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I see most leading strategy, popular strategy, and feature strategy 90% of them are not TOS certified. Then I read the forum, a lot subscribers would be better off subbing to a TOS system than just any paper trading system.
Then again I don’t see C2 give any promotion or educate the important of a TOS system vs a paper trading system. I can see because c2 won’t want to lose 90% of the listing revenue from these paper trading strategies.
I feel like TOS system will always be an underdog on c2. A TOS system will most likely get lower % of gains than a paper trading strategy. Or it won’t look as good on statistic as paper trade stategies.
To my pt, I wish c2 will promote more on TOS systems vs non TOS systems.
There is no advantage to be TOS certified.
No discount system fees.
No subscribers discount fees.
In the leading section, there is no badge to tell that a system is TOS.
In my personal case, the unique reason that i am TOS certified is because i wanted to attach my broker account to my C2 system and i had no choice
i was obliged to be TOS certified to did that.
But in the other hand, you have on C2 some systems TOS certified with drawdown superior at 48%, so subscribers have no garanty against a big lose of there equity.
In second, a trader who has TOS certfied syst with enough capital don’t look after subscribers because he earn much more money with his trades than with the subscribers fees.
The C2 model which forbid to get a % of subscribers gains make TOS systems very rare.
You are correct. TOS doesn’t mean is it’s a guaranteed winner or reduced risk. But it’s the mindset of the manager. Managing real money or managing Monopoly money. Even its TOS certified, you still need to do your own home work. There are system that is TOS on $2k or even $10k. That might be pocket change to the manager, but so for a sub. You still need to do your own research and see what the strategy actually invest in. Naked option or max position on 1 trade or leveraged to max margin every day…
The reason I think TOS should be more promoted because that is the beauty of c2, same reason why I setup a new IB acct with 100k to start fresh on c2. I see so many trade service, Twitter alert service and other trading service that has NO SKIN in the game. That’s what c2 seperate a from everyone else. It shows the subscriber that what alert they get is what is actually happening on a real brokerage account. Just because TOS doesn’t mean you should follow it blindly and let it auto trade the next day.
I browse thru a lot of the leading strategies on here. Most of the issue on c2 is usually non TOS certify strategies. For example, I just saw a new strategy NON TOS. Starts with a 10k, but c2 allowed him to buy 50k worth of a 3x leveraged ETF… Well, if you are a sub, first thing you should realize there is no broker will allow a 10k acct to buy 50k worth of dust or nugt on a first trade. Maybe 20k at the most.
Also saw another forex strategy non TOS. Start with 5k, first trade was 500k lot of GBP trade right before brexit. Yes that strategy is now at up 65k. But what forex broker will allow that trade or a real money manager will risk 5k and have a chance of losing 100k and owe your broker -95k. But that’s the outcome when you are managing paper money. If the trade goes bad, delete strategy and start over…
If what you described is true than C2 is broken and needs to be fixed ASAP. It makes no sense for C2 to ask what amount a developer wants to start their account strategy with and then allows that same developer to trade with a larger amount above and beyond that stated threshold. What broker in their right mind would allow someone with 5K to invest 500K which that person don’t have (using margin is only 2x at best)? If this is what is happening then there are folks just manipulating C2 to obviously “inflate” their strategies’ statistics, and C2 need to put in some kind of a fix in place to stop this practice. .
[I] … saw another forex strategy… Start with 5k, first trade was 500k lot of GBP trade right before brexit…
I immediately asked for information about which specific strategy ID this was, so that I could investigate. VixTrader was unable to provide any supporting details.
If this did happen, of course I’ll investigate and fix, but for now I’ll assume this was an honest mistake by VixTrader, and that no strategy on C2 bought 50,000,000 currency units with only 5K of Model Account capital just before the Brexit vote.
Matthew, can you please do us a favor and clarify as to what it means (or the difference, if any at all) when C2 states “minimum capital required” for a system and what a developer starts trading with? Is the “minimum capital required” pertaining to the strategy developer’s need or to the potential subscriber? If you can kindly answer that then it might be able to clarify some confusion (at least for me). Thank you.
“Minimum Capital Required” is C2’s best approximation of the minimum amount of capital required to AutoTrade a strategy at the lowest possible AutoTrading Scaling %. (When you set up AutoTrade, you will be able to set a Scaling %, which tells C2 how big or small to make the trades.)
Some strategies require a minimum capital that is unrelated to the quantity which the strategy trades. For example, a stock-trading strategy that triggers pattern-day-trading flags will always require a minimum of $25,000, no matter how small you set your Scaling %.
Similarly, a strategy that legs into and out of multi-legged positions will require a higher minimum capital than a strategy that places single-unit trades (which can easily be “scaled-down” to single units.)
Ok, to clarify and so that we are on the same page, the minimum capital required is for the purposes of the potential subscriber and not the systems developer then. That helps, but then here is another issue. C2 is not enforcing the system developers to follow the same rules that a potential subscriber trading in a real live account has to follow then. Case in a point, there is a popular “day-trading” account here that started trading with only 10K in his account and makes routine “round trip” trades on a regular basis but yet the account’s value is still under 25K. Shouldn’t that account owner be forced to start trading with 25K (as would be the case in a real account) because in reality that system developer who would not able to have the freedom and flexibility to make those regular intra-day trades and close out his open positions on a daily basis without any restrictions with having less than 25K in his account.
