TCI

Originally posted by dottom


From that link:

Based on financial statements provided by the defendants, they will not be required to pay consumer redress.
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Tim's main defense was that he did have financial statements that proved that those trades were valid and were actually taken in his personal account. They have always devoted a lot of resources in documenting system-suggested trades in real time.

For the period that I traded their system (July 2000 to April 2002) I can certainly attest to that - their (S&P) posted trades were all real and fairly portrayed. Others who traded the Naz have told me the same thing on various occasions.
 
ADX,

From what I know, the answer is definitely yes.

I am reluctant to work with customers as well, and for that reason I have repeatedly turned down offers to trade for hedge funds or just plain OPM.

But, several veteran traders, as they grow a bit older, choose to diversify and build some sort of a structure that offers tools, training, etc. The appeal of leading an organization, building a market presence, getting a steady income over and above their personal trading, benefiting the trading industry, etc is strong, in their minds.

A good example, from my personal experience again, is Oliver Velez and Greg Capra, heads of Pristine. Another good example is George Fontanils of Optionetics. Also, David Nassar who posts here, although I do not know him personally. My understanding is that Tony Oz is also going in that direction, and others are too.

Not to say that many players in this industry are not dishonest. Traders are supposed to be smart... Buyer beware :)
 
Yannis:
Thank for your comment.

Since I am a self-taught trader, I never have contact with any other traders personally. I never attend any course or working for any firms. Could you tell me for the successful traders you have seen (like Tim), how many % return per year is doable? And how many % of their capital will they risk in each trade?

Thanks!
 
ADX,

Depending on what you trade and how you trade, your capital, your willingness and readiness to take risks, etc, answers to those questions may vary.

In general, especially in trading equities, risking no more than 1-2% of the account you are trading, per trade is recommended. And of course, if you make more than 30% per year on average you are doing great, given what the mutual funds out there are returning.

On the other hand, in trading options or futures, these numbers are low, but it takes a lot more skill to trade those markets.

I would recommend you study the books by Dr. Alex Elder - he deals with these questions quite a bit and fairly well, imo.

Good luck :)
 
I personally know a few traders who make > $500k per year and whenever the topic of trading courses, seminars, etc. comes up they all laugh. They wouldn't in a million years waste their time because they make so much more trading. The amount of time & effort required to produce the course work, the mail-order marketing, and actual time spent teaching and answering all that followup is not worth the financial gain to them.

Oh the other hand, if you only had a personal trading account of, say $50k, and only made, say 25% per year consistently on that $50k, then all of a sudden "teaching others" may be worthwhile use of your time & effort to increase your income.

This is not condeming TCI, but a general statement on the teaching vendors themselves. There are some that actually have something of value to teach.

But wouldn't it be nice to see a vendor who has made seven figures or so year after year offer a seminar for a just a few thousand dollars to teach you his very same techniques? It just won't happen. So you have to settle with what's left which is that the only remaining vendors are those that make significantly more teaching than trading. If you are willing to accept this basic truth, then you can proceed to do your dilligence on said vendor.
 
In December 2001 TCI had a great short term Nasdaq system but for some reason they seem to change their systems about four times a year. Before I was comfortable with the system they replaced it with a lame system which claimed as it's entry and exit prices the opening price of the fifteen minute bar that triggered the trade. For a breakout system, this is ludicrous and accounted for about 2/3 of the claimed profits. I was happy trading the old system but Tim's training manual strongly recommends that you take a snapshot of the screen when you enter and exit a trade, compare your results first to the rules and later to the web site to make sure you are trading the system correctly. The only problem was that the web site no longer provided trading data for the old system. When I contacted their tech support asking that they support the old system they said that they had already approached Tim but he declined saying it would interfere with his work on the next system. I then sent Tim an email stating my satisfaction with the old system and my concerns with the new system. I even sent him my projections for the performance of the new system with documentation on how my numbers were generated. Tim's reply was hostile and while he didn't choose to acknowledge my request, he did volunteer his personal opinion about my character, intelligence and personal discipline.

