Bio
Peter Waite
Peter was raised overseas in several different countries, as his father served with the U.S. foreign service at different embassies around the world. Peter is fluent in several foreign languages including Spanish, Portuguese and Swahili. He attended Syracuse University in New York where he majored in Economics and Mathematics, then going on to acquire an MBA (Master's in Business Administration) at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. In later years, as a consultant for FPL (Florida Power & Light), he acquired programming skills which he carried over to system development.
Peter first began to trade the Futures Markets in 1991 and began to trade mechanical trading systems of other developers by the mid 1990's. In 2000 Peter developed his own trading system, Andromeda, which was released to the public in 2001. Two years afterwards Pegasus was released in 2003. Peter is registered with the NFA (National Futures Association) as a CTA (Commodity Trading Advisor).
Systems
Andromeda and Pegasus
Andromeda and Pegasus are respectively long term and intermediary term, trend following systems. They are actually simple systems with few rules based on time proven concepts. Andromeda's average trade lasts about 60 to 65 days while Pegasus 30 to 35 days. Due to its shorter term nature, Pegasus also trades about twice as often as Andromeda. The systems will wait on the sidelines for a breakout and as noted, both will trade in the general direction of the underlying price trend. While Andromeda aims to capture the overall longer trend, Pegasus seeks intermediary term swings within the overall longer trend, however, it will on occasion remain in a trade for as long as Andromeda does. An interesting characteristic about Andromeda is its time based exit stops, where trailing stops are adjusted not based on price but rather on how long the trade has been opened. We are not aware of any other system that employs this concept and it has worked quite effectively. As for Pegasus, it helps fill the void of intermediary term trading systems. Most systems are either long term or short term, with very few operating in this often ignored intermediary term time frame. Both Andromeda and Pegasus are multi market trading systems, trading a wide cross section of different market groups, always applying the exact same rules and parameter values for all markets. This eliminates what we refer to in the industry as over-optimization or "curve fitting", thereby making the systems much more robust and increasing the likelyhood that they will continue to perform in the future as they have in the past. Andromeda was released to the public in 2001 while Pegasus in 2003. Since then, they have been actively tracked by Futures Truth, well recognized in the industry as an independent entity dedicated to testing, tracking and ranking publicly offered systems.
Thoughts on the future of my programs
Many traders shy away from longer term trading since it lacks the action and excitement of short term trading systems. Longer term systems also require more patience and due to their nature their drawdowns seem to last longer. However, over the course of time, longer term, multi market systems, in particular those that apply the exact same rules and parameter values across all markets, have been more consistent and continue to perform over the years. Many short term systems may steal the spotlight for a moment, never to be heard of again after a couple of years have elapsed. This is why I have strong confidence and prefer systems such as Andromeda, Pegasus and others in this class of systems. Furthermore, it has been my experience that the simpler systems also tend to be more robust and consistent than those made up of complex and convoluted formulas.
The February 2007 issue of Futures Magazine displayed the Top 10 Trading Systems, which were research by George Pruitt of Futures Truth. PFG cannot verify the performance of the programs listed. The risk of loss in trading futures, options, cash currencies and other leveraged transaction products can be substantial. Therefore only "risk capital" should be used. Futures, options, cash currencies and other leveraged transaction products are not suitable investments for everyone. The valuation of futures, options, cash currencies and other leveraged transaction products may fluctuate and as a result clients may lose more than the amount originally invested and may also have to pay more later. Consider your financial condition before deciding to invest or trade.