Unfortunately I rarely hear from customers once they are up and running. So I have no idea if they are using TS in live accounts, and if so if they are profitable or not. So I took the opportunity to ask a customer the other day how he was going. Here's the reply:

It is all going well. I am trading live and it's running on the server with no intervention at all. Spent some time in Turkey and didn't have to check anything.

I do the maintenance manually once a month or so and give it all a restart.

The combined systems are profitable. The live results mirror the backtest so far - so I am happy.

It's possible folks.

With the User Manual out of the way, and a bunch of other things on the ol' TO DO list ticked off, I finally got back to coding TS.

This release has just a couple of minor things done to it, just to get me back into the swing of things. I was a bit rusty on packaging everything up, so if you have a problem with the download or install, please contact me.

Part of this release was fixing a bug "date/time field value out of range" when loading price data from files, which might have occurred on machines where the locale is not US or Japan. Surely this bug has been around since the dawn of time, so I'm surprised nobody told me about it. Don't be shy in telling me about bugs you find :-)

The Change Log has more details of the other things done. You can download TS on the Download page. And then everybody rush to the Purchase page.

I was going through my website logs the other day. Anyone with a website can see "referrals" - the addresses of other websites which have a link to their own (assuming somebody has clicked that link).

So I sometimes go to those other websites and see what's written. (Interestingly there are a lot of sites in Spanish and German linking to my theory articles).

Anyway, one guy has some automated trading software for sale. Someone asked him "if it works, why would you sell it?". In the course of answering that guy, he linked to me.

But isn't it funny that that kind of question prevails? I've touched on this a couple of times before, but why are traders the only ones who aren't allowed to want to make more money? Aren't we exactly the type of person who is inclined to make money any way we can?

That kind of question also shows a misunderstanding of how trading works. It's not a fixed income. There are good times. And then there are lean times. Traders are people, believe it or not, and tend have things like families, rent to pay, food to buy. If done well, trading can bring in a fantastic income. But the need for security, the need to be a good *consistent* provider for your family (or just for yourself), doesn't go away.

And then, there is the fact that we live in a capitalistic society. Consider a movie star who spends a couple of months doing some 'acting', and gets a $20 million payment. Why is it, that the actor then goes on to make another movie? Why is it, that the actor then goes on to make a car commercial? Don't they have "enough" money? In capitalism, there is not such a concept.

Even if we don't use the money for ourselves, we can always use the extra for the benefit of others. Ala Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and a list of other millionaire/billionaire philanthropists. How are they best to serve humanity - by volunteering their time at a soup kitchen for the homeless for 365 days a year? Or instead earning a stack of money, building a number of soup kitchens, and employing people to run all those soup kitchens?

And so, just like any other normal person, traders want to make more money. Selling their trading knowledge, or trading tools they've made along the way, seems a good way to me to pick up some extra cash. It's a completely normal thing to do, but yet people still have it in their head that once you've got a killer trading system, you are then no longer allowed to want to make money through alternate means.

Further, you're probably aware of the saying "it takes money to make money". Let's say you found a trading system which brings in 100% per year. Now let's say you have only $2000 to trade with. $2000 x 100% equals another $2000. You can't live on $2000.

Year 1: $2000 x 100% = $4000.
Year 2: $4000 x 100% = $8000.
Year 3: $8000 x 100% = $16000.
Year 4: $16000 x 100% = $32000.
Year 5: $32000 x 100% = $64000.
Year 6: $64000 x 100% = $128000.

You could probably live on $32000 per year. So if you start with $2000, and you consistently make 100% return per year, it's going to be about 5 years before you can quit your day job.

Two problems come to mind: (1) you need to consistently earn 100% p.a. for this plan to work; and (2) once you've quit your day job, you now have to consistently earn 100% p.a. until you die. Because all of your winnings would be taken up by buying daily essentials. You wouldn't be saving any money - you'd be treading water for the rest of your life.

What I'm trying to say is, you need a decent bank balance before you can consider trading for a living. The more you have, the less return per annum you need to pay for daily essentials.

So, I sell my freaking software! :-)

The other fundamental misunderstanding of how trading works, shown by the question of "if it works, why would you sell it?" is this theory of "the more people know the system, the less well it works". Now in my particular software, you create your own trading system. So you won't be trading the same as me - I'm just providing you a way to automate your own system. However, even if I was selling trading systems, theoretically the more people that know the system - the better the results should be for everybody. No?

Because, the more people buying at a particular time, the more demand there is. And the more demand there is, the higher the price goes. Isn't that how the supply-demand thing works??

So to me, the question should not be "if it works, why would you sell it?". The question should be "if it works, why wouldn't you sell it?".

A good friend of mine whom I've never met - Trader Eyal - has quit what most would consider quite a "good" job in Singapore, and is on his way to live in Thailand and trade stocks for a living.

Trading for a living, and the freedom that entails, is the ultimate goal for me, and I'm sure just about anyone reading this blog.

The problem is that too many of us attempt it with too little experience, and too little funds. Our returns then have to be ridiculously high just to pay for the daily essentials, which can't last. The money runs out, and we head back to work feeling miserable at the old constraints of working for a company, and perhaps never attempt to live the dream again.

But Trader Eyal has some years of experience. Moreover some years of profitable experience. And I'm sure he has the funds behind him to make a go of it. Moving to Thailand will also surely reduce the costs, assuming he doesn't go crazy in the way some foreigners do when they live in Thailand. Hear that Eyal? Stay clear of the man-girls :-) Good luck!