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"I'd like to offer some words of encouragement to Club
3000 members: The little guy, the nonprofessional, the
part-time trader *can* make money trading futures, using
100% mechanical systems purchased from vendors. I offer
myself as a living example: In the 12 months of calendar
1997, I made $118,000 in net profits (a return of 87.8%
on my trading capital), trading a mechanical system
that I bought from a vendor."
In the 12 months of calendar 1998, I made $102,000 in net
profits (a return of 40.5% on my trading capital).
"My purpose in writing this article is neither to brag
about myself, nor to boost the sales of some vendor's
product. Instead, I'm writing to present some actual
real-time, real-money evidence that not only *can* it
be done, it *has* been done, in real life, by a regular
guy, a non-professional."
"Brokerage statements have been provided with this <<*** NOTE
article to corroberate the results." <<*** NOTE
"Here are my system trading results for 1997-1998.
My net account equity values were:"
12/31/96 $149,841
01/15/97 (withdrew $15,000) [to pay taxes]
02/28/97 $237,543
03/31/97 $319,647
04/30/97 $293,402
05/31/97 $241,270
06/30/97 $194,022
07/31/97 $279,860
08/31/97 $223,839
09/30/97 $238,358
10/31/97 $268,751
11/30/97 $221,343
12/31/97 $253,284
01/30/98 $306,979
02/27/98 $283,581
03/31/98 $289,500
04/30/98 $248,353
05/29/98 $214,811
06/30/98 $223,702
07/31/98 $206,376
08/31/98 $328,982
09/30/98 $443,173
10/31/98 $390,351
11/30/98 $336,843
12/31/98 $355,903
endquote
------
That's what I wrote 15 months ago, in Feb '98, and 3
months ago, in Feb '99. It was published in Club
3000 News issues #98.02 and #99.02. 1999 isn't over
yet, so I haven't sent in my '99 equity results
for publication in the newsletter. I plan to.
I sent all twenty four of my end-of-month commodity
account statements from my brokers, to the editors
of Club 3000 News. I've been a subscriber to Club
3000 for several years, and over that time I've
gained respect for the integrity of the editors
there. I trust them. It doesn't make me nervous
to send them my statements.
Also, it's a policy at Club 3000 that if a
submitted article makes any "claims" about real-time,
real-money trading performance, those claims should
be backed up by account statements sent to the
editors. Articles making performance claims but
which do not provide statements as corroboration,
are vividly marked as such by the editors, so that
readers may view the claimed performance with
the proper skepticism. So sending my statements
to the editors is "the Club 3000 thing to do."
The idea behind this policy is to reassure readers
that the real-life & real-money performance of a
trading method, including real commissions, real
slippage, real rollovers, human mistakes, "unables",
and so forth, is indeed what is claimed in the
article. Readers can have confidence they're not
being misled.
However, our man Mark Brown whines and bellows
(I, MARK BROWN, AM THE ONLY TRUSTWORTHY PERSON.
OMEGA RESEARCH IS RUN BY LIARS. FUTURES TRUTH
IS FULL OF LIES. CLUB 3000 IS FULL OF LIARS.
ALL VENDORS EXCEPT MARK BROWN ARE LIARS. THE
OMEGA LIST IS FULL OF LIES.) about Club 3000.
In his paranoia he feels that if a purported
"fact" has not been personally investigated by
Mark Brown himself and personally blessed with
the Mark Brown Certificate of Validity, then it
cannot possibly be true. You see, Mark Brown
is the only trustworthy person.
So, since Club 3000 is full of liars [about 2500
of them, according to recent subscriber count],
Mark Brown feels that account statements sent
to the editor of Club 3000 (or, yet more paranoid,
*claimed* to have been sent to the editor) are
invalid and unreliable. After all, Mark Brown
doesn't control Club 3000, and what he doesn't
control must automatically be false. And
since the account equity curve shown above was
published in Club 3000, *it* *is* *probably*
*a* *big* *fat* *lie* as judged by Mark Brown.
I sent my statements to Club 3000 and not to Mark
Brown. Unlike my attitude toward Mark Brown,
I feel comfortable that the editors of Club 3000
have great integrity, and I'm confident they will
treat my account statements as I requested:
with confidentiality. To whom would you send
YOUR accounts statements?
Aberration's sequence of trade entry signals and
trade exit signals, posted to omega-list yesterday,
really did produce the account equity curve shown
above. It's on my statements. Call up the editors
of Club 3000 and ask [unless you think they are
liars].
The "magic", if there is any, isn't in the entries
and exits. It's in the betsizes, as I disclosed
completely (including testcases for debugging
purposes) in Club 3000 issue #99.04. It's a
simple math formula that makes betsize a function
of equity and distance-to-stoploss. Go ahead,
look it up! If you don't get the newsletter or know
somebody who gets it, they sell backissues cheep.
As I tried to point out on Monday, this is the
result of a year's worth of research. (Admittedly,
a year's worth of PART-TIME research, since I
have a 40+ hour a week job in a field unrelated
to futures or trading). Other approaches did
well too, this is not the holy grail or the only
method that produces large profits. {remember,
so did Market Annihilator and Virtuoso, when
traded using geometric betsizing.} But it is the
method that I chose, and it is the method that
produced the profits you see above.
Next up: a discussion of the equity curve results.
Gosh Almighty, what a bumpy ride! Look at those
peaks and valleys!
I hope you enjoyed reading this,
-Mark Johnson
--
Mark Johnson Silicon Valley, California mark@xxxxxxxxxxxx
"... The world will little note, nor long remember, what we
say here..." -Abraham Lincoln, "The Gettysburg Address"
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