Insight Trading System - Steer clear!

[nkruger]

It did say to go long over the weekend, but then it changed its 'mind' come Monday morning All very confusing!

I've got an extra bit in my 'Daily Dow Diary' as from today, to record the signals (and predicted next day signals) for DowStomper - I suppose it will be useful to see the slight differences that occur between DowTrade & DowStomper on a day-to-day basis....

 

[nkruger]

Thanks Nick,

So can I just clarify - you watch the IMS recalculate during the day and enter when it chages direction? What's your profit target each time?

Thanks for sharing!

Right. The IMS has gone long, so it's time to enter Jerry's Trade with targets of 50, 75 and 100pips........

 

[FloorTrader]

the dowstomper was long as of yesterday's close. So it seems to be ahead of the insight system.

btw, by 'newbie system' I'm not trying to insult you -)) I just mean that it's not very sophisticated... 'go long when it says long, go short when it says short'

The 'possible long' thing is another obvious one. If the markets close, and it's set on 'possible long', that's obviously a long. Like, doh. It says so on the page you have to go through to get to the current signal, i.e.

"After the market closes, if a signal HAS been generated, the 'possible Long' or 'possible Short' image will be visible. These is, at the time of writing, a 100% correlation between predictions just before the closing bell, and the actual End-of-Day signal generated after settlement prices are agreed after the market has closed."

 

[logit]

The 'possible long' thing is another obvious one. If the markets close, and it's set on 'possible long', that's obviously a long. Like, doh. It says so on the page you have to go through to get to the current signal, i.e.

I've been watching the signals for a month now, and I can tell you that even though it says 'possible long' or even 'long' after the close of the market, it does not mean that the system will always record a long from the close that day. The fact that they update the recorded trades with a lag of a couple of days gives them the leeway to sidestep these discrepancies.

Indeed, it does say on the site that signals can change due to overnight events (in Asia etc,) and by entering at the close the previous day, you obtain a better price, but face more risk in that the signal may not be right.

 

[buzzee]

What the hell DOWTRADER is doing with their signal service??
I just logged on and the signal changed from yesterday!
They had a long for today (a day later then dowstomper!) and now it shows still short!
Do they realize that we are trading their signal with real money?

 

[nkruger]

What the hell DOWTRADER is doing with their signal service??
I just logged on and the signal changed from yesterday!
They had a long for today (a day later then dowstomper!) and now it shows still short!
Do they realize that we are trading their signal with real money?

Could fool a rookie, I agree. I think they had another problem of a similiar nature in the last couple of weeks.....

Never mind, I'm still long since early yesterday - should be a nice ride up

 

[rfdevoe]

hi nick bob devoe here- at what time of day are you entering the dow trader signals-during the day or at the close as the system suggests. by the way if you are trading jerrys system and entering at the close of the day beware because i can show you instances where you would have lost a bundle. i posted this on the blog along with the dates. his record of so many wins without a loss is misleading. thanks bob

 

[maha.on.maui]

I think where you made a mistake was that there was a PREDICTED Long trade on Friday, but it wasn't confirmed until last night (Monday). As I said earlier, looking at the IMS on DowTrader, there should be a long signal today around 3-4pm (GMT).....

Nick

It was a Predicted Possible Long on Friday which turned into a Predicted Long later, but on Monday it was all gone, there was no signal. I wonder why Dow Stomper is free. For all I know I had the 'prediction' site open for a few hours, while I was gone, when I came back my email account had been suspended for an hour because it suddenly sent Spam mail to everybody, which has never happened before.

 

[maha.on.maui]

hi nick bob devoe here- at what time of day are you entering the dow trader signals-during the day or at the close as the system suggests. by the way if you are trading jerrys system and entering at the close of the day beware because i can show you instances where you would have lost a bundle. i posted this on the blog along with the dates. his record of so many wins without a loss is misleading. thanks bob

Somebody mentioned that Jerry's system was not really as good because he used Yahoo data to backtest, which are notorious for having phantasy highs and lows. So I compared it with Stockcharts and there really is quite a difference. I tested it with Stockcharts data for 2006 and the results were pretty disillusioning, because the account would have been the same on 12/28/06 as it was on 7/18/06, having not made a profit overall in 5 months.

