Website : Positive Forex Website
Publisher : Scott Spencer
Cost : £100/month or £105/month with SMS
Review Date : July/August 2010

WHAT IT SAYS ON THE WEBSITE

The PostiveFX mission is to provide a Forex service with clear cut trade entry, exit and target levels "so the results are achievable ... with no grey areas". All results published on the website include Broker spreads and slippage.

Scott has spent the last 12 years learning to trade during his interaction with various people/traders/fund managers. He is "a trader first and foremost and trading dominates all my time on a daily basis ... through choice". The service was set up by Scott's wife, Lisa, so, Scott trades and Lisa operates the communication with subscribers which is £100 a month for email only or £105 for email and SMS.

Scott only trades cable (GBPUSD), his favourite market and the one he has always specialised in. His personal monthly average, over the years, is 400 pips and this is his aim for the future. To do this two easy to follow Set & Forget systems are used, called System 1 and System 2, these are two of the systems which make up the PostiveFX service. The signal for each of these systems is similar, a pending Buy and a pending Sell order is issued, exact Entry, Stop and Target are included for each order. Expiry is 17:00 UK Local time with the only other caveat being that if the Buy order is triggered and then hits its target the opposing Sell order is cancelled and vice versa. For system 2, there is one additional caveat, if the first trade triggered gets stopped out the original order is then resubmitted, an email/SMS is issued in this instance as a reminder.

System 1 trades are issued between 09:00 and 10:00 and System 2 trades are issued between the hours of 05:30 and 06:30 (now 07:20 - 07:40 - see below), all times are UK Local time.

There is also a System 3, a complimentary service which does not count towards the 400 pips a month target. It is an intraday system, where trades are issued at anytime between the hours of 05:00 and 15:00. The signal for this system is a single Buy order or a single Sell order which remains active until triggered or cancelled. In the event of cancellation an email/SMS is issued.

PositiveFX also put a reasonable perspective on what they are actually offering here - "This is not the holy grail business service, we want to encourage realistic, yet positive minded members and as such understand it's a business with ups and downs with the target being long term profit". There is no hype on the website, no affiliation deals, no testimonials, no special offers, etc. A welcome break from the norm these days!

THE SERVICE

We only had signals delivered via email and it worked without flaw. We cannot comment on the SMS function but we can only assume it is as timely. With most mobile phones having decent email functionality now it's probably only worth the £5 a month as a back-up if your mobile is not so up to date.

Signals are clear and easy to place, 1 minute for each signal. The only annoying aspect being the 5 decimal place quoting system used. E.g. Entry 1.12345, not 1.1234. In this instance we always rounded up/down to the nearest significant.

We only traded System 1 and 2, as the times were more suitable to us, 09:00 - 10:00 and 07:20 - 07:40 respectively (both London time).

System 1 - The earliest time we received a signal during July and August was 09:05 and the latest was 09:48, with the average time being 09:16. Stop was on average 95 pips with an average target of 47, a quite risky 2:1 Risk:Reward.

System 2 - All signals, since the change to 07:20 - 07:40 have been received within this window. Stop was on average 79 pips with an average target of 69, a much healthier Risk:Reward than System 1.

All signals were received in plenty of time to allow orders to be placed due to price action being a reasonable distance from the current market price. We think perhaps only a handful triggered within an hour of the signal being issued (throughout July and August).

Remember, resubmissions and cancellations also apply. Resubmissions are applicable if the Buy/Sell order triggers and gets stopped out (before 17:00). Cancellations are applicable if the Buy order triggers and hits its target (before 17:00), for example. In this case the Sell order is cancelled. These events can occur anytime but there is usually such a distance between opposing levels that being able to resubmit/cancel within an hour of the trigger event is more than reasonable.

A few notes on System 3. This is more of an intraday "add-on" service with a much wider window, hence the "intraday" label. Signals are scheduled for delivery between the hours of 05:00 and 15:00 London time. In reality, the earliest time we received a signal was 06:52 and the latest was 11:43, with the average time being 09:01. Stop was on average 60 pips with an average target of 71, so a slightly better than 1:1 Risk:Reward. We cannot comment on the results as we didn't trade this service although it is probably fair to say, we would be inclined to believe the results reported on the website.

