Concept FX

[stevespray]

I noticed that there was some activity on the thread so I thought that I'd just mention that the Concept FX systems continues to tick along although rather slowly. Another two weeks have passed and another couple of winning trades netting well over £3,000. If my maths serves me correctly, no matter when you started following this system, you would be ahead. Even if you were unlucky enough to start the system at it's high point in late summer 2008 you would now been in profit. Personally I feel that that is pretty respectable given the recent economic termoil.

Sorry to hear about the 'robot problems'. Personally I think that these brokers will always interupt / disrupt these short term scalping bots - it doesnt make viable financial sense to let them go on unhindered. Normally it's a case of your 'win' being their 'loss'.


Hope this helps,
Steve.

 

[goose4]

What is the current price for the software?

thanks guys..

 

[Willy]

What is the current price for the software?

Please use the quote function. Which software do you mean? Just in the last two posts five different products have been mentioned.

Also, the very best thing is always to go straight to the source. Feel free to ask for help any time but if you wonder what the price of Megadroid is (for example), google for Megadroid and you'll find it immediately.

Better to use other members' time for things you can't easily find out on your own.

 

[SandyW]

I.................no matter when you started following this system, you would be ahead. Even if you were unlucky enough to start the system at it's high point in late summer 2008 you would now been in profit...........

Steve,

I think your post is a bit misleading. With your £25,000 trading capital you may feel content with the profitability relative to the cost of using the system, but many others definitely would not.

Yes, even someone starting at the high point of 2008, who followed the sytem precisely, would have made a modest trading profit by now. But someone starting with the hypothetical £2,000 starting capital used in the long term published "results", would have got nowhere near paying off the initial cost, and would then have been hit by a demand for further payments in order to continue taking the signals after the first year. At the present rate of growth, even that would probably not be paid off in the second year, and the initial entry cost would still not have been recovered. If the initial cost and the later annual fees were included in the "results" as losses, the system would not look at all good!

I really really doubt if many people renewed after the first year! The people who have made big money are the vendors, not their customers.

 

[stevespray]

Sandy,

With all due respect no two people are going to be alike and I accept that. Also, from all the posts that we all made early last summer, it is clear that many of us had widely differing goals in terms of what we wanted to achieve. What you need to consider here is that well thought out trading systems are not ‘get rich quick’ systems. Instead the primary goal is to preserve capital in order to stay in the game. The ongoing data costs are part of trading and, I would suggest, are not really avoidable in respect of any vendor who needs reliable data to feed into clients systems. I pay around £80 per month for intra-day forex data alone.

I will agree with you that trading from the low capital base of £2,000 would have been disappointing over this last 12 months or so. When we all got involved with this thread I think that I mentioned that I felt that £2,000 was too smaller bank to start with. To be realistic you need a £5,000 - £6,000 starting bank which you can then compound during the winning runs. If you start with only £2,000 (and assuming worst case that you paid the full £4,000 for the complete system) then you will have spent 66% of your capital on the system and that just wouldn’t make mathematical sense if you wanted to recoup the whole outlay by the time the next year’s data subscriptions came around. Trading by its very nature is unpredictable – this is the problem. In order to get the bank up to the level which you’re suggesting you would have to basically make a return of 200% on starting capital – whilst some years that is possible I would suggest that it’s maybe a little unfair to have reasonably expected that sort of return over a period of time which encompassed a severe economic crisis?

To be honest I sensed that many (including you) had given up on this long before the year was up. You have to understand that many people fail in trading because of this kind of psychological weakness. When a system is losing it can cause a massive dent in your psychology. Just the same as a winning system makes you feel on top of the world. Of course, from a logical perspective, people don’t stop when they’re winning but instead wait until they are losing because then sense pain. I did cover this when we all set out on this road. Of course the very nature of when you give in (during a period of drawdown) ensures that you leave the system at that point and then reflect on the system as “a losing system”. Then, as if to rub salt in the wound, the system recovers! Where does this leave a person psychologically? It leaves them having to mega-justify that the system doesn’t work just to sooth their own psychology.

