Welcome to Serious Investment Returns

These days it seems most websites are full of page after page of overhyped sales drivel. I’m not going to insult your intelligence or waste my time with such rubbish. So let’s skip the usual preamble and just cut to the chase…

$97,575 profit per $1,000 risked per trade

This is the performance of the S-I-R system in the 34 months since it went live.  If you are seeking a longer term commodity strategy:

• That really does perform – big money, made consistently
• With a multi-year real-time track record
• Which is traded by serious professional traders around the world
• That is easy to operate – without watching a screen all day
• Where I do all of the hard work for you – and you can even outsource execution if you wish
• That can also be a great diversification in a long term investment portfolio

…yet even treated as a low risk investment strategy has already delivered 161% return in its first 34 months, then S-I-R could be just what you need.  On average we take 8 to 12 trades per month which typically last for 3-8 days before being closed out and without having to follow the markets throughout the day.  In fact most orders are placed after the markets are closed.

Take a quick look at the performance charts to the right.  Look at the system highlights just below those charts.  Want to know more?  Then grab a cup of coffee and join me for a few minutes as I tell you all about this ground breaking service.

How was the S-I-R system invented?

S-I-R was originally developed for use in the fund that I trade.  In this we have historically traded the S&P500 futures on a short-term basis.

But in 2008, while the markets were in meltdown I was concerned that 2009 would be a difficult year in the S&P. After such an extreme move there follows an almost inevitable “hangover” as the market tries to return to some sort of normality, but with much reduced volume as so many major players leave the market forever due to under-performance or bankruptcy. In this type of trading we earn best when the market has good volume and volatility. However, both of these can be expected to decline during a hangover.

So in the summer of 2008 I started thinking about adding a new dimension to our trading activity, just in case 2009 turned out to be a hangover year – which of course is exactly what did happen!

What I did was I took exactly the same model I use for trading the S&P on a very short timeframe and applied it to a range of commodity markets all on a much longer timeframe.

The objective here was to achieve diversification by trading many different markets and also by using much larger timeframes volume considerations, that are critical in our S&P work, are much less relevant.

So in the latter part of 2008, I developed this “end of day” type of trading system using my existing time proven supply and demand model and applied it to a range of 36 commodity markets.

By early 2009 the development and refinement was complete and in March the system went live.  I started just paper trading initially as I recommend everyone does when starting something new. This started off so well that my partners in the fund soon urged me to forget the paper trading and take the trades for real and this is exactly what we did from June onwards.

S-I-R development interview

If you would like to hear more about this journey from concept, through development and into actual use in the fund, you can listen to an interview I gave on 12th November 2009.

Over to the right there is a little audio player entitled “Development Interview”.  Just click on the play button to listen to the recording.

(It may take a couple of seconds to load and your computer needs to have adobe flash player installed.)

Why does it work so well?

Throughout the 28 years that I have been in the markets I have seen just about every approach to harnessing the markets that exists. The vast majority are fundamentally flawed, even many that are in fact profitable for periods of time. The flaw is the reliance upon, and the belief in, the ability to predict the future. My starting point is that the future cannot be known and that any reliance on forecasting is to be avoided at all costs.

Instead I look at the markets from a rather different perspective, one that is both reliable and founded on fact. Instead of worrying about what might, or might not, happen in future – I concentrate on what actually is happening in the present.

Markets move under the action of supply and demand. In fact NOTHING else causes markets to move. All sorts of factors may go into the decision making of the various buyers and sellers in the market, but the only thing that actually moves a market is the collective actions taken by the buyers and sellers. So if you concentrate your efforts on understanding what market participants are actually doing and find ways to measure supply and demand, you can then build a strategy on a solid foundation. This is exactly what I did many years ago when I first developed my model of market movement, called…

“Financial Physics”

In Financial Physics we categorise market movement into 6 phases. Each phase is characterised by the balance or imbalance of supply and demand currently present in the market. Each phase also has one specific type of trade setup associated with it. Then if the trade setup occurs with an acceptable level of risk for the potential reward available – we take the trade. If however the risk/reward profile does not meet our defined criteria we simply pass on the trade and await the next phase and the next setup.

The reason this system works so well, I believe, is that our model is based upon hard facts and reality plus we are extremely selective when we commit money to the market. Everything has to fall into place, else we stay out of the way. This is why we only average around one trade per quarter in each market, as we are only interested in the highest probability trades and leave the mediocre ones for everyone else to play with.

