Hi all,
Attn: to Matthew,
I am wondering the number of people on C2. I mean when there is a 4 view on my system then there seems to be in the top 20 of the most viewed this hour. I am thinking that is not much. Can we get some sort of campaign going to get more members to C2 and advertently more subscribers to our systems? Our systems have high selling points where the equity curves are good and people need to be more aware of c2 site.
Cheers,
San
Do not confuse the "Number of views" stat on your system page with "top activity" during a given hour. Number of views only counts only registered users. Activity includes everyone.
And of course your suggestion that Collective2 market the site to increase the number of its users is a very good one. In fact, we do that, and we try to bring as many high-quality users as we can.
Matthew
IMHO, unless you expect subscribers to gamble or just donate their funds, the C2 site should focus on increasing the professionalism of the site and attracting more high quality system vendors. Successful systems will then attract more subscribers.
The greatest strength of the C2 site is the historical trade data and the statistical data that is provided for each trading system (ie. for me, the reviews, popularity, and C2 score are not part of the excellent data). However, after spending a significant amount of time analyzing the data, there are only a handful of systems that are worthy of serious consideration. Claiming to have 19,000 trading systems obsfucates this reality.
I am constantly amazed that C2 has come as far as it has and am only trying to provide constructive feedback because, in the long run, I would expect benefits for myself and others.
Best wishes to all
A good start could be to put emphasis on real and credible long term trading/investment systems rather than so many gambling systems that one can found on c2.
Parcours Team[LINKSYSTEM_53717912]
I agree.
I think a big part of the problem is unrealistic expectations from most subscribers. I have been following the forum and several systems for a almost a year now, although I have not yet subscribed to any to be honest, and it seems we all want really high returns, with super low drawdowns. It is just unrealistic.
One of the systems I have kept my eye on for example, RTS SPY, has so far delivered what the outside world would consider sexy returns, but the number of views it gathers has so far been slower than other systems I was following with super high returns, that have since disappeared. I am not giving specifics because C2 has a big disclaimer against citing system returns, but you can search the system with system finder.
Other systems that I think are quite good and proven, like the Topaz system, will go through several months of bad returns and then most subscribers will abandon the system.
It seems crazy, no fund manager that I have heard of outperforms consistently. A few with outstanding records, like Peter Lynch, called it quits after a spectacular run in the 80s and now we’ll never know. Someone will be bound to drag Buffett into it, but he plays by a different set of rules when reporting returns.
Not to drag on, in the world outside of C2, returns above 15% seem to be considered awesome, and anyone beating the general market by 3 or 4% a year for more than 5 years becomes legendary, even if some years they underperform.
I know C2 was not set up to educate potential investors. But it is a great platform to allow comparison of investment styles. If C2 could find a way to set up screens to allow for a more realistic evaluation, maybe I and other people would finally take the plunge and start subscribing to a system.
I agree,
It could be a good idea to have C2 increase visibility of systems with low draw-down, consistency, etc so that subscribers could also be attracted to systems not only because of return
One of the problems frequently found by retail traders is the difficulty in following a system, whether the trading rules have been developed by the trader or by a professional developer. Systematically executing on a system requires discipline, which is difficult to maintain in the heat of the live market, emotions can rule the trader’s decisions, and the trader may be tempted to out-smart his or her system.
Trading using a systematic approach offers specific advantages (such as establishing rules of money & risk management as well as position sizing), but success is not guaranteed. Nevertheless, all trading systems have cycles and periods where they struggle, that does not mean that the trading system is broken. [LINKSYSTEM_66710242]
I too wish we could sort by stock investment styles. I would like to see a sort for end of day signals along with ETF exclusive signals. Both of these are what I publish and would like to find others like it more easily.
I am getting more perplexed by the question of what attracts clients to a signal on C2. A few years ago my signals Conservative Growth and SMA were both well received and both had several clients.
My best work by far is my currently broadcast signal RPH. Even though it has a lengthy history and a great return it does not attract any interest. Even so I am earning a great return in my account trading it.
Well, I believe the Grid is here for that purpose isn’t?
Easy way to scan viable systems :
- Minimum history of 300 days
- Minimum of 100 trades
- Sharp Ratio above 1.5 or 2
- Max DrawDown below 20/30 pct
For sure using this scan greedy people won’t find the parabolic curve they are dreaming for…
Trading is a marathon not a sprint.
Parcours Team
[LINKSYSTEM_53717912]
Hello Lone Ranger,
Years ago, and I have been here since mid 2007, I was also a strong advocate of what you are proposing but in the meantime I have changed my mind for the following reasons:
1) In the real world there are very few good system developers but lots and lots of wannabes. The same situation exists in the hedge fund and managed account industry.
2) It seems a lot of subscribers prefer to gamble here rather than go to Las Vegas and who can deny them their right to do so.
3) It is very easy to find the few good systems to your liking by using "The Grid". You can screen by many parameters, like max drawdown, different ratios, etc. Admittedly, C2 could do a better job by better explaining to newbies how to use it and to make it their main tool in selecting systems.
4) Lastly, the steady stream of new vendors is a major income source for C2, maybe the most important one, this in turn enables C2 to keep the listing fees for vendors and the auto trading fees for subscribers at a reasonable level.
Just some food for thought,
Karl
Karl - I really appreciate your advice, as well as the comments from the other posters in this thread. Your points are very good and I now understand that there may be limited potential to attract more high quality system vendors.