CAN IT WORK

We will base our analysis on the 2 months we have been running this service live and get into quite a bit of a numbers game. All data is based on an average Stop loss of 95 for System 1 and an average Stop loss of 79 for System 2 (our July/August observations). Risk is a respectable 2% of account balance per trade.

July/August

The advertised returns for this system are as follows:

System 1 - July +647 pips, August +88 pips
System 2 - July -16 pips, August -311 pips

Our bottom line results were slightly out, around 2%, due to a number of reasons including slippage, some rounding and some overnight rollover costs (we traded on our Spread betting account). Our performance was as follows:

System 1 - July +639 pips (+13.5%), August +85 pips (+2%)
System 2 - July -17 pips (-0.5%), August -316 pips (-8%)

So, July combined provided a net return of +13% on account and August a net loss of -6% across Systems 1 and 2.

2010 To Date

For this we used the data provided by PositiveFX on the basis that all reporting during our experience was as reported on the website (to within 2% of actual). For this reason we chose to assume we could rely on their historic reporting.

January - System 1, +281 pips (+6%), System 2, Break-even - Net = +6%
February - System 1, -123 pips (-2.5%), System 2, +196 pips (+5%) - Net = +2.5%
March - System 1, +387 pips (+8%), System 2, +879 pips (+22.5%) - Net = +30.5%
April - System 1, +283 pips (+6%), System 2, -155 pips (-4%) - Net = +2%
May - System 1, -781 pips (-16.5%), System 2, -177 pips (-4.5%) - Net = -21%
June - System 1, +441 pips (+9.5%), System 2, +199 pips (+5%) - Net = +14.5%

Including our July and August real-time experience and results it's fair to say that the average return for System 1 is around +3.2% a month and for System 2, +2%, a combined average of 5.2% per month in 2010 to date.

Worth mentioning is that 21% drawdown in May. This was blamed on the extreme trading conditions created in the latter part of that month due to a Hung parliament. It is also worth noting that the recovery time from this drawdown was a reasonable 2 months. However, if we then take into account the poor August we experienced subscribers starting in May are currently showing just a 2% return over 4 months. This would be considered unfortunate timing because anyone joining in any month other than May (and of course August) would be showing much healthier returns.

More Analysis

Our final analysis was to compare 2010 monthly performance with previous years averaged monthly performance (dividing the annual performance by 12 (months) and applying the average Stops we experienced in July/August 2010).

2006 - System 1, +4%, System 2, +3% - Net = +7% per month
2007 - System 1, +2.5%, System 2, +6% - Net = +8.5% per month
2008 - System 1, +4%, System 2, +2.5% - Net = +6.5% per month
2009 - System 1, +5%, System 2, +2% - Net = +7% per month

Our main observations here are that with PositiveFX yielding around 5.2% a month in 2010, it is lagging behind historic performance levels. Even so, this is impressive enough, especially if those 7%+ levels are again achieved. We have no data to use to analyse draw-downs in previous years as only annual statistics are provided.

If one was to try and highlight a downside or two in relation to this service one would have to point to the Risk:Reward. It seems it is this that lends the potential for that big drawdown experienced in May this year. Lastly, it is expensive at £100 a month.

Overall however, a 5-7% monthly return, with compounding is close to a 100% annual return. As with most services / starting to use a new system, timing is critical as they will all experience draw-downs at some point or another.

SUPPORT

Support is excellent, second to none we have come across so far in relation to a Signal service. Honesty, openness and prompt replies, always.

CONCLUSION

PRO's
• Easy to execute and also convenient timing (for us).
• Profitable over the 2 month period we had exposure.
• Very good long term performance (>5% a month over almost 5 years) based on using some information from our exposure and historic statistics.
• Fantastic, honest and reliable Customer service.

CON's
• Risk:Reward in relation to System 1 in particular, of almost 2:1 against is worrying.
• That 21% drawdown in May 2010, more than likely aided and abetted by the point above.
• Expensive at £100 a month.
• No Money Back Guarantee / Try before you buy.

A little bit of improvement is required to get to that target of 400 pips per month and 7%+ average return. We will continue with this service at least through September and as always will report back at the end of the month.


Do remember, your comments are important, if you decide to purchase this system, please support us by using our link and by reporting back your findings, both are valuable to us and the service.

