Thanks for answering my questions. Sam
After 30+ years working with computers, I must be pretty bad for using “Google” 
“10%-100%+ …”
"…Not after they’ve made 20% for 20 years. "
So they are averaging only 20%, not 50%+ (average of 10%-100%+)?
One 100+% year is easy, Average 40% is hard.
“Much better and better documented…”
Certainly they do, done by themself, not by 3rd party.
Do we trust all the data posted on ads or online?
Are these docs “DAILY” DD like C2?
A monthly DD is easily to be averaged-out looking good.
"Everyone starts somewhere…“
We are talking about handling our investments not their personal history.
Even for them small capital is not easy to diversify into safe-investing without incure heavy overhead costs.
”> Are they available to small-time investers like us?
Not after they’ve made 20% for 20 years.
> Are the costs of their service similar to we paid here at C2?
1%-3% management fees. 20-30% of net profits. "
Example for a small-time invester of $20K capital…
2% fee on $20K = $400 (1%-3% management fees)
25% fee on $20K @20% profit = $1000 (20-30% of net profits)
I guess you believe it is not too small for them and it is not too much for us the small timer.
> I agree with you Ross.
> Higher stakes cause even higher pressure affecting their normal
> performance.
That’s part of it, but go to C2’s home page. Click "Show all"
and check the rankings. The top of the list is mostly dominated
by systems that used A) big leverage and took big risks right
from the beginning and/or B) others were trend followers in the FX (long EC, JY, BP, etc) or US stock indexes, and/or C) Gold / Crude Oil trend followers.
A) C2’s rankings do not reward good risk/reward ratios. C2’s “Sharpe Ratio” is broken (Trend ADP ER2 has a Sharpe of 505.771 and a return of 1.4%…how can that be?). As many have stated before it would be nice to have some simple risk/reward ranking criteria. If C2 rewarded low drawdowns vendors might play that game. Right now the best way to get noticed on C2 is to go for broke…and then go broke?
B) and C) This is life in the markets. The trend is your friend until it ends. Some systems do well in trends. The indices, currencies, energies, and metals were in good trends. Those trend systems did well. Those trends have ended or gone sideways (starting in May). Many rookie system watchers are going “the systems are all broken!”. Not so. The highly leveraged trend followers returns were unrealistic in the first place. They were doomed before they started. It has nothing to do with “higher pressure affecting their normal performance”. OTOH, there ARE some tighter risk, shorter time frame bi-directional systems floating under the radar that are doing very well still. Some of those have gone a little flat, but that IS normal.
“You can’t cheat an honest man”. If you think you are going to pay someone $49/mo. and they are going to make you 1000% a year AND never see a drawdown you are not being honest. You will lose your money. Bet on it.
"There is a fair group of CTA’s that are doing well and have done well for years. "
There are also many CTA’s that badly underperform the market averages. Its easy in hindsight to cherrypick the few CTA’s that have had stellar results, ignoring all the ones that have had lacklister results or worse, closed shop after losing substantial portions of their clients money.
Huh?
"Much better and better documented…"
Certainly they do, done by themself, not by 3rd party.
Do we trust all the data posted on ads or online?
Are these docs “DAILY” DD like C2?
A monthly DD is easily to be averaged-out looking good.
Sorry: CTA’s don’t advertise, their REAL MONEY track records
are audited by 3rd parties and the NFA, CFTC, etc.
>Are these docs “DAILY” DD like C2?
Since you have 30 years experience “for using google” (has it been
around that long? I’m more of a newbie) check it out. Try this search:
“CTA daily performance"
Not clear? OK, type in
"CTA daily performance”
(no quotes) in your google bar. Now you can help educate yourself and
save my time.
> One 100+% year is easy, Average 40% is hard.
Duh.
> "Everyone starts somewhere…"
We are talking about handling our investments not their personal history.
Again, these track records are better documented and have been around longer than anything on C2. The newer CTA’s often have lower minimums along with shorter track records. If a fund has done well for
10 years and has $1,000,000,000 you think they should make an exception and take Calvin Long’s $5K account. OK, I’ll send my fairy godmother over to your house as soon as I finish typing.
You want a long track record, big gains, and a low minimum?
WAKE UP!
> Even for them small capital is not easy to diversify into safe-investing without incure heavy overhead costs.
Wrong.
Many of those guys had their greatest gains from very small starts ($5K). Of course, they weren’t well know then…
> Are the costs of their service similar to we paid here at C2?
1%-3% management fees. 20-30% of net profits. "
Example for a small-time invester of $20K capital…
2% fee on $20K = $400 (1%-3% management fees)
25% fee on $20K @20% profit = $1000 (20-30% of net profits)
I guess you believe it is not too small for them and it is not too much for us the small timer.
Using your math:
$400/year = $33/mo. How many good services on C2 are under $33/mo?
You don’t pay more unless they make you money…
Not saying it is easy, but there are CTAs that have made good returns for
years. The point being why compare Mutual Fund managers (locked long to stocks) to futures and FX systems here?
What is a good system? It is easy:
- no strong stomach approach
- no averaging down, or just once
- no big DDs
- no patience is needed approach, if it is a loser, get out
- no high leverage
But it is:
- profitable over at least 2 months
- consistent
- followable
- uses few or just one trading vehicle
- uses stop losses
Show me 3 systems like that on C2! I doubt there is any…
Ross is right, there is no point changing the payment system, that wouldn’t change the style of the system.
The other argument that other websites/systems suck too? Well, that doesn’t make us happy, does it? It just shows how hard is to have a consistently profitable system, and if there was one, they can charge a good deal for it.
"Not saying it is easy, but there are CTAs that have made good returns for years. "
I have no doubt that is true.
