Is not such proof. Per NFA:
“Past results are not necessarily indicative of future results.”
@MarekJ, yes it will be a liability issue with that performance based model which can be a nightmare.
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you guys are talking of competitors. I dont know any. I thought C2 is the best (and only?) available option. I hope C2 survives!
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Agree with all points. You’d have far more trade leaders with real money here, throwing up realistic returns next to real money and investors along for the ride. Rather than scooby-doo in his Mom’s basement putting up +30% monthly numbers and raking in suckers only to crash within 6 months and walk away laughing (or come back under a new name).
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Hey CoreyR,
Modeling / Analizing Strategy pricing and number of subscribers is not an easy task – a cheap price does not guarantee many subscribers if not I would put R Option to 25 USD and compensate that way but I would need 200 subscribers - and my subscribers need a portfolio margin account over 100k at IB.
If you want help me out of find a better pricing for R Option please tell me privately…
Thanks
Right. Only $$.
IANAL but I am sure that something can be implemented.
They call themselves a “distributed hedge fund” and they are not a hedge fund.
They call their latest service “C2Broker” and they are not a broker.
They collect 50% of subscription fees that is way above all know extortion rates but it is legal.
[Don’t make up excuses for them.]
I increased the subscription price by 2 times.
TO MY KNOWLEDGE IN USA Incentives fees require registration - This is another game!!
Congratulations to @MatthewKlein - looks to me like he has probably alienated at least 50% of “valuable”, presumed “deep-pocketed” C2 tradeleader customer base, and left at least a hard to shift bitter taste in the mouths of another 40%. Some of us are trying extremely hard daily to build ‘quality’, low-leverage strategies which are consistently successful and provide above-alpha returns, which challenge many professionals. It doesn’t make sense why on Earth he would want to destroy so much built up loyalty in one afternoon? Surely there are other more rational alternatives people have suggested above (eg., @Aaa123 who makes very constructive, gradual (vs abrupt) solutions). I do feel popularity for C2 will wain in weeks and months to come, as the founder seems to have totally miscalculated the entire business model, ending up offering a larger than healthy proportion of high-leverage fly-by-night systems (from which C2 has profited significantly in the past/present, as it is the constant turnover of blinkered investors they partly rely on), and not much incentive for more prudent, gradual performance strategies, which - lets face it - are a harder sell. It seems that is the catch-22 conundrum they are aware of, and the only way out it seems is to penalize the very people who build quality systems that C2 absolutely needs to relies on for their long-term sustainability, and deserving of the label “distributed hedge fund”.
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there are other services like C2… I guess it is time to look into those…
@CaliTrader, are those other services easy for the trader to develop and add clients?
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@AlgoSystems I have no idea… I just know that there aare others
I know there are others for some things like forex, futures, etc. However, I don’t know of anything that allows a USA based unlicensed professional to publish signals for stocks and ETFs. The only ones that are available like that require that the leader be licensed with the SEC because of the performance fees etc.
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Guys, some quick “rules of the road” -
While I can’t expect people to support my decision, or be happy about it, one thing I don’t allow is promoting competitive companies on C2 forums. I hope you can all respect this.
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C2 is going to survive no matter what. Last year they did a price hike on listing fees and autottading fees. Force developer and investor to purchase a package option or pay x2 more just trading or following 1 strategy.
As running any business a price hike usually the business is looking for a quick fix. The time it takes to find new customers is too long of a solution when you need the funds yesterday.
C2 will be here, their vision of what c2 will be in the future might be completely different than my. Same approach for these developer who come here for a quick buck. Make a few thousand in sub fees bust rinse and repeat. And subscribers who keep falling for those strategy, and the cycle just continues.
Well it’s disappointing news to be sure, but I take Matthew at his word that the price change is due to C2 losing money and not just due to greed. (I won’t throw in any Gordon Gekko quotes about greed.)
The thing frustrates me is that I believe C2 is losing money, not because of the February “crash”, but because they have a business model that rewards scammers and trade leaders who take excessive risk. This may bring in subscribers for the short-term, but it’s now clear what that did for the long-term good of the company. I think providing a (relatively) lower cost for TOS trade leaders is one good step, but there are other fairly simple steps that can be taken to shore up the quality of the strategies and make it more clear to subscribers what the good strategies are and what the scam strategies are, and make it much more clear what the real risks to any strategies are.
