Website : Stock Market Sniper Website
Publisher : Rob Cornish via Fortis Publications
Cost : £197 with a 45 Day Money Back Guarantee
Review Date : July & August 2011

WHAT IT SAYS ON THE WEBSITE

Following the recent trend the Sales page for this product is in fact another long and tedious video, around 30 minutes.

Some highlights we managed to pick out:

• Rob Cornish – Retired at 34 after working in the city as a Fund manager developing many systems for over 10 years, worked 70+ hours a week.
• System is perfect for beginners, simply spot when two lines cross (this is as hard as it gets) and you qualify to be one of the 500 smart people to be allowed to try this system.
• No chart patterns, data analysis, Head & Shoulders or Support & Resistance analysis.
• Trade any time day or night, from home, in a cafe, whilst on holiday, whatever suits you.
• After the two lines cross, perform 3 simple checks and FIRE. Just 20 – 30 minutes a day.
• Start with as little as £500 and start to pull in £150 - £900 a week.

As well as a manual, full video demonstrations, a members website and Rob’s personal email are included in the price of Stock Market Sniper.

The system comes with a 45 day Money Back Guarantee backed by Fortis Publications.

THE MATERIAL

As promised, a manual, 8 videos and access to the members site which covers Updates and FAQs.

The 91 page manual is reasonably well put together. In Part 1 Rob explains the “Why” the system works as he believes strongly that the conceptual understanding is important. In short it’s directional trading on a Short time-frame Index chart where you take trades based on where the VIX (Volatility Index) is on a Daily chart in relation to a specific Moving average.

The manual then moves on to be more specific. It focuses on reading the VIX and a few other items of market data so that you can decide if you will trade that day or not. Quite well explained and clearly defined.

Following this the focus moves to the 1 minute chart, the time-frame you will trade off. Set up again is straight forward, two Moving averages and that’s it. The decision to “Snipe” (place a trade) or not is also straight forward in that it’s based on the simple crossover of the two Moving Averages.

The How To Place Your Trade section covers Stops and Targets. The Target is well defined as it is twice the Entry/Stop level thus providing a 1:2 Risk:Reward. However, the Stop is defined as 5% of your capital, £50 for every £1,000 in your account. This is the first time this system starts to confuse.

After discussion with the vendor we agreed that a Stop of 10 and, thus, a Target of 20, for the FTSE would be appropriate. This allowed us to correctly calculate 2% risk per trade and it is what we used for review purposes.

The remainder of the manual mentions some “grenades” to be used, we did not apply any of these.

The videos are useful as a visual guide to all that is covered in the manual, really it’s a choice of preference as to how you wish to absorb the system. In reality it is probably best to observe both.

The Updates and FAQs sections in the members area although mainly re-iterating much of what is already in the manual/video’s are also worth at least a once over.

THE SYSTEM

Check the VIX on the Daily chart (Yahoo Finance is used) and where it is in relation to a specific Moving average. Subsequently check it’s level and where other markets have been trading that day, this will then provide you with the decision of whether or not you are ready to “Snipe” (place a trade) that day. These checks should take no more than a minute or so.

Actual trading is off the 1 minute chart and set up is easy and straight forward on any decent Trading platform, e.g. IG Index, Smart Live Markets, Capital Spreads.

Entry is 100% mechanical based on Price action and Moving averages crossing in the direction we are looking to trade in based on the VIX. We did apply the additional rule (mentioned in the FAQs/Updates) whereas if price seemed to be in a channel we looked for a 3 point breakout of that channel before executing a signal.

Stops and Targets, as mentioned above are fixed, in our case at 10 and 20 points respectively. We also, as advised, exited the trade if the Moving averages crossed in the opposing direction of our trade.

CAN IT WORK

The Stock Market Sniper system can, it is said, be traded for 20 – 30 minutes a day and it can also be used to trade the FTSE, DOW and/or S&P. To try and have some kind of line in the sand we took two approaches:

• We traded the FTSE from the open for an hour, 08:00 – 09:00 UK time, because less than this is not really feasible (not enough trades) and also to avoid major UK news announcements, typically 09:30
• We traded the FTSE from the open to an hour before the close, 08:00 – 16:00 UK time, to provide a wider measure and to avoid the last half hour of the trading session

We traded as per the rules we identified in the previous section for 6 weeks during July and August, our results are as follows:

FTSE 08:00 – 09:00 UK time

• Time period / Time-frame = 6 weeks / 1 minute
• Time Traded = 08:00 - 09:00 UK Time
• Risk Per Trade = 2.00%
• Number Of Trades / Winners / Losers = 14 / +6 / -8
• Percentage Of Profitable Trades = 43%
• Average Winning / Losing Trade = +2.37% / -1.03%
• Profit Factor (Gross Profit / Gross Loss) = 1.73
• Largest Drawdown = -3.80%
• Average Per Month Return = +4.00%

