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I am new here planning to start as a Leader with FX algos.
I have broused throught the grid of strategies that are available on C2 and I am wondering why there are so few decent TOS strategies here. I have counted only 10 TOS strats with:
Sharpe >0.5
trading for over a year (less than 12 months is not reliable for me)
winners <90% (seems like this high winning rate not reliable and high loss trade is imminent at that point, also those strates have avg. win < avg. loss which is not right)
All above strats are Stocks or Options.
I have counted 87 non TOS strats that meet the same criteria.
TOS seems to be a quality mark for me (if I were to invest in any of those strats) as it proves that signal provider puts his money where his mouth is.
Also having a good strat and not playing with real money or seems confusing.
Can someone tell me why there are so few TOS strats?
I do not have TOS for the reason that I asked me to do TOS and I was hooked up to auto-trading my system. -))) I then laughed for a long time. He asked me to do one thing, and I did another. Then I did not change anything, but left as is.
I think it is just because trading is hard. It is easy to “do well” when no one can see your real track record. But when you have to perform and show all your trades and be verified by a third party the reality that trading is difficult become apparent.
TOS also removes about 80% of the ways someone can game the C2 system early on.
You do have to to either pay extra to AutoTrade your own strategy or you have to buy a high enough plan to do broker transmit. Both of which are worth it if you get enough subs and collect higher premiums.
The reality is that most people just think they will trade better than they actually can. If you have what it takes to be a good TOS leader you should do it. As you noted we need more good TOS strategies.
I respectfully disagree with needing to be TOS in order to be confirmed as a good trading methodology. Been trading a long time and it never fails that when trading your own money, emotion gets in the way of following a technical or fundamental trading approach…especially in futures trading. If you have been trading a long time, there is no one out there that hasn’t deviated from their system when trading their own money. You will eventually take profit before you should or chicken out and get out before your trading approach signals you to do so. In my experience, if not trading my own money, I absolutely follow my trade plan without fail for my subscribers. I would think that following the trade plan without fail, is more important to the subscriber than the leader trading his own money. And if not trading your own money, one tends to focus on the the trade plan and not the profit or loss of is own money. Also, if you have subscribers trading your system, isn’t that the same as TOS?
Interesting perspective and it makes sense. But you get more commissions with TOS without charging subs anything extra. Couldn’t you set up a very small account of your own to follow with and earn and earn 60% instead of 50% of sub fees? You could even give subs a discount if you wanted.
I have a real trading account with broker Oanda, I wanted to make a TOS in my system, but my account was hooked up for auto-trading. Well they work that way. There was a responsible person. I say I need a TOS according to my strategy, and he connected me to auto-trading of my system.
Thanks for your view guys, personally I am leaning towards Dwight’s opinion mainly because for potential investor it takes a lot more due dilligence to find out which non-TOS strats are reliable.
I am sure there are legit strats in that pool but I imagine there are many who will try to maximize their revenue from subscriptions in short term, overleverage etc. so they will play more risky and freely than they would do with their money.
In other words if investor is not willing to bet money on his strategy I will probably not invest my money in his strat. TOS is the easiest way to prove it, and also you get more from your followers (60%)
@SmartTraderMS, there are pros and cons to traders trading with their own money. They tend to be too conservative which may reduce profits at the same time the conservativeness also prevents them from trading like a madman.
Why there aren’t more TOS systems is that typically traders that can make money on their own strategies probably don’t need the hassle of trading for others for the small monthly fees they collect since all they need to do is add more size to make more money.
Of course there are exceptions as well.
Good luck finding a strategy that fits your risk tolerance, trading style and profit potential!
I had ToS on my strategies but stopped because C2 charges me the monthly auto-trade fee for my own strategies (my trades are automated through the C2 API, rather than being manually placed in my brokerage account and mirrored to C2).
I would trade TOS, but my broker isn’t one of the available ones. My signals, however, are actually automatically emailed to C2, each time I fill a trade, so it’s basically the same as TOS.
I’ve just joined C2 but I don’t think I’d qualify from what I’ve read about TOS. I’m in Canada and it doesn’t seem to support any Canadian broker and C2 won’t accept brokerage accounts from Canadians. Otherwise I would definitely sign on.
@AlgoSystems I didn’t realize Amp takes Canadian customers. I looked at IB when I first started trading futures but their margin requirements were extremely high - about $8k needed to trade a single ES contracts.
By the sounds of this thread, it doesn’t seem like a TOS badge has a huge benefit but comes with a fairly large cost. I’ll look at it more closely after I gain some experience and subs on the platform.
Also, IB has 8k margins for overnite but lower for day margins. A TOS badge typically give some subs the feeling the trade leader will not overleverage their trading account so typically it would be much faster to get subs with a TOS badge. Its not always guaranteed to get subs even with TOS unless your system has lower drawdowns and good returns.
It would appear that two of my strategies on this platform are top ranked yet and are not TOS on C2. Based on some of the answers posted here I can see the perspective of the professional hasn’t been offered.
I’m a registered investment advisor and for compliance ethical reasons reasons I place my trades on C2 after I place them for clients. In addition, in case of a regulatory audit I want the auditor to see that I’m trading with the same positions and fills as clients.
Clients should not be subordinate to customers on this platform.
