I’m not sure I’d agree that something is better than nothing. If a developer wanted to scam C2 users I’d think TOS would be a great way to get yourself noticed quickly (before your martingale system blows up) but since you know your system is going to blow up, you’re not about to put up any real money. Hopefully someone will read these posts and at least do a little more research into TOS knowing how a scam artist could potentially try to game the system. Think how much more enticing the “enchante” system would have been if it had TOS helping it along.
$4000 is not chump change and if someone was going to setup a scam system losing $4000 would definitely cut into what they could scam before it blew up. $400 is not though … you can’t even open a brokerage account with most brokers with that little money.
I’m not accusing anyone of trying to run a scam or to mislead TOS users (this is why I did not mention which system I saw this on) – and it’s especially not likely if the reporting of the scale percentage is off. It’s also entirely possible a developer might turn it on a small scaling percent for a month or two before scaling up if they don’t entirely trust Gen3 not to wipe out their account due to a bug.
Finally, in the pot calling the kettle black department, my sudden interest in TOS is because I finally got things set up to enable it and turned it on tonight … so I am finally joining the ranks of the TOS posse. From what I understand it won’t post the icon until all the positions are synced up which won’t occur until Liffe opens for trading.
Also keep in mind not using TOS does not necessarily mean a developer is not trading their system – I’ve been trading mine for myself and my relatives since I started it on C2 and I have the angry relatives to prove it given the drawdown of Q4 2011 (funny how it’s my fault when it goes into a drawdown, but it’s their great decision to follow my system that gets the credit when the system does well).
Regards,
Dave
Matt, concerning IBtoC2, can we apply TOS if we are using that?
[LINKSYSTEM_70692142]
No, you need to AutoTrade through a Gen3 compatible broker in order to receive TOS certification.
Dam, IB and PFG don’t say Gen3. Might want to get that updated. Those are the only 2 brokers I’d want to use at this time.
The rest are way too expensive.
If you all are talking about a forex system, .01% translates into a minimum of 1 minilot. I had the same question and asked Matt about it.
I have to agree that as far as appearances are concerned, even though there’s a 1 minilot minimum, just even entering the number .01 says, “I want to trade as little as possible.” But I’m sure the vendor is well aware of the minimum.
One thing to consider here is that not all brokers are TOS enabled. Personally, if I had to transfer money to an account at a different broker just for the sake of a TOS badge, ESPECIALLY with forex, I have to say I’d only transfer the bare minimum as well. So I tend to think that until ALL C2 brokers are TOS compatible (and yes, that includes IB), something is better than nothing.
Christina
I find that MB Trading & FXCM have decent commissions/spreads, at least for forex.
I am have been trading my system [LINKSYSTEM_46485830] using IB for the best part of two years. These trades are publically visible. As sson as C2 introduced the TOS program I felt that I had to get on board unless the cost wasn’t overly punative. I don’t feel it’s reasonable to ask people to invest their money in my system unless I am prepared to do so too (@ at least 100% anything else is a TOTAL joke IMO). The reduced commissions etc. more than make up for having to spend $8 per trade with say OptionsExpress - do the math!
And, another advantage of trading your own system, which doesn’t seem to get much press is that you save over $190 on posting fees per year and your return on your subscription fees increases by over 21% (from 70% to 85% of the total). If your system is real good and attracts a lot of subscribers, this could easily return you thousands, if not tens of thousands, of extra dollars per year.
So OpenECry’s commissions are $1.29 per contract per side. That’s not bad. I know of a lot of other brokers who charge a lot more than that. If you already have your money with a broker who charges dirt cheap commissions, just don’t move all your money to OpenECry. Considering some of the recent horror stories about futures brokers not segregating customer’s funds properly, it might not be a bad idea to spread your money around, anyway.
This was posted 3 years ago, but yet today I still do not see a way in the GRID to limit down to TOS systems only. I would also only be interested in finding systems that the owner actually trades themselves. Is there another way to find these? Along with other criteria?
Disregard… I see it is a column I can add to the GRID. 
Great discussion and I’m glad TOS will finally be easier to find on C2. Personally, I will have MUCH more confidence subscribing to a system and sticking with it, especially when the style looks potentially risky (“are they scaling or martingaling?”), if the manager is trading it in their own account. All too often they look good for a while until they blow up spectacularly and take your paid subscription fees with it. Bottom line: managers should be making or losing money alongside their subscribers, not just OFF their subscribers. But that’s just my 2 cents.
To be fair, nearly all of my futures/stock and forex systems are TOS certified at 100% scaling (or pending). Here are a few below in case anyone is interested in TOS systems:
The Grid is capable of limiting search results to display only those strategies that are traded by their developer.
The key column here is ‘TOS Percent’, and if it is not visible in your grid view, click on a small wrench icon to bring it into the view.
As this is a numeric column, it allows filtering (limiting), so all you need to do is type a real number such as 1, and hit enter. The Grid filtering will then do ‘display only those strategies which have TOS Percent greater than 1’, which is exactly what are you looking for.