About a month went by during which time my performance estimates for the new system were confirmed and Tim came out with another new system. This system was the worst thing that Tim ever did. The new NASDAQ day trading system was actually twelve systems with instructions on how to choose the system that matched the current market conditions. I was dumbfounded, Tim had finally solved the age old system designer problem of how to curve fit system performance to out of sample data. I sent Tim a second email noting the accuracy of my previous system performance projections, suggested that expecting the user to choosing from an array of twelve different systems for one market and one timeframe hardly qualified as a system, and repeated my request that he reestablish support of the old system. His second response made his first response look tame, and once again he failed to acknowledge any point in my email but made it clear that I was unworthy to even trade his systems and he forbid me to ever email him again, talk to him, of ever enter his presence.

I check back to the web site on a regular basis to see how things are going and have found that the twelve system fiasco was just a case of temporary insanity and Tim has returned to creating real systems. And as far as accurate system performance, TCI's accuracy is now second to none, they even have a real-time application that gives you the up to the minute status for all their active systems. However they still update their systems way too often with very little out of sample verification. This is compounded by the fact that they replace the system before you can adequately evaluate it. And lastly, none of the recent systems performance approaches the old system that I campaigned for.

There is no doubt that Tim is capable of producing a good profitable system, but to date, he has lacked the discipline to quit fiddling with it.

If you trade for excitement, this is the place for you. But if you are the prudent type and would like to know the expectancy before you put your money at risk, you might make some money but expect to be constantly frustrated.

Norm
 
Norm. are you in DC area, I think I know you, any way I think Tim is cursed with 'tinkering' disease. After all, he advocates never stop learning (thus tinkering) concept. But his customer should be able to say when enough is enough.
 
nguittar, nkhoi,

Yes, I saw this tendency early in 2002 and stopped trading that system. Given the fact that I had been very successful with their method and system before that time, I was not too upset about it. I do trust that Tim will face the challenge successfully again and give us something we can use. So, I stay in touch with them, waiting to see what develops.
 
Norm,
I even sent him my projections for the performance of the new system with documentation on how my numbers were generated.
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I always thought that the TCI systems were black box systems. Were you able to deduce how their systems work enough to be able to repoduce it or do TCI actually tell you what is in their systems now?

Richard
 
rickty

NO! The TCI Systems, at least when I traded in early 2001, were not Black Boxs. When I traded they had 5 systems, right now they have 12, if you count the variations. It would have been better if they were. With all the things they had you doing you were as busy as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. For instance, You needed either two monitors or a 21" monitor to see all the screens at once. Lets use the S&P Day Trading system as an example.

First you had a set of maybe eight rules to determine if this is a time that you can trade. Rules like - No entry between 9:30 & 9:45 EST - No entry within 1 hour before Fed speech, meeting, announcement, Last month we didn't trade during lunch but this month we will - Last month we traded the last 15 minutes but this month we won't - etc.

For the S&P you are watching the news, NAsdaq and DIA along with three S&P screens, 15 min, 5min ,& 1min. you might be waiting for a specific condition for the MACD on the 15 - then move to the 5 - watch the MACD SIG, when you get that watch MACD histogram, then %D, then OBV, then on to the 1 Min chart for MCD then %D, then candle forming, wait 45 sec. while you check for concurrence with Nasdaq and DIA. Then ENTER your order. Before you take a break, take a snapshot of the screen so that you can check back later to verify what you missed. And you have similar rules for exiting.

They also have a realtime JAVA app. that displays the status of all their systems updated every 2 minutes. This app. is really cool but when day trading, 120 sec. is a lifetime. We didn't trade the app., we just used it to verify that we were trading the system correctly. That might have changed now, after all change is what TCI does best. :mad:

Norm
 
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