Member Reviews Section

[Sharky]

Data Feed & Broker Reviews

I'm very pleased to announce the launch of the data feed and broker review sections, which will serve to further extend the trading reviews on T2W.

The software reviews has proved popular and I'd like to thank everyone who has contributed a review of the product they've used.


The Data Feeds section, I've broken down into:

1. Realtime
2. EOD
3. UK Level 2

and the ratings are broken down into:

1. Reliabilty
2. Quality of Data
3. Speed / Performance (for Realtime),
Feature - eg. Historical/OHLC/Retrieval Methods (for EOD)
Features - eg. Retrieval Methods (for UK L2)
4. Customer Support
5. Value for Money

The Brokers section, I've broken down into:

1. Spread Betting
2. Contracts for Differences
3. Fixed Odds Betting
4. Direct Access

and the ratings are broken down as:

1. Trading Platform (Usability & Performance)
2. Service Reliability (inc. Quote & Execution Speeds)
3. Range of Services (eg. Markets/Stops/Limits etc)
4. Support and Training
5. Value for Money (Commissions & Fees)

I look forward to reading members reviews, and would welcome comments as to any ways in which you think all the reviews on the site can be approved - suggestions as to improved ways to break down categories and rating are also welcome. Also please let me know if you would like me to add any missing feeds, brokers or software.

The next addition will be the ability for members to edit their reviews and ratings, once submitted.

All the best,
Paul.

 

[Sharky]

Following suggestions from members, we're adding two more categories for members to review.

These will be MAGAZINES and SEMINARS (both group and 1-2-1).

We already have an exhaustive list of trading magazines, but we would appreciate assistance with creating an equally exhaustive live of seminar tutors. So please add any names you can think of to this thread.

List so far:

Vince Stanzione
Steve Nison
Darren Winters
Joes Ross
Alan Rich
Paul Rodrigues
Richard Joyson
Chris Manning
Sandy Jadeja
Martin Cole
John Bartlett
Alan Farley
Sandy Grogan
Tom Gentile

In terms of rating seminars - here is our proposal for the five criteria:

1. Teaching Ability
2. Course Content
3. Course Presentation
4. Support and Materials
5. Value for Money

The suggested criteria for magazines is:

1. Quality of Writing
2. Breadth of Features
3. Magazine Content
4. Magazine Presentation
5. Value for Money

As always your feedback is much appreciated. Let us know if you these proposed criteria are sufficient to give a comprehensive rating to the product or service.

Thanks,

 

[Trader333]

Sharky,

Why have you not included Nasdaq Level II on datafeeds ?

Also on the seminars side I would add the following:

"Is your trading more profitable as a result of this seminar / coaching ? Y / N "

Would you recommend others take this seminar / coaching Y / N ?

This will stop all of this demand for proof of trading ability because if a lot of people become more profitable and recommend the seminar / coaching there simply wouldnt be a need for further proof. Likewise if the opposite happens then people cannot complain that they didnt know what they were letting themselves in for.


Paul

 

[Sharky]

Hi Trader333,

Good point, as I'm not all that clued up on US level 2 data feeds - perhaps you could put together a list of names (and urls if you have them). And I'll add them to the site later today.

Thanks,

 

[Sharky]

The two new review sections are now live, and can be accessed via the front page or the menu bar, or directly form the links below:

Trading Magazine Reviews

Trading Seminar Reviews

 

[Sharky]

The next addition to our reviews section will be Book Reviews . [Thanks go to bluechip trader for coming up with this suggestion.]

As always we will have five criteria by with to rank books, and overall score based on an average of these.

The proposed criteria will include 5 of the following:

- Author's Expertise
- Book Presentation/Style
- Book Content
- Originality
- Relevance
- Original Content
- Insightful
- Clearly Written
- Value for Money
- Benefit to your Trading
- Readability
- How it compares to other books in same Genre

The selected criteria taken together should provide a balanced critique of the book.

As always I'd welcome members comments as to which you think should be included (perhaps its not on the list above), and whether we should cover all the types of books we list in our book store, or whether we should restrict the book categories to those most relevance to active traders.

 

[Trader333]

How about inclduing ebook and CD tutorials as part of book reviews ? There are not many around but some are good.