So the subscriber is left to his own devices to find the systems with acceptable risk and profitability. Yes, it is easy to use "the grid" but it is still very difficult to select a system that will be profitable. I put a lot of effort into analyzing the trading strategy for each system that I select. I do not care if the annual return is 20% or 200% as long as a system is likely to be profitable. During the past 7 months I have analyzed and subscribed to 7 systems. I have gained from 4 of the systems and lost with 3 of the systems. Overall, the losses have been greater than the gains. Out of the 7 systems, I have abandoned 6 as I better understood their potential risks.
If you really meant that it is easy to find a few systems that will be profitable, perhaps you could start a new thread describing some guidelines to select systems. Also, I would be happy to explain how I conduct my analysis.
PS - A comment to R B - Topaz was one of the systems that I analyzed in depth. I consider myself lucky to have lost only $2500 by trading this system. I think that the future for Topaz is not good. I do appreciate your suggestion to look at RTS SPY in more detail.
Karl - If you are interested in starting a new thread to describe some guidelines for selecting systems, I am not suggesting to start from scratch. Perhaps we could build on the following two threads that I have found to be helpful (I note that you were a contributor to both threads):
http://www.collective2.com/forum?good-verses-exceptional-systems
http://www.collective2.com/forum?a-cautionary-tale-by-myth-buster
Matthew,
How can I filter the grid to show only those systems that have qualified for TOS? I can’t seem to find the toggle/option. Thanks.
We’ll be adding that very shortly. - Matthew
Matt
Do you intend to include Interactive Brokers in the TOS program ?
Thanks
Parcours Team
[LINKSYSTEM_53717912]
Lone Ranger,
The two threads you outlined are excellent of how to go about the selection process and weed out the bad systems. It is very instructive to read them again, I like especially the comments from Rene Koch, Myth Buster and Kevin Davey and there is nothing I can add to it.
When I said it is easy to find the good systems on The Grid, I meant good systems relative to your preferences. In other words you set all the parameters according to your preferences and risk tolerance. After you end up with the list you do some further checking as outlined by Myth Buster, Rene Koch and Kevin Davey. Then you try to build a portfolio, capital permitting, of as many non correlating systems as you can. Success can never be guaranteed because market always change and few systems can automatically adapt so I often find myself adjusting my portfolio. All we can do is deal with probabilities.
One more thought, according to Jeremy Siegel (Stocks for the Long-Run) the stock market over the last 100 years has returned annually on average 6.6% afte inflation, so lets say about 10% with inflation. Based on that metric I think you will find quite a number of attractive systems on C2.
Karl
Lone Ranger,
Great threads, but they do illustrate the ridiculous expectations some people have. 200%, even 100% annual sustained over any significant period of time is just unrealistic.
I feel your pain if you lost money on Topaz, I was just citing an example of the amount of time it took close to 100 subscribers to bail, once the system started heading down, even after 3 years plus of very decent returns. But even your bad experience highlights the problem. Topaz did not drop more last year than it did in 2008. So anyone subscribing might have expected that a similar drop was possible (although this time it lasted a lot longer). Maybe this time it will not bounce back, but if it does, all subscribers who bailed will just have done the classic invest-after-good-performance sell-after-some-losses miss-bounce-back.
I think Karl has the right of it, no system is guaranteed. But a nice combination of systems with a 15 to 26% return would be ideal to achieve.
And I still think that C2 should have some type of screen beyond the grid to really compare systems apples to apples. Comparing a super leveraged high frequency forex or futures system with a discretionary stock system using only stats gives an incomplete picture.
RB, just a quick note:
I did not subscribe to Topaz except for a short trial period way back and I mentioned this on the first highlighted thread by Lone Ranger - why? Exactly because of the big drawdown in 2008, remember the biggest drawdowns will always be in the future. According to my rough calculation, the recent dd of Topaz is about 35%, less than 2008.
By the way, I still think Topaz will recover but even if it does not that will nothing take away from the valuable contribution and advice Rene gave in those threads.
Karl
I have posted about how to make money from C2 vendors here before but I think people took it as a joke because it sounds crazy, so I will tell you the secret again;
Sign up to 5 brand new systems preferably forex, then set up auto-trade to the OPPOSITE direction of each trade, the odds of making money goes to 95% or higher, as systems crash and your account explodes to the upside then you find another new strategy or two to replace and keep rolling them, and if you think about it everyone wins- C2 makes money from the vendor-the vendor makes money from subscribers-and you have a better chance of making money rather than to just gamble and pick one.
Mr. Eydelman wrote :
"Sign up to 5 brand new systems preferably forex, then set up auto-trade to the OPPOSITE direction of each trade, the odds of making money goes to 95% or higher"
Mr. Eydelman, be careful with this seemingly brilliant idea, for example if 90% of new retail traders lose money in the Forex (and futures) market in the long run, then doing the exact opposite of what they are doing won’t necessarily make you money, far from it.
Blackwood Venturecapital llc wrote: "It could be a good idea to have C2 increase visibility of systems with low draw-down, consistency, etc so that subscribers could also be attracted to systems not only because of return "
Each trader has his own risk tolerance limit. Some traders simply want a system that offers a modest but steady income with a 15% draw down or less, while others want to turn their $10.000 into $1.000.000 quickly even if they have to go through a 99% drawdown to achieve that goal!
