3/3/2012:Fully expect a sharp drawdown between 45-75%. The recent $132,000 profit was obviously too large for a reasonable size.

As far as margin, this looks about how mine went when going "on tilt."

It is only up 20% from start now with 70% drawdown.

5.1.2009: Stats are about in line with where I was at his age. Becoming a fan, and has not overleveraged himself. Takes month long positions with high volatility during the trade, but times entries well so drawdown is not captured completely. Sharpe may trend lower after this, and APD to about 0.75 in his next drawdown, still high though. Trades Stocks Cumu P/L $77,515 Compound Ann Return 105.5% # Trades 14 Sharpe Ratio 2.41 Realism Factor 100% Subscribe for: 7-day free trial, then $75 each month 12/22/2009:Remember, No Russian. Long term top.

11/17/2009: Discretionary.

10/21/2009:TIIIIMMMMMBBBEEEERRRR!!!!!!! This guy is a high win percent junkie, and has obviously averaged into a massively overleveraged trade. Not surprisingly, it is a forex system....play the queen track, another one bites the dust. I would expect some more down, probably till cumulative profit is -40,000, definitely to zero. I really hope no one is subscribed to it. Last negative review was months ago. Don't know.

10/6/2009:Big LOL, vendor states Risk management is the most important factor for forex trading. My system generates return based on NO leverage speculations. With long time frame of one or two days per trade, the risk of the system are highly be controlled. Don't be fooled. This is overleveraged by greater than 2000 to 1. Good contratrade here, poor grammar, too. Current Stats: Trades Forex Cumu P/L $835,829 Compound Ann Return 10000000000000000000000.0% # Trades 18 Sharpe Ratio 4.15 Realism Factor 100% Subscribe for: $10 per profitable trade

Overview The system developer writes: GSH bot is a long only stock trading system based on methods of data mining. Yeah, about what you'd expect. Data mining never works.

Well, the only reason I have for commenting on this system is that this system lost $600+ thousand in less than 2 minutes, and only lost 1.25 points on a 10,000 contract S&P trade. Don't ask me how he was able to buy 10,000 contracts, but he did, and if there was ever an instance where we can point to overleverage as a cause of bankruptcy, total bankruptcy, it's this system. Don't be fooled by test, I can still click on the trades. Beware this vendor.

6/18/2009: System has these stats Realism Factor 98.7 Trades 158 Profitable 111 Losses 47 Win % 70.3% APD Ratio 0.49 Correlation w/ S&P -0.008 Cumu $ $514,288 after typical commission $487,213 and real-life slippage $487,209 Keep after worst-case slippage 71.0% Avg Win $8,872 Avg Loss $9,990 Profit Factor 2.1:1 P/L per unit $110.39 after typical commission $107.89 after real-life slippage $107.89 Avg Trade Length 8.8 hours Compound Annual % 614.4% over 311 days Sharpe Ratio 3.575 Max Drawdown 35.99% (20081009 to 20081010) Risk of 20% account loss 28.6% Risk of 50% account loss 0.0% Risk of 100% account loss 0.0% Has a 36% DD APR of 614%. I think cash cow can beat this after 311 days. Will have to trade leveraged to overcome the curve. Realism is not a problem. Lots of trades for the year. Game on, Game on.

3/25/2009: Recommended contratrade. Vendor is not confident with his $7 per profitable trade b/c he knows it's a fluke. Current stats: Trades Futures Cumu P/L $31,683 Compound Ann Return 267167366905856000.0% # Trades 32 Sharpe Ratio 8.94 Realism Factor 99% Subscribe for: $7 per profitable trade 5/10/2009: Wasn't that a good trade....

My mom always told me not to play with explosives, too...

2/13/2009:APD today is at 1.4, and just to prove a point, most likely APD will decline 3 months from now. But that won't be a bad thing, because it looks like it has positive expectancy. Just wanted to temper expectations for people. 5/10/2009: Close enough to the three month timeline I had put forward. APD is now .45. As I have discovered this is a bit above a decent .2, but has only outperformed the S&P by 10.9%. I'ts now 16 weeks old and appears to have been fit on downward sloping data or in a down market, as the performance since the reversal has been poor at best. My system, pairs trading QID QLD scalper has outperformed this system.

Impressive. I liked topology when I studied, too, but I'm not actually sure in what way it would be applicable in the market as a two dimensional setting. Unrealistic to expect these results in c2, otherwise, nice. Realism below 70 is why it cannot be attained. Upon further review it's also exorbitantly expensive. 3/25/2009: Recommended contratrade Topology01 Trades Stocks Cumu P/L $730,298 Compound Ann Return 2411.5% # Trades 133 Sharpe Ratio 1.41 Realism Factor 65% Subscribe for: $100 per profitable trade Would be free to contratrade.

Exactly the kind of vendor behaviour that gives C2 a bad name...

12/3/2008:The vendor asked me to review the system. I like the stats so far, but I couldn't tell what the rationale behind the averaging down portion was. Because all 10 trades so far have been winners naturally it's going to have high, good looking stats. I'm going to watch to see what the win percentage is a couple months from now. The biggest cause for concern with this one is the realism factor. I have a feeling that the vendor's statements about using a median average long price with a subscriber base is what he'll have to do, which could decrease the long term potential of the system. Yeah, don't think for a second 3800% APR's are sustainable. There are some vendors here that would tell you that that is a sustainable rate, but they always collapse as they take larger risks to keep it going. I don't believe that is the case with this particular vendor. I liked reading the rationale of the system, but what I failed to understand was the connection between the VIX and these particular securities. There's nothing remarkable about any of the stocks he has traded, but it appears that there was some logic into it. I believe the long term APR a couple months out will be around 100%, and about 8 months from now somewhere between 30 and 90%. The reason for the excessive compounding is a 30% up day or big turnaround period. His biggest win was an average down situation with approximately 40% of his equity into one no name stock. Good thing it went up. My understanding is examining the VIX and comparing that to the historical statistics and correlations with whatever stocks are in his watchlist. 2/28/2009: A lot more trades, and they have not gotten the system anywhere.

