I think the energy would have been better spent addressing the lengthy list of improvements and updates requested and needed.
I said above, and I agree with TJ - this seems like a way for more C2 revenue.
People who do not get it are at somewhat of a disadvantage
They would hear "Why aren’t you trading your own system???)"
Costs will go up to do this. Trader68 is a mostly untested lightweight, so it isn’t really free. I tried it and got nowhere. Even TradeBullet has per contract fees and monthly charges.
international vendors are at a distinct advantage
We are well aware that the potential subscriber base is (probably way) lower than most people would believe. This is turning it into EBay, It is hard enough for all but a few vendors to make money already.
I said before a couple times - why don’t you pursue the mostly untapped market of people who want to test their ideas at a real broker without risking money? EliteTrader and other forums are constantly getting requests for this. People point them to OEC (2 weeks free, then they charge) or a couple other sites of dubious value. Why not you - you already have all the machinery in place.
Run some banner ads at Trade2Win, EliteTrader and other forums. Something like:
Test Your Strategy with Real Price Data but Not Real Money!!! Just $10 a month!!!
or
Test Your Strategy Live Without Risking Yourl Money!!! Just $10 a month!!!
Offer $10 a month unlimited access of one “system”. They cannot sell services to others (unless they pay the $98 fee). But they can test any strategy on any available instrument to their heart’s content.
And then you have more customers…
““As I explained elsewhere in this thread, some available AutoTrading solutions involve no extra fees. Or you can choose not to trade your own system at all.”“
Well matthew you perfectly know that when you put on this option the vendor should pay to C2 a extra fee on his hown private trading in order to have 100% chance to sell it to C2 clients.or not do it and losts a part of C2 clients potential.
”“Also, there’s always the chance that if you trade your own system, and follow your own advice, you’ll earn profits from your trading recommendations””.
I 'm 5 years old and I thank you for this wise advice .
TradeBullet does not have ‘per-contract’ fees or any volume-based fees.
I just saw my post and noticed the results of my test systems are rather spectacular.
Please don’t subscribe to any of them: they are only used for testing and should not be traded by anyone.
Francis
"Also, there’s always the chance that if you trade your own system, and follow your own advice, you’ll earn profits from your trading recommendations."
I respectfully disagree with this logic. Investing money is completely separate than money to market trading systems. In many cases, investment capital is in another account (i.e. 401k, savings, etc) than monies allotted for selling & managing our trading systems. Marketing and selling a trading system business has nothing to a vendor’s own investment capital. Vendors sell trading systems because it’s a viable business, and until now, completely unrelated to one’s own investment capital.
I’m certain the new user interface will have a big red X that says whether vendors are investing in their own systems or not. Thus, we will all be forced to either succumb to this marketing ploy or suffer from poor messaging.
And, as if it mattered, I do trade my own trading system, manually outside of C2, and do quite well. It’s manual and through etrade, not one of C2 vendors. And free autotrading is a myth, at least for ETFs, nobody trades for free.
A great win-win compromise would be to give vendors one free subscription to their own service to use at one of your vendors. I for one, would move my account from etrade to your vendors if I could do this. Perhaps you get a referral perk for this? Vendors are already paying C2 significant selling fees and this new pricing model is a 50% price increase for vendors with a typical $30/mo fee. Even worse for pricier systems.
So you don’t have to pay a per contract fee to J/Pats whatever trader???
"I just saw my post and noticed the results of my test systems are rather spectacular. "
No they aren’t… Really…
Vendors sell trading systems because it’s a viable business, and until now, completely unrelated to one’s own investment capital.
TJ I somewhat disagree with this statement. I came to C2 to trade my own trading capital using my own signals. At first I was thinking I would make a good living with revenue created by selling my signals. I was very much mistaken. Running a signal vending business is not where the money is here on C2. The real prize is the education you get from publishing a signal. I recommend everybody do it. You may not attract customers however your trading will improve. The $98 for six months is the best education money can buy.
I have end of day signals that do not trade enough to justify using auto trade. This new idea just makes me look like I am not using my own trading advise.
Rick Haines
Index wrote:
People who do not get it are at somewhat of a disadvantage
They would hear "Why aren’t you trading your own system???)"
TJ Wilkinson wrote:
I’m certain the new user interface will have a big red X that says whether vendors are investing in their own systems or not.
Thus, we will all be forced to either succumb to this marketing ploy or suffer from poor messaging.
Marketing and selling a trading system business has nothing to a vendor’s own investment capital.
Vendors sell trading systems because it’s a viable business, and until now, completely unrelated to one’s own investment capital.
I agree.
I have 5 trading systems on C2. Zero subscribers, because I have so much problems with Collective2, that I am not dare enough to allow subscriptions.
