Anyone subscribe to firsthourtrading.com
- Thread starter scubadia
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Honestly I don't think I have ever seen a TZ post worth reading. All he does is attack and accuse everybody of one thing or another. Just ignore all posts by him and your time on ET will be a lot more pleasant. You can put him on ignore by clicking his name and the on the new page click Add TraderZones to your ignore list.
Spend some time here and you will learn who to listen to and who to ignore. It does take time but it is worth it.
Welcome to ET
People who hide behind an alias to flame are the most to be pitied. You are already anonymous. (Yes, I know, you will deny). People with 8 posts rarely have formed strong opinions. People with hundreds of posts but don't have the nerve to say something directly need the alias.
But a it is likely you are one of the shills for the service from this thread, as there were several, it is hard to take you seriously.
Your response is a pretty accurate assessment of what Manny Backus is doing these days.
> I tried the service for 3 weeks and did not become a full subscriber.
Neither did I. To anyone reading this, I say, subscribe to Manny Backus / First Hour Trading room, only if you want to lose money.
> The claims made in the extensive advertising are very tempting,
Agreed.
> but for me, totally unachievable.
Totally unachievable for you or anyone else, but Manny Backus.
> $300 a month for the service I also felt was vastly overpriced.
Agreed.
> I papertraded the recommendations from his chat room using the Thinkorswim
> platform that I use for my real time stock/option trading and I found that
> one big problem was that the stocks recommended were often highly illiquid
Agreed. He NEVER picks highly liquid stocks like CSCO, NOK, AA, AXP, CAT, ORCL, MSFT, PG or WMT.
The stocks he picks are smaller, less significant, and significantly less liquid.
> and extremely volatile.
Agreed. Manny Backus uses volatility to his advantage, so that he can claim that -- before the usual commission and usual large slippages -- he had a nice winner.
However volatility is not to the advantage of his subscribers (who keep losing money until they go broke).
> The slippage on these stocks can be huge, and when
> you are only looking for a 1% move,
Agreed. His normal profit target is 1%, and the one-way slippage is also around 1%.
> there can be a 1% slippage entry, and 1% slippage exiting
Agreed.
> so Manny will be posting a nice winner,
Agreed. This is the most interesting part. Not counting the large slippage,
he often claims it was a nice winner for him.
> but in reality there was a loss in real times, sometimes up to 5%.
Exactly.
> This happened several times.
This happens way too often, and just when you think it can never happen to you.
Additionally, in my experience, in the moment he's calling out the trades, he sometimes dumps large amounts of text to the screen. Therefore text is printed too fast. Or the doorbell/boing remains silent or appears to sound at the same time as the previous one so you lose track of what is happening. And all of that works against you. Always against you. Always!
> There were times when I actually wondered if Manny was really trading his account, or just calling out trades.
Contrary to what he claims, after watching him many times in real time, I could tell that he wasn't/isn't really trading.
> Another area that I did not like was that during the three weeks he was
> recomending shorting stocks that were not available for borrowing with my
> broker and claiming winning trades for his record.
Agreed. In my experience, whenever the stock he was supposedly day trading was not available for shorting -- not even at his broker -- he still claimed he had a nice winner.
Again, this was yet another proof to me that he wasn't really trading, and that his so called "winning record" was fiction, based on deceit, deception, distortion, fabrication, falsification, or misrepresentation of facts.
> The trade recommendations are nicely vague. "I'me looking to sell XX
> around $25.00" and seconds later he posts " I sold at $24.80" and the
> market is now trading $24.50.
Yes, this happens every trading day, therefore this is an important point.
Additionally, when entering a position, a similar slippage occurs just about all the time. He might say, "I'm looking to buy XX at around $24.00", and seconds later he posts " I bought XX at $24.55", but at that moment XX is already trading $24.80.
This way he can claim he gained ($24.80 - $24.55) / $24.55 = 1.0% or $250.00 in a $25,000 account.
To confirm this, his moderator immediately publishes all the bragging as to how the shills have just gained $280, $260, or even $800 in their own accounts!