Not every trade is profitable of course, because supply and demand can change quickly and unexpectedly. This is just something we have to live with and accept as a normal part of the business. Most of the time our trades play out as expected and provide a nice profit. However we also have our share of losing trades. What matters in the long run though is that in every trade we align ourselves with the dominant force currently present in the market and that is why the majority of our trades play out perfectly. The dominant force might be in the same direction as the prevailing trend serving to perpetuate that trend, or it may be in opposition to it ultimately resulting in a trend reversal.

Serious returns for serious traders and investors

The three charts in the right hand column show the real-time profit and loss of the S-I-R system. This is presented in three different ways as different traders like to view P&L data based upon different criteria:

• The green chart at the top shows the P&L since launch based upon risking 1% of capital on each trade.  This basis is generally applicable to the largest accounts where the most optimum balancing of risk across the different markets is easy to achieve.  This is also how an “investor” might utilise the system to provide serious returns at very low levels of risk.
  
• The second chart shown in red shows the P&L based up the dollar profit realised for each $1,000 risked on each trade, assuming a fixed dollar unit size is being traded.  This basis may be more applicable to medium sized accounts where multiple contracts allow a degree of risk balancing between the various markets, but without the perfect precision that a large account can utilise.
• The third chart in yellow shows the P&L achieved per contract.  This basis is more indicative of the performance of smaller accounts where a fixed number of contracts (e.g. just one) are traded and consequently there is no balancing of risk between the markets of differing contract sizes and volatility.  However, alternative trading vehicles can provide better risk balance for those with smaller accounts who wish to do so (more on this later).

Real-time performance

Just to be clear these are not back tested or hypothetical results, but the results of the trades generated after completion of the development work. As mentioned above the first few trades I simply paper traded, then we started taking them for real on small size and by mid-2009 we were taking trades on full size.

The critical word in that title is “real time”.  How many times have we all seen so called “hypothetical” results that look great only to discover that when you try to trade the system live the whole thing turns seriously ugly?

Well there are a number of reasons why this is the case.  These range from simple bad luck in the timing of going live at one end of the spectrum, through naivety of genuine but inexperienced developers, right through to outright deception by data mining fraudsters at the other end of the spectrum.

The acid test of any system, even from the most experienced and knowledgeable developers, is how it performs in real time long after all of the development activity is a distant memory.  This is why I only ever show real time results in all of my signal services and no pre-release nonsense.  It is also why my friends and clients who trade my systems are happy to provide the genuine quotes you can see on the next page – because they have actually been trading the signals, live in real time and in many cases for several years.

So don’t take my word for any of this, but do listen seriously to what people who were once in your position have to say about their own experiences.  The fact is that every trade in the S-I-R system’s track record has been taken in real time by myself and many other people.  That real time trade log can be downloaded on the Trade Log page and the charts to the right show a snapshot of the profits delivered by the system since inception.

Let’s look at a few of the key facts about the S-I-R system’s real time performance to date:

• On average the profits on winning trades are 1.5 times the size of losses on the losers
• For every losing trade there have been 1.7 winning trades
• For every $1 lost in the losing trades $2.51 has been made in the winning trades
• 2011 is its 3rd profitable year out of 3
• Last month (January 2012) the system closed again at new equity highs, despite this past year being one of the most difficult years I can remember in my three decades in the markets

Professor Quinto – my supervisor!

If you listened to the recorded interview mentioned above then you also know how these live trades were overseen by Jeff Quinto, America’s preeminent trading coach and 38-year veteran trader. Jeff also witnessed first-hand the whole development of the S-I-R system from the earliest concept through to the very last trade taken, as he oversees all trading activity in our fund. You can read all about Jeff and his ground breaking service by clicking on this picture:

^[2]

I am going to be absolutely straight with you, as I am with everyone I have any dealings with. The actual performance we have seen to date with the S-I-R system is much better than I had hoped for. Not that I am complaining of course! My honest expectation before starting this was that we would be wonderfully profitable, but not as profitable as we actually have been. I also expected a less smooth equity curve than we have actually had to date.

The first two years were like taking candy from a baby.  2011 was a much more difficult year.  We did spend several months treading water, before things loosened up again and we sailed on to new equity highs closing the year in profit once again.  Although the drawdown wasn’t life threatening, an extended period of “make a bit, lose a bit, repeat, repeat, repeat” tests the resolve of any and every trader.  But we prevailed by being consistent, following our rules and waiting for the markets to become more friendly once again.  That is the nature of trading.