I would happily pay the extra 10% if C2 would change the business model and culture so that it’s a marketplace for serious buyers and sellers. I posted the following suggestions in a previous post, and got a lot of “likes”, but no action or even acknowledgement from C2. I’ll post them again:
The way I see it, there are really 3 main issues that keep coming up over and over again, and that have fairly easy solutions, but that C2 hasn’t addressed for whatever reason.
#1 – Gaming the bid/ask spread – simple solution – if the strategy has no subscribers, wait for the price to trade THROUGH the spread before logging the trade.
#2 – There is no easy way to see how much risk was actually taken to achieve the posted returns – fairly simple solution – do a “Stress Test” like Interactive Brokers does, calculating what a simulated one day 10/20/30% drop in the stock market would do to the strategy, display the current score and the historical score. It’s giving subscribers a hugely important tool to help them make informed decisions.
#3 – People crashing and coming back with a new identity and “clean slate” – moderate solution – verify system owners’ identities like cryptocurrency exchanges do, and if people return, make them carry on their old accounts.
I understand from a business perspective why C2 doesn’t do #3….but #1 and #2 would add so much more credibility to C2 and the strategies it hosts – I don’t understand why something like that hasn’t been done.
Well, at least that’s the way I see it. 
I hope this is a wake-up call for Matthew and that he does make some real changes to make sure C2 is around for another 17 years.
David
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This is of course without knowing the true cost of these things or potential regulation hurdles, but if I were C2 I would move towards:
- Consolidate fees for all subs regardless of whether they autotrade or not. Get rid of AutoTrade fees and just factor that loss of revenue into higher trade leader fees or % cut of subscriptions. Generally, the average customer of any service is going to be happier with just paying $20 once rather than $10 twice even though the actual cost to the customer is the same.
- Reduce the cost for new leaders to publish and reward good leaders that have been around and done well. In my opinion it would be better to charge leaders 0 to initially list and encourage more people to start. I have many friends that would probably use the platform if they didn't have to pay such a large fee to start. Instead of charging so much a month to list just one strategy, have a tiered pricing structure where C2 keeps 90% until a certain amount, time frame, or performance level is met. Then keep reducing the % cut as more $ amounts, time frames, or performance levels are met until a good leader that has been around a long time and has developed a good reputation can keep 70% or more of all sub fees etc. Basically reduce hurdles to start and reward good leaders that stick around and do well. I think to do this effectively though C2 would need to make sure they start limiting it to one account per person so that people don’t just shoot for the fences for free.
- Get more customers in the door with C2Broker by developing the ability to have free trading of your own money in C2Broker , similar to Robinhood. Then have C2 strategies as the additional paid feature. A nice simple app would certainly help too.
Again I know these things are easier said than done, but I would be curious to hear from C2 if any of these things are the goals or if they cannot be done for certain reasons.
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I am a little confused. Previously to today… you had different plans available, and the % that C2 kept ranged from 50% to 0%… is that still the situation? the % that C2 kept varied depending on how much the developer was spending on their plan
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C2 is not overtly ‘greedy’ - but perhaps more sophisticated than that. They know the best long term gradual-return strategies are a harder sell than the quick-buck, over-leveraged, fly-by-night strategies which C2 is ‘knowingly’ awash with, and makes plenty of revnue from. This is the lopsided business model which does not, and cannot ever serve C2’s long term, well-intentioned interests. In the same character as today’s ‘desperate’ survival decision to hike up fees - its the same bust, rinse, repeat formula, professionally packaged, which seems to keep C2 in business.
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“From business perspective” there is no difference between 1, 2 or 3, right? They all go towards more reliability and more transparency.
So I don’t quite get why you understand that they don’t implement #3. For me they seem like the same motivation.
[Btw as we just recently learned, they don’t have to do anything to implement #3. They send payments to PayPal in order to collect FF miles. PayPal doesn’t let you create fake accounts. So they have this information. They just don’t share it with us.]
Where did he say that? The OP posted an e-mail he received saying that the percentage they take didn’t change in a decade, so it is time to change now. Interesting “justification.”