However, neither the moderator, nor Manny Backus cares about you, the paying customer. NO one cares that you keep losing money, thanks to deceit, deception, or misrepresentation of facts!
The issue is, these trading losses cost you pretty much every day until you go broke.
Because commissions also get charged to your account every day.
And because Manny's $300/month subscription also cost you, and he collects from you in advance!
And you need to commit for a full 6 months! That's a sure per year LOSS of (12 * $300 / $25,000 =) -14% in a $25,000 account!
> The performance claims, to me, are simply unachievable and in the private
> chat room this is confirmed by many of the participants that I chatted with. > If the 1% a day was achievable I would borrow against my house and
> trade the recommendations in massive size, also impossible given the
> illiquidity of the stocks.
Exactly! He employs MANY-MANY shills in his trading room who pay little or no money in subscription fees.
In return they keep claiming that every day they won big! Even if they only paper trade!
The problem is, their fake claims and false enthusiasm are misleading and highly contagious!
Manny Backus has full control. He has no "forum" of any kind, so regular paying customers cannot bitch about their (usual) losses.
And as to his First hour Trading room, Manny employs a moderator who screens out us everyone with any loss.
Thanks to that moderator, positive comments like "Today I won $390, thanks, Manny" are ALWAYS printed to the screen.
But comments like "I've just lost $260, thank you Manny" never ever see the day light!
Manny is also in the habit of rewriting his trade history.
He rewrites / conceals trade history by using 3 separate clocks. The intention is to conceal and create confusion, so when you and I attempt to look back in time and verify what he did, we cannot really know exactly at what time he called out his trades.
He rewrites / conceals trade history because all text as to doorbells and boings given in Eastern time clock with no seconds. And because all that text and the text of his actual calls are also erased after one hour.
The text of actual trades that he maintains for another 24 hours is text in a delayed PST clock format, and -- in his slick system -- the delay between Easter and Pacific times is never exactly 3:00 hours. And because - what a coincidence - in his slick system the 1-2 minute additional delay is different / inconsistent from one day to the next.
If he ever finds that the timing made a huge difference, in my experience he even rewrites history by modifying some of the minutes in his trade blog, so that you and I can't even rely on that one either, if we want to attempt to verify exactly what time he traded and at what prices.
He also rewrites trade history in his blog by pretending he didn't make any trades on days everyone knew he lost large bundles of money.
He also conceals trade history by denying access to his blog entries he has written since 2/12/2010.
> There were about 60 in the chat room, of which I guess at least a quarter were on trials.
Many of them are on trial. Additionally, many others are his "singers" or SHILLS. And there are many additional ones who appear to be there but aren't really there. They're ficticional users who get logged in by Manny or others and tend to remain logged at all hours, even at 2 a.m. on Public Holidays!
> Pure guess, but that leaves 45 guys paying $300 a mnth
> which is not a bad income stream for anyone.
Agreed. Not bad for an unskilled, uneducated guy with a thick foreign accent. He has got a nice, legal and socially acceptable scam going that fleeces approx. 45 guys @$300/month! And he makes $13,500 per month! It's all cash from his victims. His victims are gullible guys. And mostly Americans!
In my opinion, Manny is less sophisticated than Bernard Madoff, but somewhat more sophisticated than the advance-fee scammers from Nigeria.
> The massive advertising will ensure a constant stream of new players when the old ones get burnt out.
Agreed.
> I hope my views have been of help."
Yes, your views have been the best so far in this thread. Your response has been an accurate assessment of what Manny Backup is doing these days.
I also hope this also establishes that I'm not a shill.
Trouble with most people, they want something for nothing, and cause of their greed, they throw their money away. How bout next time you want to buy a service or a course or one on one training, ask the VENDOR for monthly brokerage statements and if you can call their broker for confirmation of having an account. This is not hard. Most people spend more time planning their vacations and asking all kinds of questions from travel agent than spending time doing due diligence, I don't get it. And if the VENDOR comes up with a lame excuse, walk away.
If everyone asked for same statements, how long do you think these VENDORS would last?