The bottom line is that there are costs involved in speculation. If you run a system for a period of time there is an underlying cost. The things which you mention are those very underlying costs. Obviously if you have a small bank then those costs will represent a greater percentage of your capital base. There is nothing you can do to get around this. This is why I kept stating the importance of having a business plan when we started out with this system. I said at the time that my plan was in two parts and that part one was a two year plan just to build the bank. Nothing’s has changed. We’re about 14 months in and my bank is growing towards that £60k target. My feeling is that many people stopped because they didn’t plan. A business plan gives you some strength in the rough times. It also gives you a solid goal as well as a feeling of a slightly more professional approach. Over the last few weeks I have received three private messages from people stating that they wished they had carried on trading the system. The truth is that we started in May 08 and even if you had started with a modest £5,000 bank you would have made a return big enough to pay for things and keep you going. The idea with this kind of aggressive speculation is that you stay in the game and that one or two years you get really lucky. You cannot expect to just pick up a system, apply it, and triple or quadruple your bank in that first year.


Steve.

 

[stevespray]

What is the current price for the software?

thanks guys..

Assuming that you are asking about Concept FX (since this is the Concept thread) then I would of thought that your best bet would be to buy a membership from one of the people who no longer use the system. One imagines that if someone paid £2,000 odd then they may sell it for £1,000 just to get rid of it if they really dont like it!

 

[goose4]

Sandy,I would like to thank your honest and intellectual views in this thread

Steve,

I think your post is a bit misleading. With your £25,000 trading capital you may feel content with the profitability relative to the cost of using the system, but many others definitely would not.

Yes, even someone starting at the high point of 2008, who followed the sytem precisely, would have made a modest trading profit by now. But someone starting with the hypothetical £2,000 starting capital used in the long term published "results", would have got nowhere near paying off the initial cost, and would then have been hit by a demand for further payments in order to continue taking the signals after the first year. At the present rate of growth, even that would probably not be paid off in the second year, and the initial entry cost would still not have been recovered. If the initial cost and the later annual fees were included in the "results" as losses, the system would not look at all good!

I really really doubt if many people renewed after the first year! The people who have made big money are the vendors, not their customers.

 

[SandyW]

Assuming that you are asking about Concept FX (since this is the Concept thread) then I would of thought that your best bet would be to buy a membership from one of the people who no longer use the system. One imagines that if someone paid £2,000 odd then they may sell it for £1,000 just to get rid of it if they really dont like it!

Steve,

You know full well that there is no "system" to buy. All you get for your money is a connection to once a day trading signals and a book of sorts in a big binder! If someone were suckered into buying the system secondhand at a knockdown price, how would they then go about getting the signals? I'd offer my "system" but it would be worthless to anyone. It is even worthless to me as they stopped sending the stupid signals once the year was up!

And sorry, but you only ever approach the downside of this "system" from the point of view that you were very clever and had it all worked out! The fact is the vendors ruthlessly (and with lots of small print) sold the system to total novices, as well as some clever types. In fact most clever types wouldn't have touched it!!

The method advocated by the vendors was for traders to start with a small account and build up to £25,000, and cap it there. At no stage was the advice to avoid "building the bank" and start with £25,000 from day one! Reality was that purchase cost depreciated to zero within 12 months, and if that cost were included in the recommended process of "building the bank" it would create a picture far removed from the rosy picture of the advertising, and the published "results". I count myself foolish to have bought the system (albeit at a 50% discount on the £4,000 price) and either clever enough or lucky enough to have got out without losing any trading capital, though I did lose the purchase price. Frankly, having fallen for the hype, I did not fall for the "hang in there, it'll be good in the long run, and your chicken if you stop" line of argument from the vendors and from you. And BTW I started trading with £4,000, not too far short of the £5,000 you are now suggesting. In any event even the £5,000 would not have made nearly enough to have offset the purchase cost, which was in reality only a fee for one year of signals. I refer to my earlier post in which I did some sums, and worked out that with my £4,000 capital I would have made £700 in the first year had I hung in and made no mistakes. I think the minimum capital needed to trade the system, assuming you had sufficient confidence in it (which you do) is nearer your £25,000. Anyone contemplating buying in now, if they are following this thread, and have not been put off by the sum total of posts on here, would be well advised to ignore "building the bank", and lob £25,000 into the trading account from day one, and of course in accordance the time honoured advice to traders, be prepared to lose it!

