Super Stock Picker Forum

Hello,

As of today, May 6th, the portfolios that benefit from our Market Timing Indicator are online.
They can be identified by the "+" suffix at the end of their names.

On the portfolios page, the portfolios with market timing are now listed in the first table of the page. The former portfolios, that do not use the market timing, are listed in the second table of the page.

To recall how it works, the portfolios with market timing duplicates the former portfolios (same name, with the "+" suffix) when the indicator is UP. When the indicator is down, the portfolios with market timing are 100% cash.

For those who receive our recommendations by email, this information is divided in two parts:
- the market timing indicator is listed first, along with the alert level that would generate a new signal.
- the orders in the portfolios. Those orders will still be coming even if the indicator is down (and the former portfolios will still execute those orders) but you should not execute them if you follow the portfolios with market timing.

Feel free to ask any questions.

Are you saying that you have adjusted the portfolio based on what it would have been had you used the new timing indicator?

Yes,

The portfolios with the "+" suffix are adjusted to reflect what would have happened if the new timing indicator would have been there since their inception.

Also, the former portfolios are still there, with the names that have no suffix.

I'm crying foul SSP.

Hind sight is always 20 / 20. Its fine to test a trading system by back tracking, but your portfolio appears to say "look how well we did". That is wrong and deceptive. You created the timing indicator in late October 2008 afterthe crash. Thats as far back as you should go.

I'm disappointed.

Bryan

Hi Bryan,

We understand your point, but let me add that we have not finished adding information about it, and for instance, we will stress the fact that the indicator signals before Oct 08 are backtested.

This is also why we keep the former portfolios as they were on the site. Users can see what happened in real time and then what the proposed change (addition of timing) would have had as an impact.

Also, note that the market timing indicator is not optimized in anyway for our portfolios. It uses very common average periods and is just a good tool to follow trends. As our portfolios are very well in sync with the overall market, it helps a lot. There's no curve fitting in this process at all.

The point of publishing all this history is to demonstrate what a difference it would make to use the indicator or not.

Our job is to make it clear what was backtested and what was recorded in real time. As I have said, we have not finished with that task yet.

SSP

If I go to your home page what flashes up is "OUR BEST CANADIAN STOCK PORTFOLIO". It is back tested with the timing indicator considered. There is no warning saying YOU DIDN'T ACHIEVED THOSE RETURNS!
Not fair, not right.
You should correct. You are definitely treading on thin ethical ice and are risking an otherwise respectable reputation.

And ... you don't need this! Your portfolio's have been doing great since October 08. The 3 and 6 month with AND WITHOUT the timing indicator has outperformed the TSX. No one in their right mind will believe that you generated an 80% return in a year that saw the TSX plummet by 50%!! Come on!

You should remove any portfolio that tracks data before the timing indicator was published. That would be fair.

At least put the "real" portfolios above the back tested ones on the page!!

I hope you'll re-consider this whole promotional scam and go back to being honest like you always have been. Keep the indicator. Trash the numbers before October. 

Bryan

agree! let's forget the past. start the new  "+" suffix portfolio from now no.

Bryan, jeff,

We understand your concern but we also think it is important to show as many data as we currently do.

First, we'll keep working on adding more info to explain clearly what are the data we are showing. It is already done on the homepage but we need to add more info in the description text of the portfolios, on the portfolios page and on the market timing page which is far from being finished.

Also, why it is so important to show so much data is because it is very important to explain what the differences are between the portfolios with and without the timing indicator.
This discussion reinforce the idea that users do not understand easily the difference that makes the use of the indicator.
Its target is to remove volatility. It has never been about adding performances. If you look carefully at the numbers (historical data can be downloaded from the portfolio description page as a csv file), you'll see that the portfolios that do not use the market timing have peaked at a higher value than the same portfolios that use the indicator. We can not predict the future, but imagine that during the next ten years will be enjoying a wonderful bull market. Then, we can tell today that the portfolios with the market timing will under perform the former portfolios. But at the same time, the indicator will still allows to reduce the volatility... at the expense of the absolute performance.

That's why it is so important to be able to compare the two versions of the same portfolio over the same period of time. Otherwise, someone that follows the portfolio with the indicator can be disappointed when she'll realized that the absolute performances are lower than without the indicator.

At the same time, as said previously, we agree that it is very important to tell very clearly what has been simulated and what has been recorded live everyday. And we'll keep on working on that.

I understand your need to "educate" new subscribers as to the difference. You can rest assured that I will do my part to inform "newbies" as well ;).
I agree that the portfolios with the timing indicator considered may not do as well. If that occurs then I suspect SSP will push those portfolios to the background.
I do appreciate the timing indicator but would prefer to see SSP work on shorting portfolios and better filtering strategies that all of the subscribers could take advantage of now and in the future. (I am not as interested in changing the past given that my time machine is not working right now).
Bryan

Hi Bryan,

Really don't know why an old member would come to think that.
We have been through this market crash last year and you should have witnessed that no info have been removed from the website during this period.

Despite what you think, the new portfolios with the market timing are really the ones we think people should use. Once again, it is all about volatility. The main drawback of the former portfolios was the drawdowns. This should be greatly improved now and that's why the new portfolios are the one to go with.

Hi SSP
OK. Its true you've displayed the traditional portfolios even during rough times. I object, however, to displaying a portfolio that before October 2008 is a back test. It was non existent a year ago yet you are showing a multi-year performance graph. Don't you think that is a bit deceptive?
Bryan

Bryan,

We do understand your objection and we still have to say on the pages that describe the portfolios that the timing signals have been simulated before October 08.