On Thursday November 2nd we experienced a series of significant losing trades. This came as a shock to all of us because our trader although having taken her sweet time to get trading ramped up has a history of consistent wins. What happened on Thursday was completely out of character.
Friday morning we began to dissect what had happened and I initially approached it from the perspective that Pamm may have deviated from her normal risk management behavior and started revenge trading to get back her losses. That's what it appeared to be based on simply looking at the time stamps and directions of the trades she took in rapid succession.
This turned out not to be the case.
In fact, the data feed we use called Rythmic had a major malfunction that affected the entire network as is evidenced by the material provided below. Everybody was talking about it but Pamm never looks at her social media when she's trading and that is where it first became apparent that Rythmic was having a problem.
An experienced trader will be able to notice changes in how data is behaving but if you look at the time stamps of the trades it becomes obvious right away that the trader believed it was something she was doing. This accounts for the rapid fire trades. I can tell you from experience that I have entered a trade many times and inadvertently clicked on the Sell button instead of the Buy button and visa-versa. When that happens sometimes traders (including myself) will immediately reverse the trade thinking it was a slip of the wrist.
I'm not suggesting this happened to Pamm I am simply trying to illustrate how when things go in the opposite direction you intended them to go, a traders first assumption usually is not that the data feed is somehow corrupted. Usually we first default to "human error".
For those of you who don't trade this can create a very stressful situation as you are now either down dramatically or up dramatically and you can't explain how it happened or why.
I asked Pamm to write a short essay to explain in her own words the experience she had as it was happening so I will leave it to her to illustrate what happened.
My confidence in Pamm has been restored. My commitment to you and to all who are involved with Stable Trading is absolute, and I can assure you that we will recover quickly and carry on.
Based on these findings, I can not take responsibility for the losses and therefore will not be covering the loss.
Thank you for being part of Stable Trading. We have only just begun.
MESSAGE FROM YOUR TRADER PAMM
Dear HIGHLY Valued Clients:
On Thursday, November 2nd, I began my trading day just like any other day. Unbeknownst to me, the data feed that I rely on for signals was having issues. I was aware that Rithmic had crashed, but once it came back up, I commenced trading.
To provide more insight, I use NinjaTrader 8 and Rithmic data feed through a company called Apex, as I am a multi funded futures trader. During my career, I became interested in developing software; I also develop automated bots to provide not just myself, but other traders with AI to make their trading decisions less complicated, as well as ensuring that their entries were much more precise. I was relying on those signals to trade the PAMM. Up until yesterday, this was working quite well for me. Unfortunately, on Thursday, I was completely oblivious to the fact that the data feed was skewed. It resulted in my taking back to back signals based on my best strategy, and they were all skewed due to data feed that was not functioning correctly.
I did not realize what was going on until a few trades into the horror show, and I immediately stopped trading (however, the damage had been done). I went online to see if anyone else was having issues as something was clearly and horribly wrong, and found out through multiple Apex outlets that hundreds, if not thousands of traders had all been impacted negatively. I also received a few Skype messages that stated the exact same thing.
Since I do not have my browser window open, nor do I look at social media whilst trading, I was oblivious to the data feed being skewed. I took back to back trades because the signals fired off (improperly). Because I have a very high win rate, I thought that if I just followed my plan, things would work out. Clearly, that was not the case.
I will be moving to a new data feed so this will not occur again. Living in the age of AI, and what can at times be unreliable internet, I will ensure that I have the best tools available moving forward.
Please accept my apologies. I am doing everything within my power to ensure that my data feed will not be skewed moving forward. I am sick at heart, and just terribly sorry.
Your Trader Pamm
