Gosh, I sure like those feature requests which require 2 or fewer lines of software code to implement.
You asked for:
(1) The ability to turn off the “ring” sound in Instant Trade Messenger (ITM), even when there is no obvious new signal.
(2) Coloring the title of an ITM window red whenever there’s an alert ringing. (I guess that’s for people who turned off their sound due to the lack of feature #1.)
Both features have been implemented.
Please keep your suggestions coming. My goal is to make Collective2 the world’s greatest Open Trading Platform. I can do this only with your suggestions and feedback.
Matthew
- Can you add “remember login”.
2) The C2 order entry page should remain open instead of timing out. I would rather not have it time out on me just when I’m about to place a trade. Having to remember to click the refresh page button, takes focus away from my trading. Can I have a fix on that, please.
How about a subscriber’s feedback feature, just like on Ebay after the transaction?
1 to 5 stars, and only real subscribers, who subscribed for at least a month could leave feedbacks. A system could get 5 stars if it is easy to follow, profitable,have realistic fills and the real money results are close to the C2 results. Beside the stars, a few lines could be added. So a feedback could look like this:
I gave 3 stars to system X, because although it looks very profitable on C2, my real results are nowhere near published on C2 because of unrealistic fills.
There is no better advertisement for a system than a bunch of positive feedbacks from happy costumers with an average of above 4 stars…
This is dangerous ground to tread. It took EBay a while to properly implement feedback, due to abuse. For example:
– EBay only allows BUYERS to leave feedback, not bidders. Here, only PAYING subscribers should be allowed to leave feedback. Otherwise, one bad apple with axes to grind, can roam around different systems, sign up for free trials, and leave. That bad apple might be a system developer, trying to ruin the reputation of others.
– All EBay feedback allows the opposite side to respond to feedback. System developers need the right to give their version. If you have a subscriber who barely knows how to trade, and an innocent system developer, who gets blamed if things aren’t clear? Not all trading is simple - what about OCOs? MOC? profit targets and trailing stop losses? Proper diversification? Over-margined traders? Most people who suffer serious losses have poor money mangement habits and bad knowledge, and will blame the system developer. It is a known fact that most traders still lose over the long haul, even with a winning system (Remember what “ROR” or “Risk of Ruin” is?)
– EBay has specific written policies and provides advice regarding feedback - will the system developer be given a chance to correct the dissatisfied customer before getting negative feedback? For example, EBay takes action against negative-feedback leavers, who do it and try to blackmail the seller (“Unless you give me a free subscription or reduce my price, I will leave negative feedback”)
Ross:
>only PAYING subscribers should be allowed to leave feedback.
I think I implied that with the one month.
>EBay feedback allows the opposite side to respond to feedback
Every system has its own messageboard, where systemowners can address any issues and even delete messages that they don’t like. They can respond there to negative feedbacks.
>has specific written policies and provides advice regarding feedback
Same here. The stars should be made up by easy to follow, realistic fills, profitability,etc. A simple guidance how to rate is not that hard.
>System developers need the right to give their version.
As I said, they have their chances on their messageboards. Right now subscribers has no real way to criticize a system, unless on the main board, where the vendor can not delete the negative message. One of my posts was deleted supposedly because I used the word bulls…, (smile) although I also pointed out that the vendor had a C2 rating of 220 (below average) and a negative Sharpe ratio. So guess, was it cussing or negative feedback the reason to delete my post?
And there is clearly a need for more subscribers feedback, that’s why there are so many posts asking about other people’s experiences with any particular systems…
I agree and think this is a great idea. I have posted many times here asking for a dedicated topic section (“Subscriber’s Corner” or something like this) where subscribers could discuss real trading results for various system they are subscribed to and trying to follow. No luck so far getting any interest or replies, but maybe this thread can stir up enough interest to get something like this on the discussion forum. The eBay-type feedback is also a great idea if implemented properly.
Here is an idea for the rating guidance . It has 5 categories (slight overlapping) and it could be either a star system (star or no star making up 5 as max.) or a point system (zero, 1 and 2 points for each making up 10 as max.)
Categories:
-Followability (just how easy is to follow the signals)
-Automatization (how well can the system be traded using the robottrader)
-Realistic fills (is the vendor using huge amount of stocks on a thinly traded market or gets option fills always better than in real life)
-Communication (how the vendor deals with questions, problems)
-Resemblence (overall, how the subscriber’s real money performance is compared to the published results on C2)
I just came up with these, if you guys have better suggestions, feel free to jump in, but I think these are the most important issues for a subscriber.
- Compatibility between a given system and the market it trades.
- Sensitivity of the systems profitability to the sequence of trades.
- Probability of a given trading system or method to be likely to be profitable in the future.
And further, must enforce one person, one vote. One person with a bug up their backside can just keep stuffing the ballot box with negative votes. Or system developers can stuff their own ballot box with positive votes. There must be an airtight way to ensure against that. They must be a paying subscriber, they must provide positive identification of their identity (maybe base on their credit card). The minute they can cast multiple votes, this will become useless. My guess is, you will find this a lot harder than it looks. EBay and other such organizations dedicate entire staffs to enforcing the fairness of voting systems.