12/01/2008:Managed to get someone to subscribe to a system that has an 86% drawdown. Ex Post Edit: Craig asked me why I'm so critical. How about 155 contracts open, or the equivalent of the S&P E-mini at $50 a point on 155 contracts means he was betting his island on one trade. There's a couple more with those equivalents on there. It strikes me as a gambling system, not trading, and there's a big difference. 2/28/2009: Nice leap year. Looks like the real system started last I commented on it. APR is really about 120% presently, with what looks like 10% dd. How'd I get that? The curve from 12/1/08 was at about 700 going to 900 about. About a 30% return, dummy answer times 4, and we get 120 about. DD's been reasonable since then, but for the whole of the system, unreasonable. 5/10/2009. Lower from initial comment.

From the vendor's advertisement in his forum: "It is free to trial, low cost to subscribe. It has got an average win of over $4000. It is proven with statistical analysis over 4 years with 10 to 60 stocks analysed to selected only those stocks with the best chance of success." Yes, he's described how he has perfectly curve fitted his system , with significant survivorship bias. Watch out for these descriptions. A couple hours later was corrected by saying it was a real time test.

11/8/08:After initial post changed the price from 2 grand a month to $89/month. A much better price. Good looking stats except for the average profit to the average loss, which has marginally improved to an average win of 389 from 279. 2/28/09: Has a Gambling problem.

Perfect example of how Phatkicker systems work. If it didn't go up 30% in the first day, try again....Sorry, Craig, we can go down your history of systems and see them basically in chronological order.

10/18/2008: Crashed, but everyone should have saw this coming with the 43% drawdown prior to that. I sell annuities with an apr above 6.8% with no risk, so I guess you know what's better after 5 years.

Last 9 trades are data errors, so pay no attention to anything but the 93.3% drawdown. That's closer to the return on this system.

Compound Ann Return: 10000000000000000000000.0% WOW! I'll be the richest man in the universe in three days at that rate. 11/3/2008:834413736755200.0% APR 1/11/2009: Craig's trades haven't looked respectable of late, having challenged him to an APR/DD ratio contest. Not like it's a real bet, but just a demonstration of leverage.

An accident waiting to happen.

YES! We can't spell trading, but we'll overleverage ourselves on every commodity under the sun for your enjoyment! Formerly IXIA trading, and made most profitable in a quarter until a few weeks ago.

Very good stats. Sharpe 17.69, APR at 164.9%. Dilemna is that a review after less than 30 days as a system is a tad suspicious, and reads like an ad. P/L after commission is about $1k less. One to watch, I think. The DD will definitely increase as this is not sustainable. People have asked what will stop it from being bogged down by commissions and slippage. 34084782 STO 1,200 POT 198.00 199.30 -1.30 7/28/08 14:29 34084819 BTC 600 POT 198.06 198.30 +0.24 7/28/08 14:29 $0 Don't take my word for it. It's right there in the first trade. A STO at a hypothetical price of 199.3 and a hypothetical fill of 198.3...all in the same minute. The real fill is sto@198 btc@198.06. Keep after worst case slippage I think is at 65%. Could have problems with execution and the vendor seems to be active asking technical questions about gen3 software or other autotrading features. Don't misunderstand me, though. His system has impressive hypoethical results, and is actually the best hypothetical risk adjusted system I've seen in a long time. However, the reality is that you cannot get these results, and that keep after worst case slippage is very telling. Props on the system, as the hypothetical is very good, but it's not possible. It's not really that this system in particular gives C2 its reputation as a fantasy stock portfolio land, but that intraday systems aren't usually viable long term as the equity builds, and you can see that in extreme-OS on this page, too. 8/15/2008:Vendor has a lot of integrity. He contacted me after I posted the first part of the review here. But I say that because he admitted the c2 fills are a bit of a problem to obtain. The fact that he's willing to say that says a lot about his professional candor. I'd like to compare it as a superior extreme-os, which has the same fill problem, though you'd never hear it from them. 5/10/2009: Back, and immediately drewdown. Realism factor improved marginally, but we can see that performance is severly affected.

What I find so amusing is that all the reviews came at the same time. 8/10/2008: Appeared on losers of the month at -100.7%. About right. So you lost all your money trying to gain 15 times your money consistently. Is anybody surprised?

By the equity curve you'd expect to see a lot of good reviews. It's fatal flaw is commission. It seems you'd never be able to overcome it. A year and a month old with 1520 trades. Lots of commission. Even at $8 per trade or $16 round trip doesn't look good here. 1/11/2009: So I'm making my predictions for the systems I follow. I think Defiant won't do as well. I believe the vendor has scaled back on his position sizing having attained a attractive compound annual growth rate. 2/28/2009: Spot on for the comments from 1/11/2009.

7/13/2008:Pretty funny. I hope no one takes it seriously, though. Yep, looks about right, doesn't it? What's funnier to me is that this is followed by Cari Bourette.

I did have other comments for this system, but they've been lost in cyberspace. A very disciplined trader. This is one of the only five systems that shows on my screen. It was a little scary to watch around the beginning of the year, but has adapted well. 11/17/2008: Doesn't show on my screen anymore. I'm a bit surprised by the trades of late. 1/11/2009: Well, if you fall let's get back up and try again.

