All, the community spamming should not be a problem. Anyone with an account (paying or free) can post now. It’s been like this for 10 years. We’ve only had a handful of problems in the past (some of you may remember a certain pilot with a political agenda).
tkp, thanks for your comments. The historical data access is what sets us apart. We’ll see what makes sense. We had planned to fix the start date.
Shaun, all those things are on the list. TRADE for canada, autotrade, Europe, position sizing, daily ranking, new tools for factor research (see Tortoriello’s book). We’ve never stopped adding non R2G feautures, and R2G development has generated many new ideas (for example the soon to be launched rolling tests which will generate the data for the new R2G presentations) in other words we see a symbiotic relationship .
Yes, we are likely going to restrict free r2g’s to paying members.
With the rollout of the new R2G site, should there be a floor on R2G pricing? Say at least $10 per month? Phase out free R2Gs altogether for all. This would be good for the ecosystem in the long term. I pay for my R2Gs now and feel I get good value.
marco, you are welcome. Another proposal for market historical data access could be for every 6 month of uninterrupted subscription (Investor and Screener memberships) period there could be any 1 selectable month of access to full historical data. This way designers starters could test their systems fully after 6 month of design efforts. If result is OK, then 1 month of model polishing and upgrade membership. If not, then you get back to school for another 6 month to learn and progress until another full data test.
David, I think free models is some kind of quality standard for R2G designers and should be left as is. And no free R2G’s for free users for sure.
When you say no backtesting for free user. Do you mean that they won’t have the possibility to backtest models combination? I am not a designer, I am a user of 3 ports so I am your target. I am of course happy to have free access and I think it makes sense but please, don’t remove the possibility to backtest the combination of multiple models!
I totally agree with Denny's and dodge's comments. In addition, I too would very much like to see better core functionality including daily ranking. I differ with some others in that I would place a higher priority on increased technical analysis (TA) functionality, along the lines of say, TradeStation. At one point P123 had a fairly active TA community. Are you guys still out there? Would you like to be able to write your own indicators?
NO FREE MEMBERSHIPS: Too often I look at who is online and I see 3-4 paying members and 20+ guests. So, when it gets slow, I have to wonder am I waiting for another member (O.K.) or some guest (N.G.).
I agree with Denny’s, Dodge’s, and Bill’s comments. In addition have you considered the possible drain on customer service resources and the costs associated with hiring employees for this purpose that could occur if you have an influx of non committed transient free users trying to navigate the site with the dated user manual? I find the dated user manual and suboptimal documentation in some areas of the site frustrating and have been here for a while. Some companies, AOL for example, do not offer customer service to non-paying members.
In addition I support having separate forums for paid and non paying members. I understand that the forums have been open to non paying members in the past but the difference is that in the future they will not be limited to a 15 or 30 day membership. There is less collaboration on these forums then before r2go and I can see this becoming worse if there are an influx of site “trolls” which I have seen ruin professional forums in the past.
I also see an active forum posting capability for free members very critically. Everybody knows the one or the other forum on the web where people use to argue rather emotionally and more often than not loose any politeness; not to mention that the quality level in such forums often suffers.
If there is one aspect I find really great in THIS forum, it is the fact-based still open discussion and exchange of arguments among a highly intelligent crowd of members. This is a good of high value and should be preserved in any case.
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of limiting free access to;
Ability to signup for a R2G models
Separate community access
TRADE with a per account fee
access to one or two books
That’s all you need to be a consumer of R2G models.
Any feature that uses compute resources should be included in a tier with a monthly fee. The caveat here is that there should ideally be three (maybe four) pricing tiers. After that, product selection gets confusing.
Walter
EDIT: While no one asked, I do think the pricing tiers should be build around use cases for;
Just noting that this would basically be a separate site–which I was recommending also. The advantage is it could be geared towards attracting, informing and retaining subs. Obviously, designers would have full access, also, to help guide discussions. Designers and investors would of course retain access to the present site.
The present site would better attract the highest quality investors: including more institutional investors as time goes on. Institutional investors might be turned off by adds for R2G ports.
Hi Jim, You’re right that the changes I proposed would make the free access version feel like a separate site - but I would rather keep in under the P123 umbrella. I don’t think P123 should dilute it’s brand.
