Graham
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.
It’s valid point. You can easy estimate it.
1. Find on C2 a system that trades similar instruments and timeframe as yours.
2. The system should be auto-traded.
3. In “Cumu $” -> “and real-life slippage” when you have a mouse pointer over question mark “?” you can see number of trades executions.
4. Check it before trading session and after.
5. After end of the session you’ll have published trades.
6. Estimate number of autotrading subscribers for the system.
7. Estimate other stats from the system for your system.
It’s very simple 
Kevin, Pete , charles
I was joking, at least I tried It’s tax season in the states so anybody who is trying to count money in my pocket makes me nervous.
I would have bet that Tango has some followers.
You won the bet with one exception. It’s not followers/crowd. Tango is capital intensive system, it’s required iron balls to trade it, because it’s always in DD and I’m trying to explain risk of the system anybody who cares to ask about the risks. It might be my illusion, but I don’t have “followers” so far.
Eu
On your Tango performance, sorry but,
I was for over 30 years in (Wall Street) finances, therefore as an old timer if I compliment (infrequently) someone it is not to be pleasant but because I mean it.
I have looked into your trading style in various ways and even if you are surprised…I still give you a 5 stars rating ! Smile.
The weaknesses you mentioned could simply turned into strengths.
No maths involved but simple common sense.
And C2 is a great platform to “view, feel and smell” great and not so great trading systems.
For further inputs, for whatever they are worth, please feel free to contact me at :
ch_curty@bluewin.ch
Its free any anyway. Smile
Cordially
Charles
Chris,
You are right about the “cost” aspect, it is insignificant, perhaps I should have emphasised the “effort” aspect.
Graham
Hi all,
I think this is my first post in the forums here. I’m a little worried about not getting subscribers, because it seens that there aren’t many subscribers out there.
I’ve already paid to publish my system. I’m pretty sure I’ll have some spectacular results soon, and be shown on the “hot hands” list, etc.
I would have to agree that a system with an established track record is more worthy of getting subscribers than a new system. I’ve noticed a dangerous phenomenon involving people signing up to and actually risking money on the advice of new systems just because they’re free and happend to have a couple winning trades. It’s possible to start a bunch of systems on C2, each of which does random trades, and one of them will probably look like a winner, and that’s the one you keep.
Therefore, as a new “vendor” I want people to see and judge my trades pubically, and only after that should people sign up for my system. I have only one “system” which represents everything I know about trading. I can’t tell you everything I know about trading, but I can tell you my reasons for making each trade. I’m an engineer, and have seen the failure of a lot of proprietary stuff simply because the flaws weren’t open to review.
I guess what I’m saying is that there should be two ways for a system to get subscribers: Track record, and peer review. The number of previous subscribers probably just corresponds to whether a system is free or cheap, whether it shows up in the 5-day best systems, whether they paid for a featured listing, etc.
I want new systems to get a chance because I’m selling one, but I don’t think C2 is doing enough to protect people from garbage systems that keep their “methods” secret because they’re really based on luck.
Hi all,
I think that might have sounded a little selfish for my first post.
I guess I should say, I anticipate hearing from all of you, and would be proud to become a valued member of this community. Even if I have doubts about hitching myself to C2, I think it’s a great idea, and probably a way for people to get better trading advice than through a broker.
I think I have a good grasp of technical trading, and I welcome anyone to talk to me about my trades or bounce ideas off me. I love to hear new ideas and I never fail to give credit where it’s due.
"It’s possible to start a bunch of systems on C2, each of which does random trades, and one of them will probably look like a winner, and that’s the one you keep."
Maybe so but MK has taken steps to limit this - as far as I know you can’t delete a system so once a vendor creates one it stays out there for all to see (the exception seems to be if the vendor stops supporting it, which removes it from some places in C2 but still lets a dilligent person find out that the vendor created and abandoned the system)
So short of a vendor creating multiple independent C2 accounts (which I would hope would be a violation of the TOS of C2) its hard for a vendor to hide from their past mistakes.
One thing that I have noticed that I would like MK’s comment on is the ability for a vendor to change the system name and description as they please.
It seems to me that the name should not be changable on a whim, especially when certain vendors have taken to adding lots of description in their name, e.g. system XYZ (risky) or system ABC (conservative).
