Yesterday I sent following email to the vendor: Hi Brad, I've been a subscriber to OPII for more than a year now, and as far as I can see from the C2 results, OPI is looking much better in terms of statistics. Do you recommend me to switch to OPI now or continue with OPII? Are you still trading OPII for your family accounts? My experience with C2 systems is that when a vendor changes the way he trades his system (although you explained clearly why you were making that change), it is almost always a warning sign for me that something is not right and it may be the time to quit or change. Therefore I am asking those two questions. If you tell me to continue with OPII, I will. And received following reply: And last year you criticized by systems when they went flat in the Summer this year its something else. You burned your bridge with me. Then I sent following email: I believe you confused me with someone else. I did not criticise you last summer as I was a new subscriber. I asked you a few questions and you got them as criticism and I told you that it was a way of learning to ask questions and you told me "No worries, keep asking". Yesterday, I asked a simple question and seeked your recommendation if I should switch to OPI or continue with OPII, and I told you the reason why I asked those questions. And that reason is my own experience with C2 systems as I've been trading C2 systems for a very long time. But your reply to me is not kind, not answering my question and considering your previous replies either to me or other subscribers, it looks like you have no tolerance to any opinion and you have certainly an ego and attitude problem. As a long time subscriber seeking answers to my questions, I definitely haven't deserved this kind of behaviour, therefore I'm going to unsubscribe from OPII when my paid period ends this month. Regards, 2013 and 2014 returns and other stats are fantastic. I was considering to trade this strategy for a long time as normally I am a loyal subscriber (I've been trading another strategy for more than 3 years now), but the attitude of vendor is unacceptable. Whenever you ask a question, you feel like you'll be punished as he has a ego problem and take everything as a criticism. If you'd like to work with this kind of vendor, then be my guest. But as a paying subscribers, I believe we don't deserve this kind of attitude. Therefore; Performance/Stats: 4 stars Service: Does not deserve a star

Finally I am pulling plug on this system. I am not sure based on trading style if this can be called as a system.

It's just a matter of time before this system goes bust, I definitely would not invest any money in it. First of all the manager averages down on almost every trade. Now averaging down isn't necessarily bad but the fact that he has to do it so often proves that he isn't very good at picking stocks. If he were picking stocks at the right time he wouldn't need to average down all the time. He also says in his description that he only uses 2-3 "tranches" meaning he only averages down 2-3 times per trade. *LIE* In his 'BLUE' trade, he averaged down 10 times. How can you be so wrong that you have to keep putting money in 10 times? In the BLUE trade it was reported that they were about to get a drug passed for Europe and the U.S. This was very bullish news but Brett continued to stay SHORT and of course lost more money. Secondly when I was a subscriber Brett was short in 10 trades. This is way too much, many of them were in the same industry so they all went bad together and he subsequently went on an 18% draw down. This isn't a person who knows how to trade. Everyone who has been trading for more than a year knows you don't invest too much in any one sector, especially bio stocks. It also says in his description that he was a professional trader at a hedge fund. I cannot believe this, it has to be a lie. If he was they must have fired him because there's no way you can trade like this working for a professional hedge fund. You would get laughed at and shown the door. He also writes his description in the 3rd person as if it's written by someone else. I.e. "The portfolio manager excels at trading." Just seems sneaky when we know it's written by you Brett. And lastly may I just say that the 2 positive reviews that were first posted for Texas Doubledown are 100% fake and I would risk money on that. Just read them, it's so obvious. Honestly I think this guy is just trying his luck and it's only a matter of time before he busts the account and we never hear from him again. 0/5

One of the best systems in C2, I've been using from a long time and i have good gains without a lot of risk. Owner of the system have a lot of experience and know what he is doing, in a few years we will see how this system make consistent profits. [C2 ADMINISTRATOR REMINDER: We're glad you found a strategy you like, but we want to remind people that all trading is risky and there is no such thing as "consistent profits."]