As the Professor would say “trading is a marathon and not a sprint”.  So we concentrate on doing our job well and when the market is ready to reward us again that is exactly what it does.  When we started I expected to see bigger dips in the equity curve than actually materialised.  But I did not anticipate a lengthy flat period so that is what actually did arrive!  We just have to live with what the market throws at us.  That is what we do and that is why we succeed over the long run.

“Simon tells it how it really is”

Why am I telling you this?  Most websites only tell you the good stuff right?  The good stuff and then some, in my experience!  But listen, here in the real world we deal with real life not pipe dreams.  The fact is we get easy times and we get hard times.  Guess what?  Long term success is governed by the hard times!

It is easy to make the money in the good times, that bit almost goes without saying.  But avoiding huge drawdowns, avoiding losing our nerve and avoiding self doubt are the things that allow us to ride out the rough patches.  And that is what we have to do at times, hopefully not too frequently!

Being prepared for the bad times allows us to work through to the good times again.  So it is important to be prepared and to have rock solid discipline.  That is why I am always so open with people about the need to focus on the bigger picture and not to get caught up in the day to day noise.

When trading a longer term strategy, you have to have to trade the strategy over the longer term.  You can’t play with it for a month or two and expect to do well.  If that is your time horizon you need to be scalping 1 minute charts with your nose pressed to the screen for hours every day, not kicking back and and taking a handful of longer term trades each month.  That low key, low pressure, longer term perspective is exactly what S-I-R traders enjoy.  Its not for everyone.  But for those suited to this way of trading, S-I-R is simply mind blowing – just ask our current members!

How you can take part

My offer is simple. I don’t sell the system and I don’t give financial advice.  What I do through this service is I allow a small group of fellow traders to “look over my shoulder” and see exactly the orders I am placing myself.  You see my orders at the same time as I place them in the various markets myself.  Should you wish to follow along, well that is entirely up to you!  How you use this sneaky insight into my world is entirely up to you.

Most of the time my orders are placed or adjusted late in the day, typically between 8:30pm and 10:30pm UK time (2:30 to 4:30pm CST) so they are active in time for the reopen later that evening.  A small percentage of the time we adjust trades during the American trading session, occasionally we even adjust orders during the European trading session (although this is very rare).  So there is no being glued to a screen all day long with the T1 System.  Just occasional orders to place or adjust, most of which take place at the end of the day.

You also have the choice of who executes your trades for you.  You can do it yourself or you can put it on AutoPilot by instructing my colleagues at Commodity Resource Corporation to execute for you, so you don’t even have to be available to place orders yourself.  You can read all about these alternatives on the following pages.

Here is a quick comparison of the two services, each of which is described in detail in the following pages:

*Trading Den membership is subject to availability.

One month at a time

First of all you need to make sure that trading the S-I-R system fits comfortably with your existing trading activities and indeed that you are adequately capitalised to take part.  Your subscription won’t make any difference to my lifestyle and unless you are certain this fits with your needs I would much prefer you did not join!  That may be a pretty unusual thing to hear in a world where everyone seems to be desperate to grab your money for some subscription or other, but then I’m not like everyone else.

In fact throughout our relationship, you will be the one in control.  I only offer monthly subscriptions to all of my signal services, nothing longer.  We all know the old trick of trying to coerce people into annual subscriptions which they then discover are non refundable as soon as they find out that the “miracle service” isn’t quite as miraculous as they hoped it would be.  I only want happy clients and certainly don’t want anyone saying “that Simon bloke made me pay a years fees and didn’t deliver!”

So yes I do subscriptions differently too!

So you can stay for as long as you want to and no longer.  I deliberately switched over to using PayPal, so that I no longer have access to anyone’s credit card details.  If you decide to leave, which of course I hope you don’t, all you have to do is cancel your subscription in your PayPal account.  No further monthly payments will be made and the website will automatically cancel your membership.  You don’t have to track me down to cancel the subscription, in fact I wont even know about it.  Everything is automated so I can concentrate on trading and not administrative things!

From my side of course I hope you are as excited as the rest of us about taking part in this venture and will choose to be with us for the long term like the vast majority of my existing happy members.  So please read the rest of the pages in this website carefully and when you are ready to get started I look forward to welcoming you into this exclusive club.