This can lead to describing the system after the fact (in response to how the trades play out) and may give the false impression that the vendor has carefully constructed a system that matches the name criteria when in fact they are just describing how it unfolded. I don’t see any legitimate reason why a system name should ever need to change (and those rare exceptions could be handled by MK)
In terms of the system description I think the vendor should be allowed to append to it but not modify/delete anything once it is written (and everything should be dated).
There have been cases I know of where a vendor blatantly lied in their description (e.g. no overnight trades, max XX contracts) and they can hide those lies simply by changing the description (after the fact).
Someone reviewing a vendors trade history needs to see what the vendor said about the system at the time the trades were executed - this revisionist history stuff has no place here.
Let me address some of the issues you brought up, Pete:
(1) You can’t delete system once you create them. There is a minor exception: if the system has fewer than five trade signals (executed or not), and you don’t pay the listing fee, and you never have a subscriber (free or paid), then you can delete it. But once more than five signals are entered, or you have a subscriber, the system is permanent.
(2) A few months ago, I too realized that people were after-the-fact changing the names of their systems to disguise poor performance. “Conservative Stock Picks” became “High Risk Picks” after a major blow-up. So Collective2 has been keeping track of system name changes for the past few months. As of today, this information is not viewable by users, but I intend to make it accessible soon.
(3) I agree that we probably need to implement a similar tracking system for system descriptions. That is, I need to make it so that traders who really want to do serious due diligence should be able to see all of the previous descriptions of a system provided by a system vendor, so that a trader can decide if the vendor is changing the rules mid-way through the game. That feature does not currently exist, however.
Matthew
Great - thanks MK!
RE: Description changes. I see this as a double edged sword. While I understand the reasoning that you don’t want the rules changed to hide or deceive, I think a vendor should be allowed to clarify a description, update any information that becomes dated, or simply change the description’s presentation - like how any company will change and/or update a sales brochure. If the changes were marked and dated as was suggested, it could become quite unwieldy, and mess up the general appearance of the vendor’s “brochure”. In marketing, appearance is everything, and the vendor should be allowed to keep the description neat and tidy, as well as accurate and concise. This description is the only “brochure” or “store window” that we have here, and we should be allowed to maintain the display in a professional appearing way.
An example: My new system, Trend Toast has a description that basically says “Not ready for prime time.” I want the trade history and equity graphs to be a bit seasoned before trying to actively promote it. (As a new system, it’s not likely to show up on any searches anyway.) Once it’s ready, I’ll change the description to more accurately inform anybody who may be interested. In essence, I’ve rented the store, but we’re closed until the inventory is in place and the displays are properly set up. Then we will have a grand opening.
Just my .02,
Hans.
Pete and Hans,
I think both are valid points. Perhaps it can be done in this way: On the system page you see the latest system description (showing how the vendor looks at it now) and a button / link to older system descriptions. When you go with the mouse over the link, there appears some grey explanation box that describes the general reasons why one should consider old too descriptions too (as Pete and MK just described).
Jules
I hear what you are saying but as a subscriber I must say that I think that keeping the vendors honest by not changing the rules in the middle of the game or re-writing history is more important then keeping their system description all neat and tidy.
Not sure I agree with the sales brochure analogy - I’d say the system description more like the instructions/warning label on a prescription bottle. Oh, I didn’t mention that 1 out of 10 people taking this prescription will have uncontrolled vomiting? So sorry…let me just add that to the description now. Hope that wasn’t your favorite outfit.
I think vendors that start a system with one method or strategy and then change completely mid-stream are just being cheap anyway - they should just drop the system and pay the fee to start a new system. Not very professional when a vendor dabbled in stocks for 6 months then one day decides to trade emini’s only instead.
In your specific case I would suggest that you post nothing in the system description during your seasoning period and then when are you are ready for prime time you could post the proper description and it would look fine. I would think most vendors wouldn’t be changing their description much anyway except to add something like, “now that we’ve doubled our capital we are going to increase the size of our trades to x” which would look fine appended with a timestamp.
Anyway, my 2 cents…
Jules, that would work for me - as long as the information is there I don’t care how it is packaged/presented. Good suggestion.
