Now HERE is something I would like to see in C2, although I am sure we will not get it : )
How about showing how many (paid) subscribers a system has, through C2?
After the performance, that is what tells me how realistic a system is - real people putting real money into a system, because it is:
- profitable
- tradeable
- reasonable customer service
- etc.
I’d like to see this too.
Maybe it could be implemented at least on an opt-in basis for the system vendor? I could imagine many would not like their subscriber numbers to be seen.
One should realize that the real productivity of a system/method (expressed in RF) is determined from trading it real-time with real money (most probably by the system vendor himself), not by the number of subscribers who may not be able to distinguish wheat from chaff.
ps: The philosophically objective value of a product is the evaluation reached by the men with the best grasp of reality (in a specific category and context), regardless of whether or not they are involved in buying and selling the product. The socially objective value is the evaluation reached by the actual buyers and sellers. These two evaluations are not necessarily the same, because the buyers and sellers may lack the requisite grasp of reality; they may lack the knowledge which would make the product, as judged by their own mind, a need, a pleasure, a value (or, conversely, would make the product a disvalue).
I agree. Our System Energy Futures has a good performance. Nevertheless, some suscribers had a loss because they are not following the instructions: i.e. stop loss and so on. They sometimes do not follow the system and sometimes they claim the loss. Another reason: we were long the Unleaded Gasoline with an enormous gain and the stop and reverse was a lot below. If you are gaining from start, closing on the reverse is good, but if you have just open this can result in a loss. So, when there is a new customer, we send an e-mail explaining that he or she should intervene ON THE REVERSE, not on the half of an operation. It seems that this is not understood.
Pal: "The philosophically objective value of a product is the evaluation reached by the men with the best grasp of reality (in a specific category and context), regardless of whether or not they are involved in buying and selling the product"
Are you sure you are not an existentialist? This is basically a sentence that says nothing!
I am not sure if you like to wax prosaic because it makes you feel good or it is because you had nothing to say??? sheesh!
Anyway, I would say a vendor who is afraid to let others know whether he has any subscribers is missing out. Sunlight and good information is the best way to expose the viability of an advisory.
I doubt that subscribers can be blamed for a difficult to follow system. A straightforward system can be followed. These forums loudly declare when things are unreal, like someone who pointed out that a track record called for 400,000 shares of a stock, amidst a daily volume of 500,000 shares. It is like blaming readers for a boring or hard-to-follow book/movie.
Subscribers vote with their dollars. Recently, a study/survey came out that showed that for many topics, that mass opinion fares better than the experts at predicting or determining reality, sort of like the success on the former “Millionnaire” show, when the ask the audience lifeline had a very high chance of being correct.
In fact, the equities and futures markets represent the instantaneous votes of the masses. Many people try to forecast the market as being “undervalued” or “overvalued”, but there is no such thing. The market has a pretty darn good idea of what the price should be, and it constantly adjusts itself to reality.
Regarding the 400k trade block… that was me who pointed out it. It is now permanently engrained in my “analyst page” comments. Now I know why they call it an “anal-yst page”… because if you’re not careful, you take it in the rear.
that was a great point on your part. And if there are 20 subscribers, each also trying to trade 400,000 of that, well… you get the point
"productivity of a system… not by the number of subscribers who may not be able to distinguish wheat from chaff."
I completely disagree. The number of subscribers is very relevant. Those who can’t distinguish “what from chaff” will soon lose all their investment money and not be able to afford the subscription. Those who do distinguish same will remain subscribers.
Lew - you got it. A system with few subscribers tells me a LOT about a system.
For example, there is a reason that Google overtook Altavista and other search engines years back. They did a better job than anyone at search, AND they had a clean, simple interface that wasn’t cluttered with a lot of distractions. People trusted them.
How many posts have complained about how untradable some of these quick in and out systems are, especially with autotrading? Is that the fault of subscribers?
'I completely disagree. The number of subscribers is very relevant.'
Ok, so I admit that I have no subscribers, Zero, Zilch. According to your logic my system therefore is pretty useless.
