Market System Analyzer (MSA)

[Matt Bowen]

If you trade 60-Minute, Daily or Weekly time frames you'll love this product! In fact, Steve, Tony and myself used MSA to compile the latest trade results.

While most traders tend to focus on finding an "edge" in the markets -- a profitable trading system or method -- the greatest opportunity for profit is often found in methods for trading an existing system or method more successfully. These so-called money management methods, such as position sizing, are at the core of Market System Analyzer, a new money management software application from Adaptrade Software.

Market System Analyzer (MSA) is designed to help maximize the performance of trading systems and methods. MSA can uncover tradable profit/loss patterns, optimize trade sizes, and avoid trades that have a low likelihood of success. The result is a higher percentage of winning trades, lower drawdowns, more consistent returns, and greater profitability.

Any active trader of stocks, futures, commodities, options or forex, whether a day trader or position trader, could benefit from Market System Analyzer. MSA contains a unique combination of analytical tools, including original methods. By combining analysis options you'll discover new trading strategies for your existing trading systems and methods.

Increase returns and limit risk by trading the right number of contracts or shares for your account size and risk tolerance. Find the optimal position sizing settings to reach your trading goals. Detect over-optimized trading systems and prevent curve-fitting.

Exploit winning and losing streaks. Trade equity curve crossovers four different ways to increase returns and reduce risk. Assess the sensitivity of your trading results to trade order. Evaluate your trading using detailed performance statistics that properly account for position sizing settings and account equity.

This product is very hard to beat for the price...and no I'm not getting paid to say this. I'm simply pointing it out to help you become a better trader. This is by far the easiest portfolio management software I have ever used!!!

Do yourself a favor and checkout their website: http://www.adaptrade.com/

All the best,

[Matt Bowen]

MSA just released version 2.0 of Market System Analyzer. Version 2 is a major release that includes a substantial number of improvements and enhancements. Take a look at the user guide below:

http://www.adaptrade.com/MSA2UsersGuide.pdf


Prior to purchasing a license, the program will operate in trial mode. You'll have 30 days or 30 uses -- whichever comes first -- to evaluate the software. A license may be purchased at any time, including after the trial has expired. After purchasing the license, an "activation code" will be provided. The activation code will unlock the trial version, converting it to a regular, licensed version of the software.

http://www.adaptrade.com/PreMSATrial.htm

Sincere wishes for a good life
and always! higher profits,

[Matt Bowen]

Hi All,

I just got word from Michael Bryant that he's releasing the new version 3 of Market System Analyzer (MSA):

Here are the details: http://www.adaptrade.com/newinv3.htm

I just loaded it so, I have not had a chance to use it, but will do so over the coming weeks.

If you want a great program to track all of your trading metrics...this is it!

http://www.adaptrade.com/


All the best,

Matt

[Rob E]

If you trade 60-Minute, Daily or Weekly time frames you'll love this product!


Hey Matt:

Thank you so much for helping to keep us all update to date and abreast of the latest tools and products that help us improve our overall bottomline! I can't thank you enuff!

Is this tool specifically designed to track and improve longer time-frame swing type trades (since those are the time-frames that you mention) or can it be used also for day trades and the shorter time-frames. Will it help we day traders also? Thanks again!

[rrs]

Hey Matt:

Thank you so much for helping to keep us all update to date and abreast of the latest tools and products that help us improve our overall bottomline! I can't thank you enuff!

Is this tool specifically designed to track and improve longer time-frame swing type trades (since those are the time-frames that you mention) or can it be used also for day trades and the shorter time-frames. Will it help we day traders also? Thanks again!

Hi Rob,

I am sure Matt will give you a more detailed answers to your questions. Here is my take on MSA. I purchased MSA (version 2) after talking to Matt and looking at the results of equity analysis Matt and another MTP user Chris Eddison posted here in the forum. The greatest strength of MSA is the simplicity of data input and the detailed analysis it produces. It is a very powerful and sophisticated tool. Few days ago, I posted my analysis of the trades that I took in the index futures market using MTP. All of them were day trades. You will find the post in the position sizing section of this forum. I have attached a pdf file of the entire output from MSA to that message. If you serch the forum for Matt's messages and Chris Eddison's messages you will find more useful examples of reports produced by MSA.

MSA:

1) can track day trades, swing trades, position trades etc

2) can track stock trades, forex trades, and futures trades

3) offers several position sizing and risk management options

4) at a minimum MSA needs a single column of pofit / loss data for generating its analytical report. In the words of its developer -- "MSA is designed to extract maximum amount of information from the minimum amount of data "

5) offers Monte Carlo simulation and equity curve cross over analysis

6) if you are a TradeStation user it offers some very useful functions for analysing the data exported from TradeStation

7) the developer / author is a professional statistician -- you will find a more detailed professional biograhical note at his web site.