I understand and agree about “keeping the vendors honest”. But the description is, aside from the equity graph and stats page, the only way to “present” the system to the consumer. What it is, how it works, when and how often it trades. If a description is incomplete, for example, it should be allowable to change it. And I agree about significantly changing a system .vs. starting a new one. Really doesn’t make sense to me why you would tack new results onto something that presumably didn’t work anyway.
As for my new system, I feel it would be MORE unprofessional to leave it blank rather than have an explanation as to WHY it’s blank. On my more seasoned system, I’ve made minor alterations to wording, and in one case, my son pointed out a spelling error. I’m also considering changes to address frequent questions that I’ve been asked. I’d like to be able to include these changes in a professional matter within the description, rather as a tacked on, time stamped addendum.
More .02 (If we keep saving these pennies, pretty soon we’ll have some REAL money!)
Hans.
A modest proposal:
Let the system provider supply optional anticipated stats along with the checkboxes regarding trading style. For example, when I started my system I had a firm rule of less than 3% risk of equity per trade and I would have gladly stamped that permanently on my system when I started it.
I also have a concept behind the system which involves operating on multiple timeframes which I shouldn’t change because hey, I named the system after that.
I also have some vague descriptions of how I trade, which I’m sure I’ll change based on which trades work well with C2’s order entry system.
You could have certain rules based on your own stats such as max drawdown, but that particular statistic isn’t something that can be controlled, same with w/l ratio, etc. Money management nuts-and-bolts, however, are things that it seems people are very concerned about when they consider subscribing, probably more so than daytrade vs. swing trade, etc. It should also be easy to warn vendors and subscribers when a system violates its own rules.
All that said, I think someone who is brand new to C2 and somehow manages to produce a successful system deserves a writeoff. That first system should be exempt from any rules like this due to some of the oddities of this trading platform, at least for a certain time period. I had an early nightmare where I placed an order that was instantly closed at a loss of thousands of dollars because I accidentally hit “enter” on my keyboard which apparently triggers the “quick trade” feature.
Speaking of the platform, I have a question for C2: If I wrote some software to wrap the C2 IDE with my own interface (I’m working on this for my own use), would you allow me to sell it?
Mike: We strongly encourage software developers to write C2-compatible products, and to make money selling them. We don’t charge a cent for licensing, support, or anything else. (In fact, we will help pay for software companies and partner companies to advertise their C2-compatible products. For more info on our Marketing Co-op Program, contact matthew@collective2.com).
Mike mentioned concern over protection from garbage systems that are just lucky. This is really what the track record does, the probability of someone’s random luck persisting reduces dramatically the more trades they register. So it is simply up to the buyer to wait until they are happy that the track record is long enough to be significant.
There has been a bit of scope creep on this thread and valuable though it has been I wonder if MK could share thoughts on the original topic, i.e. showing subscriber numbers in some way, such as per system or total new subscriptions per month or total current subscribers etc?
But then how will you act on the number of subscribers? Subscribe to a system you consider good, but that has few subscribers, or subscribe to a system because it has many subscribers? Many years ago, at the beginning of my futures trading, I bought a system to trade the Swisss Frank. The number of systems to be sold was limited to 500. In the beginning everything worked wonderful, the more systems were sold the worse it got, and when all 500 were sold, the system was useless.
All 500 traders and probably their friends and family placed exactly the same stops, so the traders on the floor took out the stops and that was that. System finished.
Peter
"a study/survey came out that showed that for many topics, that mass opinion fares better than the experts…"
90%+ of futures traders lose money. Sorry, but your “study/survey” does
not apply to traders. A small few take home nearly all the marbles.
Moreover, when too many traders agree the market or system is doomed. What happens when 100% are long? The market tops. What happens when a famous analyst gets super popular? His system busts (see late 70’s Granville or late 80’s Precter or the trend following futures traders of the 70’s and 80’s). When market tools or opinions are too popular they are crushed by their own weight. This can happen even on a small scale as pointed out here with 400,000 share example and say 10 traders when the total volume is just 500,00. These facts are proven truths. Even the brokerage companies have studies showing this, but good luck finding those results on the front page of the WSJ.
MARKET TIMING: Avoiding False Signals by Joe Luisi
http://www.traders.com/Documentation/FEEDbk_docs/Archive/0996/Abstracts0996/Luisiabst.html