Trading the opposite of this system would work very well. A nice, consistent loser? What else could a trader want?

See the real ETF-MMO on x1st try. 7/16/2008:I feel a do-over coming on.

I don't know why people watch a 6 trade system that' been around for about 6 months. 8/14/2008: Meets all of my criteria, but suggests there is a particular factor of concern for me. Correlation with the S&P is 0.403, which is quite high, if you ask me. Positive reviews have been in a predominantly up-trending market environment that never lasts. Average trade time is 2.9 weeks, so imagine how much damage can be done if he's wrong after 2.9 weeks. Still looking like one of the best systems on here, but I really have to say it is an up-market system at this point. Whipsawing is seen on the equity curve. If he can call the top, I'll give him some praise. Trade length is too long for any technical indicator to be of any value. Probably an SMA type system. 8/25/2008: Just a matter of time before the negative reviews start coming in. 9/24/2008:The legnth of time that his trades are open is the problem. Compare Conservative Growth, Extreme-OS, or PTQQS for reasonable periods. I'm not convinced it will come back either. 11/17/2008: This latest review really got to me. You were basically trusting an 8 trade system when you started, and now we've still not seen a statistically significant amount of trades. Piggy backs aren't trades: they're adding on to the position, and part of the same trade. He still only has 17 trades as we speak. Your main problem wasn't that you couldn't follow him, but that you didn't listen to me in particular when I stated there wasn't a significant number of trades to say anything about. Anyway, good luck to you. Sometimes I think about fixed products, too...

5/24/2008:I thought Ross's "KABLOOEY" post was a very apt, informed way to put this system. This is still just buy & hold as I have previously mentioned. He has only 3 closed trades that the public can see. So what are the other 5? Tick tock tick tock tick tock... yeah, you guessed. More buys, some pyramiding averaging down positions that destroy systems, too. Ready to drive another one into the ground. You all just wait to see when he finally closes these positions. I can read vendors like this pretty well. In his defense, though it's still irresponsible to be long through the entire DD, I also got caught in the downdraft, but I would probably agree with the position momentarily longer term out past 2 weeks.

4/28/2008:This is the best Elliot Wave system I've seen. Sure it's sarcastic, but any system trading such non-sensical curve fitted theories should know this is the most likely outcome. Way to go following that Elliot theory, isn't it something like "Stocks go up, and stocks go down?" Definitely.

5/6/08:Lots of bad reviews lately. It could have been avoided by following my suggestions in my profile before blowing money on it. About 80 days to go before trying it. 5/7/2008: I actually think it's a very good system. It just shows how fickle subscribers are. He's annualizing a lot and if he keeps DD below 20, that's a good system. A better question for its subscribers is: "What'd you expect?" You got to go through down periods too when you're subscribing. The reason you lose money is because you lose your nerve and never get it back. That's one of the mistakes. I don't really care, but, for the price, it was probably fine. He does only have 16 trades, I might add. On the review today it is quite misguided, and misses the point of the site as a 3rd party verifier of trading systems. You subscribed with less than 12 trades. No one I had subscribed to me with less than that so I guess this says more about the pricing on the site than about the quality of the vendors. Interesting....

I would have to say I'm winning this bet. 5/20/2008: Quite amusing. This is the only vendor I've ever hasseled like this, but go read the paper! You'll be laughing for hours. 5/22/2008: Just noticed a lame attempt to cover up how flawed the entire array of systems are. This system was called ETF-MMO, and now that she's thoroughly slammed this into the ground she'll go start a new one. 5/24/2008: Noticed a claim that she was right about crude, which is not the case cause that was apparently the last straw for her in this system. Getting crude dead wrong in a security that has done nothing but go down during its life.

Very good system. Not scaleable, however, but that's not a bad thing since people don't have $100k here. I think it is over people's heads, though. The win percentage is exactly what is to be expected, and is probably one of the only vendors that tells the truth that he has been trading for 10 or more years. These are the kind of systems you'd expect from someone with that level of experience.

THE WORLD'S FIRST COMPUTERIZED MOOD RING TRADING SYSTEM! HA!....HAHAHA! Really? Hardly. I guess we'll have to go long if Cramer sports his PINK TIE! GOD HELP US IF HE HAS A JET BLACK TIE! 4/8/08:What a horrible misuse of statistics. 30 trades, probability you get the next 100 in a row correct is 0...for every system really. First change in trend and down. Sure, there are a lot of systems that can be said to go by the same statistic, but here's the rub:no stops and you're willingness to risk 50% of the account is what's not going to work. There are a couple systems on here with 95%+win percentages...better than a coinflip if that's the only metric you want to go by. It's that 1 trade that absolutely destroys these systems. And, I might add, it seems you have admitted to having no money management in your system. No stops is equivalent to unlimited account loss as you will always invariably lose twice in a row the maximum you ever thought was possible. 4/9/2008: Shill review. Any system with a free trial shouldn't be given any credence. This means either review doesn't matter, though the first one is more accurate. 43%DD. The next 40+%DD will wipe out this susbscriber and significantly impair the "amazing" statistics. The APD has gone from 1.2 to 0.83 during todays trading. For the low down, please see MMO and Cramer's Pink Tie in the forum.

Data error, my bad.

1 to 2 contracts with no return then up to 100 contracts. Misused leverage.

I am looking forward to more of their calls. Long term predictions so realism falters as buy six months ago is not a possible trade. 9.24.2008:Lost millions on a $100k account. Good job, and I suspect Dataglobe holdings is a shell entity for these guys.

