SPA3 - Can it be that easy?

Look left reading through this thread today it has struck me very clearly that in spite of your claims that this is a product that is worthy of OTHER peoples hard earned $ you don't use it.

DO YOU?

If you did you would of shut me down with some sort of evidence. But as you don't use it or can't make it work you carn't shut me down. All you can do is post hindsite trades. What a joke.

Offer is still there to exchange statements? Up for it?

As for being constructive rather than negative here is my advice. For anyone looking to purchase any system Always ask for broker statements that people have successfully implemented the system not smoke and mirrors.

Hopefully over and out. :bazooka:

How does it work? what makes a buy/sell trigger?

why couldnt i save money and put the same filters on a cheaper charting program?

... guess I need to work out the best filters to use.. any ideas??

PennyWise,
Just to clarify any thoughts about the public portfolio details I have provided and the ShareFinder audit:

• These portfolios are created in real time by a real person at ShareFinder and have apparently been done like this since it begin. Trades are chosen randomly form those available. The trades are added to the portfolio the next day and immediately available to us for scrutiny.
• The portfolio chart I supplied was created from this portfolio. As far as I am aware I could not have obtained this information unless I was a customer with access to the members area of the website. Verify with ShareFinder.
• Neither it or the Delloite audit are a back tested or recreated images, otherwise we would be jumping up and down. And we do! Apparently, the public portfolio has become a great teaching tool, as even new customers have picked up recent small mistakes and mentioned them on the forum. Humans make mistakes!
• It is true this particular portfolio was not traded with real money through a broker; this fact was never hidden. However, SPA3 does take brokerage and liquidity into account and the prices traded are real. With an average hold time of 70 days, slippage of a few cents has very little effect on the returns when you look over 6+ years.
• If you re-read the other thread you will notice that all of Tech/A's questions were answered. Gary Stone even finished it off and was pretty straight down the line. He put himself out there for public scrutiny and yet no one did!

Trembling Hand,
Yes I am a customer and Yes I trade with SPA3. No one has questioned the integrity of Gary Stone and he publicly acknowledged me as a customer. From the other thread...

Gary Stone: Before adding my 2 cents worth I would like to say that there are many many of our customers that could have answered all the questions on this thread in the same way that Look Left did, particularly all the questions on the SPA3 EDGE (% winners, % losers etc).

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The other thread is quite exhaustive in detail and many people provided input to a great dicussion.

Instead of exchanging trading records what if i go one better. I'll provide my ETrade broker records to this public forum, for the same period as the audit along with a similar portfolio chart and trade history. This should provide a good comparison showing that the trades differ but were both profitable. There are only 3 conditions:

• I shall remove any personal details for privacy and security reasons.
• There is no way I can prove these trades were done with the SPA3 system. I can't get around the laws unless you own SPA3.
• Before doing so, you publicly accept that this is enough proof and won't back down by asking for more evidence that I use SPA3 or that its a scam/spam. If I make a mistake or something isn't clear of course I will discuss it; no issue there.

Cheers!

pennywise75 said:

why couldnt i save money and put the same filters on a cheaper charting program?
... guess I need to work out the best filters to use.. any ideas??

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PennyWise,
It's not just about the filters. This forum is a testament to that fact as most people here are still trying to find the holy grail of technical trading. Posters like Tech/A and Trembling Hand have obviously learnt from much experience that it also takes Money Management, Risk Management and 99% Psychology. If you have the time and patience to gather some of that together like they did, then you might just have a shot. SPA3 is far from the best trading system ever built. Actually, there is no such thing. But it does have all these ingredients and should give you a great start. I'm still learning and have a lifetime to go!

Cheers!

