The opinions expressed in these forums do not represent those of C2, and any discussion of profit/loss
is not indicative of future performance or success.
There is a substantial risk of loss in trading. You should therefore carefully consider
whether such trading is suitable for you in light of your financial condition. You should read,
understand, and consider the Risk Disclosure Statement that is provided by your broker
before you consider trading. Most people who trade lose money.
I am setting up my first auto-trading account and am confused about setting up the allocation amount.
The account is for Zip4x which requires an Minimum Allocation of $10k. Which I am fine with.
So, then I see Scaling - and I assume that is Scaling of the vendors total account, which in this case is $1.8m
After playing around with a 1% Scaling ($18,000) I realize that can’t be right - after all the projected profit for 2 weeks would be $22. compared to a $300 monthly fee.
So I wonder - does the scaling refer to the Minimum Allocation amount of $10k? If that is the case I will set it to 100% and be done.
I can’t find anywhere that this is explained… if the scaling relates to the Minimum Allocation that is simple enough (though I don’t know why available capital isn’t used instead).
I would rather not blow up my account by entering the wrong thing! If anyone can clarify this I would really appreciate it.
Scaling = Y / X * 100%, where
Y is the size of position that will be opened on your brokerage account
X is the size of position that will be opened by signal provider
I’m going to correct Andrey’s answer a bit, which was technically correct, but may be a bit confusing to new users.
AutoTrade Scaling works very simply:
SIZE OF TRADE in model account
X
SCALING
= size of trade placed in your broker account
Notice the important things that are missing from the formula above:
The size of the C2 Model Account
The size of your broker account
C2 does not really pay attention to either of these facts when calculating trade sizing.
Again, very simply:
Size placed in your broker account = Trade size in C2 Model Account x Scaling %
To take Zip4x as an example, it recently placed a trade that looked like this:
BUY 200 NZD/USD
A scaling percentage of 2% would mean that in your broker account, you would have placed
BUY 4 NZD/USD
(Note that all forex quantities in C2 are mini-lots of 10,000 currency units, so BUY 4 means Buy 40,000 NZD).
On the other hand, let’s imagine a strategy placed signaled a trade like this:
BUY 3 NZD/USD
At 2% AutoTrade scaling, C2 would say: “2% of 3 is 0.06 units.” Since C2 always rounds down to the nearest integer, 0.06 units would round down to… zero! I.E. No trade would be placed in your broker account.
For this reason, when scaling trades downward and using small percentages, you might want to consider setting a minimum trade size of 1.
Before you do anything for scaling, make sure you know what is the maximum contracts you can use it. That’s very critical. Let say he used 200 In C2 for GBP/JPY , if you scale 1%, means you will have 2 in C2. After that when the developer add 20 in C2 for the scd position, it doesn’t mean you have a new position for the scd position. You have to double check with your account, but don’t worry, you can add manually.
He may have 2-3 different markets, because he always see there are opportunities. Just make sure, you observe his trade n you need back up plan. Since your capital is $10k, make sure you do convervative until you know how it works.
Sometimes the problems come from c2 server , for example, the manager add or closed positions but in C2, there are no activity because the server in C2 was down. Typically happen in Sunday evening until Monday morning, or 12 midnight . It happen 2 times so far. If you do small contracts, it is easy to handle.
Does AutoScaling synchronize with the overall position state of the system?
For example, on Zip4x, the Dec-30 GBP/JPY trade opens with a Buy quantity of 100, which at 1% scaling is a quantity of 1, followed by a series of executions of lower quantities, which won’t get executed in a 1% scaling account, and then a Sell to close position trade on Jan-28 of quantity 1000, which at 1% scaling is a quantity of -10.
If AutoScaling synchronizes with the overall position state, then we’d expect, the Sell to close trade, which returns the account position to Flat to be of -1 quantity, otherwise we have a net short position of -9 quantity which is not in sync with the system’s position.
Davo, I strongly disagree with your plan that you want scale 100 percents, especially if your capital far away from the developer’s capital. I’m talking to you as a friend in here.
For example: let say he has open buy position 100 EUR/JPY in C2. In reality, he buy 1.000.000 . In general, if you have IB account, you will need 0.025 * 1.000.000 = 25.000 , therefore , you need at least $25,000 in order for you to trade 100 in C2.