To me, it is a measurement tool that provides answers many vital questions related to the performance of the systems I use by measuring objectively the results of the trading systems. The most basic of these questions is: How well is the system doing? One look at the equity curve that MSA produces will give you the answer to this vital question. MSA is to an investor / trader what a blood pressure measurement device is to a doctor. Without the measurements they generate, neither the investor / trader nor the doctor will know how well their portfolios / patients are doing.

Sincerely,

Rama.

[Rob E]

Hey Rama:

Thank you so much for your input, it's greatly appreciated. I'm certainly going to look into MSA for myself. It seems to me, it's the best $200 a trader could spend.... "Invest!" ;)

I have to admit, I was pretty blown away by the price...btw... like a good Mickey D's breakfast, it's tough to beat for the price!!!

[Rob E]

Hey All:

I was just checking out the "Quick Start Video Demonstration" about the MSA program found @ Adaptrade.com.

In that help video, I noticed that he was talking about the process of importing your data and then going through the "Anaylsis Setup" dialog box, you had to enter the "Point Value" for each futures contract traded.

Does this mean what it sounds like? That you have do this for each and every futures contract that you trade? And does this also mean that you can only develop an equity curve based on each separate futures contract. So for example, you can only have 1 equity curve representation for NQ, 1 equity curve for the ES, 1 equity curve for the YM and so on?

What about a "Total" cumulative equity curve... that represents and includes everything that one trades. Pardon my ignorance, but the way it's presented, it almost sounds like you have to run separate equity curves for each futures contract. Maybe I'm just misinterpreting the information from a non-user stand point.

Could someone please clarify this for me. Thanks much!

[tombtrader]

Can anyone of you using MSA feedback some practical benefits they have experienced using Position Sizing Optimisation with MTP signals.

Are there real benefits not obvioususing excel?

TIA

[Matt Bowen]

Hi Tombtrader,

Can anyone of you using MSA feedback some practical benefits they have experienced using Position Sizing Optimisation with MTP signals.

There are only 2 types of Position Sizing worth using:

1.) Volatility based

2.) Fixed Fractional

Van Tharp covers both of these in his book: "Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom". The biggest difference between the two is the percent volatility method will shorten the drawdown considerably.

Bottom line: there is no need to play optimization games with MSA as the results are already known. I mean unless you want to run a Monte-carlo to show comparative results...or you are parameter stepping then it might make some sense to find out what kind of drawdowns your clients can handle.

For example: if you are parameter stepping from .05 to say 3.0 and using steps of .01 you will be able to see what tolerance level the client can handle... most money managers fall between 1.0 and 1.5 because 2% position size scares the hell out of most clients... they see a 22% drawdown and they just freak-out... so when you reduce the position size you also reduce the return.

There is actually an article on the Percent Volatility vs. Fixed Fractional position sizing strategies in the August Active Trader. I'll talk to Steve and maybe we can add the Volatility model to the next version of MTPredictor. http://www.activetradermag.com/

Here is a great quote:

Read this quote from the movie Rounders:

“In “Confessions of a Winning Poker Player,” Jack King said, “Few players recall big pots they have won, strange as it seems, but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career.” It seems true to me, cause walking in here, I can hardly remember how I built my bankroll, but I can’t stop thinking about the way I lost it.”

Any professional trader will understand (with great respect) the meaning of that quote.


It's a pretty simple concept... control risk and get some... don't contol risk and get none ;)

By the way...I grabbed that quote from Chris Perruna's Blog:

http://www.chrisperruna.com/2007/07/23/the-fear-of-losing-money/

Matt

[tombtrader]

Thanks Matt.

I'm currently using a spreadsheet for my money mkanagement and do not see the value in MSA unless it allows me to "tune" my risk to make more money for the same or lower risk.

I'm currently using 1.5% as my risk and I'm seeing about 15% drawdown. My question focuses upon optimising risk while keeping drawdown static. Having said this, as we do not know the order of our winning and losing trades, perhaps optimising is a waste of time as the future trades will certainly unfold differently to the past.

So what is the benefit of MSA then over my spreadsheet?

[Matt Bowen]

Hi Tombtrader,

So what is the benefit of MSA then over my spreadsheet?

That's a personal question because everybody uses what they need. I've never found a good spreadsheet that does everything I want... so, MSA was the next best thing. I'm not saying you need it, just passing on the info. I'm not one to sit and screw around with spreadsheets because I just don't have the time nor the inclination...so for me it's about ease of use and saving time.

So what is the benefit of MSA then over my spreadsheet?

For you, I don't know because I'm not sure what your looking for, but perhaps you should ask the developer: http://www.adaptrade.com/contact.htm

All the best,

Matt

[Tony Beckwith]

MSA v3.1 is now released http://www.adaptrade.com/PreMSATrial.htm

Tony

[400golpes]

Please, what is the difference with yours MoneyExpert.xls?