Peter

 

[nkruger]

hi nick bob devoe here- at what time of day are you entering the dow trader signals-during the day or at the close as the system suggests. by the way if you are trading jerrys system and entering at the close of the day beware because i can show you instances where you would have lost a bundle. i posted this on the blog along with the dates. his record of so many wins without a loss is misleading. thanks bob

Good morning, old friend. I enter the trades intra-day, so as to catch most of the new up/down swing. I've only traded the system live twice and I will post the strategy I used after the Bank Holiday Weekend ( I am away in the Lake District on holiday at the moment, using a friend's computer )

Happy trading - Nick

 

[kreks]

Greetings all,

I've also checked out the data Jerry used and indeed it's the very warped Yahoo data, which has skewed his results. By my calculations (using data from my CFD trading platform with IG Markets - which should be more accurate, or at least relevant to me!), entering EOD and trading with a 50-point target, between 1 Jan 06 and 3 April 07, total profit would have been 1579 points, with 63 trades, of which 50 were 'hits' and 13 'misses' (of the latter, most were unprofitable, but a few were profitable sub-50 point trades).

With a 75-point target, the total points gained is 1697, with 42 hits and 21 misses.

These results can be improved significantly by not trading when the IMS changes direction whilst being between the values of 35 and 65 (ie not overly overbought or oversold, if you want to look at the oscillator in this way). I actually eliminated all trades between IMS values of 40 and 65 (there were 5 trades where the IMS was between 35 and 40 and all were profitable) and the result was: for 50-pt targets, total of 1728 with 36/1 strike rate; and for 75-point trades, total of 2235 points with strike rate of 34/3.

This is a very good example of curve-fitting, so beware!

I also did the same calculations trading the NDX while using the same IMS entry/exit signals - the results weren't hugely different... you can make a bit more profit (relatively speaking to the Dow Jones, using 10 or 15 point targets with the NDX) but the strike rate is a bit worse. I'm really after a highly successful strike rate so I haven't tested the systems with larger point targets (eg 100 for DJ, 20 for NDX), however some quick sums with the NDX showed that the profit would have been much higher with a 20-point target, but with several trades that were very large losses.

Does anyone want to corroborate my calculations??? I did have to partake in some vino to make the process bearable. The spreadsheet is attached.

Cheers,

Kreks

 

[kreks]

...

I also did the same calculations trading the NDX while using the same IMS entry/exit signals - the results weren't hugely different... you can make a bit more profit (relatively speaking to the Dow Jones, using 10 or 15 point targets with the NDX) but the strike rate is a bit worse. I'm really after a highly successful strike rate so I haven't tested the systems with larger point targets (eg 100 for DJ, 20 for NDX), however some quick sums with the NDX showed that the profit would have been much higher with a 20-point target, but with several trades that were very large losses.

....

I couldn't help myself and just did the calcs for the NDX with a 20-point target. Trading each time the IMS changed direction, the results were awful (total 229 points) BUT if only trading when IMS is less than 40 or greater than 65, totals points were 426, with a hit/miss rate of 29/7 - not bad. There was a nasty 77 point loss though, and a couple in the mid-20s.

 

[kreks]

dowstomper

DowStomper's being a bit bipolar again today. After the market closed in the US yesterday, there was a No Signal displayed on the site, then after midnight in the US, a clear Short signal was given (not a Possible Short). And now a few hours later, it's back to No Signal.

WTF?

Are there any longer-term users of DowStomper out there who can give us an insight into how/why it's behaving like this, and the best way to trade it?

Right now I'm doubting whether to even bother with trading DowStomper.

 

[kreks]

DowStomper's being a bit bipolar again today. After the market closed in the US yesterday, there was a No Signal displayed on the site, then after midnight in the US, a clear Short signal was given (not a Possible Short). And now a few hours later, it's back to No Signal.