Look Left said:

I'll provide my ETrade broker records to this public forum, for the same period as the audit along with a similar portfolio chart and trade history. This should provide a good comparison showing that the trades differ but were both profitable. There are only 3 conditions:

• I shall remove any personal details for privacy and security reasons.
• There is no way I can prove these trades were done with the SPA3 system. I can't get around the laws unless you own SPA3.
• Before doing so, you publicly accept that this is enough proof and won't back down by asking for more evidence that I use SPA3 or that its a scam/spam. If I make a mistake or something isn't clear of course I will discuss it; no issue there.

Cheers!

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I would be happy with that. As long as the site owner has no problems with it.

Ok let's see how we go here. The site owners didn't post saying no go so I'm going to presume that attaching the portfolio information will be ok. After all, they stated the "must verify claims" rule and that's what I'm trying to do.

This is in no way a "Trembling Hands Vs SPA3" trading competition. I've been asked to show that SPA3 works, that I trade it and the past results are real and the audit is realistic. Which is why I'd much prefer doing this publicly than direct to any member.

I will make one apology up front. I thought this portfolio started in September 2005 but it actually started in 2006, so I'm missing the first 2.5 months to compare against the Audit, which is what I intended to do. So to make sure I wasn't overstating anything by missing a bad market period I checked the XAO and found that the market had begun to turn up in July. Therefore, IMHO, this portfolio might have done better by being fully invested prior to the main runup starting in September.

The files I've attached are:

• SPA3 Portfolio - ETrade Statements - 0607 Pt1 & 2: These 2 files are my ETrade trading statements. For some reason ETrade don't put a banner on their PDFs but people who use ETrade will recognise the format.
• SPA3 Portfolio - Transactions - 0607: This are the transactions from the SPA3 portfolio management software (TradeMaster). You can see they match the ETrade statements but also include interest and dividends. This format is similar to the audit documents.
• SPA3 Portfolio - Trades - 0607: This is a summary of the closed trades with statistics provided from TradeMaster.
• SPA3 Portfolios - Charts 0607: A chart of my portfolio showing the mark to market portfolio value and the closed trade(collateral) value. It is commented to show the main points. I have marked the capital injection in late November 06, so please don't think this jump was a closed trade. AND. A chart of the ShareFinder public portfolio for the Audit period for comparison.

In is in no doubt that the 06/07 trading year was a great bull market and most portfolios should have done well. Your benchmarks should have been the XAO which climbed a measily 27% or the All-Ords-Accumulation which rose 30%. I do not want the charts to paint a perfect picture of SPA3; it does experience periods of drawdown. The maximum drawdowns I know of are in the range of 15 to 23%. My own portfolio has recently hit 23% due to some stupid mistakes. I'm human!

If anyone would like to discuss any aspect of the information feel free to ask. At the same time I don't want the site admin to stop the post because they think it's ramping. I believe providing this type of evidence is a first for the forum!

Cheers!

They are nice numbers, how is it preforming in current stock conditions?

Since "This market" has been gripped by bad news for around for 6 months or more I have attached zoomed charts for January onwards, including this weeks falls.

The ShareFinder portfolio has dropped about 14%, since a new high was made in May. This is by no means the worst drawdown it has experienced. You may see in the older pictures below it it reached about 19% at the end of 2003, which was a long slow bear market. Putting this in perspective of the overall performance since 2001, IMHO this is just a must have glitch on the screen. The stat's say it only has 47% of it's cash currently at risk in the market. This is part of the money and risk management rules.

My portfolio has faired worse because as I said I made some mistakes. I'm currently down about 23%. I didn't make that new high in May. I only have 35% of my cash at risk in the market.

Look Left said:

Since "This market" has been gripped by bad news for around for 6 months or more I have attached zoomed charts for January onwards, including this weeks falls.

The ShareFinder portfolio has dropped about 14%, since a new high was made in May. This is by no means the worst drawdown it has experienced. You may see in the older pictures below it it reached about 19% at the end of 2003, which was a long slow bear market. Putting this in perspective of the overall performance since 2001, IMHO this is just a must have glitch on the screen. The stat's say it only has 47% of it's cash currently at risk in the market. This is part of the money and risk management rules.