Ex post, about may of 2007: Outstanding system. If I was comfortable enough to trade futures at all, or currencies, this would be the system to use. Chris was kind enough to let me see the watered down version of his tradeslist. I found the curve exceptional. In his backtest, I think it was 1 mill became 1.6 bil, and I feel that that would be an accurate assesment. I would not be surprised of seeing 2 mil in the next couple years on this curve. My only criticism, might be the fact that I believe once large enough, though nowhere near that point yet, scalability could become an issue. Since I can't see which markets the contracts are for, I can say, though, that I could be wrong about that. On an initial conversation with this vendor, I told him I thought a weekly system on 28 futures markets would be extremely tough to build. His success and ability to adapt to multiple markets his strategies confirm a robust, accurate backtest. Good job. 8/15/2008: Let's set some new highs. 9/24/2008:Still floundering 1/11/2009: I believe breakouts should have marginally better performance this year, as I believe the markets this system trades will be trending predominantly.

I think this is overleveraged, up 190% in 2 days. I had much more colorful comments on the first day this "system" came out. Only the vendor knows what I said was true. 6/22/2008: To get an idea what this vendor was doing, see the name of the system's history. He was charging somewhere around $798/month simply because he quintupled the account. Now to 0.

I'll just tell him what is wrong with this system before anybody subscribes. If you're basing your backtest on a detection of negative or positve correlation, most likely your backtest won't be valid because you had to first detect the correlation, and, only then, run the backtest. I'd be highly dubious of this, as that's the underlying problem with all stock pairs systems. Obviously the way I get around this is a trade secret that I'm not about to share with anybody. Also, the pairs are not correlated high enough. The pairs he did trade off were -.6, and this could be attributed to randomness, not pure correlation. 5/20/2008: How cute. P/L of $1.

I would take issue saying any system on here is scientific. There's a lot of misuse of the word on this site. We'll see if he can do that 20 more times. Personally I think he'll lose an entire position on worthless calls or puts. His first trade was nothing stellar as he drewdown 15k on his first trade, though he did make 8k after that. 2 Trades, but I'm watching. 11/5/2007: So four trades and leveraged out the wazoo, with probably no chance of getting these fills, as you can see by the realism at 45%. 11/17/2007: So, 5 trades, realism at a paltry 29%, and DD of 60+%. I do believe I saw that coming.

9/24/2007:I'd have to say I agree with the vendor. Fundamentals are the only market force in the long run. On a shorter term basis though, I've found statistical anomalies that can be exploited. I am very interested in seeing if the vendor traded reputable companies to get these results. 3 trades, not closed out, and up 60% is quite impressive. Sharpe at 14.23, though this number is not sustainable. If annualizing greater than 200% in six months will be an excellent system to watch. DD of 8% is acceptable for this kind of return. If the annualization stops below 50% it would probably not be worth it. We'll wait for a few months. Good show so far.

Honestly I don't know where this vendor gets off telling subscribers and potential subscribers that 20% DD on futures trades is not a lot. Am I the only person that thinks futures are too risky for anybody but institutions? Again, assuming I have 50k to invest, I would still only recommend at most 1 futures contract. I can't believe this vendor can say that with a straight face and think he'll get anymore subscribers to his system. It's like saying, "Yea, we'll risk it all to make 100%." This is not a realistic way of assesing risk. There's nothing invincible about this reckless endangerment of subscriber funds. It's inexcusable and I shouldn't even have to say no or tell you to say no. Apparently the recent review was written following the second DD, but warning signs were very apparent six months earlier than that. 9/11/2007:No risk management equals no account to invest. If there is still someone out there subscribed, I'd hope that they take their losses and stop. Now with an astronomically high DD, vendor's statement is pathetic, to say the least. No trader, even in futures, would ever drawdown this much. 11/6/07: So, now the account is worth -816? Wow, once you got it down to +$2, I think you proved your point. You don't know how to trade.

3/14/2008:Out of control, Now? Sharpe 0.19, therefore: I'll trade $1 for $0.19 anybody? Don't think so. This system isn't worth it. 9/30/2007: I really get the impression this is two systems, one started at the begininning of the year, and the other later on. Commenting about the later curve, it has been quite impressive. 10/17/2007: Really I looked at his results and I do like his profitability and style, but commodities just aren't something I'm interested in trading. I do think he understands how to exploit market emotion in his contracts as in his spreadsheet captured a few weeks worth of volatility in both directions, kind of a zug-zwang type trade. I think when you find a trader that knows how to do that, that they have most likely mastered their craft. I would include myself in that regard too. A word about volatility, volatility is inherent on the way up and on the way down. It sickens me that the media only refers to volatility on the way down. It moves both ways, but when you're on the right side of it for a few days, and reverse your position, it's even more pleasurable and it should be taken as a sign that the trader knows what he's doing and that his methods are absolutely sound. It's very rare that this happens, but even if it happens once it's very likely that someone can do it again in the future if the trades were over a statistically significant period of time as this vendors stats were.

This guy is not smart at all. Trade QID for long NDX? Trade QLD for short NDX? I guess his equity curve would be the other way around if he actually traded the right direction. I can't say enough bad things about someone who doesn't even understand the market he's trading. I'm quite sure he was not leveraged on QID or QLD to lose all this money. I'm sure he went long 1000 NQ calls or something really stupid like that. 10/17/2007: Still has not understood the nature of QID or QLD. Still says to use QID for long NDX and QLD for short NDX. Pretty stupid.

