I just took a brief look at Collective2 ratings. I just feel it is absurd. Anybody have the same feeling?
For example S&P500stox
http://www.collective2.com/cgi-perl/systems.mpl?want=publicdetails&systemid=15803534
It has a history of only 5 weeks 83 trades 51 trades profited among the 83 trades.a total profit of $3206. It has a collective 2 rating of 994 which is much better than my 921.
From any perspect of common sense it looks a joke to me. ^_^.
Although I won’t comment on this particular rating, I will agree that in general the formula used to calculate ratings needs to be completely overhauled. I’ve been meaning to do this for some time, and will try to get to it soon. I appreciate the feedback and agree with it.
MK
Why have a rating system when the All Trading Systems page has all the performance data. It is very clear from the All Trading Systems page how all the systems are performing. I suggest that you scrap the rating system.
I have noticed something that definitely skews the C2 ratings. They are based on the TRADER not the system(s). If a trader only has 1 system on the service and it is performing very well, then he will have a high rating - conversely, a trader who has 3 systems where 1 is performing exceptionally and the other two performing only adequately, their rating may be much lower than the trader with 1 system, even though they may have a superior system in their stable.
Calculation parameters aside (I have already given Matthew my thoughts on a more appropriate calculation), I think it is worthwhile to have ratings (they make the subscriber’s job easier) - But there should be a rating for the trader (overall) and a rating for each system. This is one of the confusing bits on the use of the C2 Verified “badge.” Because the badge specifically refers to a system, but the ranking refers to the entire stable of systems. The badge would be better if it refered to the TRADER’s rating as such, and then showed a second rating for the system in question (and also showed the number of systems that the trader’s rating was based on.) A lot of information for a little image, but I would rather see the image dimensions grow than have misled or confused subscribers.
Mauro,
The badge refers to the trader, not the system. I have two systems, and the rating on the badge for each system is the same, even though the system performances are different. This is confusing, and I’d like to see this badge/rating issue clarified.
Brian
Mauro’s suggestions are good.
To clarify: yes, the C2 score is the overall trader score. The idea is that we want to prevent the typical behavior of trading-system developers: starting 100 systems, find 2 or 3 that work, abandoning the rest. In theory, making the rating dependent on overall trader performance does this.
As I said, I will be revamping the C2 ratings soon.
MK
Dave:
>From any perspect of common sense it looks a joke to me.
The answer is pretty simple. You have a blown system and he doesn’t.
As it noted later in this thread, the rating rates the TRADER’s performance including all systems, and for a very good reason, as Matt explains later.
One could have 2 systems and making exactly the opposite trades on them. If his strategy overall is consequently achieving trending results, one of the systems is going to be very good, although the other will be obviously losing. That’s what the rating system is supposed to filter out…
If that is typical system developer behaviour, then I am some sort of freak! I don’t know where the “typical” designer would find the spare $30,000 to set up 100 systems on C2, only to keep 2 or 3 that pan out! (I am practically peeing myself laughing here!)
To clarify: I think the TRADER rating is a great idea, because it speaks to the designer’s overall talent/skill. How you factor in the fact that the designer of 10 good systems is “worth” more (in my opinion) than the designer of only 1 system; AND a designer who has several systems with long (>6 months for day traders, > 1 year for longer term) and solid histories versus a designer who has several systems with only a short/erratic history is something that probably needs some thought and discussion.
Now you understand why I fly in a private jet and am sitting poolside at my house in Santa Barbara. - MK
The badge would be better if it refered to the TRADER’s rating as such, and then showed a second rating for the system in question
A second rating for the systems cannot be done for some systems without performing tests on the real-world results because as such the hypothetical results for some systems are, in my opinion imaginary, (though not for all systems.) Otherwise, it would only mislead the subscriber resulting in lost dreams and hard-earned money causing deep psychological wounds. The prevention of such wounds, and the way we handle them when they do happen, will determine whether the subscriber will survive as a trader which in turn has other implications for C2 and the system vendors. The future of C2 as a successful independent 3rd party company veryfying systems results might very well depend on it.
Any rating for the systems with imaginary results, would be imaginary also. In the absence of data on real-world results for such systems with imaginary results or in the absence of such tests on hypothetical results for systems with credible results, as such it is impossible to compute this systems rating except by the subscriber/system vendor himself who has to perform some tests on the real-world results or compute it based on hypothetical results as the case may indicate, unless C2 is prepared to perform these tests on real-world results for such systems once subscribers for these systems can be found.
As such, I would advise C2 to refrain from computing this systems rating based on hypothetical, sometimes imaginary results and leave it to the subscriber/system vendors to decide to compute it from hypothetical/real-world results as the case requires, (though it might have been a great idea.)