WTF?

Are there any longer-term users of DowStomper out there who can give us an insight into how/why it's behaving like this, and the best way to trade it?

Right now I'm doubting whether to even bother with trading DowStomper.

Actually, I see right now that at the top of the page it says "most recent signal : short on 2007-04-10 at 12574.48" - funny that the Short signal was only displayed for a couple of hours before the page updated. Even the homepage has been updated and normally that takes a couple of days!

 

[Kinger]

I've got to be honest, I'm a beginner and started with them in Jan, I would have been wiped out if is wasn't for what I'd learnt about money management etc.
I've done better on my own. I know it’s a trend following system, but it does give a lot of false signals (though you are meant to ignore them until the final 4pm signal for the following day).

It always seems to be incredibly late on reversals, as though it confidently knows something you don't, then gives in and changes its mind .. 9 times out of 10 its to late …

Looking at their history, they look good … but this year not so good. But then all you have to do is look at last year (apart from last may) where it looked blindingly obvious in what was going to happen.
So for me…. I use it as just another indicator, my yearly subscription is up in Jan 2008 and won't be re-newing …

Its funny though, before I first joined I thought they were really good, reading the reviews on the blog, etc.. Now I understand that most if not all those comments are from people just started trading like myself. If they knew what they were talking about they wouldn't have bought into the system in the first place. … just shows what a little learnt knowledge has done …

 

[kreks]

I've got to be honest, I'm a beginner and started with them in Jan, I would have been wiped out if is wasn't for what I'd learnt about money management etc.
I've done better on my own. I know it’s a trend following system, but it does give a lot of false signals (though you are meant to ignore them until the final 4pm signal for the following day).

It always seems to be incredibly late on reversals, as though it confidently knows something you don't, then gives in and changes its mind .. 9 times out of 10 its to late …

Looking at their history, they look good … but this year not so good. But then all you have to do is look at last year (apart from last may) where it looked blindingly obvious in what was going to happen.
So for me…. I use it as just another indicator, my yearly subscription is up in Jan 2008 and won't be re-newing …

Its funny though, before I first joined I thought they were really good, reading the reviews on the blog, etc.. Now I understand that most if not all those comments are from people just started trading like myself. If they knew what they were talking about they wouldn't have bought into the system in the first place. … just shows what a little learnt knowledge has done …

You're talking about Insight right? Yeah I'm not trading their regular signals either... I joined in late November and made a few bucks but by Feb a few things about it began to bother me. When I looked through the prior incarnations of the site on www.archive.org, i saw other trading 'systems' advertised which clearly went nowhere. Also after googling the site, I read some not very pleasant exchanges on forums between the owners of insight and dowstomper. I'm also concerned about the short time frame in which the system has been tested and I tried to post a blog question (twice) asking whether the system had been backtested for years prior to Jan 06, but neither blog was published. (Subsequently other blogs of mine have been published so i know the publishing error wasn't on my end!) When I emailed the owners about the issue of backtesting, I was told that they were "working" on doing this but the data was "extensive, and rarely available or reliable" - which sounds a little strange to me.

Anyway, as with all things that look too good to be true...

 

[Kinger]

Good site : www.archive.org

 

[rfdevoe]

the dow stomper system at the close of april 10 showed no signal. this morning-april 11 the system said it went short on april 10. can somebody explain the discrepancy. thank you

 

[Kinger]

Not sure, I wouldn't trust them. But then that's my opinion.
What's to stop them from massaging there data anyway ... ?

 

[Hittfeld]

the dow stomper system at the close of april 10 showed no signal. this morning-april 11 the system said it went short on april 10. can somebody explain the discrepancy. thank you

There is a kind of delay -at least sometimes. I also checked on 10th after close, on 11th 8:00 CET, all No signals. Shortly after US Open I checked the signals again - it said short! But I could trade the same price (even better) through CMC.

This morning at 5:50 EST (US) the signal said LONG, not a possible LONG, but LONG. Still the system showed an open position being short.

Regards

Hittfeld