06/20/2007 was probably the date I stated the following: I'm not sure what to think here. 6 trades in call options don't really mean that much. I think 28 calls might be a bit much. Just by the math, 28 calls times 100 shares times 147 dollars is about 411k, or his notional value. Though he pays much less than this for the calls, it might be a little too risky. We'll have to see how he does. 7/29/2007: You know, the fact that he's trading index options on the S&P, and that he cut losses quickly, might indicate above average money management skills. I still would not want to trade the amount of options contracts he does, but in the short term this is quite a good sign. 9/1/2007: Currently am subscribed to it just to see if he actually goes short at all. All of his trades have been calls, with no inverse movements in the market. Trading systems need to be able to go short as well as long. I'm not a very big subscriber to anybody who only goes long or to long only fund mentality. 9/30/2007: While not a review I wanted to clear up that this is a long only system currently, but his timing has been a little off so far, though I don't have enough trade experience with him to comment about how he'll do over the long run. I'm still waiting on his full backtest and theoretical explanation of his system. 1/22/2008: Holy cow, averaging down on overnight trades huge. Not a credible system anymore.

So I have edited the comments. Braden's good to talk to. Once again it is really a question of style as I have said in some of my other posts. 360 trades in 484 days is a lot to me. About a trade everyday. Compound annual and Sharpe are fine at 2.44. Very few systems with sharpes above 2 after 2 years. I guess we will wait to see. I am pretty sure I will get there, but only time will tell for so many of the systems here...as I am recently finding. 1/22/2008: Nice recovery. I notice the stats are attractive again. That is what will happen to my system, too, when it starts climbing. It is a temporary lull for both of us. 3/17/2008: Now ranked as one of the top 0.5% of the site. Kudos. Need to get the ES version up there!

System description 8/21/2007: OUR BUYS/SELLS SIGNALS ARE THE RESULT OF A MATHEMATIC SCIENTIFIC MODEL THAT USE THE SUPPLY AND DEMAND LAW. THE MODEL GIVES FROM 6 TO 12/14 TRADES PER YEAR. Response: Probably does not know what he's talking about because there is no such thing as a mathematic model. He thinks just because he is mechanical that he has something scientific. I don't claim any science behind auto-trading or trading. That's actually incredibly naive to say that. I think what he is actually trying to say is quantitative. Though, by his lack of understanding for what is scientific, he doesn't even know that. Also, 7 trades is too early to say anything about his performance. 10/22/2007: Wait... what? $600? per month? more like per year. Jesus, this is ridiculous, and pathetic for the performance. It's very laughable. Unless you double the account sometime very soon, like within the next three months, no one should ever pay for this. Not only do they not get what you can call mathematical and scientific, but they don't even know they're market! $600/month on somebody's 50k account, which is my own estimate for the average subscriber's account size on c2, is 10%/ month in management fees. Absolutely ridiculous unless he thinks there's big cat traders here. Mine is based, like I said, on a 1% of assets for a 50k account, or about $50/month, not $600! I'd love to get what these guys are on thinking they can get away that. Their credibility just goes down more and more as the days go by with these kind of shennanigans. 11/5/2007: So have you doubled the account yet? For 600 a month I'd hope so. No trades since I commented before.

DO NOT TRADE! DO NOT TRADE! As I spoke about HAWK-FX, ALL FOREX SYSTEMS SHOULD NOT BE TRADED UNLESS YOU ARE AN INSTITUTION DESIRING TO HEDGE YOUR PORTFOLIO. It is absolutely ridiculous to trade forex, and this is exactly what happens on any "FOREX" system. There are no chart patterns you can ever exploit in these markets. FOREX is governed by macroeconomic indicators, if they say anything about technical analysis, walk away or run, the ladder is probably better. (The same holds true if there trading on the latest fashions and commentary on TV). 8/20/2007: So why was he crushed? Cause he was really an amateur trader that seemed to know one trade. That was the yen carry trade. Most of his trades are based on cross prices of JPY. He was crushed when the trade unwinded. It's also what I thought originally. This should still be a warning to bs forex trading "systems." There are no patterns in forex other than data. If you're not trading that, then you're going to lose. That's a fact. This guy was crushed as a direct result of overleverage from his bread and butter yen carry trade. The housewives in Japan doing this trade lost a lot too, I'd bet. 8/30/2007: He's in a death spiral, and I seriously doubt there will be any money left as he lets his position run against him. 3/17/2008: Just a little bit more to go till zero.

See above commentary, then wait for this one to go to zero also. Trade a dollar for $0.12... anybody? Better to go play the lottery. How bout pay a dollar to pay 0.47? Again, he's into experimenting with other people's capital, but I don't know what to think of slow and steady. It'll probably collapse at some point. If he lets positions run 50k against him, I guess DD is about 10%.

6/28/2007: Now branded with an UNREALISTIC FILLS warning, listen to the following story. I've written futures trading systems in tradestation. They worked on limit order entries. What happened? I would be filled in the strategy but not in real life. The solution was to rebuild the system to wait till one or two ticks below the actual entry price and by the speed of tradestation's platform have exactly 1 tick of slippage on each trade. The point being, if there was a tick of slippage on both sides, I'd say he'd still be making a profit, though certainly not 1k+% annually. Of course that's BS, though. 787 trades with 24 ticks less on mostly at ym trades, 2 tick slippage, say $5 per tick slippage with commission. 787*24*5=94.4k less. Still 100% in a month, can't say money is not growing exponentially fast. I really think he should rewrite the system to take the convert to market order when limit's hit approach. He definitely has a robust system, though as C2 warns, is probably not achievable. 6/29/2007: C2 removed his unrealistic fills warning. I'm sure he changed tradestation's settings to convert to market orders. And this is fine. His system is robust enough to overcome the slippage. If I had 100 to 200k to invest, I might think about implementing this system. Otherwise, it is out of reach for most of the medium and smaller investors. 7/8/2007: In one of his first drawdown periods, it's still looking good. Good sharpe, though probably not a sustainable one. Still, it's pretty good, I bet it overtakes big cat. Hundreds of trades in such a short amount of time. Autotrade for sure. 7/15/2007: Still looking good. 7/17/2007: His curve certainly does not look as nice as it did during the first month, but still very smooth. I can't see this system working for too many folks on this site because the commission is quite exorbitant. Futures trades on 1044 trades is a lot. 7/29/2007: He has not traded since I mentioned the number of trades he has done since 7/17's post. I'm sure he's curve fitting another unrealistic system. Pity though, I understand c2's statement about how people might have good systems on paper, but realistically is not achievable. Unless he starts another climb upward, I would say he probably cannot duplicate the results of the past may - july events. I know that's not worth 500/month. I really hope he figures out how to work around the convert to market order. My suggestion to him is to set the price 1 tick below where you would like to buy at. Once touched, convert to a market order and that should be a little bit less. Likewise for the sell limit if he does use that, one tick above convert to sell at market. Stops work the same as they would and market orders work as they would. 8/24/2007: Seems to be trading actively again. Though certainly not the rocket ship that the developer and everyone else thought he had. Still profitable though. It would be worth this developer's time to restart the system after his six months is up. That way, his first month does not mislead potential subscribers. 11/16/2007: Take it to market makers, man! Even though buyside people like us can't get those trades, market makers absolutely can.

