SpreadProfessor Clients - Thanks !

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by bone, Sep 19, 2014.

  1. bone

    bone

    I wanted to thank the ET Members who also happen to be clients of mine for stepping up to the plate today, and under difficult circumstances, to offer their own personal viewpoint on the value of my services. Since my clients come to me as experienced traders, they can tell what works and what doesn't, and they have stated in their own words that if they dedicate themselves and put in the time and effort that there is edge and profitability in my methods.

    RockMachine:

    At the risk of voiding my contract with Bone, I wanted to give an unbiased opinion of Spreadprofessor's service.
    1. The price is high = yes. However, as stated Bone ONLY wants experienced traders. Well, experienced traders are MUCH harder to train because you have to un-train them first. New clients after a few weeks/months are encouraged to post their trade setups. Often, they show head and shoulder and archaic setups with multiple squiggly lines, etc. Myself, I had a nasty habit of placing tight stops, which every few months I revert to. Point is, Bone didn't teach this stuff.
    2. The Guy really cares = Hell Yes! I'm on my 10th month of a 6month contract. Why? because I'm not ready.
    But to be clear, I contribute and I want it!
    3. The $500k trade issue = Don't know. Semantics wise, if I were to make x$ in say the "Crack spread" for 2013, I would phrase it " I made X$ trading the Crack Spread last year. "
    4. Is this the Turtle Experiment = Kinda. Richard Dennis said that he could publish his strategy in print and MOST people would lose money. In fact his original group has some who prospered and others who crashed.
    Weakest link is always the trader.
    5. Overall, Bone's experience and knowledge of spread trading in 2014 is easily top 10,5,3 in the world. However, if you trade automated by ticks and turnover 100's of trades per day, then you will need to be un-trained, unless of course your infrastructure budget can compete with the big boys.
    6. Finally, I have met and worked with a few people on ET, some were good, others would eat their children for $500..YOU KNOW who you are.. As for Bone, he's legit and cares and is very cautious as to working with the right people and especially before he lets you trade live.

    Eudamonia:

    As a current client I made my decision regarding Bone's services based on discussions with his references (former clients). Were they able to apply what Bone taught them and derive an edge? And the answer to that was yes - although it would require a lot of work on my part to learn the system (hence why it is a 6+ month contract).

    Currently, after four months of simulated trading I'm sitting on a 70% win ratio with a 1:1 reward to risk. Several other traders have shown their results in our trading room of their own trading that is similar or in some cases better. After a few more months I will switch over to live and anticipate I'll see similar results in a live account (because I have accounted for commissions and slippage in my estimates).

    I don't believe that my $7,500 has been anything but an excellent investment and highly recommend Bone's services.

    R1234:

    I signed up with spread professor last year. When I first signed up I must admit I was a bit concerned it might be a waste of money or maybe even a scam. But as I began adding his method to my existing methods I can say it does add value and I have more than made back my investment. His method is legit if used consistently and does carry an edge.
     
    tradingxpert likes this.
  2. J-Law

    J-Law

    For all the naysayers & harsh critics of Bone & his spreadprofessor services....not only are his offers legitimate & sound. His ethics compass is intact & oriented in the right direction. If you are on the fence about working with him, just know that he has his feet on the ground & you will walk away from the experience with a greater knowledge of futures, spreading & tradecraft in general.
     
  3. garachen

    garachen

    I've never met bone - he's on my ignore list because he's repetitive - and I've to date refrained from opining about his services because I fear he actually reveals too much and I didn't want to draw attention to it.

    He's the only educator I've ever heard of who might actually teach something of value. Of course people should do their due diligence (the single clearing statement does not suffice) part of which should be asking to see tax returns or talk to his accountant. But to expect him to post such on the Internet or in a public forum is ridiculous.

    Best of luck, bone.
    Raise your price, it's too low.
    And maybe ditch the professor tag and update your website. No colored text.
     
    tradingxpert likes this.
  4. Interesting. I have a lot of respect for your opinions and didn't expect to hear this from you. Perhaps, I've been too critical of Bone and need to re-evaluate. I actually considered him at one point as a means of diversifying my current set of strategies, but when asked some simple questions about things on his website, he repeatedly evaded the question. I don't know if they're still there, but for example, he had claims on his site that spreads trend better than outrights (equity pairs included). Mean reversion in spreads seemed obvious to me, but a tendency for spreads to trend better than outrights was less intuitive and I was dubious about any trade-able persistence. It's not as if there aren't any statistical tools that one could use to back up this claim. I wasn't even looking for that type of answer though; a high-level and somewhat vague response as to why fundamentals might cause it to occur in certain pairs/baskets would have sufficed, but nothing. So, I came away with the impression that he slaps together a bunch of spread combos until something looks pretty on a chart rather than conducting his research with any sort of mathematical rigor. Looks like I may have been too quick to judge, but the lack of response didn't inspire confidence.

    I'll add that I think his knowledge of futures markets alone is worth something to the uninitiated (me). He could save someone a lot of time from having to dig out all the market nuances on their own. That said, it's hard to justify the fee on that alone (not unless there's some alpha generating content along with it).
     
    tradingxpert and Ye Olde Refco like this.
  5. bone

    bone

    I totally agree that the website is a complete POS. Working on hiring someone to correct that over the Winter.