My purpose here is never to promote a particular system, but to discourage the blind acceptance of someone else’s system.
After all, for a few hundred or thousand dollars, one could purchase a black-box system developed by some computer whiz. Although some systems are good, if one doesn’t go through the rigorous process of testing the system themself, they will probably lack the confidence to trade it. This is especially true after a period of underperformance. They might lose their confidence (and their money) in the system just before it starts to perform as advertised! Doing their own research is essential to successful trading. Their future as a successful trader might very well depend on it.
“Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality” - Jules de Gautier
I might also add that C2 rating would certainly become a great idea from its present state, if it takes into account subscribers/C2s own feedback based on tests conducted on the systems real-world results which has never been done before by any in the world of system testing.
As such this C2 rating for some traders which at the current state takes into account only the systems hypothetical and sometimes imaginary results is also imaginary (though not for all traders.)
Pal;
If you are including C2 Verified trade results as “imaginary” or “hypothetical” then I heartily disagree. Faults in the fill algorithm aside, the only data a subscriber has on C2 is the C2 verified trades and community discussion. Any ranking based on those trades is as valid as anything else on this site. So in essence, a system based ranking is as valid as a trader based ranking - since a trader based ranking is based upon ALL of the traders system ranks (or parameters thereof). The discussions are valuable too, but only in terms of helping someone determine the “tradability” of a given system.
If you were refering to true hypothetical trading results (as generated using historical data by a software platform like Tradestation); Then I would LOVE to know how that data even gets on to C2 - I saw no place where one could upload historical performance data for a new system.
There are several things to keep in mind with system performance evaluation;
1) Real-time verified trade history is better than hypothetical history. This is due to several factors, the least of which is the fact that historical data has usually been “corrected” and therefore may not show the same executions (or even setups) as a real-time execution history.
2) Audited brokerage statements are only slightly better than real-time verified trade history. This is due to the fact that NEITHER data set has significant value. Although it is all we have to go on, historical performance is no guarantee . . . . (insert favorite CFTC/NFA/SEC disclaimer here). We are talking about system trading here, and real-time verified trade results vs. brokerage results (if executed automatically) should only differ in markets where liquidity is an issue (the tradablility factor enters and is probably discussed extensively in the forums) or in systems that leverage flaws in the C2 fill algorithms (which will again show up in the forums!). Let’s also not forget that brokerage trade histories can actually be flawed due to other issues; operator error, brokerage error, system outages on client or brokerage side, etc.
So when refering to imaginary results and being able to predict future results based on either imaginary or “real” results. The subscriber is still required to take a leap of faith and monitor the results. If we all waited for a “sure thing” then there would be no markets (or at least, no liquidity). Hypothetical results are better than nothing and offer some clues to potential future performance, C2 style tracking is better and offers more solid clues to a system’s potential, and real trade history offers an even (if only slightly) better set of clues. But they are ONLY INDICATORS. And as we all know, indicators are not infallible.
In my opinion a system rank and a trader rank based on C2 verified data would help a subscriber narrow the field of systems that he needs to analyse. He can then select from those well ranked systems/traders those that fit his personal risk profile, and from there dig deeper in the forums, or in discussion with the vendors, for the remaining information he/she needs to make a decision.
In this world of system design and leasing, the client is ALWAYS in a position of blind acceptance. They cannot predict what will happen next, or even NOW. All they have to go on is “memory” (C2 or otherwise). The only way a client can rid themselves of the blindness is to have access to the source code or trading plan of the vendor - not likely to happen. The client pays for the vendor’s expertise - and hopes that the payment is warranted. If it isn’t, they will discover it soon enough, and can probably escape without too much pain, if they are diligent. This is one of the areas where C2 is a great tool - the subscriber can discuss issues with the system vendor as well as with other subscribers and experts within the C2 community. Something all subscribers SHOULD do regularly!
“Justice” is the virtue of judging men’s character and conduct objectively and of acting accordingly, granting to each man that which he deserves.
In order to achieve one’s goals in any given field, one must choose among alternatives - which requires that one know the things around one and judge them rationally. This applies even to
the humblest undertakings, such as picking out today’s wardrobe, furnishing the spare room, or selecting a spot for a picnic. It applies to one’s dealings with men also.
The necessity of knowledge and judgment is especially important in regard to men because the differences among them are more consequential than those among shirts, sofas, or parks. Men
are beings of self-made soul; they have the faculty of volition, with everything this imples. The wrong shirt can ruin your appearance; the wrong man can actually kill you.
