Drawdown is calculated correctly at Portfolio123 (percent below the highest high. maximum drawdown is the maximum percent drop from the highest high)
The dart throwing aspect of it comes into play there. Small and mid cap in general have been outperforming large cap for awhile now. Someday that will change. I've used the system as a screener (with my own ranking system) for my long-term trading. It works great for that.
I've been using p123 since Aug of last year and I have done very well (better than I have ever done as a trader). You cannot think like a trader if you want to use p123 effectively. You have to think like an investor, namely: Plan on holding for 6 months or more, not 6 minutes. Success comes from being properly diversified and good money management, not calling tops and bottoms. Technical indicators are as ineffective with p123 as they are with any other trading system. Use p123 for what it was intended for: ranking fundamentals. P123 is not perfect: Slippage is grossly understated The data is late - news watchers have bought and sold five times before you even see the data.
chaimshmerel: I am a happy Portfolio 123 user with 50% returns since May 2005. I suggest you read through the posts and follow the discussions of the members regarding ranking systems and simulations. Seaarch the posts of DennyHalwes, traderblues, vladinvets, danparquette and others and you will get a good understanding of P123 as well as an education as I did. As Denny has said - This stuff works! I wondered for a year if anyone was making real money folowing P123 systems. I convinced myself they are and started three protfolios with real $. I am very happy with the site. There was a recent post regarding what systems would be best to start with. Balanced4 and Fiscal Momentum were the suggested rankings which I had picked for my systems previously. Pick from the community simulations and find one or more, backtest over the last 5 years and get some confidence. Use my user name (gfagerlin) and you will see my sims, ports and posts. I expect that anyone can match the P123 model returns of about 30% annually. I focus on small caps and expect 50%, would be happy with 30%+ and may end up between 50% and 100%. I really like P123 and recommend it highly. gfagerlin
I have been investing real money in Portfolio123.com portfolios since April of 2004. I am averaging 70% annual returns. Am I happy? You bet I am. This site has saved my retirement. Yes, I am in SmallCap stocks. Portfolios of Large Caps will probably not fare as well but you ought to easily get 30% annual returns even with the big ones. The site is a little confusing at first and many people give up after a look. That is a mistake. This stuff works. When I show my results to friends they simply don't believe it is possible. Also - this is not a place for day traders. Weekly or Monthly portfolio rebalances are the norm. Also this site is based on fundamentals but there are some technical analysis factors available and more coming.
All, I am the Denny that was referred to in the above posts. I joined Portfolio123 (P123) in March of 04. I found the site to be confusing since it was set up to run complete Trading Systems and not just screens like I was used to. Also, I didn't bother to read the help files at first. My mistake. That mistake significantly increased my learning curve. But I persevered and I am very glad I did. The main differences from other sites are: The use of Ranking Systems that rank stocks for each factor instead of screening stocks out. It then combines the various factors (over 450 available) into a composite rank and orders the stocks from best (rank of 100) to worst (rank of 0). Where most screens filter out stocks that don't pass the screen, the Ranking Systems rank all the stocks. If a stock is ranked at the top of all but one of the screen factors and misses 1 factor by a small margin, it will be eliminated in a screen, but will be highly ranked in the Ranking Systems. The ability to back test the Ranking Systems over 5 years of data on a universe of almost 10,000 stocks The ability to set up Trading Systems that include the number of stocks you want in your portfolio, the amount of cash you want to start with; Buy Rules that enable you to set minimum price, volume or market Cap limits, etc, and Sell Rules that allow you to set stop loss limits, minimum rank values, laggard values, etc. The ability to back test the Trading Systems with Simulations of portfolios to determine the best buy and sell rules that meet your investment style. The trading Systems can be set up for automatic, semiautomatic, or manual rebalancing on daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or semiannually periods. The trading System checks each stock in your Portfolio against the sell rules, and if any of them pass a sell rule it is recommended to be sold. The System then compares the highest ranked stocks to the buy rules, and selects the highest ranked stock that meets the buy rules to recommend replacing the stock that is sold. This can be a totally automatic mechanical system, or you can set it up to allow you to accept of reject any of the recommendations. One of the reasons that it is confusing is that it is so flexible. There are so many options that it takes a while to figure it out. I suggest that any one new to the site first spend time reading the Quick Start Guides here; http://www.portfolio123.com/help.jsp?pg=150&popUp=0 and here: http://www.portfolio123.com/help.jsp?pg=200&popUp=0 Be sure to read all the pages by clicking on the button in the top right corner. Then investigate the community simulations and portfolios. rank them by annual return and pick some of the better ones to study, copy, and test. Good luck trading! Denny
It's encouraging to see others who say they are doing very well using portfolio123. It seems that one really does need to learn the product and all its features to get the most value out of it, before giving up on it. Since many claim that most of their large gains come from the small cap area, I am wondering how close can one get to simulated performance?? If the simulator returns 60% in a year, can I realistically expect to get a 40% return? My guess is that slippage is hugely underestimated, especially if one is rebalancing weekly in the small/mid cap arena.
Not necessarily true. I assume 1% slippage in most of my models, and my actual slippage has averaged about 0.75%.
I guess if you change the portfolio daily, it would add up, but if you rebalance weekly or monthly, slippage should be less.
Exactly. If you're a short term swing trader, and are used to only 1 or 2% per trade, slippage would be an issue. But my best performing system right now has an average gain per trade of 13.77%, including slippage and commission costs.