Nexus by Steve Copan

[trendie]

Not content with discovering the greatest trading system the world has ever known, he has now written Nexus, a swing-trading system.
The book is available for around £200 or so.

Has anyone bought/read/used the system, and provide some evaluation for it?

For me, I may wait for a few months, and try to catch it on ebay, when it gets to around the £40-50 mark.

thanks, and have a great trading day. (I am off to the Dr Who Exhibition :cheesy

 

[TheBramble]

(I am off to the Dr Who Exhibition :cheesy

Sure sign trendie is an aspie....

 

[TheBramble]

I understand the book is in A5 format so it will be easy to take with you on the way to work.

 

[timsk]

Tony - I recall in the dim and distant past that you were writing (or considering writing, anyway) your own trading book. Any developments on that front - publication date, RRP and discounts for old friends etc?

Tim.

 

[TheBramble]

Bless you for asking.

It isn’t going to happen short term, or even long term.

While writing as and when I wanted on topics that occurred to me as sufficiently interesting to write about in my own style and to my own schedule was, and is, a pleasure, it’s all rather different when it becomes a commercial enterprise effectively ‘owned’ by someone else.

I found my personal style did not mesh well with specific guidelines given by others on style and content, that deadlines for delivery of specific ‘quantity’ or wordage and editorial involvement which increasingly modified what I wanted to write to what ‘they’ thought would work better all served to dampen my enthusiasm for the project.

Contractually I was obliged to provide as directed and was willing to do so, in my own way, but it was made increasingly clear to them it was going to take more effort on their part than they felt would have been justified for an unknown quantity such as myself and we parted on good terms, each a little the wiser.

Writing on a commercial basis takes FAR more time and effort than can be imagined and unless you’re a dyed-in-the-wool writer and have no other passions in life, I can’t imagine how it would work. Which is probably why so relatively few people who think they can write end up actually getting published.

As a dyed-in-the-wool trader then writing commercially is most clearly not an option for me. Maybe when I retire because my fingers are too gnarled with arthritic rheumatism to hit the keys or click the mouse and I’m too slow to avoid slippage larger than my targets and my stops are frequent and largely involuntary (!), I’ll drag (or will have dragged for me) my rocking-chair onto the porch and recommence my writing endeavours...

No reflection on the individual or his work about whom this thread was initiated or any other writers of trading materials – they clearly have something I do not.

 

[tlxv04]

The book offers two techniques. The techniques are relatively simple but very effective.

 

[TheBramble]

Have you used both techniques extensively? For how long? How effective - in terms of W:L, Pwl, drawdown? Can it be applied to any market of just very specific ones?

I understand the book was only made available this week-end, how have you managed to trade the techniques it describes?

 

[timsk]

Tony,
I understand your problem completely. My aunt is a (retired) professor of history and has written extensively about her period of expertise (French medieval history). Even in the world of academia, her publishers put all kinds of constraints on her that she found intolerable. In your case, how about self publishing? At least that way the book will be exactly as you want it. You could possibly sell it through T2W - you're bound to at least get your money back - even if you don't make a huge profit? It's just a thought. I've no way of knowing for certain just how good a trader you are Tony but, without doubt, you're a sublime writer. I'd certainly buy a copy!
Tim.

 

[TheBramble]

Thanks for your kind words Tim.

It’s didn’t ever think the publishing thing was an ego exercise, so the self-publishing/vanity publishing options weren’t ever going to be considerations.

However, I do think one of the things that keeps people posting on sites like this is the instant gratification of immediate publication to a potentially interested audience. There has to be some ego somewhere in all of that and I guess that applies to us all equally otherwise, we wouldn’t carry on doing it.

But as for taking the time and cost of pushing out a book that may or may not be of interest and then getting into the effort and cost of merchandising, marketing, distribution – it’s not what I do Tim – I trade. If the beggars had made it easy for me I would have persisted as writing about trading connects things that perhaps wouldn’t otherwise have been connected, if that makes sense, and that’s the payback for me. (As a matter of interest, the financial rewards for a first time writer in this area (perhaps any area) are nothing-to-poor. I don’t know if our writer members will confirm that as their experience, but you’re not going to get as wealthy writing about trading as you are trading – unless you’re a crap trader of course.) But they didn’t and it was starting to negatively impact my trading and my other projects, which was where I decided it was time to draw stumps.

So I’ve no plans to do anything further along this route just now, but may well start a self-absorbed ego-massage thread in due course along the lines of the cosy fireside chats ASC used to give.

 

[timsk]

Tony,
No, I agree, you're unlikely to get rich. I also agree with your comments as to why people post on here; it's certainly true of me in part at least. Also, I do get a buzz out of contributing something that others find of value (occasionally!) and, more importantly, I find that writing about something helps me to crystallize my views and beliefs about the topic in question. Perhaps I think about the subject a little harder and in more depth than I might otherwise do - for fear of writing something that others will tear to shreds and then I'll be made to look very silly. Not that this doesn't happen (forgive the double negative) as of course it does from time to time; usually at the hands of someone like your good self! But there's one thing writing a book will do for you that a forum like T2W can't do. In a word: royalties. There's nothing quite like being paid over and over for work you did yonks ago - even if it's only a token amount. Trading scores a lot of pluses, but it hasn't cracked the biggest nut of them all, residual income. There's nothing quite like it!
Tim.

 

[Paddington]

Bramble,
all good questions. The book came out late last week so I would suggest that people have had time to read it and perform an amount of backtesting.

