Hi, I am not trying to advertise or convince traders to do anything - if you feel this post if offensive feel free to remove it. We are working with the brokers to establish read-only access to accounts, at this point this is a limitation on the brokers end and we at Currensee actually prefer to have read-only access. We are using all industry standards to protect the data and are undergoing regular security audits to make sure data is properly encrypted and protected. As for the community in Currensee, we have close to 4000 traders with more than 6000 linked real forex account and when we've analyzed the community's performance for 2009 we learned that more than 30% of our community were profitable in that year. I personally feel that it's important to convey the message that Forex trading is a legitimate asset class where some trader, even though it's not the majority, can generate consistent returns - these returns, as far as we can tell, are no where near the dreams that some vendors in this industry are trying to sell or demonstrate in demo accounts but are more like 3%-5% a month which can amount to about 50% a year which is great with comparison to other investments. -- Asaf.
Yeah but what are the quality of traders that you have on there...is it 4000 new traders who are giving bad advice. So 70% of your community was not making money. How poorly were they losing. What percentage of their accounts were they losing.
Currensee and our community is not about giving advice, it's about collaboration between like minded traders. The main advantage of a social network is that you choose who your friends are and you collaboration with them and only with them so the fact that we have 4000 members doesn't mean you collaborate with all of them, in fact we see that most trader tend to friend between 5 and 15 other traders usually based on similarities in the trading style and trading region and collaborate with these traders. It's a good question regarding the loosing behavior of the 70% that didn't make money in 2009 and I don't know the answer off the top of my head - I can guess though that it's a combination of traders who decided that this is not for them, some that are in the process of learning and others that see this as a hobby and not a profession and they care more about playing than about winning - I really can't tell. I want to refer you though to a great post from Brett Steenbarger who mainly works with professionals regarding their performance http://traderfeed.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-common-is-elite-talent-among-day.html -- Asaf.
That's the tough thing about a site like that it's only as good as the traders on the site. I think it's a good idea but you have to be selective with who you allow to post trades. you don't want losing advice from 70% of your traders.
Lanser, Currensee is not about giving advice and collaboration is not about giving advice - We show who is really making money and who is not and we let traders find other traders that trade like them so for example if I use Elliot Wave I want to first of all find other traders that also use Elliot Wave and collaboration with them on ideas I have and they have - from what we see in Currensee, traders are not copying one another trades. -- Asaf.
Cool idea and a cool site. I think what will hold you back is making people give out their user name and password. I got on the site and was getting ready to sign up but I'm not giving out my information. I think if you allowed people to join and post without sharing confidential info the site would grow dramatically.
Thanks and you are right if we enabled anyone to join we'd have many more traders but we're trying to do something different and create a community where every member knows that all the other members are also real traders and the only way we know how to do this at this point is to request the credential so we can log into the broker account and verify. We are working with the brokers though to come up with a different communication method where the trader would give permission for the broker to communication with us and then the trader wouldn't need to give us the credentials. -- Asaf.
sorry for resurrecting and old-ish thread, but i just found your site. I think the idea etc. is really good, what I would want to know is, i don't mind folks seeing my stats, percentages and what not, but can they actually see your position sizes realtime, for example, could they actually piggyback your trades in realtime just because you allowed them to friend you? I don't mind the results being available, but I wouldn't want someone getting a realtime free ride. Tell me that's not the default setting! thanks, LP
My sole-interest would be in accessing "positions of traders" info to see where retail is heavy. As I see it, there is no aggregation metrics, just a facebook for fx model. I can't imagine that any serious trader has anything to gain, and quite a lot to lose.
really, so it's all about networking with fellow buddies, huh? Then why do you need a fuxxing login and password to others' trading accounts, moron! I really wonder how some of those cheats even get backed by VC, other than through their back alley connections right behind the synagogue. Seriously!!! I am willing to bet my life that the ONLY reason they received seed capital was either a) connections or b) their business model is based on trading by accessing members' position info, or c) the funding is all a bogus story. I have never heard, not even in the heights of the IT bubble, of a more flawed business plan. The one behind the funding must be either incredibly dumb or know stuff about the business model the founders dont want anyone else to know. Simple as that.