Response from Spread The Trend

As was clear in my last post, as well as some of the comments under the Spread The Trend review (originally posted in October 2013), there have been some rough patches recently.  This happens to all traders, funds, investors, etc.  Participate in the markets long enough, and no one is immune to experiencing challenging times at some time or another.

Spread The Trend replied under the comments of the original review.  I thought it would be good to promote it to a blog post, since there are some clarifications, explanations, and admissions that will be of value to some readers.

Here is the comment in its entirety:

We are responding to the comments made by Marco Starr whose name is unfamiliar to us. When a trade is rolled, you close one position and then simultaneously open another position. The losses being referred to are paper losses. A true realized loss is not incurred unless someone chose to simply close all positions and not roll their trades. We are currently down for the year with implied volatility being anemic but our final tally is far from solidified. We have also been trading in and out of several positions to help reduce the cost of our rolls and being as conscientious as possible to our subscribers.  

In regards to “wiping out several years of gains” this seems to be an over reaching statement. You only need to view our track record page to see that we are well ahead of the game if you consider the longer and even medium term. Now had someone only been with our service for less than a year, then yes it is possible that their account could've temporarily dropped below the value they started with. http://spreadthetrend.com/yellow-condor-history  

All along it was explained to subscribers what our plan of action was and why our decisions combined with market forces lead to these outcomes. In all fairness, perfection in trading is difficult and we stand by our longer-term track record. Of course, we do our best to try and avoid getting into stressful situations altogether. We also believe we could have done a better job as well and have taken “key learning’s” to heart from this experience.

The majority of auto trade subscribers, or over ¾, did fill on the roll in question. As for those folks trading their own accounts the results seemed mixed as some did fill and some did not. It’s most common for everyone to fill or not fill as a whole but on rare occasions sometimes not everyone will get filled all in the same day. This can possibly be due to the timing of the order being sent or how quickly the broker is able to submit the order, or it could even have something to do with the liquidity in the market at the time the order is processed. 

When we see that the mass majority is filling that tells us that our order is priced fairly and correctly. If a broker did not fill, then we ask the question why? There are tools available where one can go back and see the amount of volume traded on these strikes, which shows there were many fills. Could Spread The Trend have sent the order earlier? In hindsight, probably yes. However, the process that has been successful for many years dictated that waiting was appropriate. We desired a different outcome as well and these trades impact our own personal accounts.  

All trades are posted on our website in the Member's section under current open positions with all of the details in their entirety. We do not post the trades to our closed positions page until the entire trade has been closed out and as of Mr. Starr’s posting and this posting; the entire trade has not yet been closed out. 

We offer a one month $1 trial so folks can get comfortable with the strategy and always ask that individuals add capital gradually. One may review both open and closed trades and decide if the newsletter is a good choice for them. Spread The Trend realizes that this period was stressful but we also have many winning weeks, months, and years on record. However, that concept that we were a “deer in headlights”, “virtually sunk”, or “listing” is disingenuous to our long term subscribers who are somewhat disappointed but are still extremely profitable and content with our strategy.