Advantages of Code Sharing: The Big Pros of Sharing Code with Fellow Traders

From time to time someone asks me why trading systems within Asirikuy come with available source code. It seems counter intuitive to most people that someone would want to share the code and full logic behind their trading systems, especially since most people believe that “strategy sharing” is one of the main things that destroys the profitability of a system. Why in the world would someone want to “give up” the golden goose ? Why would someone want to share their code with other traders ? There are simple answers to all these questions which stem from my experience in trading and what I believe is necessary to become profitable in this field.

First of all, let me say that I do not consider myself – and never have considered myself – and expert advisor or trading system seller. If I was on this business with the sole intent of selling systems then it wouldn’t make sense to share the code of my strategies with Asirikuy members as it would simply be like giving my business away. This is the main reason why EA sellers out there will NEVER share the source code of their strategies with you, after all the way in which they make their living stems from the strength of their copyright and the fact that people need to go to their website to get their commercial system. No one can duplicate it, no one can trade it without their precious code.

However I strongly believe that the selling of trading systems is unethical since success in trading does NOT come from having a trading system that “just works”. Trading systems are merely tools and someone who lacks the necessary knowledge to use them successfully will ultimately fail. To me the most important thing in trading is understanding and the fact is that it becomes impossible to learn how to trade and trade algorithmic strategies successfully if you simply do not know what the hell you’re trading. This is the main reason why the systems made available within Asirikuy have their source code available to all members, it is imperative for someone to understand what they are trading if they want to succeed with it and in my mind the sharing of strategies needs to be accompanied by full disclosure about what the strategy does.

Many of you may be raising a very valid question – why don’t you share the code with everyone if you’re all for code sharing ? – and the answer is that the usage of strategies is VERY dangerous when it is not accompanied by the necessary knowledge and understanding that needs to be behind this. Several times I attempted to share systems within forums only to find people implementing Martingales, unsound averaging strategies, doing limited evaluation and loading them on live accounts without any idea of what they were doing. Sharing systems openly online without sharing a complete education – which takes a lot of time and effort – is like handing an AK-47 to a 5 year old. This is the reason why I created Asirikuy as an educational website.

What I sell in Asirikuy is not a trading system or a program, it is an education around automated trading, the formation and necessary information to help someone use automated trading systems successfully. Asirikuy is a never ending development project in which trading systems are improved all the time, new strategies are coded and new ideas are evaluated. The systems are only a part of all of this, they are merely tools in which the knowledge acquired is applied but totally useless if the traders lacks the necessary understanding to use them successfully.

Sharing the code within Asirikuy has been one of the best decisions I have made. The fact that all members can see the code makes any testing completely transparent and opens up the door to something very interesting which almost all forums and commercial systems lack: intensive and constructive user development. The advantage of sharing the source code within Asirikuy is mainly that people get the code with the needed knowledge and education to understand what is being done and what may make sense as a good way to improve the systems. Therefore users have made very important contributions to the code which would have taken me much longer to implement (some which I probably would’ve never though of).

Perhaps the most important thing about sharing the code is that it greatly contributes to the reliability and stability of the trading implementations. Whenever we trade a system we want it to be error-free and sometimes – even though I spend a lot of time reviewing code – some errors do escape my sight. Several times in the past Asirikuy members have pointed out problems within system code which we have been able to fix very promptly. Having a user shared code allows us to perform quick fixes and to notice problems rapidly. Added to this is the fact that users can also incorporate any features they might desire which may not be within the official versions (for example some UI message, a special risk calculation scheme, etc).

People regularly ask me if I am afraid of the “big boys” getting into Asirikuy and implementing my systems on huge funds. To this I have to say that Asirikuy systems are no magic crystal ball and they probably do not offer anything new to corporations or banks with millions of dollars to invest in algorithmic trading development, probably concerned with other things such as statistical arbitrage and very high volume trading. There are also severla reasons why the systems – as they are – cannot be easily implemented on very large amounts of money (like hundreds of millions of dollars) but such a discussion about market depth and how you need to place orders to get in and out of the market when trading millions will be left to another post.

