Volume 1, Number 7        March 24, 2006                    Archives

Welcome to "BioComp Investors & Traders"
A newsletter / journal for financially interested customers and friends.

 
CONTENTS

  • Gallery of Dakota Customer SuccessesCustomer Results... not the vendor's!

  • Minimizing Exposure to Natural Gas (or, how to beat NG while in the market less than 10% of the time)

  • Pure Power: Standard & Poor's Implements BioComp's Enterprise Modeling Server

  • Tech Corner: Jurik Research and BioComp: Expanding the Partnership into Dakota

Gallery of Dakota Customer Successes

Vendor Results are Just that: VENDOR Results.  Customer Results are What Count
I can make videos all day long, which are watched a LOT, and we get a lot of praise about them, but they are VENDOR results. How about real customers?  It is CUSTOMER results that count.  Well, we posted a request in our private Dakota discussion group and immediately got three customer's volunteering information about their results.  So we posted them in our Gallery of Customer Successes.

Go Look!

If you wish to get involved with Dakota as well, we have the Express version at $299.  That's a pretty good price considering some companies will sell you an indicator or an "add-in" for more than that, not a whole system development package.  If interested, you can order on-line at:  http://www.biocompsystems.com/store/financial/index.htm
(NOTE: We process orders on weekends so you will be able to download and get going Friday night, Saturday or Sunday, too)

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Minimizing Exposure To Natural Gas
(or, how to beat NG while in the market less than 10% of the time)

Exposure Means Risk
Having a position on a security is risky business, one that hopefully delivers suitable gains, so the best of both worlds is to minimize one form of risk: time invested in a security, while achieving acceptable or better gains.  One way to do this is to use stops.

Stops and Commodities
No, not the magazine; Stocks & Commodities, but stops used on commodities.  Stops, particularly trailing stops, can substantially minimize your exposure by "kicking you out" of a security when the price turns against you, while still giving good gains.  Recently I created a system with BioComp Dakota for Natural Gas (NG) using Reuter's continuous future's contract, ticker @:NGc1.  Trading with a swarm of 25 standard "WinSlope" trading bots and applying a 3% trailing stop, I was able to hypothetically beat Natural Gas by over 200% while only being invested less than 9.5% of the time.

Want to see?  Watch the Natural Gas video we just added to our video gallery.

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Standard & Poor's Implements "Enterprise Modeling Server"

Enterprise Modeling Server III (EMS)
Very few people know about our Enterprise Modeling Server.  It's a "Sleeper" product.  First created in 1997, it is one of our most powerful software tools, perhaps the most powerful we have ever written (so far).  Sure, you hear "Powerful !" from vendors all the time.  You are likely tired of hearing it.  Well, power is getting a lot accomplished with little effort.  In this case, the Enterprise Modeling Server builds, tests and forecasts 1,000's of genetically optimized neural network security performance models with a mere drag and drop and a click on the "Go" button.  That *is* power.  Nearly effortless. Highly profitable.

March 2006: Standard & Poor's and the EMS
We won't say exactly how they are using it, but S&P and BioComp just this week installed the EMS for S&P's "Fair Value" / Market Scope offering.  After about 6 months of extensive portfolio walk-forward performance testing using 10 years of data on about 2,000 securities, S&P's conclusions show substantially increased returns and reduced portfolio churn over a classifier system they had been using.  S&P is elated and their customers will be too, because the returns are substantially higher and the portfolio turn-over is nicely lower.

EMS' Workings
Define Models: In the EMS you define a base model, a data source and a set of financial time series (indicators), what to forecast, typically some rate of change of security price or performance ahead by some number of months, and a location where to put those forecasts.  You then, with a click of a few buttons, clone this model definition across thousands of securities.  You now have thousands of models defined, in about 1 second.

Build Models:  To build models, you "queue" those models by selecting them in a list and drag them into a construction queue.  You then push "GO".  It's that easy.  The EMS extracts data for each specific security from a data source (often a relational database), creates the financial time series indicators for that security, trains and selects the highest performing genetically-optimized neural network forecast models for each security.  In this process, the EMS builds a customized model and indicators for each security.  As it builds the models, it stores them for forecasting later.  Automatic!

Forecast: To forecast, you also just select models from a list and drag them into a prediction queue and press the Go button.  Forecasts are written to a destination, typically a relational database.  Done!

Use the Forecasts: How the forecasts are used are up to the customer, but generally they are used in portfolio management, where you invest into the forecasted top performers and divest from the forecasted bottom performers.  Easy!

Now, tell me, is that powerful or not?

Read more about the EMS

If you are a Portfolio Manager and want to learn more, call me at 1-800-716-6770 (USA) or 1-952-746-5761 (USA or International) or send me an email (cmcook@biocompsystems.com).

P.S.  If Standard & Poor's trusts their business on our systems, so can you.

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Tech Notes: Jurik's JMA
Mark Jurik (Jurik Research) and I have known each other for over 15 years.  BioComp has supported the use of most of their indicators in BioComp Profit for many years because many people "live by them", particularly his popular "JMA" or Jurik Moving Average.  Now we are expanding that cooperation into BioComp Dakota to support the use of the JMA in Dakota's particularly inventive walk-forward technologies.  Dakota version 1.4, supporting JMA in Dakota's ScriptBots, is set to be released next Wednesday (March 29th).  Other Jurik indicators will be supported and implemented as we proceed with Dakota's rapidly expanding capabilities.

If you are a JMA fan, your favorite adaptive moving average will be at your fingertips.  Add Dakota to your arsenal of tools today at:  http://www.biocompsystems.com/store/financial/index.htm

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Reminder: Stocks & Commodities Magazine

Be sure to look for our "got bots?" ad in the May issue of the Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities magazine, hitting the shelves April 15th.

 

Also watch for Dakota in Stocks & Commodities' "Traders' Tips" section each month.  Dakota has been in February, March, April and now May's issues.

 

 

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Closure

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These documents are provided for informational purposes only. The information contained in this document represents the current view of BioComp Systems on the material discussed as of the date of publication.  Materials written should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of BioComp and BioComp cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication.   INFORMATION PROVIDED IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND FREEDOM FROM INFRINGEMENT. Statements of equity performance are hypothetical and have not been substantiated by records of actual trading.  Hypothetical or simulated performance results have certain inherent limitations. Unlike an actual performance record, simulated results do not represent actual trading.  Also, since the trades have not actually been executed, the results may have under- or over-compensated for the impact, if any, of certain market factors, such as lack of liquidity.  Simulated trading programs in general are also subject to the fact that they are designed with the benefit of hindsight. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to those mentioned.

The user assumes the entire risk as to the accuracy and the use of this document. This document may be copied and distributed subject to the following conditions: 1) The entire document must be copied without modification; 2) All copies must contain BioComp's copyright notice and any other notices provided therein; and 3) This document may not be distributed for profit.  All trademarks acknowledged.  (C) Copyright BioComp Systems, Inc. 2006.