Yea, I see that. I think I was just hoping Marco would give me a year’s membership free if he used “Portfolio Cubed: taking investing to a new power” on the Web site–or maybe “Portfolio Cubed: adding another dimension to investing.” LOL
He will know how to design the different parts of the Web site (investor portion vs R2G portion). That is one of his many strengths.
As a long time paid subscriber, and one who subscribes to many, and now reliant on R2G systems, I do not want to compete with free P123 subscribers for access to popular R2G systems. Perhaps offer R2G subscriptions to paid P123 subscribers first for some period of time, then offer access to everyone.
Perhaps also set aside a percentage of each R2G subscription to P123 subscribers. If the system fills for the free subscriber, and there are openings for the P123 subscriber then they will be incentivized to subscribe to P123.
Non-paying P123 members should be restricted to R2G stock models with a filter of $5B MktCap and up, or ETFs. In addition, such members should have one book, with a maximum starting capital of $100K. Above $100K members should be able to pay a fee, perhaps multi-tiered. In addition, I’d like to see a “white-box” high fee category / one year commitment minimum where the subscriber has access to the system. Access to the system rules is a necessity for fund managers. Most of them are typically not interested in designing their own systems due to the learning curve or ability.
As for R2G being a problem for P123 members not using R2G -
(1) A lot of the P123 development has been for features other than R2G. Canadian stocks, custom series, macro charts, long term economic indicators, books, even the hedge module has come about since the introduction of R2G. In fact R2G may hasten the advance of certain features.
(2) The benefit of R2G for members not using R2G is somewhat subtle. While it may not be obvious to all, portfolio design at P123 has matured greatly in the last two years. R2G has given us all the ability to watch what other designers are doing and build upon their successes and avoid their failures. The successes and failures are real and measured independently. Before R2G, people would post about unsubstantiated ideas along with some equity curve (“see it works”), not mentioning it is one of a thousand ports or sims they are maintaining, most of which don’t work.
(3) R2G designers becoming non-communicative is a bit overrated. I believe that even before R2G the topics were stagnating, you can only communicate for so long on smallcap value systems. In my personal case, I worked long and hard on telling everyone about the RS optimizer, only to have the worked trashed by several individuals. If I am silent, that is why, nothing to do with R2G.
(4) R2G gives some individuals the opportunity to make money, some of which have contributed a lot over the years, and may not be here without R2G.
I like the idea of some kind of model restrictions for free R2G access. I fear nothing but heartbreak for those going naively into the Trader category. But I don’t know whether the restriction should be to limit access to Foundation only or exclude access from Trader only.
my comment may not so much fit into this thread, however it is sad for me to read that your work was trashed by some ignorant individuals. I really appreciated particularly your step-by-step ranking system articles (on your former site version), as well as your xls RS optimizer which I am using until this day. Please do not let some individuals compromise something that a majority of others finds highly useful!
To chime in with Valueseeker, my favorite port’s ranking system was optimized using your Excel spreadsheet. It is performing very well in comparison to the backtest and no one could argue that it has been over-optimized based on the performance.
First time using Dropbox public link. Let me know if I messed up: Dropbox link
Steve had excellent instructions on his web site. He can probably help explain how to use or you may be math/Excel inclined (it has been a while since I used it).
This version has a macro - when you click on one of the arrows at the bottom the corresponding iteration is copied into the reference spot, the new iterations are automatically generated, node pruning is done automatically, and the 15x10 array is automatically copied into the clipboard. It eliminates a lot of the repetition. If you are not using all 15 nodes then you have to re-copy the portion of the array you are interested in. Also, the noise generation is 80/40/20/10/5/2.5 instead of 50/40/30/20/10.
I had to get rid of the tutorials for several reasons. One was that my web platform was upgraded and the posts were not compatible, I accidentally deleted one of the most important posts, and I also got indication that blog posts using P123 may be considered “professional” and Compustat could demand that I pay for a licence While the last point would probably not happen, I decided it was not worth keeping the tutorials.
I do have other changes I want to make to the spreadsheet but it is not high on my list of priorities and it involves more macros or VBA, neither of which I am particularly knowledgeable on. If anyone wants to take over the project I can provide instructions on what changes I’d like to see made.
Walter - you can contact me directly with any problems using the spreadsheet. You must set EXCEL to manual recalculate.
While the last point would probably not happen, I decided it was not worth keeping the tutorials.