FTSE 08:00 – 16:00 UK time

• Time period / Time-frame = 6 weeks / 1 minute
• Time Traded = 08:00 - 16:00 UK Time
• Risk Per Trade = 2.00%
• Number Of Trades / Winners / Losers = 136 / +58 / -78
• Percentage Of Profitable Trades = 43%
• Average Winning / Losing Trade = +1.76% / -1.02%
• Profit Factor (Gross Profit / Gross Loss) = 1.28
• Largest Drawdown = -10.20%
• Average Per Month Return = +15.07%

Over a short period of time we made a profit using Stock Market Sniper.

The 08:00 – 09:00 timeframe provided very few opportunities and the reward reflected this. Trading all day is more profitable but it is a long day. The nature of this trading (1 minute chart) means one can also except some chop, at times.

We do not believe that this is not a 20 – 30 minute a day at any time of the day system but it may be of interest to those who enjoy mechanical trading, lower timeframe trading, lots of screen time and lots of action.

As with all forms of “scalping” we just don’t feel trading needs to be like this.

SUPPORT

Rob always replied within 24 hours and was typically helpful. The main issue we had was establishing a Risk management strategy as the manual itself is not clear at all. In the end we ended up having quite a lengthy exchange of emails to get to the point both us and Rob were happy we had something to work with.

CONCLUSION

PROs

• Easy to set up.
• 100% mechanical, once Risk management has been defined.

CONs

• 1 minute timeframe may be too intense for some.
• Lots of screen time required to make this worthwhile (based on our limited exposure 20 – 30 minutes is nowhere near enough).
• Risk management could/should be better explained.

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.

Purchased - tested - returned. Fundamentally no more than a basic Moving Average crossover signal. Amazed at the hyped promotion of this "system" which is real rookie stuff, something I learnt to avoid in my early days of trading. MA crossovers are completely worthless on any time frame. You will have law of averages success with any system even a "close your eyes and pull the trigger" but scalping a 1m chart with any system will burn you technically, mentally and emotionally. AVOID. The only consistent way to profits is to set a trap for price movement, auto entry and auto exit max 10 pip stop including spread. No emotion, easy to take loss, RRR 5 to 1 and even 10 to 1 and beyond...

Hi.I tried this system out of interest after all the hype on it's release a couple of months ago.I thought it was a dreadful system.
It's basically a moving average cross over on a one min chart.I couldn't for the life of me see the significance of using the daily VIX whilst trading off a 1 minute chart as the VIX can and does remain oversold/overbought for long periods of time and what relevance has it anyway to trading off a 1 min chart which will move all over the place during the trading day anyway.

My results were very choppy like the system and all i can say is if Rob Cornish was a fund manager in the city and the best he can come up with is this rubbish then no wonder he's no longer working in the city.Possibly the worse system i've personally looked at.

The Review team have done an excellent review of this system (as usual). It was/ probably still am very tempted to trial it.
The 1 min time frame suits me, I actually like scalping.
Does anyone else have any feedback. The last two, although negative are welcome as I'll approach this with extra caution.

Thanks again, Review Team!

Thanks for that, we also appreciate the feedback of others as that is what makes the forum a forum - Should you try this we would obviously welcome your input.

I'm very attracted to scalping, largely because I'm ridiculously bad at it. My only real concern with it is that even if one becomes an expert scalper, one remains open to the ample and generous helpings of abuse by brokers who will no doubt put a stick in your spokes with requotes etc etc if you're too good. At least, that's what I'm led to believe.

Thats a fair point and you dont just have to be doing good to have to put up with their games either !

Originally Posted by Reviewteam

Thats a fair point and you dont just have to be doing good to have to put up with their games either !

Hello Review Team, on this fine morning!

Will there be an up-date for this system for October? It appeals to me. I dropped the 100%FX idea, and as I can sit in from of a PC all day (no choice) I thought this would fit in.

Come on Review Team! Make my day.

Good morning to you too. Unfortunately we have not monitored this as we are trying to concentrate more on the back-log on the Request list. Sorry we haven't been able to make your day but hopefully more reviews will provide you with other considerations too. Of course if you do proceed we welcome your feedback for sure.

To be fair, you can only do so much! And what a job you are doing. I genuinely look forward to logging on each day to see what is new.
Apologies if I am over enthusiastic today, new coffee machine, so I am flying high on caffeine:-),