The science that defines a criterion for evaluating volitional beings is morality. To be able to deal properly with men, therefore, it is essential that one determine their relationship to the laws of morality. It is essential that one pronounce moral judgment.
Since morality is concerned with a man’s fundamental values, moral judgment enables one to know the essence that actuates him; it identifies the principles shaping his character and conduct.
Moral judgment distinguishes the men who choose to recognize reality from the men who choose to evade it. Such knowledge is necessary on practical grounds, in order to plan one’s actions and
protect one’s interests. If a man is good, if he is rational, honest, productive, then, other things being equal, one can expect to gain values in dealing with him. If a man is evil, however, if he is irrational, dishonest, parasitical, one can expect from such dealing not value, but loss; in this case lost dreams and hard-earned money.
The policy of pronouncing moral judgment is like a policy of human prospecting while wearing a bulletproof vest. It is a process of methodically seeking out and cherishing the virtuous traits one needs in others, such as effort, courage, idealism, while being alert to the opposites of these traits and to their destructive potential. By contrast, the man who adopts a policy of moral neutrality, refraining equally from praise or blame, does not wipe out the moral facts thereby. What he accomplishes instead is to blind himself to the role of morality in man’s life, subvert his own character, and lose the ability to deal with other men on the basis of objective principle. The result, among other things, is to consign his human relationships to the realm of chance - and to do even worse: willfully to deprive the good among men of his sanction and support, while becoming an ally of the evil. He becomes an ally in the sense of leaving that evil uncensured and unopposed, free to continue its course of destruction.
The refusal to judge, like any kind of agnosticism, is itself the taking of a stand, in this case a profoundly immoral stand: When your impartial attitude declares, in effect, that neither the good nor the evil may expect anything from you - whom do you encourage? – so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condeming a con man, is to become an accessory to the manipulation and delusion of his victims.
Only the good can lose by a default of justice and only the evil can profit. In every process of justice, one must begin as a juror struggling to grasp the facts. Of the vendors of C2 competing for a superior rating, which one is the most reliable, honest, productive? To be just, such is the question one must work to answer first, taking into account all the available evidence. Injustice in this connection would be any indulgence in emotionalism, any form of being influenced in one’s factual conclusions by something other than fact (by prejudice, say or favoritism). The blindfolded statue symbolizing justice is not blind to the facts of reality. What the blindfold shuts out is any feeling detached from facts, whether the feeling be desire or fear, pity or hope, hatred or love. What it shuts out is the subjective and the arbitrary, leaving the individual free to engage in a purely rational process of cognition.
The time one should devote to inquiry of this kind depends on the context. In general, in life as in law, a person is to be regarded as innocent of wrongdoing until proven guilty. As the relationship becomes more significant, however - if one is a juror in court, say, or wants to invite a person to become one’s business partner - then, obviously, special study and assessment do become necessary.
Justice is fidelity to reality in the field of human assessment, both in regard to facts and to values. Injustice, by contrast, like all vices, is a form of evading reality; it consists in faking the character not of nature, but of men. Justice in action consists in requiting the positive (the good) in men with a positive and the negative with a negative. It is the truth symbolized by the scale in the hands of the statue of justice, the scale whose trays balance
equal weights. One weight represents cause, the other, effect; one, a man’s behavior, the other, payment appropriate to it.
It is important to tell the con man that he has rejected reality and is wrong; it is more important that the virtuous find someone who understands that he has recognized reality and is right. It is important, if property rights are to be preserved, that a robber be caught; it is more important to the same goal that business men not be vilified as “robber barons,” but, somewhere, hear the words "Thank you."
Justice in this context is adherence to the trader principle. A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the underserved. Since there is no value without virtue, there is no escape from justice. Nothing can be unearned and upaid for in the universe, neither in matter nor in spirit - and if the guilty do not pay, then the innocent have to pay it.
I’m not sure what your treatise has done to further the understanding of anything under discussion.
Judgement, reality, unreality, injustice and most especially morality are all subjective. There is little in the human sphere that is truly objective, for to be objective one must cease to be human and become omniscient. What we loosely term objective in our linguistic usage is in fact a subjective mean. If many people decide that a thing is so, then we deem it to be an objective perception. The judgement that matter and energy were two discrete entities within the universe was considered an unassailable objective fact until Einstein came along and showed us that they were, in fact, the same thing with different marketing.
The expression; “Lies, damn lies, and statistics” is a wonderful truism for the world we system vendors live in. The value of our product is judged on statistics. When, in truth, we all know that those statistics have little to do with future performance. I can whip up a very simple system that will trade very well and have great statistics - but it isn’t actually a good investment because the tradability of the system is unsupportable by most rational investors.