    IMHO, a well-constructed spread combination does generate legitimate alpha in that it should not have the same delta directionality tendencies as the broad market sector in terms of synthetic intra market spreads, and for inter market spreads the combination should not have the same delta directionality characteristics as the flat price prompt market instrument. That's the primary reasons we tend to shy away from prompt month calendar spreads ( first to second month, second to third month ).

    Of course supply and demand fundamentals and seasonality are very strong drivers in terms of spreads. And during our weekly group webinars I'm happy to discuss these factors in greater detail with my clients. But I do not want my clients to believe that they have know the intimate details regarding every fundamental driver affecting a spread before they take an entry. It's impossible to do if you want your clients to be active in just about every electronic market available to them. My opinion, based upon my own personal experience as a commercial energy trader, is that a strong fundamentals-based trader is usually a subject matter expert in one field. And that's a great thing to be if you want to concentrate on one market sector. I've said this many times: seasonality and supply-demand drivers definitely show up in spread price action. You may be fashionably late to the party, but in exchange you will have price confirmation to show for it. Smaller range exchanged for more price confirmation.

    My preference is for clients to trade a model and indicator package based on price data, and to expose themselves to as many electronically available futures spreads as possible - and then, to be very selective about which ones to take. And to date, it seems to be working pretty well for them.

    Clients that are willing to put in the time and effort to build out the spread combinations, to learn how to build update and test spread combinations, and then to paper trade the system and subject their trades and their performance metrics spreadsheets to me on a review basis during the group webinars and during individual one-on-one webinars almost always get what they want out of the system. But it does take some effort and commitment on the part of the clients.

    Personally, I'm a nuclear engineer by training. But I cannot make the system a financial engineering exercise of the highest order. I'd have three clients over five years if that was the case. I've chosen by design to take some necessary skills like intermarket correlations and hedge ratio betas and have broken them down into simpler tools and methods that, say, a scalper could do for himself with a little training from me. Still, I have HF analysts, CTA's, and PhD's as clients. If they want to apply what I teach as a baseline gateway into MatLab or S-Plus I say more power to them. But I do very much warn these types of clients that I prefer "quick-and-dirty" versus an academic exercise. The bottom line is the bottom line, and clients have to be able to apply what you're offering them to live trades and they have to be successful at it. It has to translate to the broadest segment of the trader population. I want my clients to make money, because they are going to provide references and referrals for future clients.
     
  6. garachen

    garachen


    My bar is not really high. But I consider most people out there are obvious frauds. And sometimes you can learn stuff from frauds too. I once took a real estate course from a very smooth fraudster. I had no intention of swindling people out of their houses but it was fascinating to see the swindle in action and to gain a totally new perspective on how to use the law.

    Bone throws out a lot of stuff that might be nonsense but he might inadvertently lead you to something that I have found to be very profitable that I've never seen publicly discussed. I see it this way, for $7,500 you probably have a 10% chance of brushing up against a $500k/year idea. I certainly wouldn't spend money I need for something else and I'd still do due diligence at least to know where the line between fact and wishful thinking is. And then test out for yourself everything he talks about. Even if it's something he says does not work...

    I've thought about how trading education could work that's a guarenteed win-win for everyone. Maybe I'll collect my thoughts and post them later.
     
  7. bone

    bone

    I would truly appreciate any insights you have.

    I had some strong advice from a securities attorney four years ago - his feeling was that it would be much easier for me to run astray of the law and end up getting sued doing client educational work than, for example, to solicit a private prospectus offering for a fund if I were to offer an educational client the same level of due diligence in terms of my personal trading track record. His reasoning was that if I were trading private equity, I had complete control over the trading decisions and my track record was much more relevant. In the end, I have absolutely no control over what live trading decisions a client makes. And if a client chooses to make the connection between my own performance and his personal performance, I'm going to get sued if he chooses to go "broken arrow". Human beings sabotage themselves and ignore reason all the time. And I wouldn't get sued just for the educational fee, but for his losses and for his legal fees as well. I was advised that it just was not a justifiable risk. Again, this is from a securities attorney's professional view.

    I would like to get your thoughts on that as well. As you could see in the statement posted on other threads, trading OPM has never been an issue for me, but providing any sort of link between a client's performance and mine seems to be not-so-smart in terms of liability.
     
    Last edited: Sep 24, 2014
  8. convexx

    convexx

    Ask your securities attorney how a $486K debit some 7+ years ago is proof of any PNL.
     
  9. bone

    bone

  10. convexx

    convexx


    I posted a response to your "third party verification" on my own thread. As of course your thread had been closed to the general population:

    "I'll comment here because the thread is closed to new replies. The Patrick Agate email is meaningless. It's not "verification" of anything.

    I never stated that the $486K debit was the spread notional. It's a debit. There is no reference transaction on the transfer. I posted one of two accounts traded in a PM job I held in 2004 with a transfer. There is no "verification" that the $486K means anything other than a debit from the account. In no way, shape or form does that prove anything other than some money was moved from the account.

    Here's an $876 debit related to a transfer, w/destination: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5tc2r8ahxhwrrp0/1Y9Gg0n (1).png?dl=0

    What was the original (2006) funding of the account? $486K? $800K? $2,000,000?

    There is no proof of anything other than $486K was removed from the account. He is now posting that he has, "third-party" verification. God help him if he's stating so based-upon the Pat Agate email."
     
    Last edited: Sep 24, 2014
    #10     Sep 24, 2014