John Carter, about a month, decided that he wanted to teach his assistants how to trade. Eventually the assistants would compete heads up to see who is the better trader. Winner gets a real trading account to trade. He just posted results in his free email newsletter. It's pretty great. Real money and a complete trade audit statement. Disclaimer: I'm not shilling for these people. I'm just impressed and unlike a lot of other "advisory" services. They have backed up their results with a real account statement. In addition, yes naysayers, he is taking on a lot of risks. But like he says, if you have a proven setup ie know what you're doing, you should increase your size. Part 1 Part 2
I've been watching John Carter and his pal Hubert's free vids for a while now. John may be the next Larry Williams and certainly knows how to out his money where his mouth is. He is not afraid to show where his winners and losers are even show live trades.
There was a thread about Carter a couple of years ago, http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=432964#post432964
I had read that original thread. One of the reasons why I decided not to pay for his services. But I do read his nightly free newsletter with interest. In addition, I bought his book which has GOOD advice, about as good as any other source on trading the index futures. With that said, I believe that traders do IMPROVE. They have a full room of traders and an active discussion board with traders trading ideas and pounding on the worthiness of setups. Intense scrutiny would hopefully lead to stronger, more resilient setups. Carter and Senteris put their necks out month in and mouth out with their managed fund services. I do not know what the their track record is, would be interested if any members that have staked them with money would come out and say how they've done recently. In the videos, the positives of his trading techniques, 1) doesn't always trade every day, 2) doesn't trade frequently each day, 3) booking profits consistently 4) the one diaster trade due to carelessness was quickly rectified ie took their lumps and moved on. The negatives, trading size relative to capital is too high and the actual trade setups were not mentioned. I'm hoping more details are forthcoming in future free newsletter.
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/showthread.php?t=22403rwalkerx My own input- I bought one of John's videos a few years back ($299) and never found it any help. It may be useful for others.
Some very interesting commentary. The implied accusation is that the 62% return that they generated could quite possibly be fabricated. If so, the likelihood is that they could continue to lie if/when the assistants fail at trading, Carter will feel the need to "prop" up their results to save the traders' reputation. Really if trading statements are so easily mocked up, then it would seem there are no real way to verify a traders' track record. Too bad, John Carter does not post here. It would be interesting to see what he had to say. The ET comments are 3 years old and it would be a shame to condemn a man who might possibly have improved his track record.
Recordings show that he began the month with $36,000 in a/c but was trading 20-30 contracts at a time, which is a crazy amount of leverage. Carter has written that he typically trades 1 contract for every $10-15k in his a/c. I can only assume he did not do so here because being able to boast of such outsized returns generates a lot of new subscribers...
He addresses this in the videos. He says if you're a newbie, stick with the small size. Otherwise if you're an experienced trader, trade larger. I do have some issues with trading such large size especially since he's teaching his assistants. It does seem kamikaze. He could accomplish just as much (teaching) with half the size.