My portfolio has faired worse because as I said I made some mistakes. I'm currently down about 23%. I didn't make that new high in May. I only have 35% of my cash at risk in the market.

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Does the system recongise when the market conditions are no good for it and switch itself off? Or are there signs so the user can switch it off and switch it back on when the markets are favourable to it again? Or does it just stop giving signals?

Surely it can't be profitable over all market conditions?

nomore4s said:

Does the system recognise when the market conditions are no good for it and switch itself off? Or are there signs so the user can switch it off and switch it back on when the markets are favourable to it again? Or does it just stop giving signals?

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A bit of everything. There are signals provided to tell you when conditions aren't favourable and the guidelines adjust your position sizes based on these factors, along with a few other factors that are fully explained in the manual. (As mentioned in the other thread, nothing is hidden). In addition the amount of buy signals tends to fluctuate in line with the market conditions, which helps keep your money out of the market.

nomore4s said:

Surely it can't be profitable over all market conditions?

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Absolutely not. All the portfolio charts I've attached have shown it has good and bad periods. Not even the best traders in the world make profit every day or every month. That's why Money and Risk management are much more important than having a positive expectancy technical signal by itself.

nomore4s said:

Does the system recongise when the market conditions are no good for it and switch itself off? Or are there signs so the user can switch it off and switch it back on when the markets are favourable to it again? Or does it just stop giving signals?

Surely it can't be profitable over all market conditions?

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With CFD's is there really a bad time in the market? Would I really like to find out how the CFD version has preformed over the last 6months.

With a bit of FA (and maybe common sense) I would have got in on some of the resource / metals sector eg BHP, STO, NCM. RIO, WPL. look how much they have gained in a bear market.

Did SPA3 have any recommodatiion to go long on these stock?

Looking at your Etrade stament, the companies traded seemed to be low cap/ higher beta stock, Does spa3 trade many blue chip shares?

one last question

Does SPA3 take divendeds into count?

Thanks

pennywise75 said:

With CFD's is there really a bad time in the market? Would I really like to find out how the CFD version has preformed over the last 6months.

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They have only just released the CFD version so i don't think a live portfolio is available to view.

pennywise75 said:

With a bit of FA (and maybe common sense) I would have got in on some of the resource / metals sector eg BHP, STO, NCM. RIO, WPL. look how much they have gained in a bear market.
Did SPA3 have any recommendation to go long on these stock?

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I don't know about you but I keep leaving my crystal ball in my other jacket . Sure, I had several resource and energy stocks in my portfolio in the last 6 months but SPA3 doesn't target a sector, it targets all stocks that give signals and balances them across the portfolio using risk management. So I never have to worry about what might happen.

pennywise75 said:

Looking at your Etrade stament, the companies traded seemed to be low cap/ higher beta stock, Does spa3 trade many blue chip shares?

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The standard setup for SPA3 looks at just about every stock on the ASX if its liquid enough to trade. Given that you can only have so many trades open at one time, the chance of having mostly bluechips is slim. If you so desire, all the tools are available to alter and back test SPA3 on a subset of stocks, eg the ASX500. Personally, I wouldn't restrict myself to just bluechips; as a trader they just don't move enough.

pennywise75 said:

Does SPA3 take dividends into count?

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I had to check this in the Sharefinder portfolio. Yes they do but since you might not be in a stock when they go ex-div, overall they only contribute a small amount. But still with compounding everything helps.

Cheers!

Pennywise75 and Look Left, please excuse my cynicism.

I've never bought a black box, but know a number of traders who have, they all lost eventually and had to wear the cost of the black box as well.

Excuse also my suspicions about your identities. Its just that to have two new members on the forum, discussing a commercial product, in tandem, in a dumb/expert duo, much as one would find on a television advertisement for washing powder, is a bit of a coincidence.