Bad typo, loses credibility. ETF, not EFT (unless he's talking about electronic funds transfer!). 2 trades, no record yet. Probably long QLD for both trades. Long for the last month, not really a system. More like Buy and Hope on QLD. 6/1/2007: Still have not observed inverse moves with the market. Still long QLD, and realism factor is faltering. 6/7/2007: Still long QLD, still buy and hope on this security. 6/29/2007: So, we are now about a month into the proverbial QLD call. I don't see anything special in this system. The realism factor is faltering because it's nearly impossible to get his results. Buy QLD a month ago is not possible for new subscribers, and why the realism factor falls. His DD will be quite large considering its massive correlation with the market. 7/15/2007: Still long QLD. Has never bought QID. No realism, is this really a system? 7/29/2007: So shall I point out the drawdown here? I know I don't have to. A weekly basis for QID and QLD trades is not very feasible because of the wide swings in markets over week long periods. I should warn him that it is likely the dow will probably keep correcting till it is down to 12,600, or a 10% correction from the cnbc's cute market hysteria-induced close above 14,000. He would probably look better on a risk adjusted basis by buying and shorting QQQQ, or use half his position size currently to buy QID and QLD. 8/15/2007: Still the proverbial QLD call? I'd definitely say the trend reversed. 11/17/2007: This is not a security to buy and hope on. Just think if the market declined 50%? You'd be out the whole thing by the time it was reverse split. 6/5/2008: Finally! Admits admits it's a ponzi scheme...somehow. The idea is to buy and hope on the index to charge people $500 in the event that he takes a profit. 2 for 2!

4/28/2008: Realized he needs to stop taking big losses, but needs a better strategy than martingale. 8/6/2007: This guy is into blowing up accounts. Below, the chart for money management in the S&P is another account that will blow up. We all know this was a losing strategy. My point would be made in his overleveraging of his positions, and substantial give back with a 40 contract loss that was completely inappropriate. Let that be the epitaph for this system and the many systems that come after it with no stops, and no real money management techniques. THIS IS THE SYSTEM OF the SLOW AND STEADY VENDOR. Hey, I don't know if anybody reads this, but I'd be very cautiuos about trading any system from this vendor. To see all the other systems that flopped, then take into consideration what he's done in Slow and Steady, I'm not sure he knows exactly what he's doing.

