Intresting how this conversation about fees feedback has turned into “lrn2pick systems better, noob”…
You should definitely go through the trades and understand the risk involved.
By the way, the “Trading Record” only gives you average entry and exit prices. This will not be helpful to determine if the trade leader averages down or not. To see the specific trades click on “Show Auto-Trade Data”.
I’m not sure about the comment above regarding splitting your money into several strategies. Diversification is good, but when you try too hard to diversify you lower your standards.
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I can understand where apsoccermd is coming from, fees are really an important aspect of model performance. It disproportionately impacts small account investors since the fees are fixed.
I would argue a $5,000-$10,000 account is probably too small to realize the benefits of most c2 models that aren’t overly risky. At that level I would think asset allocating while saving more risk capital might be a better bet…
I’m with GalBarak and AlexanderG, there is “smart” diversification for people with limited funds (say, $20K-$50K).
I would say know the source(s) of profit from the strategies that interest you. Generally the sources fall into one or more of these categories:
Directional
Time (could be a coupon/yield, could be time value in the case of options)
Volatility
I think if you start there with a diversified instrument, then look into spreading across liquid instruments/markets, then finally look for low correlation between strategies, one can build in more diversification over time without carrying a huge amount of models on low capital initially.
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Ok… Lets Run through scenario of diversifying between 3 different systems… So lets assume, average cost between systems is $150.00 per system. So for an entire year, I am looking at the cost of $5,400…
Here is a breakdown of what that $5,400 represent of the money values committed to C2 strategies…
On a $25,000 account - 21% fee
On a $50,000 account - 10% fee
On a $75,000 account - 7.2% fee
On a $100,000 account - 5.4% fee
On a $125,000 account - 4.3% fee
On a $150,000 account - 3.6 % fee
On a $175,000 account - 3.0% fee
On a $200,000 account - 2.7% fee
I think running multiple systems with different correlations and risk profiles is a fine idea… But you really have to understand your risks and costs, in relations with your account size.
Since again, most of the people here running with smaller balances… They are pushed into high risk strategies in hope that returns outweighs costs.
Thats why I think strategy with smaller fees - under $50 that are targeting smaller accounts should be more encouraged by system creators…
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I think one needs to look at a model by model basis and be willing to pay in the 3-5% range on starting capital at the most, which I think is very reasonable for proprietary managed models if they do indeed outperform buy and hold and/or asset allocation in terms of return on risk (note I didn’t just say return, or CAGR…, but return on RISK) in excess of that 3-5%. So I would think on average one would need a minimum of around $25,000 per model allocated (of course this could vary).
There are people here who have been trading a long time, slaved away at developing models, and all of the pain and suffering in both dollar and emotional terms, along with that gained experience, ends up making them seek out market pricing if they are going to be providing model or discretionary signals, so I would say the prices you see on c2 are pretty much market rates for systems with more than a few subs. There is also the consideration that if at $50 you have 200 subs and at $100 you have 100 subs, then at $100 your client support workload may be a lot more reasonable for the same revenue level.
If people put out really high quality models for low prices, we’ll see the market come down. The earlier-mentioned inexpensive FX strategy is discussed in another thread with a lot of caution tape around it (so to speak), so it may not really be a case of something for nothing / an example of a better deal…
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I agree… There are some aweomse systems here with great developers tha provide tremedous support… But there are also lots of high flying “hypothetical” systems that are after making a quick buck based on the overnight success that are milking latest prevaling trend. As example, latest prolifiration of “Short Vol” based systems that are successfull since Feb 2016 / post Brexit… I wounder why there are no short vol based system prior to thouse dates?
Overall, I do like C2 platform and i think it provides tremendous value, but again you need to know what to look for, and cost of the system is a big deal in terms of selection process.
All , I want is to share some of my consideration in the area of “fees” , as a subscriber, when I am presented with the choice of choosing the system…
Thank
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The subscription fee is not decided at anyone’s will, it is derived from demand and supply.
For developers, if they make too high sub fee, there will be too few subscribers.
So they try to make sub fee as high as possible yet draw as many as possible subscribers.
For subscribers, they will not subscribe if they lose money. So the fact C2 subscribers exist for so long time proves that subscribers make money after they pay all fee.
AMP futures is a futures broker. It has an auto system center that works just similar to C2.
Check out their subscription fee .
Their system developers fee range from $50 per contract to $299 per contract.
So if a system trades 2 contracts, it will charge you $100 to $598 per month.
This is higher than C2 sub fee.
BTW, I assume this is legal, can C2 allow sub fee on per contract basis?
I believe they are running a business model similar to striker. So the “Trade leader” must allocate personally or through investors the capital to trade his strategy generating a live track record that is published. Also the strategy is not held phisically by the Trade leader but is held by 3rd parties (“the company”) on a server. The charge to investors is then usually the monthly fee plus a contract fee. I believe that the US regulations on that specific business model are less restrictive giving them the advantage (or disadvantage for investors) to control the Nr. of contracts traded along to others advantages. It is a sort of managed solution in which both Trade leaders and investors does not have much to do but there is a third subject that essentially run the business. From my perspective as trade leader the problem is that once you send to someone your strategy you do not have anymore the control over it and we know how easily nowadays a file can be breached. The other point is that unless you do not have an investor behind you will have to pay a contract fee that in some case is notable. On the other side scalping-intraday strategy are more protected in that environment and maybe this is the reason why some potential interesting intraday strategy left C2 lately.
This is same thing with STRIKER, I used that services before last year. To be honest, I have plenty complaints about that services compare than C2 and I will never use that services anymore, let me show you some reasons:
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No Transparency. In C2, everyone can see in what is entry, exit and contracts size before and after the model has real subscribers. Another important thing, every providers can send signals but customers do not know if they also trade with their real money. in C2, we know TOS.
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Expensive. Let say the minimum requirements is $ 20K for 1 model and monthly cost is $200. If you have more money and wants to trade more contracts in this model , you have to multiply the number of contracts * monthly fee. How about if customer wants diversify his or her portfolio? What is ROI ?
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No Real TIME. Yes, you can see the performance but, the performance can shows only after they closed positions. Therefore, if potential subscribers want to join that model, he or she has no clue what is going on during open trade, I am talking , some trades can suffer until margin call before closing profit positions. I have real experience with GEMINI TY, at that time, the minimum is $20k and trade 3 open trades for TBill 10Years (BREXIT) and I have to put additional $10k, otherwise , the broker will forcefully closed my open position, luckily I have some funds and I quit that model with loss only $1k . what happened if other subscriber who only has $20k, may be just only left a couple grand . Are you serious comparing this model to C2?
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There is no forum discussion. In other words, subscribers will never learn what is real investment world.
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No Control. Subscriber has no control in what price they want to enter, exit, size etc.
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Time consuming. This is the real issue, Last time when I exit from particular model on Friday, it took a couple days to exit because every order is in the bracket, I can quit from that program until the developer closed that position and finally, I was able to quite on Tuesday.
In summary, once you are using C2, everyone can get benefit from this forum because veteran subscribers and developers can share their knowledge and interact .Therefore, in my opinion , C2 is more superior compare than STRIKER , AMP etc. That website is good for developer to milking money from subscribers.
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