Just a thought… (not beeing an expert on BrokerTransmit)
How about offering/running those 5 different systems as 5 completely separated individual Micro-only stragies on C2? (instead of merging them all into one or two mixed Micro/Mini strategies)
This way investors can subscribe and add each of those 5 strategies individually, paying for each of them about 100$-150$, equally to your 499$-749$ original subscription prices in total. Then subscribers can invest with less risk in Micros instead of Minis, scaling/lowering down the risk individually if they want.
Wouldn’t that maybe help resolving this C2 BrokerTransmit signal problem?
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All paying subscribers for both of my strategies should have received a notification via email today that their next billing cycle cost is $0. It looks like C2 makes this pretty easy to do from my end, but I’ve not done this before, so please let me know if you did NOT get this. Thank you for subscribing, I’m looking forward to hopefully make back our recently losses as quickly as possible.
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I think that would technically work, but a) it would require I dedicate five Interactive Brokers accounts to this, one trading each Micro strategy, b) as a C2 strategy manager, I have to pay for the number of strategies I publish, and c) as they are all designed to work together, any subscribers not subscribing to all five would be running a handicapped version of how they are meant to work together.
I’d MUCH rather work with C2 and see if BrokerTransmit can be adapted to work in a way that would support multiple strats on the back end trading the same instrument. Thanks for the suggestion though!
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Looking forward for an update? I would also like to start following your strategy with a smaller account size, so if you trade just micros on one stratagy i can adjust it to my account size.
I was wrong, the only thing worse than hitting a 10% SL is to hit a 10% SL and then have the market recover two days later. Our big NQ loss would be back in profit, and our ES loss well on its way to the same. Hindsight is 20/20, but ugh, the love/hate relationship with stop losses…
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After stopping out last week, we are currently in ANOTHER significant drawdown, now bringing our drawdown since August 16 to almost 12% for the ES/MES/NQ strat, and 5% for the ES/MES strat.
The market is getting murdered this month, currently down almost 5% for August and by far the worst month of 2023, and we are on track for our first red month (since Feb when I was getting C2 trading working) ever.
I was asked why we don’t just sit in cash during news events. In my opinion there’s not really a feasible strategy for turning off trading for “news” as there is news pretty much every day that moves the market, albeit some news more than others. It’s not really practical to manually stop automated trading anytime there’s big earning call coming up, or one of the 12 FOMC presidents randomly speaks somewhere.
We DO actual have logic that prevents entering a position in the hours leading up to FOMC monthly press conferences and minutes releases. But other than that, the strats are technical only, and unfortunately, sentiment doesn’t play into it. When it enters a position, it is relying on some flavor of “the last X times these technical indicators lined up, it then did Y 90% (or whatever) of the time.” It doesn’t know an earnings call, a press release from China, or anything else in the news is about to blow that up (either for us or against us).
Believe me, I get wishing you were sitting out news when it goes against your position, but sometimes, it’s that same news we profit from. Over time, even after getting killed like we are this month, these strats are profitable to date.
I wouldn’t blame anyone for getting out, but in my experience, getting out after a big loss means not taking part in making it back. And if there’s a track record of making it back, then that’s a consideration.
The bottom line is the S&P is down almost 5% in it’s worst month in 2023. And we ARE getting whipped around by news, as we always are. It’s just more noticeable when we’re repeatedly on the wrong side of it, as we have been the last week or so.
And needless to say, it is VERY frustrating as a strategy manager to build a great six month track record, finally decide to promote strategies for the first time, only to have the wheels come off of the bus STARTNG THE NEXT DAY for the worst drawdown to date.
UPDATE:
Here are back to back headlines from two different FOMC presidents (one former) this morning, within two HOURS of each other, pretty much contradicting each other (one saying more increases, the other saying we’ve increased enough for 2023). How the @#$% can an automated strat navigate that, even if it COULD gauge sentiment…
Hi Chris as you know i am new to the system .
I think you should improve the MAE ratio system Avg(MAE) / Avg(PL) - Winning trades
1,479.
It’s too high and it’s dangerous if you’re on the wrong side 4-5 times the system is screwed.
I’d like to see metrics with a lower profit percentage but consequently with a better win/loss ratio.
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Yes! It does not appear to be sustainable, unfortunately. 2 bad drawdowns within a week and months of much smaller profits are completely erased. I have been with the system enough for multiple rebills and I am now red on the system. Unfortunately, this seems to be the pattern for most strategies here. Great consistent returns until an epic failure. Don’t be afraid to manually bail when the entire market is pointing in the direction opposite a position. I have saved 5 figures on 2 other occasions when strategies went haywire and started having 10x average profits in losses daily. As an investor, I’m finding that I do not have enough metrics here to really determine the risk of blowouts like this and the point is for me to not have to babysit positions in these accounts… yet here I am babysitting C2 positions while trying to actively trade other accounts. Stay sharp when trading and moreso when letting others manage your funds.
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Today was the single worst day in the market since February, with S&P futures pulling back 2.5% and NQ futures pulling back around 4% just since their highs last night, and my strats went long toward the top of the run up:
Believe me, I hate double digit drawdowns as much as anyone, especially as all of my strategies are traded by myself as well, and at a significant multiple of what’s broadcast here.