A very risky system. This is a martingale system which mean the developer will try to add more shares to his existing stock position when the price of the stock go down, a practice call averaging down or double down (and the reverse if the stock is shorted). This system only work well if the market is moving sideway (neutral) but a disaster if the market is trending. Another risky aspect of the system is that the developer is using full margin at all time for trading and so for instance if your available capital set aside for trading is $1000 he will borrow on margin another $1000 to make a total of $2000 which he then use to trade. The problem with this that you may get a margin call which will close your stock position automatically. This had happenned twice in his other system, Large Hadron Collider, which use a similar strategy. just click on "Show more details" under "Closed Trades" then scroll down the page and you will see "margin call (auto-generated) under stocks that have margin call. The third risky aspect of this system is that there is no diversification in the portfolio holding. This mean that 90% portfolio holding contains stocks that belong to the same industry, for example, his current system portfolio contain 100% biotechnology stocks. What is even worse is that the number of stocks in the portfolio is 10 or less most of the time and most of stocks he trade is small cap stocks which tend to be very volatile. Don't be fooled by the high return of this system because that return is magnified by the help of borrowed money or leverage. Stripped off the leverage and the return is only half as much. All in all I would say if you like gambling this is the system for you.

This is a volatile system - he tends to short stocks trading near 52 week highs hoping for a pullback. These stocks tend to have momentum so its a risky proposition. On top of that, the system can sometimes place 15 trades in a single day, meaning that you either need to auto trade the system or sit in front of a computer all day. He's only been trading for five months so its too soon to completely discount his strategy - however - I suggest traders exercise caution until he's had at least 10 months of consistent results. I wish him luck.

Good system. Trader is communicative and helpful, both through C2 boards, and by posting his own descriptive blog.

This system has a poor trading plan or no plan. The losses are too large in comparison to the gains. System developer should try and set system at 3:1. eg. Every gain should be three times the loss. If the stop loss is $500, then the gain is $1500 or if the stop is 5 points= $50 x 5= $250.00 then the gain should be 15 points = $50 x 15 = 750. This means that if the system loss 5 times (5 x $250= $1200) and only gain 2 times ( 2 x $750= $1500) the system will still end up with a gain.

This is the best futures system on C2 for the following reasons. 1) The developer is very quick to respond with insightful comments. 2) He does not tout his system as a holy grail and has realistic expectations. 3) The system is in and out intra-day, no overnight or weekend risk. 4) No scaling in / martingale strategy. 5) The DD recovery was long-term realistic and steady. 6) The developer tweaks his system according to changing market conditions so the system does not go stale. 7) Especially for a CL trading system, the developer does not let profits run into losses very often. I got rid of many other systems on C2 to focus on this one and I haven't looked back. I am willing to take on a lot of risk, so I trade 3 contracts with 50k capital.

I am a new Double Down subscriber of a few weeks, and I have to tell you, Brett is some kind of awesome trader. I started Double Down with a clean slate, preferring not to join any already open trades. I have participated in 5 trades so far, all with gains. 2.27%, 36.90%, 21.08%, 14.72%, and 1.35% for a total dollar gain of $3,400. Brett shorts stocks frequently, and has had some phenomenal gains which I was not able to participate in, as I am funded in an IRA using email signals. To take full advantage of Brett 19s trading expertise I am now using the Auto Trading feature in a cash account. With Brett at the helm, I am looking forward to seeing my account grow. I am fully confident in Brett 19s trading ability, and I am thrilled to be involved with Collective2 and Texas Double Down. Brett 19s communication skills are on par with his trading. This guy is truly concerned about making you money (he has even emailed me to see how my account is doing). He always answers my questions in a timely fashion. Out of courtesy, I normally wait for the market to close before shooting him an email. More often than not, I receive a reply the same night. One tip I would give you when you auto trade Double Down is to email Brett, and tell him how much money you are setting aside for Double Down. He will recommend a 1Cscaling 1D percentage. Collective is a little misleading when they suggest using 100%. Do not use 100% unless you are trading the same amount as the Double Down account. Currently as of May 4th it is roughly 170k. If you use 100% and have less than 170k you may run out of money! I am trading with 90k and using 50% scaling. You can always adjust up or down later if you wish. As I said, I thoroughly trust Brett 19s trading skills. I feel we are seeing the making of a Super Star! Thanks Brett 26. I Love Ya !!!