A Model Account is just hypothetical account showing trades denominated at some base capital amount.
That base capital amount is set for easy reference; outside of TOS-Certified systems, there is no suggestion that a strategy developer trades a system at that quantity.
Also, keep in mind that strategies can be “rescaled” ex-post (much like a stock split) to keep quantities manageable.
Keep in mind that subscribers can day trade a system, such as the one you mention, as part of a much larger brokerage account. For example, if my brokerage account is, say $150K, then I can day trade a system as a sub for any amount I desire under $25K.
Matthew, I definitely understand where you are coming from. I just think it would be more “realistic” for a potential subscriber’s sake if the system developer followed the same rules that the subscriber would have to follow as well. It seems a bit disjointed when a 10K “day trading” account is trading at only 40% of the minimum requirement for a subscriber in a real life account, This 10K account doubles to 20K (having unlimited freedom to get in and out of his trades as he chooses without any financial constraints) and all of a sudden the developer appears to be a superstar when in reality the developer would not have the freedom to operate as such with only 10K. I know the developer’s results and statistics are hypothetical but it certainly doesn’t reflect the “reality” of the constraints a real live account would have to deal with.
CoreyR, what about those potential subscribers who have less than 25K (less say with 10-20k or whatever amount the developer’s account is currently at, at less than 25k) and want to “mimic” exactly what the developer is doing - a developer who has unlimited freedom and flexibility to trade as much as he wants, a luxury that a subscriber with less than 25K may not be able to afford? The developer’s stats looks great because he has no restrictions but a potential subscriber with the exact same amount of money cannot do what the developer is doing if he followed and mimic the developer’s every move and trade to a tee.
Forgive me, but I must politely disagree with your analysis.
No one is suggesting, “I am a strategy developer, and I am doing exactly this in my own personal trading account, at exactly these quantities.”
Rather, the idea behind the C2 Model Account is to say, “For any given $X in capital, my strategy is to trade like this. Scale up or down as needed.”
Of course you as a subscriber may not have exactly $X, but you’ll be able to adjust up or down accordingly, based on the amount in the C2 Model Account, and the amount in your own brokerage account.
On the other hand, for Trades-Own-System-Certified Systems, the developers are trading the strategy at the quantities shown on C2.
Each model has its place. It depends what you’re looking for: a pure trading model, or a trading model that a developer trades with his own capital. Each has its place in a trading arsenal.
Matthew, no pleasantries need. I appreciate your candor and open and honest constructiveness. My gripe, if anything at all, has much to do with “day trading” systems (for stocks and options) with less than the required 25k (as needed in a real account). I just think that these systems would serve their potential subscribers better if their developers started trading with at least the minimum required amount of capital their subscribers are forced to have in their own accounts.
Surely you are not suggesting that developers try to adjust to every possible account configuration? If a sub’s account has limitation due to size, retirement account restrictions, their brokerage firm, etc. then one can choose from one of the many C2 system that are otherwise suitable. Heck, I am trading with a relatively large amount of funds and cannot utilize some larger sized systems at 100% because I am diversified among smaller systems. And I am OK with that.
C2 does a great job providing a platform of equal access to a variety of choices but I don’t believe it is their responsibility to provide traders with a perfect fit in every instance.
CoreyR, please refer to my reply to Matthew. My “pet peeve” is mostly inclined towards “day trading” equities/options systems. I guess I have a different perspective than most here on C2 having worked in the brokerage services industry for over a decade and understanding the frustrations and difficulties that my clients had to go thru with margin calls and pattern day trading restrictions, among other things. I guess I am too much of a “customer advocate,” or in this case, a “C2 subscriber advocate”.
Pattern day trading restrictions vary per instrument class. If you cannot follow an equity trading account due to ptd then dont invest in that strategy. 25k ptd reqs are for equities, not the same rules for futures and forex. Find something new to trade if you want to day trade.
This strategy was the one I found a month ago on 6/9/16 with 5k placing a 500 lot purchase of GBP/YEN. I came across this on 6/10/16 after seeing that strategy has 2000% gain in 1 day. Now I tried to go back to see the trade, it’s not there anymore. So it’s corrected or it was prob a glitch.
The other strategy I came across was a called svxy/vxx/ETF. Acct started with 10k grew to 15k, then long 1500 shares of XIV, valued around 38k-40k. Yes, I guess some brokers will allow that kind of leverage. But that’s just my pt of manage real $ vs trading paper money. If the strategy failed, no sweat just start over. But your subs are trading real money and losing real money. Since none of the managers here are RIA, no accountability also for taking high risk. When your subs losing real money, manager has nothing to lose. They keep coming back with the mind set of keep swinging for the fences.
You mentioned strategy svxy/vxx/ETF started with 10k.
I am the developer of this strategy.
svxy/vxx/ETF started with 25k, not 10k.
You can look at it this way: since this strategy started a month ago, it gained 36%.Now it has equity of about 34700.
If it started with 10K, at equity of 34k, it would gained 340%. Thanks for promote my strategy, but I am honest and my strategy didn’t grow that much. Check for yourself:
