What would be interesting is to see a statistic of actual subscriber turnover rate and average subscriber lifetime for these systems, which I would assume is fairly high (1-6 months?). My assumption is that most people who purchase these systems are not big/professional traders but new/inexperienced people who go to the site, find systems with the highest return, plunk down their $200/month and wait for the checks to roll in...They stick with it until there is a losing streak and then bail, perhaps to jump to another system.
Also, since I'm guessing that most subscribers are small-time traders (<10 lots for futures), I would think that normal market volumes would swamp out subscriber volumes on instruments people would normally trade (e-minis, etc).
An interesting test to incorporate while verifying an automated system would be to submit a bunch of variously sized orders when you get your signal and assume your own order brings up the rear...You could gather statistics on fills, etc and this would be a good method to determine what sort of subscriber base you could handle without slippage. If there's no effect, it seems that allowing people to tag along would be a good idea.
Anyway, food for thought.
Also, since I'm guessing that most subscribers are small-time traders (<10 lots for futures), I would think that normal market volumes would swamp out subscriber volumes on instruments people would normally trade (e-minis, etc).
An interesting test to incorporate while verifying an automated system would be to submit a bunch of variously sized orders when you get your signal and assume your own order brings up the rear...You could gather statistics on fills, etc and this would be a good method to determine what sort of subscriber base you could handle without slippage. If there's no effect, it seems that allowing people to tag along would be a good idea.
Anyway, food for thought.