And Steve, I am not trying to get personal, but rather to just talk straight. I may sound rather blunt, but there is no point putting any gloss on this issue. The vendors do the hype bit, not me.

 

[stevespray]

Okay Sandy, I’ll try and address a few of the points as I see them. I won’t enforce my opinions on people as ‘fact’ but simply as a balanced argument which I feel is more in perspective.

I think that you are incorrect re the system itself. When you paid £2,000 you bought (as far as I am aware) a membership / licence which gets you into the Concept FX system and allows you to use the software. This initially came with 12 months of data included in the price. So effectively it’s like buying a car with a 12 month MOT. Your 12 months of data has now run out and you have not renewed it. It’s the same as the MOT running out on the car. The car would still be yours to do with as you want. I would suggest that the same is true with your Concept FX membership / licence. You could sell your membership to another party and they could then buy a new 12 months data supply from Concept. All you would then need to do is send your buyer all the documentation. I don’t understand your point when you say that I know ‘full well’ that there is no system to sell as implicitly there is. Your buyer would then have full access and be able to use the Concept FX system.

Obviously we can argue over individual figures until we’re both blue in the face. Clearly you are disappointed that the system didn’t perform better in those first six months or so. This was enough to completely change your perspective on how you viewed the system. Unfortunately you don’t seem prepared to acknowledge that we all started trading this system a month or two prior to some pretty extreme economic conditions. Instead you just expected the system to perform regardless. The real truth is that the system has done very well purely by virtue of the fact that we are still in the game and, in truth, marginally ahead. Is the next 12 – 18 months going to be better still? The answer is that no one knows – all we can do is speculate. That’s what this business is about.

You can blame the advertising angle all you want for getting you involved in this is the first place but it was you who ultimately weighed up the risks and decided to move forward. We were all in the same boat together as I recall. The thread is there for all to read. I cannot deny that the Concept website makes trading seem easy when in fact it is quite difficult at times. However, this same acquisition can be made a million times over against every trading book or system ever written. I don’t mean to sound overly blunt here but you bought a system and then decided not to follow its rules! The rules on money management are clearly set out. Having failed to follow the rules you then claim that the system is useless and that it does not work. Surely you have to see the irony in what you’ve done? When you bought this system you also bought into a mathematic model which, in theory, placed you at a slight advantage. That advantage is only achieved if you follow the rules. This is why you have ‘a bank’. You have to be prepared to risk that bank, in 5% chunks, in order to increase it in the longer term. This is the very nature of system trading. You seem to completely disregard this point. Instead you indicate that following the money management rules would have meant that you’d “fallen” for some kind of elaborate scam.

I would also disagree with what you’ve mentioned about this bank building business. My feeling is that £5,000 - £6,000 would be an adequate starting bank. As I mentioned before you are not going to get rich overnight but if you take a view of 3+ years then you will have probably built up a fairly sizable asset.


Take care,
Steve.

 

[anddy26]

nothing changes

Hi Guys..i have not been on here for months and i took a quick look and guess what...the same old arguments!..tch .

just for the record, i still use it! and im in the black again..but i did some prudent money managment and only risked 1.5% through the tough times. my 8k account is now up £1100 .

but i do notice concept have changed their trading styles which must be a good thing as they are back on their winning streak.

a lot of us did say it would take to the back end of the year before we saw any decent trends again.

see you again in 6 months.lol..

nice to hear from you again steve

Graham

 

[stevespray]

Hi Graham,

Good to hear from you again. To be honest I'd all but given up on the orginal gang of us that started using Concept early last summer. Glad to see that you kept the faith and that that faith has to some extent been rewarded.