Hmmm…I have a rating of 913, the system is not rated too bad either with 9.73/10, and it pretty much could pay my bills with a few minutes work a day.
go figure…and have a nice holiday, eveybody
Peter
Peter – Remaining objective when answering simple questions is a sign of maturity. It’s the type of maturity I’m looking for in any advisory service I subscribe to. I want a service that is objective, not emotional.
I’m sorry you found the original question so painful. I don’t judge a new service by its subscriber base… but rather by the track record it sets forth. In fact, I specifically look for new angles that have not yet become encumbered by the weight of hundreds of traders.
Perhaps it would fare you well to simply remain polite and non-evasive in the face of adversity, offer no excuses, and continue to speak through your track records. That’s what really counts. Just because your system is new doesn’t mean it’s ignored. Do well, over a statistically reasonable period of time, and you shall be discovered.
Ross,
Two persons that are sniffing in my pocket is enough for me. IRS and my wife. I don’t know who is worse, but it’s enough lol
So I’d like to admit your honor. I have no subscribers. Zero, Zilch, Null, Nobody, Nothing. I’m helping a poor people. Can I write it off from my taxes as charity, your honor?
(more seriously)
You can easy decipher in C2 at least autotraders and make some numbers.
Eu
OK, everyone is being honest here, so I’ll admit, right now I have ZERO subscribers also. I had one, but he bailed at the first drawdown, and probably now wishes he hadn’t, just as I wish I hadn’t had the 26% drawdown which probably made him bail (if I didn’t know my system well enough, I might have bailed too).
The only problem I see is that newer systems without subscribers would be penalized - but then again, until you build a decent C2 track record, why should people subscribe?
I would not mind seeing number of subscribers for each system. Although, like anything else, someone would figure out a way to sign up “fake” subscribers to make his system look popular.
Wow, thanks to those of your who have been forthcoming with your subscriber counts - its a real eye opener. I wonder if MK would be willing to share any aggregated information like the total number of people subscribed to systems (that aren’t free), excluding those folks in trial periods.
If I remember correctly, MK has already answered this question previously when it was posed. The answer was something like if there are too many subscribers at C2, many would be envious and if there are too few subscribers, then this site would be disparaged with questions like "is that all?"
Judge a system/method as to how realistic its productive profits are, not by the # of subscribers because even if an (open) system/method has only one subscriber (for eg., the system vendor himself), its real productivity in real-life is in no-way dimnished.
ps: As people gain the requisite knowledge, their assessment coincides with the philosophically objective value of the product. In time, barring accidents, the two assessments coincide. The creative minority grasps the philosophically objective value of a good or service, then teaches it to the public, which is eventually lifted to the creators’ level of development. It is in this sense, that the free market is not ruled by the intellectual criteria of the majority (public), which prevail only at and for any given moment; it is ruled by those who are able to see and plan long-range - and the better the mind, the longer the range…
Most of the discussion on this topic has been around whether or not the level of subscribers is significant in assessing a system.
But the reason I am interested is as a potential system vendor. I have what I believe to be good systems with good histories but I’d like to get an idea of how many subscribers are out there subscribing to systems to know whether it is worth the (admittedly small) effort and cost of promoting a system on C2.
C2 is a very clever and impressive system, kudos to Matthew, but what matters to vendors is the number/value of subscriptions and the feedback on this thread so far is not encouraging, maybe the successful vendors don’t want to brag!.
From this point of view, rather than showing the number of subscribers for each individual system (which some vendors will object to) the system could show a chart of, say, the number of subscribers and total subscription revenue for each month over the last 12 months? And perhaps a distribution showing the number of systems with a certain number (or bands) of subscribers for the previous month e.g. 2 systems had 20-25 subscribers, 10 had 15-19 subscribers etc.
This would not reveal any information about particular systems but would help potential systems vendors decide on whether to invest and how much.
Graham
If you have a good system, but you cannot afford $200 a year to list it and are worried that you won’t get subscribers to cover the cost, I am not sure you have a system worthwhile listing then.
Chris
Hi there,
I am quite surprised than Tango says he has no subscribers.
It has a good equity curve, very much acceptable drawdowns, “long” history compared to the average vendor, and not the least : decent stocks quality selection.
I would have bet that Tango has some followers.
Who has an explanation ?
Could it be that at C2, there are more systems vendors than systems buyers ?
Charles
