The Striker Report - gold standard for objective trading research

Ken Morin

Ken Morin Consulting Inc.

Interviewed by John Gallwas, Striker CEO/Founder

John Gallwas: We understand that in 1996 you formed Ken Morin Consulting Inc. in the Province of Ontario, Canada, which is doing business as FUTURES EXAMINER (www.futuresexaminer.com). Could you give us a brief summary of your academic and business background and what led you to develop this valuable service for traders looking for trading systems?

Ken Morin: John, thank you for the opportunity to share some information about Futures Examiner with you and Striker's clients. I studied Engineering Physics at Queen's University, and Electrical Engineering at the University of British Colombia, graduating with a Master's degree in 1963. My work experience involved some electronics design and a lot of real-time software development, in the nuclear, medical, industrial, military, and air traffic control fields. I became interested in trading systems around 2001, and opened an account with Striker the next year. I spent many hours using spreadsheets to analyze and compare results from different systems. As the number of systems grew this became unwieldy, and I decided to use a database approach to provide the user-friendly features that I wanted, and be able to handle a large number of systems. The effort required to implement this became a full-time job, so I decided to produce it as a website so the results could be shared with others.

John Gallwas: How did you come to the four points in your company's mission statement and how do your policies support that mission?

Ken Morin: The first two points of the mission statement reflect what I sought in my own comparisons of trading systems. I wanted to compare NET results, net of slippage, commission, and cost of the system; i.e. to compare apples with apples. And I wanted to compare real-trade results with hypothetical results from the system vendors (and from Futures Truth™). Also, I wanted to be able to examine results in various ways, and by "interactive" I mean that users can configure their own groups of systems ("baskets") and call up different views such as monthly profit /loss, statistics, and charts. The other points of the mission statement reflect the business and synergistic aspects of running Futures Examiner: the website provides a venue for system developers and vendors to exhibit their systems to the public, and for system-assist brokers like Striker to gain additional exposure through presenting real-trade results here as well as on their own websites. The Editorial policies support my desire to publish meaningful results, while fostering good working relationships between all parties. The Compliance policies are intended to satisfy concerns with respect to regulatory bodies such as the National Futures Association, both for ourselves, and for brokers and system vendors who allow us to publish their results. Interested readers can refer to Futures Examiner for details.

John Gallwas: Do you have any financial arrangement with any system vendors listed in your service and do you have any financial connections with any of the listed brokers like Striker?

Ken Morin: I have a business arrangement with my advertisers of course, and they include some of the brokers listed on my website. I have a trading account with one broker listed on my website. As noted in the Compliance policies, I do not promote any specific systems or brokers, or receive referral fees from them, and I do not have an ownership interest in any of these parties.

John Gallwas: From the point of view of the trader who is interested in or currently uses trading systems, which features on your website have been the most popular?

Ken Morin: The most-viewed pages are the results page, the single-charts, and the list of systems that we track. The most valuable capabilities for traders may be:

The Top Gainers and Smoothies tables, which highlight systems that have produced the highest percentage gain and figure of merit (see the home page for details)
Comparing systems by using the multi-chart feature that shows the equity curves for several systems at once (this is my favorite feature!)
Comparing hypothetical with real-trade results for a given system
Computed minis (when results are reported for the big contract only)
Exploring the benefits of diversification by designing portfolios (baskets).

I believe that most of these capabilities provide a convenience level that is unique to Futures Examiner. Portfolio design is a powerful feature, and I am told that some people buy specialized software packages to do the same thing. Simple instructions to create your own baskets are given when you first click on "View Results". Each component in a basket can have its own weight, and the system (website) generates the monthly results, statistics, and chart for the weighted basket total in seconds.

I should note that the data on Futures Examiner is based primarily on monthly results, so for individual trade data and other details, users must go directly to brokers' and system vendors' websites.

John Gallwas: How do the Striker reports on actual trading results, which are on a "worst case" basis, compare with other brokers results for the same system?

Ken Morin: This is an area that I haven't explored in connection with my website, as I am only reporting results from one broker for a given system. I understand that track records may vary from one broker to another, due to their reporting policies as well as other factors as well.

John Gallwas: In the "what's new" department is there anything you can share with us now?

Ken Morin: There are always new systems being added, and some Forex systems are in the mill. I'm looking forward to seeing how these systems will do, and I understand that Striker is now offering Forex trading systems to clients. Some features that may be added to Futures Examiner are:

A Filter function (to select systems that meet user-specified parameters)
Correlations between the systems in a basket
The display of additional information on single-charts (e.g. highlight hypothetical results before system release date; show how close the equity curve is to historical maximum drawdown; and display Bollinger Bands)
A bulletin board where users can post questions and comments.

In closing, I would like thank all the members of the team at Striker for their support and to invite all of the Striker Report readers to visit FuturesExaminer.com. The website is free, and I encourage comments and suggestions! Also, I would like to thank Striker for allowing me to publish Striker's real-trade results, which provide a great deal of value on Futures Examiner!

This interview is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a solicitation of any kind. Trade only with risk capital. The risk of trading can be substantial and each investor and/or trader must consider whether trading systems are a suitable investment.