You are right about the trading style. The system seems to be adapting to the reducing volatility levels and making trades with lower targets but with a much higher success ratio. At the moment that is paying dividends. Lets hope that the trend continues.

Take care,
Steve.

 

[Willy]

You are right about the trading style. The system seems to be adapting to the reducing volatility levels and making trades with lower targets but with a much higher success ratio. At the moment that is paying dividends. Lets hope that the trend continues.

Just out of curiosity: When you say "seems to be adapting" does that mean that this change of style can not be found in the system documentation?

It sounds af if the signals are different, but if there is an actual system that customers have received (as implied in earlier messages) and that they can use without being dependent on signals, this change would be as expected?

Willy

 

[stevespray]

Just out of curiosity: When you say "seems to be adapting" does that mean that this change of style can not be found in the system documentation?

It sounds af if the signals are different, but if there is an actual system that customers have received (as implied in earlier messages) and that they can use without being dependent on signals, this change would be as expected?

Willy

Hi Willy,

I'm not entirely sure that I fully understand the question which you are asking but I'll do my best to explain what I feel you are trying to query.

Our initial comments were centred around the type of trade which Concept has been signalling recently. Historically Concept has given a hit rate of just over 50% in terms or winning vs losing trades. Added to this the winners are generally larger in size than losers and therefore when it's all added together we create what you would term as 'our edge over the market'. More recently however the size of the win has fallen somewhat but the hit rate has increased. Recent trade set ups seem to be now targeting wins of very similar size to the risk therefore, to maintain the system edge, the system must be targeting set ups with a hit rate quite a bit higher than 50%.


Hope this helps,
Steve.

 

[anddy26]

Just out of curiosity: When you say "seems to be adapting" does that mean that this change of style can not be found in the system documentation?

It sounds af if the signals are different, but if there is an actual system that customers have received (as implied in earlier messages) and that they can use without being dependent on signals, this change would be as expected?

Willy

Hi Willy
if i may reply to this...

when we first bought the system their objective profit targets were 3-1 ie if the stop was 60 pips the objective was 180 pips...but the recent months have saw their system change to lots more 1-1 ratio wins.

if your going to buy concept and you know very little of trading my advice would be..stick to their system (what ever it is)
The package you get is not fancy...its a screen that shows the 6 pairs it trades with entries , stops and objectives.

how ever this morning i was sad enough to be up at 5am and saw the live alert getting closer to the trigger so i moved my entry back 2 pips and it just nicked it! then continued most of the morning until it hit its objective of 1-1 earlier..

some trading platforms may not have triggered this alert. IG index would not have if i hadnt of shifted it i dont think but capital, (if they are still going) would have triggered it.

anyways what ever the outcome we had another winner!! 17% up this year for me

 

[stevespray]

I am with Capital and it didnt trigger. None of my other brokers show a tick that high so you've done very well out of that one. My guess is that it will still be showing on tonights update so you may well get to play it again.

Steve.

 

[stevespray]

Graham, Looks like you were right, the trade is showing on the Concept website this morning and is no longer showing in open orders. You did well to catch it. My broker was 2 pips away. Looks like the open the spread on this pair for overnight trading. Have you noticed that this particular pair has been extremely profitable lately?


Steve.

 

[Willy]

I'm not entirely sure that I fully understand the question which you are asking but I'll do my best to explain what I feel you are trying to query.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your reply and sorry if my question was unclear. It was based on something you wrote earlier:

It’s the same as the MOT running out on the car. The car would still be yours to do with as you want. I would suggest that the same is true with your Concept FX membership / licence. You could sell your membership to another party and they could then buy a new 12 months data supply from Concept. All you would then need to do is send your buyer all the documentation. I don’t understand your point when you say that I know ‘full well’ that there is no system to sell as implicitly there is.

I was wondering if Concept supplies their clients with an actual trading system (for example a manual) which documents a trading methodology. Your car example seemed to indicate this: Even if you stop using their signals, you would still be able to trade their method.