Ive been using this system for one month. My results are pretty much the same as the review team using a spreadbetting co. I also found the 5 dec place quote a bit testing - but good for exercising the brain cell! I find the SMS service to be very useful, except that on a couple of occasions the SMS didnt arrive in time (C&W at fault not PosFX) so I had to keep remembering to check my emails around the time the signals were due. Amazing backup - all queries answered politley and promtly. As mentioned by the RT, not a profitable month, however only one of the (several) systems Ive being trying out was in profit for August so have signed up for another month.

Sarn,

Thanks once again for sharing your experiences and reviews, helpful as always.

Sarn,

Thanks once again for sharing your experiences and reviews, helpful as always.

Forgot to say that I took most (but not all) of the System 3 trades. They are quite sporadic - but I made + 150 pips on them which offset some of the losses on the other systems. I haven't checked this against their website.

Last post honest - the +150 represents 3 wins and 1 loss

Well, you guys had a better experience than me. The four weeks I used Positive FX I suffered around 25% drawdown and that may well tip close to 30% by the time the two open trades run their course. A lot of that drawdown was this week.

Regarding the review, I assume you queried the historic results?

Hi Raskol,

This weeks trades are not included in our results but they will be included in this months.

Regarding querying historic results, as we mentioned, based on July/August exposure and the reported results being inline with ours during this period we made the assumption that historically the results are honest and accurate. Yes, its a big assumption but we had no reason to question them based on our experience. Apparently they are Scott's actual results, as per those reported in July/August.

Perhaps any members with more exposure than us can comment on historic results - anyone?

As a note, we also consider it extremely unlikely for any vendor to say, well, actually, those results are just made up. So, not quite sure how a query can be constructed.

Originally Posted by Reviewteam

Hi Raskol,

This weeks trades are not included in our results but they will be included in this months.

Regarding querying historic results, as we mentioned, based on July/August exposure and the reported results being inline with ours during this period we made the assumption that historically the results are honest and accurate. Yes, its a big assumption but we had no reason to question them based on our experience. Apparently they are Scott's actual results, as per those reported in July/August.

Perhaps any members with more exposure than us can comment on historic results - anyone?

As a note, we also consider it extremely unlikely for any vendor to say, well, actually, those results are just made up. So, not quite sure how a query can be constructed.

Hi All,

With regards to past results all I can say is that I have members who joined me (who I did not personally know) from a private investment website I have always enjoyed being part of since the start of April this year. I have told them about this website and to feel free to share the expeience they have had as they have been members longer than anyone from Systemfortraders, so therefore could add more credability to my results in terms of verification. As such not one person has come forward to post... I did say to them (as I would say to all here too) you do not have to post, just do so if you feel the need or have the time.

I am not out on a big marketing campaign (far from it) and as such I remain transparent in my views and answers (in my bias opinion) FOREX is full of scams, but I can say I run this service as you see it, good and bad, and like other services the last 3 weeks have been torrid, and this will happen again, along with periods of vert 'sweet' trading... making up the long term target of being profit. That is the goal.

I am actually setting up a live account that can be seen by all (on a different website) that will act as linked proof for my future results. I am told the software simply links to my live trading account (not demo) but I was told by them it would be advisable to make it a different account to my personal trading account for security reasons. I am happy to put a couple of thousand in this and take the very small risk that someone might hack into the account as it is publically on show... this is most likely never going to happen, but it is a 1% risk so I have been advised. This is the only way I can see transparency going forward... which has always been my goal with this service and my personal trades.

Thanks,

Scott.

I have been checking my results against theirs up until last week when I was away for a few days and tried to use my iphone for trading in between flights. Unfortunately technology always tends to get the better of me and on a couple of occasions I found that I had accidentally closed trades prematurely or was too late to place the trades so I didnt check their results for last week. I actually queried their results one week (they were only 10 pips out) and they corrected their spreadsheet immediately. Up until last week I found that the only discrepancies I could find were as a result of rounding (sometimes in my favour - sometimes not) and IG overnight charges.

Theres no doubt that last week was a disaster, but if you look at the reviews that are coming out for August most systems seem to have lost money. Im prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt and therefore have signed up for another month. I also regard it as a bit of a challenge - I like to see if I can predict the entries before I get them.