Good system I've been auto trading for a few weeks. Adrian has a very professional attitude, both in terms of trading and communication : he explains on a regular basis the way he trades the market, the positions... and answers every question... I recommend ! PS : let's trade more time, and I'll probably upgrade to "5 stars" (;-)

I emailed the system developer, Keith Painter, what the hell was going on in the system with this ridiculous draw-down. Originally Emerging-S had a max draw-down of around 8%, however, all of a sudden, the system developer developed a whole new trading approach to Emerging S, with amazing "back-testing" results. An email was sent to subscribers that showed back-testing results that showed an average gain of 9% per month and a 111% annual return with a max draw-down of 11%. Being amazed at such results, I stayed in the system, only to wonder what the hell was going on when the equity curve of the system kept going DOWN and DOWN, to see the system's max draw-down reach an all time high of 21%!!! I emailed the system developer (Keith Painter) why the back-testing results showed so much promise whereas in reality the opposite was occurring - the system kept losing money. No response from the developer.I really don't know why his back-testing results were the complete opposite of what was happening in the system. But anyways, subscribers received an email today finally saying that the system will go back to it's original algorithms. Still, i've unsubscribed to this system for several reasons. 1) Developer should not have used a live auto-traded system to test a brand new system with a brand new approach. 2) Can you really believe a system that promises portfolio gains of 9% a month and 111% a year? That seems ludicrous. 3) The draw-down of this system has hit a point where I feel it is unsafe to continue using this system.

Look at the DD. This speak for it self.

This system had a good thing going but seems not to be able to give up the GBP/NZD trade. It's currently down 50% and even if it can turn around he has lost my confidence in "limiting the losses" as per his description.

This look like another "shooting star" system which did well for a short period due to luck but then reverted to randomness because there is no edge. After subscribing to many of these systems I've learned to never trade anything less than a year old and/or a system which is not TOS certified (trader has no skin in the game). Once either of these conditions changes I will take another look at this one.

If you are going to trade this system you need to know yourself pretty well and know how much drawdown you can tolerate. If you use too much leverage you will likely get scared and exit the trade early. Exiting the trade early will almost always cost you tons of money. Here is how a winning trade will go sometimes: The market drops about 2% and you receive the system signal to go long. This system has up to two signals per trade so you buy 1/2 of your maximum contracts per trade. Then the market continues to drop and after a few days your account is down 15%. You are starting to feel scared that the market will continue to crash. All the financial experts around the world are proclaiming on the television and radio that the market will continue to decline and you should get out as soon as possible. At this darkest hour the system now gives you a second signal to double up on you contracts! You were already scared with 1/2 the contracts and now you need to double up? At this point the future is up to you. You can bail out for a significant loss or double up with an 80% of turning this into a winning trade in the next few days. It 19s hard to go against your instinct to sell, but this system feeds upon fear and will make some of its best gains when all hope is lost. I have been trading this system off and on since October 2011. At that time I didn 19t have a lot of confidence in the system so I didn 19t perform the trades like the system specified. I did the math and if I would have faithfully followed the system from day 1 until now my account would have tripled in size! Instead my account is only up 10% for that entire period. My account would have risen 56% in 2014 alone if I would have stuck with it. How many SP500 contracts should you trade to maximize your profits while keeping the drawdowns reasonable? The yearly gains displayed on collective2 are distorted by the fact that the system always trades one or two contracts per trade no matter what the account size is. For example, the gains in 2010(when the account value was $10,000) are most likely overstated and the gains in 2014 (account value was P,000) are understated. Using the historic system trades I ran some simulations to help determine the optimum amount of leveraging to use. The results were that trading one contract (or two if there is a second signal) for every $30,000 in my account would maximize my yearly gain and still have a reasonable drawdown. If you had traded this system for the 15 years at this level of leverage you would have made an average of 45% per year with a maximum drawdown of 27% during the trade and a maximum drawdown of 12% after the trade closed. If you are not comfortable with this drawdown you could, for example, trade $60,000 per contract and cut all those numbers in half. The good: 1. 15 year overall track record without a single losing year. 5 year independently verified track record on the colletive2 site. Using $30,000 per contract leveraging, the biggest gain was 108% during the crash of 2008 and the smallest gain was 8% in 2012. 2. Using $30,000 per contract leveraging, for the last 15 years the overall gain was 45% per year (37% average per year the last 5 years) with a maximum 1Cduring a trade 1D account drawdown of 27% and a maximum closed trade account drawdown of 12%. 3. The system does not just take trades to make the subscriber happy. It only signals a trade when all conditions for a high probability trade are met. During low volatility markets it might go for months without a single trade. 4. Perfect for retirement accounts. TD Ameritrade allows you to trade futures contracts in an IRA without any monthly or yearly fees. Trading this system in an IRA using stocks or ETF 19s doesn 19t work as well because it is hard to get the exact leveraging you want and after buying and selling stocks in and IRA you have to wait 3 days before you can trade again. Sometimes the system will signal another trade sooner than 3 days after your last trade. But with futures contracts you can buy and sell as often as you like at about any amount of leveraging you like. 5. Low exposure to the market. Overall on average with this system you are only in the market about 30% of the time. That means the next time there is a big event like 9-11 you have a 70% of not being in the marked so your risk of an oversized loss is reduced significantly. The bad: 1. You can 19t make a lot of money without risking a lot of money. At $30,000 per contract leveraging there is a chance that a once or twice a decade event will occur while you are long and you will lose 50% or more of your account. I would estimate your chance of this is about 5% for each 10 year period you use the system. I plan to minimize this risk by trading $30,000 per contract until my account grows substantially (for about 6 years) and then reduce my risk to $60,000 per contract. 2. One of the main reasons I like this system is the 15 year track record. The time between 2000 and 2010 is not independently verified and we have to wonder whether or not the track record is accurate. Was the track record created real-time as the system provided signals or was the system created in 2010 and back-tested on data back to 2000? If the 2000-2010 track record consists of back-tested then this is a good system but not yet proven to be great.

