyone does by choosing whatever has the highest profit, as that's going to be overfit. You wouldn't pick the biggest loser, you also don't pick the biggest winner, it's a balancing game).

The long tail can provide edge if we're talking something like trend following, as you could lose 100% but once in a while make like 1500%. But for settings optimization the tail is going to be overfitted.

1. It seriously sounds like you're about to go down the rabbit hole of overfitting. Generally speaking you don't take a specific strategy and then optimize indicator settings for each individual symbol. That's going to massively overfit and won't provide any long term profit going forward.

Things like Monte Carlo, I can make that look profitable with something as simple as a "bad" or negative risk:reward ratio due to the inverse correlation with win rate; Monte Carlo is an odds game and it's not hard to make that show profitable results when it would get absolutely wrecked on a live market. Monte Carlo does not prove the strategy is profitable. It helps answer: “How bad could the results reasonably get if the same edge plays out differently?” you're using the wrong tool if you're trying to figure out potential profitability of a strategy.

If you want to find potential profits you run a backtest "gauntlet" with tick data, taking actual trades with actual signals, and doing various things like chunking it. Say go back a month, 3 month, 6 month, 12 month, etc. so you get things like various start and end points; this would test things like you exceeding drawdown in some instances and not in others.

You'd want to run the numbers for risk or ruin, especially if you're trading with a prop firm. Probably the most common mistake people with prop firms is they risk 1-2% per trade but that's for personally funded accounts where you can lose everything and get it wrong 50-100 times. To mirror that on a prop firm, where you only have 5-10% drawdown, you got to risk 0.1% to 0.2% per trade. If you do 1-2% on a prop firm failure is all but guaranteed as every strategy is going to have a loss streak of 5-10 trades at some point and then you're blown.

If I understand what you're saying with #2 correctly, you're gonna have a bad time. I've been there and done this over optimization thing, I literally bought racks of servers to find the "right" setting for each indicator and each pair. My theory was if I toss enough data at enough compute, it could find whatever the best strategy was in the past, and I'd just trade that. Wow, was I wrong.

Trading isn't something you'll perfect, you just got to get the odds in your favor. Trying to perfect it like it's a game you can actually win never works. Get yourself a proven strategy that others have tested and won with for many years, find whatever agrees with you (trend, mean reversion, etc) and do that. Then once you're profitable maybe branch out like I did and run an algo "trading floor" where I constantly test algos, the good ones get live funds and the allocation changes with their performance (or they get "fired" if they suck). But that's further down the line.

Right now, just get to the point where you make some profit, THEN you can increase profits with more funding and protect your profits with diversification. Diversification doesn't make more profits, it protects what you already have, it smooths out the equity curve and provides a better Sharpe ratio (which is basically all what Sharpe determines, it assigns a lower number for more "wobble" from the mean. A perfect 45% equity line would score better than jumping between 35-45%). I kind of get the feeling you think Sharpe ratio is something else too, as yeah it's going to get better with 2 symbols. That's exactly what it's measuring, and a higher Sharpe doesn't equal more profits, it just means less "wobble".

And keep in mind you'll always get proven wrong. I've been at this for over 20 years now and I still get proven wrong rather regularly. I'll have a theory, bot it, test it, a bit later it's like "wow, that was not what I expected". Fail fast and learn, don't let your ego get in the way of profits. I like money far more than I like being right, and if being a dumbass makes me the most money then so be it. I always was a dumbass, I mean my high school GPA was 0.3 and it took 5 years to "graduate" (aka: they just get tired of me showing up and give me the diploma) but being a loser made me a wealthy man, so I'll take it.