The best we can do as vendors is create systems that we believe have a good value proposition, subject those systems to rigorous testing, and be clear to our clients about the risks and benefits of the systems. The C2 ratings paradigm is useful as a preliminary seive to allow prospective clients to wade through the masses of performance data more quickly. It doesn’t replace close analysis of the systems that make the shortlist, only aids in creating the shortlist.
Every act of justice is in a sense an act of trade. This is inherent in the fact that justice is a form of rationality, a response to something in reality and not a caprice. Rewards and punishments are not undeserved gifts or penalties; they are payments. They are what one gives to a man in exchange for what one gets. In any value-seeking relationship, accordingly, whether the value sought be material or spiritual, the exponent of justice is the man who gives in return for what he receives and who expects to receive in return for what he gives. He is the man who neither seeks something for nothing nor grants something for nothing.
The trader principle states that, if man seeks something from another, he must gain title to it, i.e., come to deserve it, by offering the appropriate payment. The two men, accordingly, must be traders, exchanging value for value by mutual consent to mutual benefit.
The trader principle presupposes the foundations of objective ethics. It rests on the role of reason in human survival and on the principle of egoism. Since the individual’s mind is the basic creator
of values and since man is not a sacrificial animal, the individual has a right to demand payment for his values. Nor does any man or group have a right to override this right. Leaving aside the claims of children on their parents, no person by the mere fact of his existence or needs has a claim on the assets of others. To “deserve” a positive, material or spiritual, is not a primary condition; it is an effect, to be achieved by enacting its cause. The cause is a certain course of thought and action, a course in which one creates and/or offers values. (One “deserves” a negative by virtue of defaulting on some responsibility of thought or action.) If we use the term “earn” to name a process of enacting the cause - of coming to merit a certain recompense by engaging in the requisite behavior - we can say that, in a rational philosophy, there is no “unearned desert.” A man deserves from others that and only that which he earns. Such is the approach to human relationships derived from the objective base and expressed in the trader principle.
That the innocent should pay is the demand of those who reject the trader principle. Such people claim that values are the product of God or society, to which power, they add, the individual owes unconditional service. In this view, certain men, such as the needy, become “deserving” in a new, invalid definition of the term. They “deserve” to receive values simply because they lack and wish for them - as a recompense for no action, as a payment for no
achievement, in exchange for nothing. In this approach, the “deserved” is turned into a caprice; the concept is thus vitiated and the virtue of justice swept aside. It is replaced by what
is called “social justice,” which policy consists in expropriating the creators in order to reward the noncreators.
In the material realm, the trader principle, like the virtue of independence, prohibits both looting and mooching. It requires that one pay others for the goods or services one seeks from them.
The same principle applies in the spiritual realm, to responses such as admiration, friendship, love. Here too a man must deserve what he seeks from others. And here too he can deserve it only by earning it, only by creating the values of character that make his relationship with others a trade.
In this objective approach, there can be no looters or moochers of the spirit, either. Both the giver and receiver of a positive response must function as independent equals, with no evasion or victims, each person adhering to reality, each profiting from the relationship. A positive response to a person’s value is an acknowledgment of facts. As such, it has a moral meaning for both parties involved and imposes a double respnsibility: the giver of the positive response must be rational - and so must be the receiver; he or she must be the kind of self-made soul who has earned such a positive response.
Contrast this with a positive response to our neighbors regardless of desert, apart from their character and even because of their vices. This is response not as payment for joy, but as self-sacrifice; not as recompense to the good, but as a blank check to the evil; not as an act of loyalty to existence, but as the deliberate rejection of man’s life. Those who claim to want this response - to want causeless response, response “for themselves” as against their thoughts, actions, character, or works - are staging a fraud. They demand that the positive response be divorced from values, then struggle to reverse cause and effect, pretending that the positive response, the effect, can create in them personal worth, the cause. But causeless positive response would be meaningless, it would represent no acknowledgment of virtue.
Just as a man’s character traits must be given a deserved response, so must a change in traits. If a good man turns bad, one acknowledges reality by reversing one’s former estimate of him. The same applies if a bad man turns good. Just as a positive response (e.g., love) must be earned, so must condemnation - and forgiveness.
Forgiveness in moral issues is earned, if the guilty party makes restitution to his victims, assuming this is applicable; and then demonstrates objectively, through word and deed, that he understands the roots of his moral breach, has reformed his character, and will not commit such wrong again. Forgiveness is unearned, if the guilty party wants the victim simply to forget (evade) the breach and forgive without cause - or if he offers as cause nothing but protestations of atonement, which the victims are expected to accept on faith.