So long story short, I share the code because I am mainly interested in teaching people how to succeed with automated trading and trying to do this without conveying a full understanding of the trading strategies used would be a complete exercise in futility. If you would like to learn more about my work and how you too can earn a true education in automated trading please consider joining Asirikuy.com, a website filled with educational videos, trading systems, development and a sound, honest and transparent approach towards automated trading in general . I hope you enjoyed this article ! :o)

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4 Responses to “Advantages of Code Sharing: The Big Pros of Sharing Code with Fellow Traders”

  1. Maurizio says:

    Dear Daniel, thank you for this interesting article and for sharing all your knowledge. You touched an interesting point at the end, although it is only theoretical for most of us. Which is the largest amount of money which is tradable with your systems on the MT4 for retail traders? Where are the limits and what causes them? Sometimes, when we analize portfolios, we come to millions of dollars at the end. What is just ipothetical and what can be considered a real target?
    Thank you.
    Regards.
    Maurizio

    • admin says:

      Hello Maurizio,

      Thank you very much for your comment :o) The ability to actually execute a trading strategy on an account depends primordially on two things : margin and liquidity. If your strategy uses too much margin then above 100K you will start running into problems as you won’t be able to execute your strategy as your leverage will be reduced. Another issue – which doesn’t affect you until you reach perhaps 1-10 million – is the issue of liquidity. If your strategy requires very precise entries and exits to profit then you will suffer from this as your slippage will start to become bigger as your orders will get harder to fill and at a certain level you will simply have to “split them” to get into the market. Regarding Asirikuy systems, you could potentially trade them without problems at 1-2 million but after that risk reduction, careful evaluation of margin, etc will become critical for success. I would also favor a move towards a direct currenex api when above 100K, it makes no sense to take all the bad things MT4 has when you have the money to trade through a direct real connection to the market. I hope this answers your questions :o)

      Best Regards,

      Daniel

  2. JT says:

    Hey Daniel,
    Sorry I have not commented for some time. I still try to read all your posts. Maurizio brought up a really good point that would be interesting to read your thoughts on it. I have often thought of this threshold impact… How much money can I throw out on a trade before it is too large of an impact that the method used could start failing? My EA mover3 after some robust testing has potential based on back tests to take a 10K account to 150K to 300K in 10 years. Is it realistic to think that one could have reached a point of, lets say 100K in gains, and continue using the same method with similar results up to 300K? or would the impact after 100K start to be too large that the EA may not work so well. I suppose there are many factors involved in this discussion of the concept, but I am curious in your experience what you could say on the subject matter.

    JT

    • admin says:

      Hello JT,

      Thank you for your comment :o) I am glad to see you still read my posts ! I believe that the “method failing” is something you will not be able to carry out through increased trading capital unless you’re trading a strategy which is very affected by even slight liquidity changes. You can certainly trade a strategy which does not have large margin requirements up to very high capital levels without having worry about this issue. Trading 300K positions is definitely no problem at 1:10 leverage so if your strategy needs less than this then you will have no problem. If your strategy needs higher leverage then your profits will obviously need to be reduced in order for you to be able to trade. In the end being able to trade a strategy is about margin (if you have the money) and liquidity (if someone is willing to take your money) the question of how much capital it takes to make a strategy “fail” is however very difficult to answer except for perhaps the most liquidity-dependent strategies (like triangular arbitrage) where even small increases in the capital traded will kill the strategy (As the inefficiency is indeed based on reduced liquidity). However if the inefficiency exploits trades in an upper time frame it is safe to say that whenever the strategy fails, it will not be because of “too much money” trading it. Thank you very much again for your comment,

      Best Regards,

      Daniel

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