Can you give me the name of a few CTA’s that will have good (20%+) returns for the next 5 years? I would really appreciate it.
As soon as you send my retainer my good old buddy Pete.
Jules, I took a look at your list of good systems. If you want me to, I can go and criticize them one by one, but most just doesn’t live up to my 'good system" expectations, posted above. They either have too much DDs, or unfollowable, (after slippage you don’t get similar results).
Tango looked OK, but too much money needed to make it work, since it trades stocks. The 2 systems I liked were ATDow and Starfinder, although the high leverage applies to both, point-wise they don’t do so great on a daily average.
I couldn’t find TA swingtrade. Extreme-os is interesting, because it has a nice chart, but I didn’t like the reviews. 3 subscribers said they couldn’t do the same results and were giving up on it.
So there you have it. 2 maybe 3 decent systems. As I said, we need talent on this website…
Sorry (or happy?) but one at least in this moment exists…
Seleukos Currency Intraday System
-profitable over at least 2 months :
In this moment 120446$, two months ago 119121$ (in this period with currencies…)
- consistent
orders are inserted on the morning for all the day with a very long interval. No burning orders. Quantities are always the same.
- followable: 99.9% realism assigned by C2. Sharpe 1.072
- uses few or just one trading vehicle: it uses 5 types of currencies, always opening at the same time, always employing 20 minilots (there was about three months ago one of two mistakes, where we used more than 20 minilots). Opens twice on the same time: on the morning and on the afternoon. Closes always at the same time. if not stopped for loss or profit.
- uses stop losses
always! always! and stops are very tight!
I did not know that the owner of such an exception was me!
Seleukos, you sound like Paris Hilton crying over her debut album…
You should say if my post is correct or not. It is very easy to access the Seleukos Intraday Currency System.
Paris Hilton is very good hotel, indeed.
Please let me say if my post is correct or not. It is not important, but the requested system exist. No more.
Well guy, I will withold my opinion on your Intraday Currency, or any of your other systems, but FYI Paris Hilton is not a good hotel, she just owns half of it.
I found three in about a minute using Show all and Sharpe. One traded Crude, one FX, one stock indices…although I didn’t see evidence of stop loses, they all did seem to cut their loses short.
Anyway, my point here is: YES: it is hard to make money, but NO it is not impossible. There are public track records (see CTA lists) that span several decades. Some of these guys had double digit++++ returns for 10 years in a row against small drawdowns. I don’t believe that was luck. Some may not agree, but my question is:
If anyone thinks all trading is luck, then why are you at C2 as a vendor or a subscriber?
Would you be kind enough to share your findings Sam? Thanks in advance. Kathryn.
That was not my point. None of these suggestions would increase the ability of existing vendors to improve their performance. The possibility of earning subscriber revenue should provide plenty of incentives to vendors to do their utmost to outperform.
My point was that historical performance in and of itself is a good, but not a perfect tool for subscribers to make an informed guess about likely future profits and risk of a system. If you augment this tool by other tools (of which I gave some examples), subscribers will be better informed about the confidence a system vendor has in its own system/ability in an objective way, and will likely be willing to pay more. This in turn will attract more high-quality vendors.
I prefer to not single out any systems good or bad. Suffice to say try "Show all" and then rank by Sharpe. Scan the equity curves. BTW, your new system looks great.
The ‘she’ you posted was clear.
But I know that every sentence, as the mine, should be mitigated in order to give a satisfaction to the counterpart.
Seriously, this is a very difficult moment.
Look at the Barclays’s http://www.barclaygrp.com/indices/
You will find that from the beginning of the year the Currency Trade Index is -1.65% and the Systematic Traders Index is 0.74%.
Moreover note that the Discretionary Traders Index is +3.58%.
If a system is really automatic, in this moment the situation is very difficult.
Yesterday, using a stop loss as 0.31%, we were stopped on the yen twice: once in the long side and once in the short side.
You can say: “Enlarge stop! or stay out!” Well: this is not automation.
We are not here for the gains that we have from subscribers, but to have a certification for automatic systems. This is why, really, I am happy to have seen that one of out system was in line with the requests.
In every case, we have now seven system and we are gaining (with leverage) a 24% percent yearly compounded. It is not bad, if you think that the moment is difficult and that computers are stupid machines.
It is a show, at least.
I have to apologize for my bad English to you Sam.
I said After 30+ years working with COMPUTERS, I must be pretty bad for using Google :-) and that made you understand as
… you have 30 years experience “for using google” (has it been around that long?..
and thank you for your clear instruction to teach me using search keywords.
and quote me you precious response as Duh.
My point for my question Are they available to small-time investors like us? was really we should not compare something un-reachable with whats available in C2.
Apparently your courtesy response If a fund has done well for 10 years and has $1,000,000,000 you think they should make an exception and take Calvin Long’s $5K account. indeed agreed with my point.
> Even for them small capital is not easy to diversify into safe-investing without incurs heavy overhead costs.
Wrong.
Many of those guys had their greatest gains from very small starts ($5K).
…
I guess you must be right. They must EASILY diversify their $5K SAFELY and made their greatest gains and their overhead costs were LOW when they started.
You want a long track record, big gains, and a low minimum?
WAKE UP!
I believe my earlier post here was NOT to have un-realistic high expectations as to complain lacking good system in C2, therefore, I was (and am) the one awake.
Well Sam, you have made me flush now:) Thanks for being such a gentleman. But seriously, your phrase “new system” says it all. In my opinion at least, for any system that is under 3 month’s old, return, be it good or bad, does not say anything much. If, in 6 month’s time, you still think my system is decent, then it will be time for champagne.
P.S. I will look up the great systems myself. Thanks for the head up. Kathryn.