The developer has done a phenomenal job with the system by investing into micro/small cap stocks. As of today, he has decided to shift his strategy to instead invest into mid/large cap stocks - while somehow expecting to earn the same returns. His rationale is that the system has become too popular and thus trades into micro/small cap stocks move the price significantly - making it difficult to invest effectively. The challenge he faces is real but he could have managed the issue less drastically. For example - he should not have invested into a position (airt) that has an average daily volume of just 9,000. Sticking to a higher average daily volume threshold would appear to have been a more measured mitigating action. The bottom line is that this system will no longer earn the same returns as it has in the past simply because the allocation strategy has changed so significantly. Proof of this is his other system OP II which by design focusses on mid/large caps and earns a lower rate of return. That said, his systems will likely continue to outperform the overall market and he deserves credit for that. He's generally a very disciplined investor.

I have used the system for a few months but have decided to leave it - not b/c its in a losing phase (which is inevitable with any system) but b/c the developer is constantly tweaking it and then exulting how great the back-test results are with the new tweaks. [One can always find one or more parameters that give fantastic back-test results but that doesn't mean the underlying concepts are robust.] I reckon it'll take him a few years to be a mature back-tester.

After 30% account loss I am pulling a plug on it. Very risky system with a bad risk management from a developer. It appears that developer went into meltdown after system 15% account loss in single trade and abandoned his original strategy.

horrible. Only way to describe this system and manager. When trying to get out, he put on more trades so u are stuck as he takes you down. When things don't go right he will not even bother to respond. Don't think this system will last to long as one can see from the dismal performance with a high price tag. Just make sure if a new system opens up run for the hills

Best advise for this trader and system = STAY AWAY. trust this advise - it will save you allot of money and time. Many other safer more professional systems available, choose them.

Am not sure why nobody writes reviews on TheForexPortal. I thought its a great system. Manageable drawdowns for the returns shown with almost a year of consistent records. This "Trend Picker" strategy could compliment many other retracement strategy out there. I also like the fact that i see Mr Adrian Eliffe online most of the time, which hopefully means that he (this vendor) isn't solely depending on EA or fully algorithm system (which can be scary).

I was referred to this strategy by a friend and it has not disappointed so far. Only one signal so far. So may be too early for me to tell but this lloks to have solid history and track record. Thank you,

Hasn't been doing very well lately. Ask me in several months what I think. I have subscribed to his strategy for only about 1 month.

As the last reviewer pointed out it appears that this system was overfit to a recent small data set during development and is now being tweaked along the way when when faced with real world market conditions. The result: 7 months of gains wiped out in a month. To make matters worse the developer doubled the leverage in a self-destructive attempt to recover from the drawdown quickly despite the increased volatiilty and right before an FOMC announcement (!) I noticed there is a Goldmeter "D" ready to set sail once this one sinks to the bottom. Tickets should be on sale soon but I think I'll stay on dry land next time.