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Aaron Capps

Founder, Systematic Signals

Program(s) Developed: Battalion, Saturn, Charge, Adams

Interviewed by John F. Gallwas, Founder of Striker Securities, Inc.

Aaron Capps is a self-taught student of the markets who because of his non-financial background found that he could think "outside-the-box" in the development of viable trading systems that have been live at Striker since 2008. Mr. Capps is the owner of Systematic Signals.

John F. Gallwas: Some of our client are aware of you however, tell us again how you became a system developer with current offerings of 4 different trading systems?

Aaron Capps: Originally I worked along side my first mentor assisting with teaching technical analysis and a mechanical approaches to trading futures markets. First a break out model for the swiss franc and then a multiple time frame confirmation model. This was in the late nineties and gave me my first exposure to tradestation, an opportunity I didn't take advantage of them time to learn more about for another 4-5 years. I later moved on to become a futures broker myself and while there I was able to be thoroughly exposed to an almost unimaginable fast track of experiences. Meeting several mentors in the firm as well as numerous clients. I also had the time to dedicate to learning more about the tradestation platform and with the guidance of many others I slowly figured out how to program simple ideas of mine and others. After I left the firm to travel Europe I started working with Systematic Signals, which was already making a name for itself, as a way to apply what I had learned and keep growing. Which brings up to now where I manage Systematic Signals and all it's products.

John F. Gallwas: What is the trading philosophy behind Battalion, a system here at Striker since 2008 to present?

Aaron Capps: It has been an ever growing philosophy based on what makes me comfortable. While it does use several different methodologies to pick an entry signal the focus is to try and reduce risk. When volatility is low we can trade multiple contracts to leverage the smaller moves. When our position moves in our favor a trailing stop reduces our risk and can protect profits during extended moves. Try to isolate phases of the market where a break out of volatility is most likely for each of the 5 individual models in Battalion. Our use of a draw-down limit that stops our trading for the month after a sustained monthly draw-down. As patterns good or bad emerge the philosophy in short is to isolate and test parameters, filters and historical occurrences.

John F. Gallwas: So far (as of October 1st 2014) it has been a difficult year for Battalion and some of your other systems. As a developer can you shed some light on this? What do you see as only you know the code?

Aaron Capps: I see a lot of red and a long road ahead. I see historically that volatility should be increasing which is where my products perform best and tend to out perform everyone else. I also see that I prefer to tighten up the trading rules with simple things like reducing the max number of trades per trade to limit exposure and help increase our ability to be there when the market breaks. I now my products don't survive in every market, especially markets where there is a small difference between the open and the close. Unfortunately every test I run based on that historically prefers to trade during that time because the break out is most likely imminent.

John F. Gallwas: Do you need to update your trading systems to keep pace with changing market conditions?

Aaron Capps: I do have a few upgrades I will be releasing to the existing models. Mainly additional filters as well as a few programs that I have kept in incubation. I'm very excited to offer them as they are some of the simplest and more robust filters and trading approaches I can offer.

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.