TASC 2014-03 | Timing The Market With Pairs (Kaufman)

Modified on 2014/01/31 09:54 by Eugene — Categorized as: TASC Traders Tips

Traders' Tip text

In this month's issue, Mr. Kaufman's article promises an interesting new take on pairs trading. As presented in the article, combining the new Stochastic-derived intermarket “Stress” indicator with few clear position sizing and risk management rules lays the foundation of a long-only market timing system.

Image

Figure 1. A Wealth-Lab 6 chart illustrating the application of the system's rules on a Daily chart of HES (the middle pane). A SPY chart is shown in the upper pane, and the Stress indicator is plotted on the bottom pane.

To execute the included trading system, Wealth-Lab users need to install (or update) the latest version of the TASCIndicators library from the Extensions section of our website if they haven't already done so, and restart Wealth-Lab.


using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Drawing;
using WealthLab;
using WealthLab.Indicators;
using TASCIndicators;

namespace WealthLab.Strategies { public class PJKPairs1 : WealthScript { private StrategyParameter paramPeriod; private StrategyParameter paramBuy; private StrategyParameter paramSell; public PJKPairs1() { paramPeriod = CreateParameter("Period", 60, 10, 100, 10); paramBuy = CreateParameter("Buy", 10, 10, 30, 10); paramSell = CreateParameter("Sell", 50, 50, 90, 10); } protected override void Execute() { int period = paramPeriod.ValueInt; int buy = paramBuy.ValueInt; int sell = paramSell.ValueInt;

string stock = Bars.Symbol; string idx = "SPY"; Bars index = GetExternalSymbol( idx, true ); DataSeries indexTrend = SMA.Series( index.Close, period ); DataSeries stress = Stress.Series( Bars, index, period );

ChartPane sPane = CreatePane( 30, false, true ); PlotSeries( sPane, stress, Color.Coral, LineStyle.Solid, 2 ); DrawHorzLine( sPane, 10, Color.Blue, LineStyle.Solid, 1 ); DrawHorzLine( sPane, 90, Color.Red, LineStyle.Solid, 1 ); ChartPane idxPane = CreatePane( 30, true, true ); PlotSymbol( idxPane, index, Color.DarkGreen, Color.DarkMagenta ); HideVolume();

for(int bar = Bars.FirstActualBar + period; bar < Bars.Count; bar++) { List<Position> lst = new List<Position>(); lst.AddRange(Positions);

if( SymbolIsActive(stock) ) { if( stress[bar] >= sell ) { int lastActivePositionInStock = LastActivePositionInSym(lst,stock);

if( (stress[bar] >= sell) && lastActivePositionInStock > -1 ) SellAtMarket( bar+1, Positions[lastActivePositionInStock], "Xrule" ); } if( SymbolIsActive(idx)) { if( indexTrend[bar] < indexTrend[bar-1] ) { int lastActivePositionInIndex = LastActivePositionInSym(lst,idx); if( lastActivePositionInIndex > -1 ) { SetContext( idx, true ); SellAtMarket( bar+1, Positions[lastActivePositionInIndex], "Sell " + idx ); RestoreContext(); } } } else { if( indexTrend[bar] < indexTrend[bar-1] ) { SetContext( idx, true ); BuyAtMarket( bar+1, "Buy " + idx ); RestoreContext(); } } } else { if( stress[bar] <= buy ) { BuyAtMarket( bar+1, "Buy " + stock ); } } } } private bool SymbolIsActive(string sym) { foreach (Position p in ActivePositions) if( sym == p.Bars.Symbol ) return true; return false; } private int LastActivePositionInSym( List<Position> lst, string symbol ) { return lst.FindLastIndex( delegate(Position pos) { return pos.Symbol.Equals(symbol, StringComparison.Ordinal); }); } } }

Eugene
Wealth-Lab team
www.wealth-lab.com