It is nothing new for the two strategies I run here, an MES/ES strategy and an MES/ES/NQ strategy, that they both periodically experience SIGNIFICANT drawdowns. I understand that doesn’t make it suck any less when they happen though, especially right after promoting them.
From the C2 Description for “SP 500 Futures Scalper” (MES/ES strat):
- Max Portfolio Drawdown since May 2022: 26%
- Max Portfolio Close To Close Drawdown since May 2022: 21.2%
From the C2 Description for “SP500/NASDAQ Futures Scalper” (MES/ES/NQ strat):
…regular drawdowns of 5%-10%, six drawdowns touching 15%, and one drawdown touching 30% in early November. YOU NEED TO BE OK RIDING OUT DOUBLE DIGIT DRAWDOWNS, OR THIS STRATEGY IS NOT FOR YOU. I know that’s easy to say but a lot harder to do when you’re in it. I’m right there with you, as I’m trading this with my own funds as well, so your drawdowns are my drawdowns.
For the MES/ES strategy, we are at about an 11.2% drawdown since it’s peak on August 15, and at about -5.6% for August currently. The previous two months netted 20.7% ROI, so it is still WELL in the green for the last three months.
For the NQ strategy, after the BRUTAL Nasdaq drawdown through today, it’s at about an 18% drawdown since its peak on August 15, and at about -13% for August currently. The previous two months netted 16.8% ROI, so THIS strategy (at least so far) is still well in the green for the last three months.
The S&P is down over 5% for August and the NASDAQ is down almost 8%, for the worst month of 2023 so far. Pretty much EVERYONE is red this month (kudos to you if you’re the exception). So yes, while it SUCKS to be going through a big drawdown, ESPECIALLY right after promoting these strategies, these drawdowns are (so far) within the bounds of known and communicated drawdown ranges.
I don’t begrudge ANYONE that wants to pull out, and if you just jumped in in the last week, then your sting is compounded, and I totally get that. But the strategies are, at least so far, doing what they have done for 16 months live (and in backtesting to Jan 2020), which is netting positive EVERY quarter to date, with significant quarterly ROI, but unfortunately including periodic painful drawdowns. We are in one now.
I don’t disagree and I’d like to see that too, especially during a drawdown. Unfortunately, with these strategies at least, tightening the stop losses dramatically decreases their ROI/MaxDD ratio over time, one of the key metrics we use in tuning.
Just about every time we have a big drawdown, I task our team with figuring out how to predict or at least mitigate them. Believe me, if we had figured out something that backtests well (i.e. not just overtuning for the last bad trade or two), we’d be doing it. In the meanwhile, we accept that periodic larger drawdowns are the trade-off for a higher ROI/MaxDD and oversized quarterly ROI to date, which is what our clients have prioritized.
On a personal note, it absolutely grieves me that, literally one day after I start promoting these two strategies for the first time on C2, they go into their largest drawdown since going live on C2.
Not that it can make up for your losses if you’ve been trading either of my strategies live for the last week, but anyone that has subscribed since I promoted them for the first time on August 15 will be receiving a full refund on anything they have paid. You weren’t subscribed to experiencing the upside of the last few months, and since I invited you to sign on, your first experience (obviously unknowingly) is our biggest live drawdown yet. Not what you signed up for.
I do invite you to keep following along (trading or not is up to you), as you have this month and next month free already. We’re either seeing one more periodic large (but within historical bounds) drawdown, or we’re witnessing the beginning of the end of a great sixteen month run for these strats. Hopefully the former.
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Turns out it was the former. A nail-biting 9% drawdown, but we closed in profit. Let the trading continue…
Thanks for all the work and the updates! I like strategy managers that stay on top of things.
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And after a harrowing 15% max total drawdown (and five days in the red) the ES/NQ strategies once again come through, and well within the disclosed historical drawdown range (even when it sucks to go through it)…
Phew! Now back to trading…
I hope you were still here for the run back up!
So you let a trade to go against you 10% to make few bucks ? What you are happy about exactly?!
Where is your stop ?
How about, NOT stopping out for a big loss and riding the trade all the way back up to profit, rather than stopping out and missing the recovery (as we did earlier in the month)…
These strats are not for everyone. And VERY obviously not for you.
You might want to read about it before you criticize it though. We do have dynamic stop losses, that max out in the 10-15% range but can trigger way sooner. It is performing exactly as designed, and nets positive EVERY month to date since May 2022, despite having to ride out the occasional significant drawdown.
So yeah, that’s something to be happy about too.
Feel free to send me a link to your strategy that is 100% automated and returns profit every month. I can’t seem to find it anywhere.
I don’t have one , you are mixing between me and Trillian he is the one who made this claim .
Exactly.
When you publish a 100% automated strategy that returns profit every month in excess of this strategy’s ROI without any double-digit drawdowns, let me know, I’ll be the first to subscribe.
Until then, this strategy returns profit every month (so far), the accepted tradeoff being the occasional significant drawdown. By design.
Your strategies are not profitable every month per collective2 data and your max drawdown is double digits, just saying .