If as I suspect you have an interest that is more than altruistic in SFA3, then you should quietly exit.

Nobody will notice.

Why is it called SFA3?, its not a good name. Do you know what SFA stands for?

gg

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

pennywise75 said:

With CFD's is there really a bad time in the market?

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Where to start with this comment. No offence but this shows a clear lack of understanding about CFDs and the market in general.

Potentially any time is a bad time in the market with CFDs, just because you can go long or short with CFDs it doesn't stop the market moving against you.

CFDs are a highly leveraged item and as such the risks can be magnified especially with poor money management. Look Left has already stated a 23% drawdown because he/she made some mistakes, same mistakes made using CFDs could be even worse due to the leverage.

Also if you are trading a system (any system) and the market conditions you are trading do not suit the system you will have serious drawdown or even go bust no matter what, whether your trading shares or CFDs.

pennywise75 said:

With a bit of FA (and maybe common sense) I would have got in on some of the resource / metals sector eg BHP, STO, NCM. RIO, WPL. look how much they have gained in a bear market.

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Be careful here.
The reason for using a system (again any system) is to take some of the guess work out of trading and to try to create some sort of an edge. You get a signal to buy, you buy, get a signal to sell, you sell.
You start adding to the system by using your own selection criteria you start corrupting the system. All the back testing and work that have gone into building the system and creating that edge have now gone out the window.

Remember it is easy to pick stocks in hindsight, it's alot harder to get in before they run. If you were able to pick these stocks with commonsense and a bit of FA what do you need this system for?

Don't fall into the beginners trap of searching for the holy grail and trying to re-invent the wheel.

Edit: lol gg, I thinks it's actually SPA.
I would also never buy into a system like this. Especially in this market and while it is suffering some serious drawdown in a market that is showing no signs of turning around, the drawdown could get alot worse yet.

Garpal Gumnut said:

Excuse also my suspicions about your identities. Its just that to have two new members on the forum, discussing a commercial product, in tandem, in a dumb/expert duo, much as one would find on a television advertisement for washing powder, is a bit of a coincidence.
.

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Which one would I be, dumb or expert?

Could you please explain to me what a forum is?

Looking back through my post I can see why you guys would think i am on the sharefinder payroll. I guess you must have seen it a few times .. ohwell

I am trying to find information about this product, I am still learning and if that makes me seem "dumb" then so be it.

Not a nice welcome to a forum,

Anyhow ... GG how did you start out in your journey on knowledge? can you give me a few pointers? Whats stratagy do you employ that is better then SPA3?

pennywise75 said:

Could you please explain to me what a forum is?
......

Not a nice welcome to a forum,

.......
Anyhow ... GG how did you start out in your journey on knowledge? can you give me a few pointers?

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Pennywise, I couldn't agree more. I've been a member of this forum for some time and originally joined to widen my knowledge of what else is out there. Initially, I just read many of the posts but became a bit disheartened by the lack of respect and content from many posters, which put me off posting myself . But there are some good posters and I actually enjoyed the other thread with Tech/A and Ron1in; good questions and advice that anyone could take on board.. (There's also a few funny ones just to break the day up!)

I too can understand why they think this is an advertisement but like you say how else do you find out about products or services!! No one savages comments on Nick Radge or shuts down posts on Interactive Brokers. I think I've gone beyond the norm in staying civilised and providing evidence to every aggressive quip. I'm no expert in trading and try not to force my methods on anyone else. If someone asks a question on something I know about then I can offer an opinion which can be accepted or rejected. If it helps you get a good start in trading then great. Isn't that what the forum is about!?

If you have any further questions then please ask but otherwise I'll do myself a favour and just read for a while. Good luck!

PS: Thanks nomore4s for the previous comments. I was thinking much the same things but wanted to restrict my replies. Sound advice!