If men are to have any chance for a future, it is this aspect ethics above all others - this demand, at once brazen and mawkish, for unearned love, unearned approval, unearned forgiveness - that we must reject, in favor of a solemn commitment to its moral antithesis: the trader principle.
If you who befriend the virtue of justice study this treatise, you will understand more fully why you must pronounce moral judgment, in whatever forum is open to you. If you do not make yourself heard, there is a professional brigade that will, a brigade that is eager to takeover and pronounce its benediction on the loss of all values mankind holds dear.
I am afraid you and I will have to agree to disagree. I haven’t the desire, nor is this truly the forum, to debate the relative merits of a transactional perspective (yours) upon reality versus a unified energy field perspective (mine). Both are valid, potentially symbiotic, and yet also potentially antithetical.
It is nice to find someone else in this part of the soup who can think deeply about these subjects without hindering their own participation in the field - many people have a very hard time reconciling spiritual pursuit with the engineering of mammon.
“A Separate Reality : Further Conversations With Don Juan” ©
LOL. Sorry, no offence.
A treatise, however brilliant, is not an end in itself. The mind-body integration required by productiveness is not complete until the knowledge is turned into some form of material wealth. In this step, too, specialization is typically involved. The most important performers of this crucial feat are the inventors, the engineers, the industrialists: the traders.
There is no dichotomy between “pure” science and “gadgets.” Science is related to technology as theory is to practice; as metaphysics and epistemology are to ethics and politics; as philosophy is to life; or as mind is to body. In all these cases, the first apart from the second is purposeless; the second apart from the first is impossible.
No rational field may be pitted against any other as “spiritual” vs “material.” All proper fields require thought and action. All exemplify the integration of mind and body.
By splitting apart thought and action, the doctrine of the mind-body dichotomy has subverted every rational virtue. But it has had perhaps its most corrupting influence in regard to productiveness, which it brushes aside as morally meaningless and ultimately as nonexistent. In place of producer, the dichtomy offers a choice between two human archetypes: the spiritualist, who scorns the world; and the materialist, who scorns the mind. The first disdains business, technology, money as vulgar concerns of man’s “lower nature” and holds that knowledge should not be tainted by being used. The second disdains theory, abstractions, science as useless and holds that material goods should be accumulated without reference to them. Both types agree that reason plays no role in the sustenance of human life. Both agree that man survives as animals do: not by the moral process of production, but by consuming mindlessly whatever material values he finds already formed around him. One type then concludes that self-preseration is an unspiritual chore and that producers are nothing but animals. Survival, this type complains, is a regrettable practical requirement without intellectual or moral significance - in effect, a necessary evil. To which the other type rejoins: "So much for thought and virtue. Let’s be evil."
I reject the mind-body dichotomy methodically, by reference to a theory of reality and of concepts. I fully practice the virtue of justice in the present context. I can indentify, in terms of a philosophic system, the source of wealth and, therefore, the proper estimate of those who create it.
A productive man is a moral man. In the more intellectually demanding and innovative fields, eg., trading & investing, he is the epitome of morality. He deserves to be admired accordingly.
Such a man may be better in his work than in the rest of life (a common occurrence today); but that is his contradiction and problem. It dimnishes his character and his creative potential, but not what he has actually achieved. Nor do any problems of his alter the fact that, whatever the contribution of others, at the root of his achievement is his own will, action, and mind. As to the greatest of these - you may already know it; if not I would be glad to tell you.
PERFECT!! I love that series.
Frankly, the major problem with ratings, is the focus on system performance as a key factor. To me, this is GARBAGE:
- GOOD performance over the SHORT term. Nothing has been proven until time passes. I START to get interested after 12-13 weeks have passed. The hot systems links tend to be full of these.
- WEAK performance over the LONG term. This is most of the systems here. Need I say more?
- equity curve that GYRATES up and down WILDLY over time. It has shown that it is a great way to blow out an account. I don’t care if it is very profitable - the system developer has no concept about diversification and reality. Larry Williams took $10K to over a million and down again doing this. He proved nothing by overtrading.
- GOOD perfomance that lasts for 10-15 weeks, and then system seems to go sideways from then on, and disappear. Many systems work for a few months, and then the market fundamentals/geometry changes (starts/stops trending, becomes sideways or choppy), and the system shows it was dependend on the right conditions to work. CoinCollector seems to be going that way.
These cases seem to describe almost every system here.
INTERESTING SYSTEMS:
extreme-OS - is quite profitable, and has a beautiful equity curve - best I have seen here