Paul

 

[Rognvald]

Sharky
Criteria
For me -Original Content, Clearly Written, Benefit to my Trading, Value for Money.
Paul's idea is a good one

 

[Sharky]

Thanks Rognvald, and that's a good idea Trader333. Perhaps we can get a list together of all the ebooks/cd tutorials out there.

Another idea would be to have a new reviews section for trading systems like StarTrader or Goldline.

 

[Khalid]

Hi Sharky,

How are you, what advice or opinion can you kinldy offer on Vince Stanzione and his course material that he has on offer.

Many thanks in advance.

Khalid

 

[Sharky]

Hi Khalid, there are 3 reviews here:

http://www.trade2win.co.uk/reviews/product.php?id=128

 

[Sharky]

Another idea would be to extend the reviews section to newsletters and paid access websites.

The proposed five criteria for Book Reviews are now:

Author's Expertise
Clarity of Writing
Original Content
Benefit to My Trading
Value for Money

 

[Rognvald]

Trading Systems, Newsletters and paid access websites

I think you may be getting into difficult territory there. Paul will be better able to comment on systems review than me

 

[Sharky]

Thanks for the feedback Rognvald.

The book reviews section is now live and accessible through the front page or the "Reviews" menu bar.

The direct link to it is here:

http://www.trade2win.co.uk/reviews/index.php?catid=7

Please note if you would like to review a book and it's not listed, or you'd like us to add a new category of books, simply email me your request at [email protected] and I'll normally add it the same day.

Thanks.

 

[Khalid]

Hi Sharky,

Many thanks for your response.

Khalid

 

[barjon]

Paul

I've just done a couple of book reviews to help get things moving.

A couple of points:

1. rating author's expertise - difficult to judge. I'm not sure I'm
competent to judge and just because they write a good book doesn't mean they're expert!!

2. original content - again difficult, what may be new to me might be old hat to many.

3. benefit to my trading - I was conscious here that I am essentially an amateur in a sea of professionals. Benefit to my trading might be meaningless to many.

Maybe the ratings should relate only to the book itself?

eg:

Comprehensiveness
Clarity of writing
Clarity of any chart examples
Supportive evidence
etc or some such

jon

 

[Sharky]

Thanks for the feedback Jon, and apologies for taking such a long time to respond to them.

Reviews are of course subjective, and so I agree that what's useful to one person may be irrelevant to someone else. But while we could pick criteria that relates more to the actual structural/grammatical integrity of the book itself rather that our opinion of the material - and therefore one would hope would be a more accurate objective review - I don't think it's the type of review that member's are looking to read (by all means let me know if I'm making a wrong assumption!). People can usually judge the level of competence of a member by their postings on the forums and therefore make a judgement as to the extent to which the reviews applies to them. Also once we get 3 or 4 reviews we start to be able to draw out similarities of critique that naturally take on a higher prominence.

So for the moment I'm content to keep the ratings as they unless I get some further feedback to support a change.

 

[Sharky]

Post Anonymous Reviews

We've added a new option on the Reviews section - namely, the ability to post anonymous reviews.

On the review submission page at the bottom underneath the individual ratings, you'll see a checkbox labelled "Post Anonymous Review", by ticking this checkbox you're identity will be hidden and so the name on the review will be merely "Anonymous Member". This option is turned off by default and we'd encourage members not to post anonymously unless they feel it's entirely necessary - since others members are then unable to follow up on any of the points made in the review directly with the member.

However we also appreciate that in certain circumstances members may prefer to post anonymously and therefore we are happy to provide this facility. In order to ensure that this facility isn't abused - the site administrator (only) will still be able to find out who posted a review. And as always we insist the reviewer has a minimum of 5 posts in the forums and the review must be unbiased, fair and independently written or will be removed and the member warned or potentially banned.

 

[DaveJB]

Oooooh,
whilst singing the praise of something in a review and remaining anonymous might be okay, I strongly question the decision to allow anonymous reviews... if you aren't prepared to put your name on it, you shouldn't post it!
I can't think of a single good reason to post anonymously.... unless your name is Osama, and you are trying to keep a low profile.
Dave