Zulutrade - Top Providers by Live Trade - 11/13/2009

Welcome back Zulu-traders.

To your left please find a list of the Top 20 providers on Zulutrade from 11/8/2009 to 11/13/2009 for positions closed in that period.

If you've been following this blog, you know that we can't completely rely on this figure to be accurate. Based on feedback from provider Coolie1997, we estimated that these figures can be understated by a factor of 4. In other words, the trade values are in reality 4 times larger as we see on the left with each unit being a Mini (10K) lot.

By the way, Coolie came in at #31 on the list with 40 live trades closed.

I haven't done any diligence on these providers, so I can't say they are worthy of risking your own hard-earned dollars. Even so, its interesting to see who is on top in terms of having the greatest dollar following from users with live accounts.

As promised, I ran my 2-lot, 180-pip-stop filter through my Zulutrade History database with some interesting results. I need to do some additional work to calculate the requisite drawdown (and required account size) before I share that data. Stay tuned and perhaps I can get it out later in the week.

Cheers,

Tcxmon

Zulutrade - Demo Accounts update - 11/13/2009

Welcome back Zulu-traders.

Here's my weekly update from the demo accounts i'm following.

Trendcatcher added 136 pips on the week, but is still down -287 pips since the beginning of the demo period back on 11/1/2009. In terms of his public profile, he's only down about 27 pips since 11/1, so my 2-lot limit is making a big difference in terms of his profitability. Overall, i'm not convinced this provider can pick trades any better than chance, and he often stops out trades with losses under 100 pips.

Next up is Coolie1997 who had 127 pips in closed profits for the week. The graphic above shows his public facing account history which shows nothing but green since 10/18/2009. What it doesn't show is the 4 lots he has open already which have a -360 pips in open losses. So in that respect, Coolie is starting to resemble some other Zulu providers who paint the tape green by taking profits when they have them, but let losses ride until they come back into the green. Anyway, we will continue to watch this provider as he provides a lot of good trades.

Next up is Isunia who is up +199 pips since the beginning of the demo period back on 11/1/2009. Interestingly, he has hit my 180-pip stop twice, and still come back to show a profit. That's pretty impressive and i'm going to keep watching.

Next up is TheKillerz who is on a terrific roll. His demo account closed out mid-week in fine fashion, see The Killerz Comeback. I opened up another account on Friday where he pulled in another 64 pips on Friday alone. On the public side, he is up +3400 pips in the 7 weeks since he started this new account. When I run his public record through by 2-lot, 180 pip filter, he comes up with a gain of +468 pips. When I increase that stop to -300 pips (per his suggestion) the results are identical. I think more work is required to discover the ideal stop for this provider.

Next up is Student who has gained 50 pips since I added him back on 11/2. On the public side, he has gained 25,000 pips in that same timeframe, but he has done so by opening multiple trades of 100 lots each. Overall, i'm not impressed since his gains are too small to overcome the nasty 150-pip gap that will come eventually.

This difference between public and actual performance makes me angry, because Zulutrade could fix this problem and keep new Zulu-customers from going off the cliff, but they refuse to do so. If they did, it would saved me $1000's of dollars in losses before I discovered this reality. I think this deception is what is keeping Zulutrade from getting really big. Come on Zulutrade - I know you are reading this blog, so bow to the pressure and do the right thing.

Next up is wqq899. This provider has been a complete disaster and has hit my -180 pip stop on 4 of his 7 trades. Not sure what I saw in this guy. Next.

Last up was Sophistication who took a beating his his short GBP/USD trades and closed out the 2 week period down -969 pips. He hit the 180 pip stop 7 times in the 2 week period and definitely is not working for me as a provider.

Lessons learned are the usual - public records on Zulutrade are very deceiving and it takes a demo account to really discover the truth about how providers will perform in your real account.

My local database of Zulu provider history now has 350,000 records in it. I'm planning to run my concurrent lot, stop filter through the provider history to find out who the real winners are. This will allow us to wander of the beaten path of the top 100 providers and discover some new talent that is undoubtedly lurking among the approximately 700 providers in my database.

So stay tuned for that and have a great week.

Zulutrade - How to rank providers

Welcome back Zulu-traders.

I must admit I've been baffled up to now as to how to submit my own rankings for providers I have used in the past. I had an IM converation with Julia from ZT support this evening and she filled me in.

I think my education and experience as IT professional was working against me in this case. Anyway, here's the procedure.

Basically, you go to the provider profile page and scroll down to the bottom just above the trade history. Hold your mouse over the 1-5 stars next to the 3 questions. If you have used the provider in the past, you will be able to click one of the 5 stars which auto-blank from the right and auto-fill from the left. In other words, you can select any number of stars from left to right.

If you have not used the provider, the mouse cursor will become a red "Do Not Enter" sign.

Notice that there are no negative ratings. Its kind of like a survey with choices "I like the performance of my local politician" with choices "A Little, Somewhat, Moderate, Moderately Positive, Very Much". There is no choice for bloody awful.

Provider ratings is another interesting way to compare provider popularity. More on that in a future post.

Cheers and good trading,

Tcxmon