If everyone asked for same statements, how long do you think these VENDORS would last?
There wouldn't be any vendors.
Interestingly, the vendor industry is growing, not shrinking. The reason is simple: people are gullible, emotional and irrational.
You never know Bob, you never know...
P.S. I wonder if TZ and BlowFish from TL are the same person... Or it is just an internet phenomena.
Someone who pretends to be an important person making enormous number of posts and then to trick others to think that he is actually a big trader (who else can post that much!?)
and then use it to pretend to be an authority on the forum... But to me it looks like queue jumping.
I took the free trial to see what it is. The site is run by Manny Backus, who was already shut down once by SEC - https://www.secure.psc.state.pa.us/...D5A848774B9&jsessionid=8030288461280173980046
The system is simple. He trades 1-2 stocks within the first hour of trading and claims for 1% profit per day. Of course having 1% per day would give you about 250% per year non-compounded.
There are few âsmallâ problems with his system. Most of the stocks he picks are smaller and significantly less liquid (market cap of 1-2B, in some cases less than 1B). His normal profit target is 1% (10 cents on $10 stock), and the one-way slippage could be around 0.5%. Imagine Manny buying stock like PNFP, LIHR, HS,CAGC, HANS or MCRL (those are real examples) with average daily volume of few hundred thousand shares. Then all his followers (about 100-200) trying to buy 1,000-2,000 shares each. In many cases, thatâs 20-30% of average daily volume. As a result, the stock goes up 1-2% in matter of seconds â but how many got the same fill as Manny? And what do you think would happen when they all try to sell at the same time?
No historic track record is available of course, so I tried to do my own tracking. The goal is 1% per trade. The winning rate is about 70%. The average gain is 0.35% per trade. Assuming allocation of 20k for his system (10k per trade), you would make a whopping $35 per trade before commissions. Assuming $20 for two way commissions (and most people pay more), it will leave you with $15 net profit per trade. If you make 30 trades per month, it gives you ~$450 return. Subtract $297 subscription fee â and you have $150 return on 20k investment (a whopping 0.75% per month). This return assumes that you are able to duplicate his results, which is impossible by definition.
As people mentioned, his chat room is run by a moderator and is heavily censored. The moderator only allows positive posts. Private chat room was available but has been blocked to avoid free exchange of information between members. When I tried to post my tracking results (based on official fills), I was censored.
The service is a complete scam, like the rest of his services. Be aware.
The system is simple. He trades 1-2 stocks within the first hour of trading and claims for 1% profit per day. Of course having 1% per day would give you about 250% per year non-compounded.
There are few âsmallâ problems with his system. Most of the stocks he picks are smaller and significantly less liquid (market cap of 1-2B, in some cases less than 1B). His normal profit target is 1% (10 cents on $10 stock), and the one-way slippage could be around 0.5%. Imagine Manny buying stock like PNFP, LIHR, HS,CAGC, HANS or MCRL (those are real examples) with average daily volume of few hundred thousand shares. Then all his followers (about 100-200) trying to buy 1,000-2,000 shares each. In many cases, thatâs 20-30% of average daily volume. As a result, the stock goes up 1-2% in matter of seconds â but how many got the same fill as Manny? And what do you think would happen when they all try to sell at the same time?
No historic track record is available of course, so I tried to do my own tracking. The goal is 1% per trade. The winning rate is about 70%. The average gain is 0.35% per trade. Assuming allocation of 20k for his system (10k per trade), you would make a whopping $35 per trade before commissions. Assuming $20 for two way commissions (and most people pay more), it will leave you with $15 net profit per trade. If you make 30 trades per month, it gives you ~$450 return. Subtract $297 subscription fee â and you have $150 return on 20k investment (a whopping 0.75% per month). This return assumes that you are able to duplicate his results, which is impossible by definition.
As people mentioned, his chat room is run by a moderator and is heavily censored. The moderator only allows positive posts. Private chat room was available but has been blocked to avoid free exchange of information between members. When I tried to post my tracking results (based on official fills), I was censored.
The service is a complete scam, like the rest of his services. Be aware.
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