The Striker Report - gold standard for objective trading research

Robert Spears and Brian Miller

Partners, Optimized Trading LLC

Program(s) Developed: OPT ES Multi-Models

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

Optimized Trading LLC., is a system developer located in Charleston, West Virginia. The company uses its propriety program to select from a menu of systems to optimize performance for its swing-trading programs. Not only is the approach unconventional, but the program, under certain market conditions, will permit two additions to a position. Robert Spears and Brian Miller are the managing partners.

John F. Gallwas: Robert, we understand that you combined your years of experience with trading systems with Brian's system engineering capabilities to form Optimized Trading LLC. Before we get to Brian, tell us about your background and how it led you to this point?

Robert Spears: I started with a major wirehouse in 1982 and spent my first two decades in the business on the equity side. The correction of 2001-2003 led to an exhaustive search of alternatives and a career change to the futures side of the business. Brian and I were introduced thru a third party. After several meetings we decided to combine our synergies and form the company to offer investors creative and adaptive strategies for their portfolios.

John Gallwas: Now Brian, it's your turn to fill us in on you, and why you joined forces with Robert?

Brian Miller: I began trading and developing strategies during the crash of 2008 which was a great time to see the many variations of risks. That period of time truly highlighted how if one would shift the primary development focus from increasing returns to mitigating all or most risks, you could more quickly identify true strategic potential and its optimal risk/reward profile. This is something I took and continue as a foundation development to this day. Robert and I discovered early in our conversations we both shared the same vision. We share similar views of systematic structures & concepts and quickly realized our respective areas of expertise could accomplish more as a partnership than individually.

John Gallwas: Describe the basic market philosophy behind your trading systems and the risk /reward guidelines?

Brian Miller: Our objective is to fuse strength of adaptability into every layer of conceptual development and always give our systems the ability to internally analyze and identify opportunity and risk. We focus on reducing the many types of risks including drawdown amounts and frequency, over fitting, change of market environment, strategic failure and several others with our proprietary analysis methods. These allow us to pursue our goal of consistency of results.

John Gallwas: What are the "nuts & bolts" behind your "OPT Multi-Model" and how does it work?

Brian Miller: The OPT_ES_Multi-model products are multiple model & multiple entry systems designed to exploit all major market environments which can produce consistent absolute and non-correlated returns. The "Multi-model" systems are comprised of 30-40 independent models. Our proprietary IMM (Investment Management Module) analyzes each as if in real time to identify and activate the best model suited for current market conditions. They enter each position independently and can add up to two additional positions depending on the system. We have found the multiple entries increase our overall returns and lower our risk profile.

John Gallwas: Are you working on anything new you share with us now?

Robert Spears: Yes, we are developing additional programs and should offer more in other equity indices very soon. We also plan to have portfolios available for investors seeking additional diversification within a single package. We think it is an exciting time to be in the markets. You can access our website for more information, www.optimizedtrading.com.

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.