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There are a couple of things that I am unhappy with and I mean this post as constructive criticism, trying to make C2 a more realistic, better place. That being said, here are my grievances:
Why there is no reliable accounting for daily P/L? If I want to know where my account stands, I have to calculate it by hand even when I don’t have any open positions. The Hypothetical chart doesn’t update very often and even that changes over time, thus not reliable.
On Friday I finished the month in the green by 1.2 or whatever %. I even checked after the close because I noticed the chart keep changing long after the last trade and I was still in the green. Yet when I checked it 2 days later, the account somehow lost $500 and now I am down for October. What is even worse the monthly % shows that I am 33.33% winning month when the new month hasn’t even started. So instead of 100% winning months I get 33.33%. That is quite a difference and not even correct…
This cumulative prediction into the future has to stop. It is completely unrealistic and misleading having a new system with a gazillion % annual return projected. I know it is sexy, but whom are we kidding? There is no need for projection but if there is, it should be linear, not cumulative. Thus a system with a 10% first month return could be projected at 120% for the year, but not the current 5000% or whatever. It never happens, but I guess it is more eyecatching…
The monthly % return should be based on the starting account and not on the previous month. That is again, cumulative, and forces the vendors to scale up. If a system makes every month 10%, the current accounting shows something like 4.5% by the end of the 12th month, because the account size doubled.
So a quick look would indicate that the system is producing less and less when in reality it has a constant 10% performance in every month.
In real life they only recalculate the baseline annually, not monthly so I don’t see why should C2 be different.
Unrelated but the Orange trading ticket disappeared and that was my fast way to getting to the trading page. Can we get it back?
If the real time P/L calculation is stressing the C2 server too much, there could be a button for the vendor so when it is pushed, C2 calculates the current P/L. As I understand it, the chart is updated only in every hours or so, probably for resource saving reasons…Nevertheless there should be a place where a real current account value is shown…
Why all the choices in the broker fee list include the automated trading fee? That is an extra $9 per trade. What if I just want to know how my system would perform without any automated trading? For a system that trades often that $9 makes a huge difference, in my system case it would be like 4K, or 25%…
Again, I am trying to be helpful and more realistic…
Use the dashboard to track daily P/L. Make sure you add your strategy to your “Matrix” at the top of the dashboard, and then you’ll be able to track real-time P/L since the previous day. (To add a strategy to your dashboard, click the little “dashboard icon” thing-a-ma-jig. As in this picture:)
We calculate results for your chart on a periodic basis. The frequency with which we update your chart depends on a couple of factors, including how many followers your system has. Less popular systems get recalculated less frequently, but certainly within every 24 hours (usually much more frequently). Sometimes recalculations happen on a delayed basis, but C2 is careful to respect end-of-month deadlines – i.e. if your results are recalculated after the market closes on October 31, we’ll make sure the results still count for October.
We calculate results and make them available within regulatory constraints. Of course it’s stupid to put much credence in a cumulative return percentage statistic for a strategy that is, say, only 14 days old. Only a knucklehead would do that. But not offering stats also has a bunch of repercussions in terms of usability and customer-service resources that are probably not obvious at first.
Your recommendation that we portray monthly return percentages as a percentage of starting capital, as opposed to as a percentage of last-month’s ending equity, is quite bizarre and flies in the face of generally accepted accounting principles for hedge funds, mutual funds, CTAs, or any other financial reporting. It would also probably raise the hackles of regulators who do not appreciate novelty when it comes to financial reporting methods. So, I must decline this suggestion.
You can have a quick orange “enter-a-new-trade icon” for any strategy on your dashboard. Just add your own strategy to your dashboard, as described in #1 above.
Real-time calculations are in fact available. See #1 above.
Regulators impose certain constraints we must obey. We are required to report results in the way we do.
Important note here : I’ve noticed that systems with non $ returns tend to fluctuate with the fx rate . For example my system The Algo keeps fluctuating with the Euro/$ fx rate because most of my closed positions profits are in Euros - Dax - . Ofcourse this is not a big issue when the Euro moves between 1.10 -1.14 but when it eventually moves beyond this range my system equity will reflect that change , which is not good for the smoothness of my equity on the long run .
About the #1 point, I did what Matt suggested and after 4-5 trades in the last 4 hours the P/L still shows zero. This is ridiculous that at least the system owner can not know the daily P/L…
Pedro - Why don’t we take this offline. Send a screen shot of exactly what you are looking at to help@collective2.com and someone will help you out. - MK
Pedro - Okay, I see what is going on here. When there were no open positions your daily P/L was not being displayed. This is fixed now. Thanks for bringing to my attention.
