They do have a 60 day moneyback guarantee ($25 restocking fee). I was impressed with the demo and literature, as well. I bought a copy last week and it arrived on Friday. My comments might be premature, but here's my first impressions:
The software seems to do everything indicated on the demos and in the literature. As good as it sounded in the literature, I was somewhat surprised to see that the program lives up to the literature. Many don't.
Data collection (I chose Telescan) seems fairly simple, automated, accurate, and reliable. Side note on Telescan: They have historical options pricing, which I haven't seen anywhere else.
The program is very intuitive. Although it comes with several good sized manuals (and a video even), I jumped straight into the program and was installed, had data collected, backtested, generated signals, and was looking at marked up charts within an hour or two.
Reviewing the backtests against some of my more successful (and unsuccesful) trades, the signals didn't help in most cases. For instance, one of my trades went from 16 (where I bought) to 23 (where I sold) in 45 days. I couldn't get OmniTrader to generate a buy during those 45 days with any of the basic options (short, medium, or long term, with trend, reverals, or aggressive). With another trade, however, where I incorrectly picked the "bottom" (falling from 20) at 12, OmniTrader picked it anywhere between 10 and 7 depending on which options I used. (The stock hit a low of 6 3/8, and appears to be heading back up now.)
The program doesn't appear to have any way to define your own "systems". You're stuck with the hundred or so that they have defined. But the nice thing about their systems is that all systems are applied to all stocks and weighted depending on (apparently) past results.
Technical support seems fairly responsive. I found that if you print a weekly (vs a daily) graph, some of the charting lines get "squashed" into the right 1/7th of the page. I left an e-mail to their technical support late Friday night and got a response back Saturday morning (requesting more info). I guess I'll see if they take care of the problem. My guess is that they will.
Also, you have to consider whether you prefer fundamental or technical analysis. I prefer fundamental, although I certainly see the merits in techincal. As the manual points out, you can use technical analysis to time your entry into and exit from a stock chosen for fundamental reasons. Alternatively, you could use fundamental analysis to "filter" the technical analysis. For instance, only follow buy signals if the stock is fundamentally sound and only short on a sell signal if the stock is fundamentally overpriced.
I'm a small investor (less than $10K), so I'm not sure if I can justify the cost ($500 for the program + $360/year for data). It'll be a hard choice as the 60th day approaches to choose whether to keep or return it.
If you have any specific questions, let me know and I'll try to help.
- Michael |