(For instance canceling of all pending BTO orders takes about 1 hour.)
Now, for trustfulness of my systems, I ought to trade 5 highly correlated end-of-day systems in real account via autotrading.
It is simply nonsense with regard to risk management of my own investment capital.
If proposed feature will be realized, I will leave Collective2.
Keith Fitschen wrote:
Instead, I think C2 should make some effort to educate potential subscribers on how to select strategies to trade based on the stats C2 provides.
The subscribers moan “does any C2 strategy really make money.” The answer is “You didn’t choose wisely”. Here’s what you need to look at.
I agree.
…I have so much problems with Collective2…
As illustration: right now at 7:30 EST, 9/30/2008. Here is the response from the Grid:
-----------------------------
Software error:
DBD::mysql::db selectall_arrayref failed: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '5 and col11<>‘options’
order by col13 desc
’ at line 96 at /usr/local/apache/htdocs/collective2.com/cgi-perl/t300.mpl line 1213.
For help, please send mail to the webmaster (matthew@collective2.com), giving this error message and the time and date of the error.
--------------------------------
I think, that before adding new errors to C2 software, it would be much better to remove old errors at first.
I totally agree with Bob.
I totally agree with Keith.
[LINKSYSTEM_29987971]
Mathew this is something I have been trying to tell you for a while now. C2 is a good web site. It would be great if you could get what you have already working properly.
Rick Haines
My point is that’s not a TradeBullet fee. We don’t get anything from the brokers.
Problems with the current Collective2 implementation aside, there are two aspects to the C2 business: (1) independent verification of third party trading systems (or vendors); (2) marketing of third party trading systems.
For (1), money is collected bi-annually to the tune of $98. In my opinion Matthew has done an excellent job for this price.
For (2), a 30% cut of system vendor profits is taken in exchange for providing a trading marketplace to draw in subscribers. If I were selling a medical product, the distributor would take a 40% cut (or something close to that). So 30% is not unreasonable, especially considering the White Label marketing program where C2 gives up 10% to people wishing to independently market systems.
Now where does this issue (system vendor auto-trading own system) fall? In my opinion it should be part of (1) - independent verification of a trading system. Thus the bi-annual fee should be increased for those wishing auto-trade verification. The fee should not be a per-trade fee even though this may be a more convenient implementation.
Does this penalize those vendors not wishing to do auto-trading on their system(s)? In my opinion, systems should not be marketed as auto-tradeable unless they have independently verification.
I said it was a fee for Gen1 autotrading. I do not understand why you chimed in to so confuse the issue??? Traders did not care WHO charged it.
The original poster wrote: "Even TradeBullet has per contract fees and monthly charges. "
That statement is wrong and my post addressed it.
Francis
you knew what I meant. I was very obviously talking about the cost of Gen1 trading.
Matthew,
Background-- I trade my system. I wouldn’t offer a system unless I traded it. I trade using IB and I am not going to switch from IB.
Question #1—To participate in this program, do I have to sign up to autotrade my own system, pay the subscription fee to myself and C2 keeps 30% of that amount? If so, that is an added expense and I object to that.
Now several points that should be considered—
A) As other posters seem to indicate, they trade their system but not always exactly the same way that they post trades on C2. This might be because C2 does not offer the same instruments as the vendor prefers to trade, but the vendor is still “trading” the system.
B) For instance, as I stated in this forum last month, I sometimes prefer to trade index futures options, namely the ES options due to income tax purposes. Unfortunately, C2 does not offer the ES options, so I post trades on C2 using the SPY options. Therefore, it seems that I would be “penalized” by C2 since C2 does not offer a wide enough variety of instruments and my trades in the ES could not be autotraded.
C) I also use a 3rd party program called IBtoC2 which allows me to trade directly through IB with the IBtoC2 program “passing” the same trade unto the Cheetah Index system. I do this with SPY trades when that is what I am trading in my IB account and the same trade goes to C2 within a couple of seconds.
Question #2–Could you use something like IBtoC2 to have the vendor pass trades in their own real trading account to C2 so that they are identified as actual trades put through a real trading account (or some similar solution)? That way the vendor can use their preferred trading platform with their broker and trade their preferred instruments if they differ from the system. Then subs or potential subs can see how the vendor trades their signals or if they trade their signals at all.
I have ‘skin’ very much in the game - but as I use spreadbetting and the US does not permit this for its own citizens, the effect of this facility will be to allow others to judge me poorly for not displaying my own trading account.
I believe you should think again as only a portion of your system providers will have the capability of participating in your new feature - and all others will be put at a disadvantage.
exactly what I said. International customers are not really able to take part, without going through backflips.
I think the whole idea should be canned.