5/22/2007:After looking at his performance summaries from WL his sharpe was only 3.38. My system has a backtested sharpe of 5.5. His DD when it does happen is greater than 10%. 220 trades, win percentage 80%. Losses are just as much as his profits. Up some, down another, but with the high win percentage appears good. Probably not possible to trade. Even if there's a quasi performance guarantee, 200 bucks per month prices himself out of the market. Avg. Profit is 1.5%, avg loss is 1.3% with an expected value profit/loss of .9% approximately. The point is that there are better systems. His annualized return at the moment is 154%, but is overleveraging himself from his backtest, boosting returns, and getting attention from his pushing of the system's position sizing. Equity curve in the backtest was extremely suspicious, and I suspect peeking with this system. We'll have to see how it does. I would like to point out the importance of the sharpe ratio. That is ultimately the only ratio that should be observed after a three year period. Not that 3.3 isn't high, just that other systems are much higher. When he does drawdown, it will be a significant amount, probably greater than 8%. The highest annualized return I saw was 100% and with 18% DD. I can scale some of my other systems to get returns significantly greater than this with less risk. If you haven't read my commentaries, I think you should. Also, I want to point out that I am a CFA candidate, and licensed professional. 7/8/2007: I still think he's high on the subscription rate, but definitely more reasonable. 7/17/2007: This is a guess, but he's probably short right now. 8/30/2007: Still coming down from a very high level. Not very good for sharpe. 9/2/2007: Well, I always contend that when the system draws down more than your backtest that it has ceased being effective, and that would be my conclusion with any system. It's at that point. Another observation I have is that I've found a greater prevalence of curve fits with systems with win percentages between 75 to 90%. Almost always these systems don't work that well. When they're over 90% and greater than 30 trades, they usually work going forward with those same percentages. Something about that win percentage is always suspicious, especially when it does not perform as you expected it to. 9/5/2007: Made losers this week (23)%. Man, it's the fall of rome. All the way up above 160, now barely 10% up. 9/10/2007: OMG, I can't believe that a backtest could look so good and have this at the end of it. Man, btest suggests curve fit after most recent DD. I actually thought it would work a few months ago. But now, with 40+% DD, I seriously doubt its longevity, and I would say the same with my own systems if that were to happen, but since I am very experienced at detecting fatal flaws, I know it won't. So sad. 9/10/2007: So you can get an idea what I think is wrong here, here's what I'm pondering. Say a system returns 50% annually over a 5 year period, like this system, say it wins 80% of it's trades. What I think this means is that it is a kind of spurt trading system. I want to say that I have developed systems like these with nearly identical characteristics in terms of performance and win percentage. What happens is that the system will do well over a long period of time, and then suddenly in shorter time frame than it was doing well give back a significant chunk of the system's profits. What I spoke about earlier was the significance of the win percentage. When a system wins less than 90% and greater than 3/4's of its trades, it seems to me as I would look through the trade history and observe the equity curve that it would work in what I called 'spurts.' These spurts would win the historical percentage of the time, usually in long streaks, and then the other 20% of the time give back a lot of its gains. It is this 20% loss streak where the curve fit happens. They will skew your stops and targets, or whatever other indicator you might be using and trick you into thinking it will be good going forward. That's the curve fit part, and I want to say that no vendor intentionally does this. It's just part of the developmental stage. My approach were I to have a system where this happened might be if it was a average DD, go back and recalibrate, usually by taking fewer trades and increasing the win percentage but not the APR. If it was an enormous DD, say double historical DD predictions, I'd just quit, and move on to something else. In his case, I'd suggest quiting if there was no evidence prior to this that his position sizing and fundamental assumptions would lead to a doubling of the system's DD. If he didn't expect it, then the system should stop, as it has ceased to be effective. There, that's as simple as I can make it and address all of the possibilities. I actually think most of the problem was a position sizing flaw, not timing, though that could be improved as well by loosening the thresholds. Ex post edit: Going on the last thought, that it was a position sizing problem, I point out what I had said in earlier posts, he's showboating and overleveraging himself. That should have been the red flag for anybody trading the system. It happens with every futures system. You just can't control market exposure well with futures, because no matter if initial margin was 4k or 2.5k, the ticks are valued at the exact same amount, usually $12.5/tick or $50/point. That's where I don't approve of futures for my own personal trading. 9/11/2007: Vendor states the DD was all caused by his own discretionary trades. Well, I gues this goes to show there's no room for non-systematic trading on this website, but vendor is probably no longer serious about offering subscriptions and claims his system has done well and not what C2 has shown. 10/22/2007: He has not traded the last several trades I've received in confirming his results. I guess it's a lost cause now the results on C2, but his system probably does work, he's just not following his discipline on C2. 2/12/2008: I had been receiving e-mail alerts for this system. For six months he showed a profit per contract of 61 points. In a matter of a few days, lost close to 500 points per contract on 4 contracts. Vendor thought it was time to go back to the drawing board.

5/22/2007: Comparing where I started to this system, we're about even. Significantly more risk. Just think if I used 10 contracts. I'd be way ahead, accept I'd lose on the risk assesment. That's why I choose not to play with futures. Managing risk well considering his use of 10 contracts. Could beat him if leveraging myself 2:1 on a synthetic 4:1 in QID or QLD. Don't want to. My suggestion is to compare this system to paris trading QID QLD Scalper. You'll see we're about even since I started. 5/24/2007: Got Caught in the market downdraft. Am currently outpacing him.

Circa Nov 2007:For the lay person, I will repeat what I know is true. Technical analysis does not work. Especially cup with handle price points. They are BS indicators, and this strategy tracks the s&p. Has no real edge, and will drawdown more than the market in a large correction. Just look at his past performance and its correlation with the S&P. It is quite high. 7/29/2007: If you were reading my comments when this system first showed on people's radar, I think some of that has come to fruition. He was long in a significant market downdraft. If we were to look at his historical correlation with the market, it's still quite high. 5/22/2006: Will clarify the drawdown comment. He loses more in a downward market and makes more in an upward market suggesting that when he does drawdown, as he did from the very beginning, it will be slightly more than the market. Not that I'm calling a top right now, as I think there is a ways to go. I would point out what TMG looked like prior to the Chinese correction. That's what his system will look like in those market conditions. Nothing personal or anything, just a comparison of his performance to the market. I'm sure if I looked at his Beta it would be resoundingly positive. Ex Post: Beta 1.18 today. Should tell something about his risk, as it is highly correlated with the market. Real systems should be less than 0 and not greater than +0.75. This would indicate an overall non-correlation with the market in general. To see these, click advanced statistics, then look at b for beta estimate. Annualized isn't bad, but it can go south faster. Most system developers don't observe these, but I think when one is uncorrelated with the market as indicated by Beta, you don't have much to worry about unless the beta is beyond -2. 8/5/2007: I know not too many people follow this one, but it is worth repeating to note the drawdown here, because it only confirms what I had said a couple months ago about his trading sytle being a cuphanldedoublebottom. These systems only work in strong upward markets. I am sure he has backtests that show its validity, but I know I never saw any edge in dealing with strategies like this. I have messed with these type of systems, but generally the pattern used as an example is in and of itself a curve fitted demonstration at best. It depends on how many days to call the bottom, the number of days between tops, and essentially the time it takes to realize the appreciation. Naturally those are all technical indicators that have to be fit over the current time period to be valid. That was always the only way to make those kind of systems work. They are available in all their failed glory at Wealth-Lab.com. I don't have to add that all of those systems worked when they were published and ceased to work following 2000. Beware. 6/22/2008: For anyone who ever read this website, you know my first comments about the cupwhandledblebottom system were right on. The system did drawdown more than the market, and has achieved no return since inception.