Especially important, given that a person can keep assuming different identities and leaving negative feedback or positive feedback for themselves.
In my book, this is the MAIN drawback to this system. Unless you can ensure one person can only vote one time, the results will be meaningless. EBay has had major problems with this (as well as sellers who bid up their own item - “shill” bids).
If you cannot ensure this doesn’t happen, then please don’t implement this. It might ruin this site’s reputation.
Personally, I don’t think forum administrators should be able to delete negative comments!
Just as an intellectual exercise, I will try to figure out what Pal meant by the following suggestions:
>- Compatibility between a given system and the market it trades.
Being affraid, that you are going to give me a 5 pages explanation, I won’t even ask what you meant by this. 
OK, I ask, a system trades stocks in the stockmarket. What is the compatibility issue here? Care to explain in 3 sentences or less?
>- Sensitivity of the systems profitability to the sequence of trades.
Same as above, if you care to give a quick example. And just how do you expect people to vote on this? Let’s keep it simple and real, and not to confuse people with too many and unimportant features and choices.
>- Probability of a given trading system or method to be likely to be profitable in the future.
Beside that again, people can not vote on this, if you think about it, that is what the Sharpe ratio measures, so voting on such a thing is useless, overcomplicating and just plain impossible.
Now about Ross’ concerns. Of course everyone (paying subscribers) could rate the system only once, we live in the 21st century in the age of computers, that is not so hard to achieve.
Of course as every rating goes (films, books, cars,etc.) people’s opinions are different on the same subject. But right now there is simply no feedback from subscribers so pretty much anything is better than nothing. If a system has 8 positive and 2 negative feedbacks, we can safely assume that the system is a good one.
At least more people thought worthy to subscribe to it than not.
- Compatibility between a given system and the market it trades.
Calculate Expectancy.
If you know how to calculate the expectancy of a system, you can test it on any market. You can use expectancy to figure out which markets work best with your system, or what input parameters work best in a particular market. Any system will have periods where either no trades are generated, or a string of losing trades is generated. The latter situation becomes part of your expected losses, and affects your expectancy.
Also, calculating expectancy (the income you get per dollar you risk) becomes much more complicated when you introduce a variable bet sizing algorithm. One should calculate the expectancy based on constant-size bets. Then, after finding a system with a good expectancy and sufficient opportunities to trade, use a bet-sizing algorithm to maximize the potential of the system.
- Sensitivity of the systems profitability to the sequence of trades.
Conduct a MCS (Monte Carlo Simulation). You may be surprised to know that the results with the given sequence of trades are merely a chance and may not happen in real life.
- Probability of a given trading system or method to be likely to be profitable in the future.
statistical significance test can be used to help determine if a trading system or method is likely to be profitable in the future. Specifically, a Student’s t test can be applied to the average trade for the trading system or method under consideration. The test determines if the average trade is significantly greater than zero at a specified confidence level. For example, the test will determine if the average trade is greater than zero with, say, 95% confidence.
Just a suggestion, take it or leave it. I really don’t care, but one is trading blind without these tests.
Pal
So you want each subscriber to make the above calculations themselves and perform Monte Carlo analysis and provide feedback/votes based on their calculations?
- Fanus
Even if 1 subscriber does these calculations, others need not have to do it for a while; may be each week/month it can be repeated by some or any; the subscriber may be the system vendor himself.
This would save a lot of time for other subscribers evaluating the system, not to mention it throws more light on the system and builds additional confidence that the system would certainly hold up in the future just as the hypothetical results may show.
Well, as I expected, I didn’t get a simple answer from you Pal. I think the problem is, that you missunderstand the purpose of the feedback. It supposed to show the empirical, practical value of a given system. How easy it is to follow, how good is the communication between the vendor and the subscriber, how good it is resembling the data on C2,etc. If your suggestions can be computed, why the hell should people do it instead of computers?
Obviously those things needs to be rated by subscribers’ experience, that can not be quantified and computed. For computing purposes, we already have Matt.
As an unrelated sidenote, just because a system would get a bad rate on let’s say communication, it still could be an excellent system for those, whom doesn’t need their hands held. Or if a system can not be robottraded, thus would get a low score on that, if a subscriber can manually trade it, it still can be a fitting match between subscriber and system…
If your suggestions can be computed, why the hell should people do it instead of computers?
> For computing purposes, we already have Matt.
That is the problem. Matt can’t do everything. When he sees that subscribers see the value in it and demand it, maybe he will incorporate it as part of the key system statistics. Just maybe…
>As an unrelated sidenote, just because a system would get a bad rate on let’s say communication, it still could be an excellent system for those, whom doesn’t need their hands held.
Agreed. There are all kinds of investors from the novice to the sophisticated.
>Or if a system can not be robottraded, thus would get a low score on that, if a subscriber can manually trade it, it still can be a fitting match between subscriber and system…
Exactly. If a system can’t even be manually traded, auto-trading is sheer lunacy.
"If a system can’t even be manually traded, auto-trading is sheer lunacy."
