Having completed a 100 CML trades, I thought I would summarise my results.
Summary : 100 trades, 66 winners, overall profit of 12.1% PER TRADE.
Here is a detailed breakdown, with further comments.
Cons :
I am cautious that most of the trades were done during the bull market phase and as a large number were long calls (65%), this meant I already had a helpful backwind pushing my trades/profitability upwards.
There is heavy reliance on pre-earnings (70% of trades), and ideally, I would like to do more post-earnings too; or index/VIX based trades where earnings are a non-issue.
Some of the CML test data has very obvious errors. I always checked the individual results of the backtests before I went ahead with a trade. The smaller/less-known stocks with low options liquidity tend to be more prone to data errors.
It can feel a little like a roulette table - which may not necessarily be a bad thing if we are the casino owner with the edge in our favour. So far, I feel more like a sharp-suited, cigar-smoking casino owner, rather than a Joe punter. But this could be due to the first point above, about being in a bull phase.
Pros :
There was very little or no trade management involved - it was almost a set-and-forget type operation, where I would open a trade, put in my profit target and let the position close itself. This is a very strong benefit, as it makes for a mechanical approach, which is great esp for those with limited time.
Very little time investment needed (related to above).
Very easy to enter trades - whilst (and this is not a criticism at all) some SO trades can be frustrating to enter due to our strict price limits, my CML trades were opened at the mid price most of the time - within seconds/minutes of me putting my order in. I didn't even try to enter at lower prices than the current, because as the profit/loss amounts are much higher, say 40% either way, so paying a few cents more for a long call on CML didn't bother me too much.
Very scalable, so definitely suitable for large portfolios.
Tons of trades available.
Short average trade holding times - 4.1 days - and this would have been much shorter if there were no short IC post-earnings trades, which tend to have long holding times.
Other :
Trades were opened in the last hour of the day that the CML tests suggested.
I started in Nov '17 and was very active with CML during Dec/Jan, but did hardly any trades in Feb.
My closing was based on around 40-50% profit, or sometimes, I would not put in a closing GTC order and close when the trade hit these levels or higher.
I traded with very low allocations, and even then I've made enough money to pay for years of subscription fees for CML.
I will now formalise/structure my CML trades more and will create a separate portfolio for this.
I am under no illusions that a 12.1% return per trade is not realistic in a non-bull market environment, but even a 5% return would result in a very healthy cumulative annual profit.