Well, bad luck for me. I joined exactly at his worst performance period when the market was rather bullish and STV was acting as a contrarian permabear.
I don't think there is any perfect system. That is, no system will work all the time. I have 50% of my money in mutual funds and I trade from work using STV the rest of the time. During that time, my mutual funds are up 25% (which is good for a mutual fund) and my STV funds are up just under 100%. I do admit, during the bull rally in october I had my doubts. STV was very bearish and I paid the price. On the other hand, the nasdaq went roughly from 2280 to 2400 during the year so they still outperformed the markets as a whole by far. I will agree with one point you made, there are many scams out there. I unfortunately have joined a few of them.