Yeah, Ross, I had asked him if he expected us to take him seriously. No reply to that.
Hello Matthew…
Maybe this idea will work best with ranging systems that have been ranging for over few years now.
Reverse when the system is at the top of the range, and go with the system when it hits the bottom of the range.
What do you think ?
The simple logic behind this is statistics, most systems simply lose money. (yes, mine too) Thus if you do the opposite of it, you make money.
If we continue the logic most of people should be profitable on the market, because everybody can make a “system” that looses money. So… just trade opposite and you’ll be reach. You don’t even need C2 for that 
Had I put even money behind this 10 systems, before commission, I would be up 35%…
well… trade it, take the money
More seriously, imho you might make something in short-term, but long-term profit is very doubtful.
There is good thread at ET (http://tinyurl.com/yt36pv) that might be applied to a system building from black boxes at C2.
The approach might be applied to opposite trading as well, but I would expect better results for systems with positive expectation.
Eu
Gosh, I’m hesitant to even respond to this, given the outpouring of negativity that followed my announcement of the basic plain-vanilla “contra trading” feature.
But… let me try to understand your suggestion a bit more clearly. What do you mean that you want to reverse a system when it “is at the top of the range?” What does “range” mean? It’s equity chart? How would your proposed feature actually work in terms of the user interface?
Er um, yeah! I have a response. . .lol
gA
[LINKSYSTEM_30960008]
Yes Matthew, Its equity chart.
This would be like picking tops and bottoms in any price movement, not easy.
I did 2 more tests using the words forex and system, thus trying to be random. The collective loss was -26% for 10 forex systems and -13% for the 2nd group.
The only problem could be commissions, but looks like it is hard to pick 10 systems randomly where you end up in the green with the collective result…
The whole thing is a bad idea. How would "subscribers" follow a bad system any better? Part of the reason systems flop, is bad trade and money management.
You are going to have subscribers applying questionable money/trade management skills to the reverse of a system that probably uses questionable money/trade management skills. Struggling systems would have intermittent, unsupportive vendors.
MK, The best thing to do, is kill this. The whole concept that newer traders somehow think reversing a bad system would work, is a bad idea, wrapped up in false hope, surrounded by random foolishness… I still cannot conceive that someone with your talent thinks this is a good idea. It makes C2 look more like a circus act.
Are you trying to encourage a professional trading platform or Barnum&Bailey?
I’ve been trading for a dozen years and I think there’s value in a trade-the-opposite approach, when used thoughtfully. You’re welcome to your opinion, and you’re welcome not to use any of the features I make available on this site.
I think it is a good thing, but needs to be kept within reason. The problem is more in what I point out to people around here. Position sizing is why these systems crash. If someone has 100k to blow on a fully leveraged S&P contract position, it won’t matter if I am only trading at .1 of that size. I could get crushed before even making the huge profit.
Giving the freedom to choose is always a good thing, taking freedom of choice away is always a bad thing.
Freedom allows the persuit of happiness. Happy people will always make much better decisions than unhappy suffering people.
A "truly" happy person could never harm another. The end of all problems is this simple.
Outstanding post.
I think there’s value in a trade-the-opposite approach, when used thoughtfully.
Everybody has his/her opinion about it. We’re discussing the topic.
Anyway, let’s make the game fair. Please allow system vendors to prohibit the feature in their system configuration. Otherwise you’re making clowns from C2’s system vendors. It’s my opinion of course.
Eu
How on earth would allowing vendors to prohibit subscribers contra trading their system be ‘making the game fair’? As a capitalist I’m all for free markets.
I would have no problem with someone contra-trading me, you should take it as a challenge and then delight in winning for you and your regular subscribers and having the contra-subs lose money AND have to pay you a subscriber fee for the pleasure. More fool them for doubting you and your system.
Thanks for adding this feature Matthew. If enough subscribers would use this feature, perhaps you can include a ‘short ratio’ measure in the statistics, i.e. the number of autotraders that are short the system as a percentage of all autotrading subscribers to the system.
My fear is that by revealing this statistic, it might change the vendor’s behavior. Or perhaps not. In obvious cases – for example, a system that is horrible but still has lots of subscribers – the vendor probably will figure out that he is being contra-traded. But I think the real value of the contra-trading feature is in cases where a system is not obviously bad (yet) but matches a certain profile (to be determined by the clever trader) of a system due for a correction.
Anyway, while I appreciate this suggestion, I’m going to put it on hold for now. Let’s see how the contra-trading feature works in real life, since it’s still young.
How on earth would allowing vendors to prohibit subscribers contra trading their system be ‘making the game fair’?
As its done in “White label”. I’ll mark that I don’t allow autotrading of opposite trading feature. If you wish you can do it manually.
I would have no problem with someone contra-trading me
Me as well. However I’d like to have the right to not have the kind of traders with my system. It’s for sure free market, but I’m the owner of the system and I’d like to have some rights as well.
If somebody wants opposite trading go ahead, but I’ll have a right to filter the kind of people from my system. Something wrong with simple respect to a system vendor?
Eu
I think this is hilarious! You guys are starting to remind me of the people I had in my down line when I was multi-level marketing. Everybody is running after that rainbow. I have been laughing all day at this Target Zero signal. We are all chasing our tails here. Is this proof that trading is not working?
If you published your trades in a newsletter (which is essentially what C2 is – a glorified electronic newsletter) you wouldn’t be able to prevent people from using your trading advice in whatever way they liked: they could trade according to your advice, they could trade in opposite of you advice, they could ignore your advice, or they could line their bird cages with your advice. So long as they pay you a subscription fee, there’s no reason to expect otherwise.
MK
