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Re:How I made $500k with machine learning and high frequency... by DanBC on Tuesday November 06, 2012 @11:25AM (#4749089)
>Over a period of months winning that wouldn't qualify as blind luck.

Why not?

Re:How I made $500k with machine learning and high frequency... by crntaylor on Tuesday November 06, 2012 @02:15PM (#4750063)
It's simple statistics. The author was up 4k/day over 120 days. He doesn't say what his daily volatility was, but let's assume 2k (which squares pretty well with his claim that his worst day was a 2k loss).

With a quick bit of R code, we can simulate his PnL over 120 days multiple times, assuming he has no skill, and see what the probability of him being up 4k/day is. I'll use a t-distribution with 3 degrees of freedom, which allows big up and down swings (again, accentuating the effect of luck).

    > pnl <- c()
    > for (i in 1:1000) pnl[i] <- mean(2000 * rt(120, df=3))
    > mean(pnl > 4000)
    0.0
That is, there's a zero percent chance that he would have made those returns if he had no skill. And remember that this simulation is overestimating the effect of luck.
Re:How I made $500k with machine learning and high frequency... by marshallp on Tuesday November 06, 2012 @12:53PM (#4749527)
By that definition you could start claiming everything as blind luck. Why bother doing anything at all, let luck do the work.