It is demonstrated on the spx in the book, but is also relevant for other markets, 24 houjr mkts such as forex being the suggested ones. I would not imagine anyone has had any time to trade it more than once or possibly twice at the most. Realistically after testing it probably needs a couple of months to come up with a decent sample size to start to answer your queries even if applied to multiple markets.

For myself I have backtested 17 months on the spx and am currently doing so on the gbp (forex are also good mkts for it). Being a swing trading system it doesn't give loads of entries per market per month but at the back testing stage appears to give reasonable stats being high hit rate with reasonable expectancy. This would suggest that drawdowns would not be too large.

As we know this is different to live trading you're probably going to need to wait for a few months and that's with a proviso that anyone is willing to volunteer their results. As you correctly say none can currently be available.

Maybe now a thread has been started people will post more experiences of it here. Note that it is not like matrix and is a relatively simple and meachanical swing trading approach

hth
Pad

 

[TheBramble]

Have you used MM as well Pad?

 

[Paddington]

Have you used MM as well Pad?

I follow MM, but view it more as an overlay of how the market is going, ie an interpretation of the market rather than a trading system for the market. In the end of the day the market is of course the only truth and there are many ways of looking at it.

Is it useful to me? Yes at times it highlights time periods where the mkt almost has to turn at a certain degree. It tends to gel with concepts i follow, ie patterns, waves, fibonacci etc but i wouldn't view it as a trading system per se, more a background understanding in a market in which one applies trading systems.

In the end though I think one gets to the point where there is just a market and you've looked at it long anough to get a feel for what is happening. Whether one gets there with indicators, patterns, EW, commercial trend following, breakout or counter trend systems I don't think matters too much. I would say matrix as a bundle of techniques highlights areas in time and price for turns, but price wise I have my own approaches for that for my day to day intraday trading. It has informed me on my journey I guess. Like all else in trading it is no holy grail as that is inside us.

I have struggled with the idea of swing trading which is why I was interested in nexus. I answered as I saw the thread and have just got the book.

To me backtesting looks OK, and to be fair in the book it is demonstrated from Oct to mid april showing every entry. My testing since jan last year to today suggests the results are replicable over a longer period but need longer and need the live entries to see how it performs after commissions, slippage, paddington error etc etc

cheers
P

 

[ZEPPO]

The book offers two techniques. The techniques are relatively simple but very effective.

Actually the book offers three techniques; however, what is really useful about them is the fact that exact entries and exits are part of the set-up, there are no guesses.
Once the signal is given, all you have to do is to set your entry and exit points, so when you are in the market you do not have to think about it.
There are a lot of books about strategies out there, but not that many contain a methodology for trading the markets properly.
Another thing: the book is based on real trades, taken by Steve Copan; of course, there are losers - and are shown alongside the winners.
No hype here.
Hope this helps.

Eduardo.

 

[TheBramble]

Well, it's good to get so much positive response from folk for a book that's only been out a few days.

I'm sure we'll get more positive feedback over the next few weeks.

While I wish Steve luck in his latest project, I can't help thinking £199 is a little steep for a book with just 2-3 strategies. Or perhaps that is its strength.

Maybe I’ll do a one-strategy pamphlet – special offer - only £9999 on the 14:00-16:00 Breakout on USD denominated pairs…Oh, burger it, given it away for free….

 

[NetTecture]

Well, you did see the part about limited distribution of the book? I think part of the problem of the price is that he may think he wants to get some worth out of it and thte time and cost involved I cant argue that, actually (not me, charging around USD 100 per hour for my own work). If the book is legit... (which I assume at the moment it is)... the price is not that bad I think I will get one, just as a good read

 

[TheBramble]

Right, I'd limit distribution as well...Good idea. LOL.

I'm sure there's a clever marketing term for making something more attractive my apparently limiting its availability in either quantity or time. There’s only one left and somebody else is interested. This offer closes tomorrow. And any combination thereof.

Isn’t that pretty much where we’re at each day in the market – perceptions of value and limitations of availability (at that price)?

 

[NetTecture]

I don't say it is not marketing. It may acutally even not be THAT much a limit - unless one knows how many books he expects to sell... Maybe he expects only to sell 100 copies a year anyway - who knows?

But if the amount sold really is around 250, and he wants to get making the book worthwhile even a little... then the price just has to be a little higher than USD 19,95.

Understandable.

 

[NetTecture]

So, anyone else has something to say about the book? I contemplate of just buying it - it sounds interesting. Comments her so far look positive and validate the book as "not scam", and it is not too expensie for something giving one two good examples of trading systems

 

[TheBramble]

Erm…NT, DYOR.

I hope nothing I have said has influenced you in either direction.

My personal view is that anyone who has a killer of a system, doesn't write books or produce CDs and market it. And certainly doesn't bring out various 'flavours' and 'strengths' of the same (Delta, Market Matrix, Nexus). They just trade it.

I genuinely like Steve Copan and wish him well. The UK produces so relatively few entrepreneurs he is to be applauded for his efforts, but there is a big difference between books on general trading topics and issues, and those that are designed to appeal to the more base emotional aspects of our natures which we're trying hard to avoid bringing into the craft in the first place.

The techniques explained in all his books are available in almost every respect freely elsewhere and are covered in depth by other works which are available at a more ‘standard’ rate for books of that nature. While I have, and will continue, to pay over-the-odds for rare or hard to get hold of books, I don’t yet feel this stable has generated the provenance which can realistically command the prices being asked for its products.

Just my view.