Recent Posts

Name

Email:
Also sign up for
Free Trading Tips; Recommendations and
Market Strategies Email Newsletter.

Topics

Archives

1) THE RISK OF LOSS IN TRADING COMMODITIES CAN BE SUBSTANTIAL. YOU SHOULD THEREFORE CAREFULLY CONSIDER WHETHER SUCH TRADING IS SUITABLE FOR YOU IN LIGHT OF YOUR FINANCIAL CONDITION.

2) THE HIGH DEGREE OF LEVERAGE THAT IS OFTEN OBTAINABLE IN COMMODITY TRADING CAN WORK AGAINST YOU AS WELL AS FOR YOU. THE USE OF LEVERAGE CAN LEAD TO LARGE LOSSES AS WELL AS GAINS.

3) STOP LOSS ORDERS MAY NOT LIMIT YOUR LOSSES TO THE AMOUNT INTENDED. CERTAIN MARKET CONDITIONS MAY GET DIFFICULT OR IMPOSSIBLE TO EXECUTE SUCH ORDERS. YOU SHOULD BE AWARE THAT THERE IS A RISK OF LOSS IN FUTURES TRADING.

 


Print This Post Print This Post

« Mid-Week Market Trend Analysis | Main | Fannie May and Freddie Mac - Bailout or Blunder? »

How to deal with Drawdowns on Systems and Managed Accounts

By matt | July 24, 2008


Drawdowns as defined by Investopedia are the peak-to-trough decline during a specific record period of an investment, fund or commodity. A drawdown is usually quoted as the percentage between the peak and the trough.

However what I wanted to address is why drawdowns occur and how they affect traders and investors psychologically.

First of all, regardless of the performance of an investment whether a mutual fund, stock, managed account or the track record of a system whether real or hypothetical - all investments go through periods of drawdowns.

In the case of futures - where a system or a CTA makes trading decisions to go long or short - it requires further explanation.

Here are 2 main reasons for it:

1)     Systems can have several indicators that perform well during a particular trading environment (such as trend-following vs. volatility based) and under-perform in a different environment. Typically, trend following systems fail during high volatility and will resume their up trends as volatility subsides while volatility based methodologies may under-perform during choppy periods.

2)     No single indicator is perfect. Most indicators are known as lagging indicators (rather than predictive), so before positions turn profitable, often one’s portfolio will be in the red before it eventually goes in the black.

Drawdowns are a backward looking statistics. Therefore, they cannot tell us with accuracy what will happen in the future. However, they are a good way to compare investments and can give us an idea as to what to expect.

You have to examine two factors, the length of the drawdown and the time to recovery.

Good systems and good managers will recover from drawdowns but investors also have to determine ahead of time what their risk tolerance is in the face of adversity.

Past performance is not indicative of future results.  There is a risk of loss in futures trading.

Topics: Commodities General |

Tagged as: , , , ,

Comments

You must be logged in to post a comment.