Interview: Lars Kestner

He’s a derivatives trader with a major investment bank. But his secret life is that he has tested literally hundreds of trading systems to find some that work. There is a tremendous amount of hype when it comes to trading systems. Lars’ book has taken out a lot of that hype. He has put a big spotlight on some famous systems and found out the truth about them. This interview has some challenging new ideas for systems traders. Take a look at his innovative K-ratio and how he constructs multiple contracts for his trading tests.

Measuring Strategy Performance

Lars Kestner shows us how he took apart the 39 systems he tested in his book (see below). Included in this can't-miss article are the secrets behind his K-ratio for demonstrating system effectiveness.

Editor's Choice Award!

A Comparison of Popular Trading Systems, Vol. 2 by Lars Kestner

This is an excellent book that thoroughly tests some well known systems by well known system gurus. The book reveals all the rules and shows the complete system results. The Easy Language code is included.

I loved this book so much when the first edition came out that I went to Mr. Kestner and asked if we could publish the second edition.

I have literally read hundreds of books on futures trading. I have met with many of the most famous gurus in futures trading. I have seen dozens of trading systems. Yet real facts about the performance and risks for different systems is very hard to come by. The idea may sound good on paper and the examples in the book all work perfectly. But how do they work in the real world?

This book takes systems designed by some of the top names in systems design and tests them over a 15 year period on a wide range of commodities.

He tests systems from:
· Welles Wilder
· Stanley Kroll and Tushar Chande
· Tom DeMark
· Jake Bernstein
· Robert Barnes
· Ulf Jensen
· Joe Krutsinger

In addition, he tests five “control” systems that are based on classic systems that are over 30 years old. There are a total of 39 systems tested in the book.

Moving Averages

Lars Kestner contributed this system test. Here is what he had to say about it: "Of the 39 systems tested in Comparison of Popular Trading Systems, the 10 day / 40 day moving average crossover was the third best when ranked by total profit . This fact alone highlights the effectiveness of the strategy."

Find out why!

If you were not aware of this previously, CTCR tracks 25 of the top commodities advisory services to show you how well you would have done financially if you had been followed their advice. Obviously, this cuts through the hype surrounding these advisors and demonstrates just how good these 'gurus' really are!

The 'Statistics' section of the CTCR newsletter kicks off with the CTCR Index (available here on CTCR online), which shows in graphical form how well the tracked advisory services have done in aggregate since 1997.
The 'Performance by Market Group' section shows the top performing tracked advisors in Stock Indexes, Interest Rates, Currencies, Metals, Energy, Cereals and Soybeans, Sugar and Beverages and meats.
And of course, the centerfold (click here to see all the amazing information that CTCR exposes about the tracked advisors and their performance!)! This editions top three performers are now up on the 'Top Performers' page at CTCR Online.
Also included is a directory of the advisors tracked, contact details and their pricing. (order this issue!)

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