Please see all his records, what is the minimum and maximum size that he has used in the past. You can not afford to follow 100 percents scale.
Just do small scale first like 1 percent, and increase letter on. It’s better you use small profit and consistent rather than you blow up your account in one trade.
Thanks, that is what I have been trying to find out. So the scaling is the scale of the DEVELOPERS capital NOT the recommended allocation size (as others have claimed)?
I initially had intended to scale at 1% (which would equal an $18K account relative to the developers 1.8M account) but others said scaling was based on the recommended allocation number.
Where it got extra confusing was the predicted calculation of profit, which was $22 for the last two weeks at that rate. With a subscription fee of $300 that would appear to be a losing proposition.
It is incredible that C2 doesn’t have some kind of FAQ on the extremely important details of allocation. It really takes some awareness to find the developers account size and work that backwards to a capital allocation.
I am also concerned about the distortion of missed trades due to the scaling issues - that could really mess up trading and cause all kinds of possible losses. If I am understanding this, the scaling might cause a possible loss of synchronization could result in trades not executing properly? Wow, that sounds bad.
Man, I just don’t know if I trust trading with so many unknowns. How does one deal with this? It sounds like a recipe for losing a lot of money. I’ve already paid for the subscription so I don’t where to go from here.
Thanks to all that have contributed. I hope I can figure out a solution.
You probably got the idea, but bottom line, IMO you should not scale this account at 100%. The suggestions of 1% make sense, but make sure you understand what the other posts are saying. Your above comment about not being able to make $300 looks accurate. If I were investing in it, I would want a bigger account. Like $1.8M.
I’ve had clients ask me about how they should scale their accounts into my system, so nothing wrong with sending this systems manager a private message and see what he says. But again, it’s got to make sense that you’ve got a reasonable shot at exceeding the $300 a month fee with a $10,000. Hopefully he will be straight with you. If you aren’t sure afterward, come back here and ask again.
Should you decide you want to back out of this system and get a refund, just ask. C2 Terms of Service say they want to make the subscribers happy and will give a refund when it is asked for.
When you set your scaling for auto trading you can always set it at a low percentage and then re-adjust at any time. After you set the initial scaling the control panel will show the system model account equity your scaling is based upon. Attached is a screen shot example.
With your capital $18k, roughly you can have total trade between 70-74 in C2. This is what I will do, I may trade for maximum 2 different markets, but I prefer only 1 market first, especially you don’t have any experience manage his strategy. I will trade 1-2 contracts for everytime the developer open a new position in each market. But I prefer 1 contract for the first 2 positions in each market, letter on, I will put 2 contracts. In this way, can you follow his full strategy, lower your risk when the market against you and increase your profitability because you always have better price position compare than the develope’s price position.
You may lost opportunity if the market works right away in the developer’s favor but you are always can minimize your risk if the markets against you.
I have to question why the recommended minimum allocation for Zip4x is only $10k.
I also don’t have the time available to follow the strategy trade by trade and I may be too inexperienced to revise trades to my benefit when things go pear shaped.
From what that has been brought up it involves a lot of potential compromises to trade Zip4x using a $10k account. Probably Zip4x is a more difficult situation because he trades a large account, though he is a very impressive trader.
Really, going into this, I thought it would be more of a straightforward capital allotment.
Definitely a lot more to consider than C2 suggests.
As developer of very risky but successful systems I was amazed to see
The risk of Ruin - monte-Carlo simulation for long term chance to loss money in the system.
One if The main parameters you should be aware when scaling such systems is the risk involved !!
Here the chance to loss 50% of your money is 37% and to loss 40% is 43% ,
From my observations, C2 auto-sync feature synchronizes total position size according to the scaling. It is possible to miss the trade due to scaled size of 0 units, but finally position size will be adjusted. My broker once closed short position due to lack of stocks on the market, and C2 was trying to restore it during almost all day.
In case of averaging down it will work as following:
Model account:
buy 100 x p1, buy 50 x p2, buy50 x p3, sell 50 x p4, sell 150 x p5
1% scaling:
buy 1 x p1, buy 0 x p2, buy 1 x p3’ (auto-sync), sell 0 x p4, sell 1 x p5, sell 1 x p6 (auto-sync)