On the other hand, if I buy a car and can only get petrol from one supplier the car isn't much use if the supplier goes out of business or I don't like the quality of their petrol.

One way to categorize trading vendors could be:

1. Selling a trading methodology (book, manual, video etc.)
2. Selling a methodology as well as signals or chat room to support clients.
3. Selling trading signals only.

I suspect Concept is in category 3 and in that case I would agree that there is no system to sell. All you would be able to sell would be the remaining value of a trading signals subscription and a manual.

Even if they use a system themselves (hard to know for sure?) it would be impossible to use it on your own and you would be totally dependent on them. You could pay them a large sum of money and risk them going out of business the next day.

I may very well be mistaken in my interpretations, so I appreciate you clearing this up!

Willy

 

[stevespray]

Hi Willy,

Okay, I think I have a better angle on what you’re asking now.

The first thing that you should know is that in order to use the Concept FX system you must have the data which you can only download if you have the arrangement with the vendor.
The system as such is what we technically call “Black Box” in nature. This means that the internal workings are not revealed to the users. Instead all the user is expected to do is to run the software. The software, when run after 8.30pm Mon thru Fri, downloads the daily data for each of the six fx pairs and then automatically makes its calculations to see if any of the fx pairs satisfies any of the undisclosed trading rules contained within the black-box. The results are then shown visually in table format so you can enter them into your trading platform.

So, as you can see, the system doesn’t fall exactly into any of the particular three categories which you lay out. The manuals which you get with the system explain how you will run the money management side of things rather than explaining how the signals are generated. The ‘black box’ could be most simply described as ‘pattern recognition software’ which also considers risk and reward ratio. In my analogy the ‘MOT’ was meant to represent the supply of data meaning that when the data runs out you can no longer use the software to generate new signals in just the same way that you cannot drive your car (legally!) on the road with an expired MOT. What I was trying to represent was the fact that I felt that you could still sell your system membership / license despite the fact that you didn’t have a current data supply – just the same as people can buy cars with no current MOT. Maybe the MOT analogy was a poor choice and I should have used ‘a tank of petrol’ instead – petrol being the data supply or fuel for the system.

Does this answer your questions?


Wishes,
Steve.

 

[SandyW]

The so called data is just trade signals. The software you buy just downloads them. It is very simple. In fact it would be better to just get the signals by text or email (as was the case with Tradewin), but the vendor refuses to do that because then he would have no clever software to sell. Since you will need to get the vendor's agreement to take over receiving someone else's signals, why don't you ask the vendor whether he would agree to that, rather than rely on speculation.

 

[Willy]

Thanks, Steve. Yes, this answers my question.

I think that there can be no doubt that this is a trading signals vendor. The delivery is somewhat unusual, but apart from that I can't see any difference.

What is far more unusual is that you must pay them a huge amount of money just to start a subscription. Since trading signals arrive on a continual basis, payment should of course be on the same basis.

The normal thing to do would be to charge a monthly fee and offer a free trial period. Happy customers could then step up to a yearly or half-yearly subscription to save some money if they wish.

Charging up to £4,995 upfront for a trading signals service is simply outrageous and I can't see any way to justify this. And as pointed out earlier, there's no guarantee that they will be in business tomorrow.

I also feel that they are misrepresenting what they sell, and after your clarification, this must be deliberately. From the website:

"Automatically the powerful software downloads the data that it requires and makes its complex analysis in seconds, performing these calculations would usually take an individual trader a great deal of time, money and experience."

This gives the impression that you're buying analysis software. Actually you're buying a very expensive radio. You can turn it on and listen to it but that's all.

From an email:

"Concept-FX is a fully automated analysis system, that can give you the skill, knowledge, and discipline, to make profits on the highly-lucrative Forex markets."

This is much worse, because it gives the impression that using their "system" can give you skills and knowledge. It can't, other than "learning" how to place trades with your broker.

Am I misrepresenting or misunderstanding anything in this post?

Willy