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What a frustrating experience!
> robert.cummings@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
>
> If one had a desire to deliver
> the truth about the futures industry. Then having no compensation would be
> the ideal way because delivering the truth is your reward. Also having no
> compensation would make your truth more believable. Get away from those
two
> principals and your left with explanations
> and rationalizations as to motives.
Ideally, this is true. But what this statement is missing is that this "good
deed" was a big undertaking which involved hiring programmers and office
staff and office space and a lawyer to defend against a lawsuit when a vendor
decided to sue. It involved the cost of printing and distributing the ranking
results. Futures Truth was formed in 1985. As a wild guess, say running this
business must have cost at least $100,000 per year. Probably more. Over the
past 15 years, that adds up to $1.5 million. Probably more.
The need to finance the effort led to selling the magazines for $30, the
systems, and the services. That in turn leads to the need to walk a fine line
and some people saying they are on one side of the line or the other. You
cannot expect an individual to spend $1.5 million out of their pocket to
deliver the truth about the futures industry. John Hill has really done an
amazing job of keeping his rating service going for 15 years. And these
accusations are his thanks.
> tradewynne@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
>
> My experience in life is that if someone will lie to you about one
important
> thing they will lie to you about other important stuff too.
>
> I guess you do not agree. I guess you are saying FT can tell the truth
here,
> but they don't need to tell the truth over there, or on another topic, or
in
> another media, and it's OK with you.
>
> Sorry, I don't agree. As far as the "dredging up something bad," all I
talk
> about is right there on the two sites, clear as broken glass, for all to
> see.
>
> It's a case of the "fox watching the chicken coop" and the fox is telling
> us: "I'm not a fox! Well, OK, my son's a fox (aka vendor), but I'm just
> another honest chicken! Really!"
This is a nice write up here, but I don't understand. I don't understand
because from this series of emails nobody has shown any evidence that Futures
Truth has lied about anything. Everything is fully disclosed in a conflicts
of interest statement on page 1 of their publication.
There has been discussion about whether it was the correct decision for them
to go into selling system themselves. There was some wording on a web site
pointed out which was promoting John Hills involvement with Futures Truth as
a sales tool to sell a trading system. These are reasonable debates, but
nothing even approaching evidence of lying since the system selling is
publicly disclosed and the web site is a public web site. I see no evidence
of lying and no evidence of attempts at cover up of anything.
> markbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
>
> Eac> I would think that before someone actually sent them a system, they
would at
> Eac> some point take a look at their main product, which is the printed
> Eac> publication, and this is clearly stated on Page 1 of the printed
publication.
>
> the lack of consistency in both their story and their media should be
> enough to bring into question their abilities to accurately report
> systems results.
You mean because the disclaimer is in the printed publication but not on the
web site? I wouldn't call this a lack of consistency. The web site does not
give a different story. It is only that the web site does not go into as much
detail. It is publicly disclosed in the printed publication.
> Eac> My challenge to find something specific was evidence of Mark Brown's
claim
> Eac> that "the models have been tampered with to keep their ranking"
(Mark's
> Eac> words).
>
> below are the commodities listed in the aberration manual around 1998
> and around 1995 - 22 of the 35 commodities listed had changed their
> optimal input values.
>
> ...snip...
>
> so you argument is that john hill and his bunch didn't know that these
> numbers had been changed to keep this systems rankings in the top ten?
I am not saying that Futures Truth is unaware that these number have changed
over time. What I am saying is that the numbers changing over time have
absolutely nothing to do with the top ten list. I previously wrote a long
email explaining this. This was your response:
> It sounds like you didn't even read my long email, which
>
> > now your getting it - you are boring me please go back lurking ok?
You do not understand how the top ten list is produced. I tried to explain
your misunderstanding, and you responded that it was too boring to bother
reading the explanation. Instead, you send yet another email with the same
untrue accusations, in ignorance of the facts.
In producing the Top Ten list, Futures Truth does not go backwards in time to
revise past results when a vendor changes parameters. Rather, they report the
results with the old parameters until the date of the change, then the
results with the new parameters after the date of the change. What is so hard
to understand about that?
Changing parameters may help a vendors sales literature show a curve fitted
historical equity curve, but the Futures Truth Top Ten list is the results of
forward trading only. That is the whole basis of why John Hill started
Futures Truth. So that he could report forward trading results. So that
consumers would have a source for forward trading results information. Why?
Because vendors sometimes do exactly what you describe, which is to choose
parameters and markets so that their sales literature can show wildly rising
historical equity curves which are extremely unlikely to be reproduced in
forward trading. It sounds to me like John Hill was in absolute agreement
with your concerns when he started Futures Truth, and that is exactly why he
started Futures Truth. But instead you keep insisting he is doing the
opposite of helping to promote curve fitted historical results. That is
inaccurate. The Futures Truth magazine, and the Top Ten list (which is a list
of the top 10 systems in the rankings in that magazine), is 100% non
hindsight forward trading. This is stated on page 1 of their publication.
It is obvious that there are people who have a grudge against Futures Truth
for whatever reason. In the case of Mark Brown, this is no surprise since he
seems to have a grudge against anyone and everyone. Yes, Mark, this is
getting boring. This time, please look at the facts, and if the facts are too
boring for you to bother understanding, at least stop posting messages on
this topic.
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