How we rate trading systems

A message from Collective2, the free Web site that rates trading systems

Do not trust your own mother.

Let me be honest. If my mother called and offered to sell me a trading system with astounding "real life results," I would hang up the phone. 

You, too, should not trust a company that publishes its system "results" without independent verification. It's not simply a question of outright fraud (although a surprising number of trading system vendors just make up imaginary results and hope no one double checks them). There's a more serious problem. 

For every one profitable trading system that is "discovered" through back testing and optimization, there are nine others that lose money. So the same company that touts a "miracle" system in magazine ads probably won't tout the other nine systems that it tried, but which lost money.

Lots of companies sell "astounding" trading systems. Here is a way to prevent being, er,  astounded

Collective2 verifies trading systems

Collective2 is a free Web site that monitors trade systems. When a system recommends a trade, we verify how the trade really performs, by monitoring real-time quotes from the exchanges. More important, a company can't simply throw away bad results it doesn't like. Let me show you a typical chart you will find on our Web site.

Show Trading Systems Ranking Chart