Not in every case! The biggest problem with two of the systems I have tried to trade manually is that the 10-15 seconds delay between receiving an ITM signal and getting the trade entered means I miss getting filled on a significant number of the limit orders that C2 shows good fills for. Enough instances of this kill the ability to manually trade the system and I have canceled the subscriptions as a result since my results did not even come close to those reported on C2 for these systems (not just lower profit levels, but losses where C2 shows profits).
Autotrading (presumably … I never could solicit replies from autotrading subscribers for these systems on this forum) would improve the chance of getting filled at the C2-reported prices because of the faster reaction time, and therefore be better able to duplicate the results. So for the systems that rely on instant order placement in order to catch a momentary price point in the market, autotrading may be the only way to go and trying to trade the system manually via ITM signals is sheer lunacy.
Not to contradict you, but just out of curiosity, lets see how the following situation may be handled manually and auto-trading:
Let us assume that If the market hits the limit price the trader might get a fill where the system will not unless it trades thru the limit price.
Many times the market will pull back giving the trader an opportunity to reverse (picking up a few ticks) to get back in sync with the system. This could (and has) happen(ed) serveral times before the limit price gets the trade thru. In manual trading the trader may also completely by-pass the trade following his own discretion.
How would this be handled in auto-trading. My guess is this is impossible, i.e., auto-trading leaves no room for discretion on the part of the trader.
Tha above was just an example. Manual trading allows the trader following a system to completely by-pass the trade following his own discretion while auto-trading forces you to take each and every trade on blind faith.
My point is this: the most reliable indicator of market price action is within you: your own discretion. Over many years a top trader unconsciously builds up mental models (neural nets) of how the market behaves, and is thus able to trade instruments that increase in value.
I know what you are going to say: what about trading discipline? following the system to the letter. Your own discretion supercedes that. You don’t have to take every trade, but once in a trade recommended by the system, follow it to the letter, and I say manual trading allows traders to be a better trader; auto-trading makes you captive using your own blind faith on a system which only short-circuits your mind and destroys it.
But I agree, in some instances where time is of essence, auto-trading is superior, but in such cases rather than surrendering my discretion and myself in total blind faith to a system, I would rather abandon the system and move to a better system that allows my discretion to guide me…
If I were a good trader I would have no need for someone elses trading system and could beat the performance of a good mutual fund through my own efforts. But I have learned over many years of trying (stocks, options, futures, forex) that I am not a good trader and always fall back to purchasing mutual funds or blue chip stocks, which is where I have most of my money. However, I have always been fascinated with shorter term trading and have decided to try some systems through C2 after discovering the site.
If I am following someone elses system I see no point in trying to second guess it or attempt to tweak it in some way. I’ve found that, for at least two systems, manually trading produced results vastly different from those shown on C2. Was this entirely due to the 10-15s delay I have between receiving ITM signals and getting trades entered? If so, would autotrading to cut down on this delay produce results closer to those shown on C2? Or are the C2 results never attainable in the real world?
It would be extremely useful to subscribers if more information were posted comparing real trading results, both manual and autotrading, to the C2 results for various systems. This would be the ultimate realism index!
If I am following someone elses system I see no point in trying to second guess it or attempt to tweak it in some way.
I believe discretionary traders trade their unique belief system anyway. So what I trade will not be what you trade or what the next guy trades. We have to find for ourselves what it is we’re comfortable with and trade our own way, all the while humming Frank Sinatra’s tune “My Way.”
Its a process and the indicator is only one, probably the least important, aspect of the trade. We’ve got instrument, entry (indicator), money management, exit and psychology. The last three are more important. Infact Jeffrey Katz and Donna McCormick show that you can make money with a random entry provided you’ve got the other factors down.
Personally, I am KISS (keep it simple stupid) kind of guy. I think most popular indicators are bunk having done the inequality alegebra myself an learned that… for instance take the DMI, after all the hoopala, boils down to comparing today’s range with the range 15 days ago. Why? And for instance the MACD… compares today’s price with the price N days ago and one more… Whats so special about those days? So I reject those. However other traders with different belief systems embrace them and do well by them…
Ultimately trading is a skill like learning to ride a bicycle or to ski and we all begin as novices.
“a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step”
We must pay our dues. Some will eventually make it to the double black dimonds others will give up trying. Some will crash (lose their trading capital) in the process of acquiring the skills (learning is a never ending process) some will make it down safely.
Doyne Farmer, a physicist who helped found the science of chaos theory, and the Prediction Company, which is using chaos theory to beat the market says analysts make successful predictions the same way baseball players catch flies:
“A player doesn’t solve the equations governing the trajectory of a ball. Instead, he relies on a mental model of how the ball will behave, based on having seen thousands of them come his way. Similarly, over many years a top trader unconsciously builds up mental models (neural nets) of how the market behaves, and is thus able to pick out instruments that increase in value.”
… but honestly … the best advice I can give you is to do what he does:
http://www.freethrow.com/
Position you fingers on the the seam… bounce three times, breath in, take aim an shoot. Practice… consistency… confidence. Think process…
