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At 08:57 PM 6/23/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Hello Justin,
>
>Saturday, June 23, 2001, 8:19:40 PM, you wrote:
>
>
>yea not bad for a scam
>
>JZ> http://www.wintick.com/6_0/backtesting.asp
>JZ> impresive results
>
I'd be more inclined to agree with you as long as they
didn't offer it as a system which could be BACKTESTED
but only as an indicator instead (and it has often
been discussed in this list that what might look great
on screen, could generate losses in an objective
backtest with TS).
But now they're finally offering it as a SYSTEM and
NOT AS AN INDICATOR and they seem to imply (
http://www.wintick.com/6_0/backtesting.asp ) that
they're executing REAL ORDERS with it.
There's a guy with a Website (
http://www.knology.net/~ajadams/ajad_software.htm -
was unavailable when I just tried it, maybe
temp?)claiming that he's making money with ASCTrend.
Other than Mark Brown's blanket statement dismissing
it as "scam", someone might have to offer a better
researched bashing :-) I have none to offer myself,
but I'm including the comments that I've collected
from many public Internet forums about ASCTrend:
=================================================
I've tested eAscTrend and was disappointed. The reason
whas as follows: the system waits until a bar is
completed before deciding to signal a buy or sell
signal (color). So far so good. However from that
moment on it assumes the (already passed) opening
price of that bar as the buying or selling price. It
was easy to figure out that in almost all cases this
was the reason of their stellar results claimed, but
in practice I hardly would make money with the system.
I tried to discuss this observation several times with
the company, but never got a reply. I don't look into
it anymore.
====
I had eAsctrend 5 professional that had to be
optimized to be a winning system. In real time trading
it would always fall apart and would be a losing
system. Perhaps they improved on the system now but,
when I had it a few months ago, I couldn't make money
with it in the S&Ps.
====
I used it. The eAsctrend is a black box, unlike the
older Tradestation version.
It is very good when you know how to trade anyway
[stops, risk reward etc..]. You need the expensive
versions if you don't know enough about trading,
because the software will make more decisions for you.
The back testing is 'real' and also not. I agree with
earlier poster that they are mistakes on the trades
shown. But like he says himself, the track record is
good enough to make nice profits with their system.
But it is rather easy to try it for yourself. In my
opinion it is one of the few affordable system which
really works out there. Actually they gave me
inspiration to build my own. That's what I do know,
building systems and have a broker trading them for
customers and sharing profits.
====
I was impressed with their presentation and was very
interested in their product. After making a number of
inquiries, however, I'm afraid that I'm leaning toward
putting it into the too-good-to-be-true category.
Firstly, I have found no one who can present an actual
account record. I have asked the company and a broker
who promotes it and both could offer nothing.
Secondly, I am suspicious of the "backtesting" results
on their website.
I checked both the S&P and Nasdaq results--which they
show on a trade by trade basis. They use a trailing
stop that captures 95% of their profits after reaching
various floors. Many of the outsize returns that they
show would actually have been stopped out because of
this, however. An example of this can be found looking
at the S&P on 3/20. This is the day the Fed eased and
the market plummeted from 1190 to close at 1152.
Their 5th trade shows a sale at 1175 and holding it
until the end of the day. A tidy gain of $5,650. Since
they use half hour bars, it isn't apparent that the
market fell quickly to 1163 but then backed up to
almost 1170 around 3:25 EST. My understanding of their
system (and I called them to confirm) is that this
would have set off their stop, and reduced their
profit to around 6 points instead of the reported 23.
Other, similar changes caused my tally of their
results to vary significantly from theirs.
Now make no mistake about it, even if the results
amounted to only half of what they say, they would
still be great! I would love to have my suspicions
disproved and find that its a great system.
====
Didn't actually trade it but about two years ago my
sources in the underground told me what it was.
Nothing but stochastics indicators or simple variants
thereof with several different periods devilishly
bundled up in a DLL so that no one could tell. I
really did a ROTFLMAO on learning this.
So you'd pay a grand or so for some stochastics
indicators. The charts are really pretty though.
It's the eye candy that sells the system.
====
ASCTrend isn't simply stochastics or simply a
Parabolic SAR method. It however will give signals
similar to those methods from time to time. After all,
it's a breakout indicator.......and most breakout
ndicators whether they be moving averages, MACD, DMI,
CCI...whatever......give signals at roughly the same
place and time....
ASCTrend works better as a breakout indicator in the
aspects of minimizing false breakout signals and
showing stop placements that keep a trader in a trend
trade for the big gain.
The ASCTrend philosophy of first recognizing the
beginning of a trend, signaling the entry, then
setting trailing stop that keep you onboard is valid.
====
Check out the article in Club 3000 (97.10) by Millard
Longman re: an ASCTrend copycat for TS. Complete
with codefor indicator, system and paint bar. Have
fun.
====
Don't know about R&W or Recurrence, but I'm a
"permanent" ASCTrend user (one of the first 10 or so
back in June of 1995).
ASCTrend is a collection of 4 related TREND INDICATORS
for TradeStation/SuperCharts. Because they are
indicators* {i.e., NOT systems} there is no way for me
to give you "actual performance"...
Reading some of the replies to this post, I seriously
doubt the comments made regarding Stochastics, etc.
As I recall, John Wang, the author of ASCTrend (and of
George Angell's SpyGlass, and others) is a Ph.D. in
(mathematics?) and works as a theoretical athematician
for a think tank firm in the (SF) Bay Area. I do know
that John is Chinese and the fact that English is not
his native language routinely shows in his
documentation and marketing stuff. Nevertheless, I
think he's one VERY smart cookie.
I, on the other hand, am on the opposite end of the
scale from being a Ph.D. mathematician... I seem to
recall words like "multiple regression" in his
description of how ASCTrend does it's stuff...
Bottom Line: It works. For me, anyway. It is one of
several indicators that I use trading 16 futures
markets and a couple spreads. ASCTrend is uncanny at
identifying trend direction and resistance levels for
me. It's not *always* right, but it *usually* is, and
I've grown to depend on it... "wouldn't leave home
without it"
=================================================
Alex.
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