How many great medium-term or long-term strategies does C2 have, and how are they received?
I thought I’d take a look.
If any Leaders want to correct any of my facts or impressions in this post, please feel free to do so. You are experts on what you do; I’m just looking at some of the C2 reporting and offering my opinions. Subscribers to these or other systems should offer their comments below.
I thought it might be good to highlight some of the better medium- and long-term strategies for subscribers to take a closer look at. I have not traded any of these and I have nothing to do with any of them.
The last semi-big downdraft started in August 2015 and ended in early 2016, when the Russell 2000 had a bear market drop of over 25%. So I thought I’d examine the most successful strategies that were around at least since the summer of 2015 and that avoided excessive risks.
Which strategies meet the following criteria?
- They have been around since July 1, 2015 (621 days).
- Annual return is >25%.
- Maximum drawdown is <50%.
- Return the last 90 days is >2% (with such an easy stock market trend to follow, I might want to avoid a strategy that has entirely missed that trend).
Eight strategies met these criteria:
R Option 97%/yr 42%DD $199
Just Forex Trades 80%/yr 24%DD $225
Growth 500 70%/yr 30%DD $29
Tech Savvy 43%/yr 29%DD $99
Spirit of N. Darvas 35%/yr 29%DD $25
The Momentum of Now 32%/yr 24%DD $25
EMini Swing TM 31%/yr 43%DD $188
AlphaStockss 29%/yr 33%DD $49
If I had set the maximum drawdown at 40% (which is where I started my exploration), the most profitable strategy, R Option, would have dropped out, as would have EMini Swing TM.
R Option (97%/yr) has a great looking chart and a record going back to Jan 2013. The worst string of down months was only 1 month, down -14.7%. The returns for the last 2 years are much lower than the first 2 years but still great—and very consistent. Looking at some of his trades, it appears that he held a large position in QQQ for more than half of 2016, but most of his trades appear to be winning positions writing naked puts. If that has been his strategy going back to 2013 (and I don’t know whether it was), then it is amazing that he has not been seriously burned. Perhaps he (or his model) has some genuine skilI. Though he has a substantial number of Autotraders (29 on a recent trade; $199 sub. fee), I think the risk of writing naked options keeps down his subscriptions.
Next is Just Forex Trades (80.3%/yr). The worst string of down months was 1 month, down -17.1%. The return for March so far is negative 7.4%. Its last reported Autotrade had only 7 trades to open ($225 sub. fee).
The third most profitable strategy, Growth 500 (70%/yr), survived the late 2015 downturn with only modest damage, but had only a 7.7% return for 2015, followed by a spectacular 153% in 2016. Despite charging only $29 for subscriptions, Growth 500, had only 5 Autotrades on a recent closing signal.
Tech Savvy (43%/yr) has strong returns since April 2015, with its worst back-to-back down months being -7.4% and -7.2%. A recent reported opening trade had only 2 Autotrades ($99 sub. fee).
The Spirit of Nicolas Darvas (35%/yr) has not made more than 28.2% a year since its first year, 2013, in which it was up 42.6%. Yet it’s up 21% already this year. Looking at the chart, much of the returns are driven by three great 3-4 month periods: July-Oct 2013, May-July 2015, and Nov 2016-Feb 2017. A recent opening signal had 9 Autotrades ($25 sub. fee).
The Momentum of Now (32%/yr) has a long track record going back to 2012, but it had a poor 2016 (up only 1.4%). A recent opening signal had 5 Autotrades ($25 sub. fee).
EMini Swing TM (31%/yr) is lower today than it was at a temporary peak at the end of January, 2016, more than a year ago. A recent closing signal had 6 Autotrades ($188 sub. fee).
AlphaStockss (29%/yr) got hit hard by the late 2015 downdraft, losing 9.1%, 6.6%, and 11.4% in consecutive months. It took about 17 months after a June 2015 temporary peak for the portfolio to make a new high about the beginning of December, 2016. But it had an excellent 2016 (up 38.8%). Some recently reported signals had 1-2 Autotrades ($49 sub. fee).
CONCLUSIONS:
The Grid shows 85 strategies at C2 operating since July 1, 2015. Among them, 22 strategies had returns of 25% or better. Among them, 16 had maximum drawdowns of less than 50%. Of these 16, 5 had negative 90-day returns and three more had 90-day returns under 2%. Most of the eight I eliminated at this step are having modest mediocre 90-day returns and thus may be as good or better than the eight strategies I included. That leaves the eight highly successful systems discussed in this post.
With so few systems getting more than 25% a year without huge drawdowns, it would seem to be very difficult to do that for even a year and three-quarters. Also, I found the modest number of subscribers to most of the strategies to be somewhat surprising–and disappointing.
Though I’m not planning to invest in any of these anytime soon, those of you investing in some of the high-flyers with short track records at C2 might consider taking a closer look at some of these eight strategies with excellent mid-term or long-term annual returns.
