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.
Still learning the ropes here on C2. I trade my own strategy but don’t understand TOS completely, e.g. I’m assuming in order to get TOS certified the trades need to reside with a single broker. I split the orders between two brokers (If I trade > 1200 shares it goes to TD Ameritrade, if I trade < 1200 shares it goes into IB). Since most trades are < 2k shares I could easily fix this and take a small hit on IB commissions.
Here are my other TOS questions:
If I trade TOS - can I have other strategies (my trades/strategies - not C2 ones) in the same IB account?
Since my IB account is larger than my “model portfolio” and I typically take advantage of portfolio margin in my IB account - can I scale the trades down for C2 - otherwise I’d blow out the margin
Do I still place the trade in the IB account or do I place it in the C2 strategy and TOS/autotrading will then execute in my actual IB account?
Are there additional cost for TOS (e.g. autotrading fees) - C2 seems to be very good at adding fees along every step of the way.
Is there a true benefit in getting subscribers, when I typically subscribe to a strategy I mostly worry about equity curve and DD and could care less if the signal provider trades it or not.
BrokerTransmit (BT) submits every trade from an account (IB for example) to a connected C2 strategy. You trade in your IB account (TWS most likely) as you normally would and the same API that allows for AutoTrading handles your trade. Essentially TOS is you AutoTrading your own strategy.
If your live account is larger than your strategy, or not every trade would apply or be part of “your strategy,” then the best thing to do is set-up a sub-account at IB, deposit an amount of money close to your C2 model portfolio size, and then dedicate that as your C2 BT account/strategy.
Re: fees or costs - TOS requires a Premium Trade Leader plan or higher. In terms of the appeal, we do have some evidence that TOS strategies attract more attention, though the data is very fluid. We certainly show that TOS strategies have less subscriber churn and exhibit better risk controls, measured by DD and volatility.
Finally, a plug for our broker C2BROKER. It’s not meant to compete with everything from the likes of IB or TD, but for long only stock or options strategies, it’s a good way to save on commissions, since they are truly free. With a Premium Trade Leader plan you can get TOS at C2B by AutoTrading your own strategy. Be on the lookout for an upcoming special offer webinar around TOS at C2B.
Feel free to message me directly inside C2 (Rod Casilli) or send me an email rod@collective2.com if you’d like to continue the thread outside the forums.
@t-devGROUP when we are at it I have another question about TOS with broker transmit.
Are limit and stop orders copied to subscribers when I enter them at my broker account? In the past only the executed trades were copied as market orders but pending limit and stop orders were hidden from subs. That is quite problematic for most option strategies because of the spread. So I wonder if you have improved the system yet?
Currently I issue the signals for volatility invest as a broadcast every week because of that issue. (I use stop orders and broker transmit)
No orders rest at any AutoTrade (follower) account. C2 only sees fills regardless of the signal submission/management method (BT, web platform, API, etc) All fills are sent to AutoTraders as market orders. For this reason, there are some types of strategies (or ‘set-ups’) that are not ideal for this architecture. Thinly traded symbols, trades entered during times of extreme volatility, or even strategies that use MOO or MOC orders.
The fill order for AutoTraders is randomized so, in theory, over enough transactions most AutoTraders should have something close to an average fill price. Of note, we show the average fill price for all live AutoTraders in the Closed Positions table so your strategy track record reflects the BT fill averaged with any AT live fills.
AlexanderG, I saw Rod’s reply and as a subscriber I don’t know how it works on your end but I definitely get limit and stop orders in my IB account from some of the strategies that I autotrade both for opening positions as well as closing positions so it is definitely possible.
Thank you very much, Pete, that is insightful. Do you know how these strategies are managed? (broker transmit, web interface, API?)
@MatthewKlein a feature for Broker Transmit that gives us trade leaders the possibility to transmit limit/stop orders to our subscribers would be very welcome. Some traders may want to hide those orders so no one can analyse their setups but other traders like me want to transmit these pending orders. Especially for option trades it makes a huge difference if you can send limit orders instead of market orders. Broker Transmit requires a premium plan so it´s kind of nonsense that this more expensive method has less capabilities than the web interface which only requires a basic plan…
I do not know how they are managed - if you want to contact the strategy owner it is “25K Emini SP Portfolio” He usually opens positions with a limit order and once filled he places a limit order for the profit target and a stop loss order as well.
Then this should be warned somewhere. A sub very probably doesn’t knows (and he shouldn’t need to know) if some of this situations happens in a strategy. In the strategies that C2 detects suffering this problem, should exist something like a flag warning about that.
