No need to mention your ass in here. This is about trading systems except if you confuse the two because you have sh*ty systems. You overlook the time dimension. The thing is not when you are long but also when and how frequently. The distribution of signals in time reveals the structure of a system. I said 30 trades is enough to figure out a system completely and I have done this many times. I use the information to provide liquidity to idiots who use those systems and profit from their ignorance. Now, I don't want to hear anything about your ass again...
I call bluff! Why don't you take a system that has been on C2 for over two years, reverse engineer it and correctly predict the next five trades. Somebody with neural net experience can chime in here but as I understand it, in order to reverse engineer a trading system you have to know what the inputs into the trading rules are. Given that you don't have a sweet clue what the inputs are, how do you explain your ability to reverse engineer trading systems?
Getting offtopic here... I didn't overlook anything. Let's say today you think the market is going to fall soon. Unless people actually start to sell, it will not happen, so the bottom line is that you need people with the same idea (selling) on your side to have it happening. End of story... Otherwise you are overlooking the space-time continuation, and you will be too EARLY... And I bet you my hut, that your ass will hurt when you make a move too early.
My C2 system was the top option system on there for over two years. I earned just under $5,000 in subs. I used it for audit purposes, so you decide whether it's worth it to be on the vendor-side of C2. The system return was >1300% over ~39 months. 12% peak to trough DD.
It was a hassle didn't take subs for over a year as I had intended it to be an audit account. They now offer an account for test/audit purposes. I would do another audit account if the front-end was improved, but I would never again take subscribers. It takes months to receive payouts from new subs due to potential chargebacks (never had one). Some will sub and then cancel, and Matt would refund when no refunds are to be offered (not a chargeback). C2's interface is ghastly. It took forever to enter a position, and there was no functionality for calculating the debit-req on limited risk positions. Long calendars were the only spread position in which C2 calculated the debit requirement correctly. Forget trading a fly or backspread. No spread or combo tickets. There was an error in margin calcs in which you could short a LEAPS straddle for virtually zero haircut. IIRC, the req to short a one-lot BIDU 400-strike LEAPS straddle was ~$2,000. Once traded, the proceeds allowed you to short a lot more. The guy did not know how to code RegT. Improvements/bug fixes were nil. You ask him to fix it and two years later he's "working on it". My point is that there is little to be gained (options-trading), even assuming you're in the top 1% of methodologies. I will admit that a swing-duration option system is not as marketable as a futures system. It doesn't lend itself to auto-trading. I am sure C2 has a couple of futures vendors earning $100-200k from subs. It could be a great business for all involved if he would hire some programmers and buy some servers. Despite all of the above; if you're trading delta-one strategies that can be automated (no pit contracts), then C2 is hard to beat as an audit-trail with revenue potential.
One also should keep in mind that a seemingly profitable system can become a loser with lots of autotraders (when C2 executes real money trades in the subscriber's broker account.) That is another issue when too many users/subscribers are a bad thing for the site. This happens most of the time with scalping systems. Trading the ES the slippage can be as much as 2-3 ticks on both entry/exit. So what is a 1.5 points winner on the vendor side can end up a breakeven/loser for the subscriber. Then in very active times the whole website can slow down so you don't know what your position is or unable to put through a new trade.... So in short, real life results are always worse than what C2 shows for an unsubscribed system.
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=212491 Here is my recent thread about my experience there.
In a word, C2 is terrible, from the service, to the technology and the Terms and Conditions. To wit: 1) C2 appears to be no more than a one man operation whose real interest is in writing books rather than creating a platform that emulates real world trading. Users constantly complain that it takes days and numerous emails pleading for help, to get a reply. Customer service, for a business of this size and scope, is equivalent to a junior high school student's science project, running an Internet business out of a bathroom in some 5th world country. 2) Trade slippage for C2 autotraders is infinitely worse than what one could reasonably expect in the real world. C2 must be using software and hardware that is antiquated given the laughable lag from the time a trade is actually taken in a real account and then posted on C2. Generally it is no better than 4 seconds and can go as long as 12. That's SECONDS! In a business where trades are measured in milliseconds, this must be the work of an amatuer who is too cheap to make the proper investments in technology backbone. Totally unacceptable (except for the C2 owner who gets top line fees) for both developers and subscribers. 3) Given the above, C2 grossly overcharges developers for subs--30% of fees! In addition, there are no terms or conditions for a sub to receive a 100% refund. It's a no questions asked policy. This refund comes solely out of the developers pocket even though C2 keeps it 30%. In effect, developers pay C2 what amounts to a 30% chargeback fee for refunds. No wonder C2 only uses credit cards instead PayPal. PayPal will not give refunds for services of this nature and rightfully so. Bottom line opinion: Avoid. There are better services for all parties in this category available.