Vectorvest -- anyone use it?

Discussion in 'Strategy Building' started by SideShowBob, Aug 23, 2007.

  1. Has anyone here used vectorvest and could enlighten us as to whether it works or not?
     
  2. Search for a thread called "want to share" in "Journals". The author uses VV (amongst other tools). You have to go through the whole thread though, he answers VV related questions every now and then.
     
  3. Works great for investing, not so much for short-term trading from what i have observed, though you could adapt it for swing-trading.

    There are some rather active yahoo user groups that have good info in them. Their seminar's are actually pretty good for the 200 bucks or whatever they charge though most of the people attending them are retired and it can be slow going with the Q and A sessions. lol

    One Caveat: don't trust the backtests in it, they have some flaws that experienced users are aware of regarding how the database is updated, transaction costs, etc. Does provide a ballpark estimate however of how the screen/filter you are running would have performed though. It just that small differences are magnified over long-runs.

    Check out the yahoo user group's for more info. I haven't seen many threads about it here. Definitely more for investors than traders but money is money. :D
     
  4. Don't waste your money; more importantly, even if you have money to burn, don't waste your time.

    When we first purchased VectorVest six months ago and began a thorough and systematic evaluation of the product, we initially believed that we could profit by taking the opposite side of the VectorVest recommendation, as our tests indicated that VectorVest's marketing timing calls and stock ratings were wrong about 87% of the time. In other words, it appeared that VectorVest was just a parrot for what Wall Street recommends, and anyone that has traded for awhile knows that when Wall Street says buy, that means sell, and when they say sell, that means buy. Unfortunately, after a thorough analysis, we realized that all testing using the VectorVest system is invalid because the system contains bad math and bad data. Specifically, VectorVest does not properly account for stock splits, includes numerous bad prints in its data. In addition, the mathematical calculations used in the system have numerous errors.

    In terms of product quality, VectorVest is severely lacking. In addition to the bad data and mathematical errors mentioned above, the program frequently crashes, has frequent "divide by zero" errors, and sometimes will simply not retrieve results. As programmers, we were able to definitively determine that all of these problems were due to poor programming practices, poor quality assurance testing, and most importantly, an arrogant attitude on the part of the support staff and a refusal by them to fix the problems. We are confident the reason for this is they sell so many copies of this flawed product that frankly, they don't care. Moreover, they DO NOT offer refunds, so if you purchase anything other than the basic monthly data, which you can cancel but not receive a pro-rated refund on, you get no refund. In other words, they know the software has problems, therefore, they do not offer refunds.

    The bottom line is after over six months of thorough and careful analysis, we conclude that regardless of whether you follow the system or take the opposite side of the trade, your results cannot be reliably predicted simply because the data the VectorVest system relies on is inaccurate. At the end of the day, any serious analysis using their product is analogous to throwing darts at the Wall Street Journal stock tables. Between failure to account for stock splits, bad prints, and a multitude of programming errors within the system, most simulations you run are statistically unreliable because the data in the VectorVest system is inaccurate. Moreover, locating and/or attempting to filter out the bad data in the VectorVest system is excruciatingly painful because the program frequently encounters "divide by zero" errors or simply crashes. You have to have a tremendous amount of patience and a cabinet full of pain killers to use the VectorVest system for more than a few days.

    Don't waste your money or your time.