Look Left said:

......... I think I've gone beyond the norm in staying civilised and providing evidence to every aggressive quip. I'm no expert in trading and try not to force my methods on anyone else. If someone asks a question on something I know about then I can offer an opinion which can be accepted or rejected........

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after going to the length you have to post about this method I'm inclined to agree. So far you are the first person that uses a store bought system from a vendor and has actually posted details of what you are up to, which IMO says quite a lot about the belief you have in the method. Something I haven't seen elsewhere so far in my time on web forums outside of the guys that use Radge's services.

On the topic of the results you've gotten so far, the results for this year - they are the sharefinder equity curves and not your own yes? If so, how have your own results compared with the model portfolios?

Cheers

Yes, I have a solid belief in SPA3 and my trading. You have to reach a point in your trading where you trust yourself and the way you trade. This mindset can't be bought, you need to learn it.

Re the portfolios, I think you're referring to this post:
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=313217&postcount=28
The description talks about the performance since January for the Sharefinder Portfolio and My Portfolio. The charts shown are for both. Sorry, i didn't label them very well. The top one is Sharefinder, the bottom one is mine.

The point is selectively picking a subset of signals a year after they happened is a scam.

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EVERY transaction in the publicly traded SPA3 Portfolio is published at the time that they are signaled by the SPA3 methodology, both entry and exit signals. No Harry hindsight involved here.

This discussion has been brought to my attention. I'm sorry, I can't let my integrity be questioned without a response. It is very easy to make general criticisms based on general assumptions.

Having done this trading caper for 18 years and having researched plenty of claims of fantastic trading results, I can understand why people can be cynical and critical of built systems available for purchase (BTW SPA3 is not a 'black box'). Perhaps before being as publicly critical as you have been (Trembling Hand) about a specific product and specific company you should at least have put in a little effort to find out a little about both. Maybe next time........

Applying generic criticisms and general assumptions to specific situations is not a good trading mindset to have. It can cause perceptual blindness to realities that are occurring right before your eyes.

One thing that trading has taught me is that a probability of 1 (one) does not exist in large samples. But neither does a probability of 0 (zero). So maybe, just maybe, there is a/are company/ies that provides a complete mechanical trading methodology that does add value to peoples’ lives.

Thats what is wrong with these things they look good in hind site but impossible to implement in real time. Because of the number of signals they trigger.

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Another thing that trading has taught me is that having an open mind (I call it 'neutrality') leads to better outcomes in all walks of life.

You see, with your current paradigm you can’t possibly contemplate that some method can work even it generates more signals that any one trader can possibly trade.

I won’t even try to convince you otherwise on an open forum. However maybe you should learn to keep your mind open to the possibility that things that you are unaware of or things that haven’t yet crossed your radar could possibly work.

Isn’t that why you belong to an open Forum, so that you can learn from others? The act of questioning opens us up to perceive the existence of other possibilities. However, just making criticising statements from your current paradigm closes your mind to the possibility of the existence of other ways.

If you/they carn't dig up proof of someone implementing the system in REAL life then why should anyone pay for it ?????????????????????????????????

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The question to build or buy a trading methodology has been around for a long time. I respect people that embark on the path of building their own system. Why shouldn't I? I did so and I recommend it. But just as buying the wheel doesn't suit everybody neither does building your own suit everybody.

All that I know about Trembling Hand is that he/she has a Blog and lives in Melbourne. I too am in Melbourne (Melways Map 86 - address on the ShareFinder website) so I invite Trembling Hand to pop around to investigate a couple of real live SPA3 portfolios (including customers) that have been traded for many years.

You can spend as much time as you like investigating the real live portfolios (being a mechanical system it is very easy to verify historical trades) and our publicly traded portfolio.

This invitation is open ended.

Because each month there is more money in my BROKERS account than at the start.

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I cannot declare that every month of my trading career has been a positive month so maybe we'll both learn something …….

Gary Stone
On the journey....

There is a random distribution between wins and losses for any given set of variables that define an edge.

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