47% DD, not a good system, and certainly not worth 1143 to lose half your money. Probably priced himself out of the market. Don't trade commodities unless you have an industrial use for them. Unless it's a news based system, this kind of trading is inappropriate for nearly everybody on this site. 2/21/2008: Finally crashed.

Curve fit, seen results like that in TS. If you look at his Profit Factor, you'll see it's not a good system. Also, TS inherently causes curve fits for their results. Results were optimized on the data and not taken out of sample. Recent spike is evidenced by a lucky trade. 5/22/2006: Spike was removed, probably an erroneous data point. I'd like to point out the date here. If you notice that he is drawing down right here, and hasn't traded in awhile, he is re-optimizing this system for the new data. Like I said, it's a curve fit, and that's what TS is good at, telling you more about the past than what will happen going forward. No offense to him, just a comment because I know exactly what happens when you're working with data and optimizing in TS.

5/22/2007: DO NOT TRADE THIS SYSTEM! This is the epitome of gambling, especially in forex markets. He has no money management skills, and will lose money over the long run. 6/29/207: As I said on 5/22 of 2007, this is a losing system. There is nothing justifiable about his money management, if you can call it that. This curve looks pathetic, and as long as he lets positions run against him, you will lose. Just ask the subscriber with 90% drawdown. That will happen to you. This system if I can even call it that is really just one leveraged trade that made money. I can't prove it, but the curve looks strikingly like one trade was all he did to get up there, and with all the leverage used on one trade, this makes it look good. He is no rock star. I see no good reviews from his account, and seriously doubt he has made anybody a dime. I will point out the Sharpe once more. Over time this will be the most telling statistic. He risks 1 dollar to make $0.62. That's all the Sharpe tells you. I'll let you be the judge if you want to risk 1 dollar to make 0.62. Go play the lottery if you actually think forex trading is suitable for anybody but a large institution. And I seriously mean that. I don't endorse forex, nor commodities. You don't trade these unless you have a commercial use for them. I stick to the lottery statement. If you want to pay a dollar to get back 62 cents, I suggest you go play the lottery. Those are nearly exactly the odds and the payouts. Sharpes of 2+ are the only systems you should look at here. That means, rather than quintessential lottery outcomes, you pay $1 to make $2. This is one of the worst systems you could ever put your money with. Forex is not suitable for anybody to trade with. It is purely for hedging and other trades of that kind. It is absolutely stupid that you would put money with this system. His drawdown is completely unacceptable, and, to be quite honest, there isn't enough compensation offered for the risk you take. You will lose your money with this trader, sooner or later. It is a certainty. I have analyzed systems for three years now, and this is one that blows up eventually. Down 32% recently, and it just takes another 32% to be up nothing, flat, or lose all your money. 7/8/2007: If you've been following my comments, you'll see his annnualized is really coming down. He started when I first commented at 400% annualized, now down to 130%. His fee schedule has changed, but I wasn't paying attention to that. Trust me, you'll lose money, so don't trade this. Read my previous comments if you need an explanation. 7/15/2007: Well, let us cheer him on in his race to the bottom. Do not subscribe. I can't say it anymore plainly. 7/17/2007: This guy is a moron. Open position profit (590)k. He's an idiot for letting this run so far. I bet he's long the USD or in a currency linked to the USD. It's the only currency really going down these days. 7/29/2007: Still way too much volatility here. 10/17/2007: Going to zero yet? 1/11/2009: Still hold and hope

Another good one. Comparable to Big Cat. Too many trades to keep up with though. 5/20/2007: Low realism factor seems to be the problem with this system. 3/14/2008: Extreme-OS curve is now projected higher. 1 of 2 things have happened: 1)Volatility has improved performance significantly for the system, but still with a very low realism factor, or 2) They have redesigned the system. Don't know which, but I wouldn't be surprised at 2. 3/17/2008: Never could have saw this coming. That is a huge drawdown. 3/18/2008: No stops? Hmm... quite wide at 20% per trade. Must have been leveraged to get that DD then. 6/22/2008:Back up. No realism still. Just noticed it nuked the equity curve with 37% buys in Bear Stearns. 1/11/2009: It's proved its positive expectancy, so it'll most likely be up, but the question is how much of a roller coaster will it be?

SINCE August MY SYSTEM IS OUTPACING BIG CAT! To confirm this, just put Big Cat and my system in the chart, and start in August. This is probably one of the best systems on C2, but still not a great APD. I wanted to add to my commentary that this system should probably only be traded on an automated basis. It seems that people have had trouble receiving signals in time, and this is to be expected. 5/22/2006: Sharpe is good. Has changed his subscription back to 500 per month as per my legal recommendation apparently. Performance guarantees are illegal, and only charging management fees when profitable is performance based compensation that may only be charged to high net worth individuals. 5/18/2006: I will reiterate that if you're not equipped to autotrade this system, you should not be trading it. Futures markets move fast, and I would only consider automated futures trading. That is, day trading and holding overnight is not really advisable. 6/28/2007: Still the bomb, though LRC extreme futures might put this one to rest. 6/29/2007: Man, this one just doesn't stop. The LRC extreme futures has been defunct, as it was a curve fit. Could be done if you were a futures market maker, but how many of us are on this site? 10/17/2007: With regard to the most recent reviewer, it should be obvious that you need to be rich already to trade via c2. Managed accounts definitely are the only way you can trade this with less than 250k 11/14/2007: I don't know what people's problem is with the system. It should be screaming at you that a system with 5500+ trades in less than 2 years is absolutely impossible to trade without automation. 1/22/2008: Too bad, they had a good curve for a long time. Probably was violating the TOS on c2. See you on the other side. 3/17/2008: The curve has now begun its descent, as I suspect the realism factor and the slippage have caught up to it.