I subscribed this strategy and I won a lot of money during 2 years. Recently when the Feb 5th crash happen I close the subscription. It was really a mistake. You can make money but you have to close the computer.

Excellent strategy and responsive Trade Leader. I’ve subscribed for years with great results. I’d recommend IB or other margin-friendly broker, however. Recent experience with TDA was a nightmare - forced sales due to lack of flexibility on margin requirements.

Appears not to have any stops. Cost me quite some money.

Longer term subscriber here. Know your risk/ DD tolerance before subscribing. The developer is short options for the premium and more often than not it goes to expiry making $$ for us. **However be warned the risk of naked option writing** In addition, those of you using IB as your broker will find the margin terms are super conservative and I have seen a option short just executed ( Eg for $500) chewing up $2500 to $3000 of equity on the account When short options the developer can add to his position too. We would advocate anyone new and wanting to subscribe to this not to go to 100% scaling, but using many multiples lower until you are familiar with his style and how your broker calculates the margin. Overall we are pleased with this so far and it constitutes a small part of the overall C2 allocations

Too early to say how this performs with my trading (not sure why C2 asks for reviews on day 10, should be day 100). Trader is very responsive to emails

This is system works on low volatility environment and cannot adjust to hi level of volatility we heading toward in 2015, I am ending my subscription. Mike A

"Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose. " - Yoda "If into the security recordings you go, only pain will you find." - Yoda to Obi-Wan

The people who blame and scold this system developer really haven't understood and accepted the risk inherent in trading volatility. It's easy to intellectually accept a size-able draw-down but the reality is that most really haven't accepted that is always around the next corner and it always hurts. The emotional reaction to the pain is understandable but the reality of mean reversion systems is that too tight risk controls degrade performance and in order to maximize performance painful draw-downs are inevitable. I don't think we ever get comfortable with that pain or should we, but acceptance of it is crucial to performance. Check out the drawdowns in other volatility systems over any similar length of time you will see the current draw-down in this system is very low in comparision and the risk reward is very high.

Currently, risk is not managed properly. This system can and will eventually wipe you out.

I used to trade this system and saw that with anybig movement in volatility you can get wiped out. No system is worth getting wiped out and this one can do that. Without black swan events you can make a decent return, however you are always at risk of losing 1/2 your account or all of it. I saw this coming and got out prior. I was lucky.

I have signed up for this system a month ago and followed the instructions of the system vendor to allocate minimal US$20.000 capital which I did. Soon after this system caused a margin call in my Interactive brokers account on a drawdown and started auto-liquidating positions. On contacting Yanping Zhang they system manager he told me to only trade 1/3rd of the signals because he bases position size on "current" account value instead of the allocated capital mentioned on Collective2. But when I read the "description" tab on this page it says: "Messages to subscribers 1. Capital: I recommend trading this system with at least 20k to generate a decent income after the fees. If your capital is different from the system's total equity, make sure you scale your trades accordingly". So don't make the same mistake as I did. If you start just configure Collective2 to trade 0.3 of the position size. When you follow that recommendation, please also divide the "annual Return" by 3 to get a more realistic idea of the annual Returns using that position size. For example, on 10/07/2014 I had US$20.000 allocated to this system and as Interactive Brokers requires - 4.2x the option premium collected as the margin requirement the excess capital available was US$1398 only. With other words when the drawdown crossed the 7% mark Interactive brokers started auto-liquidating positions. I haven't seen any other system vendors on Collective2 base position size on "current" value so this was new to me (I trade systems on Collective2 for 16 month's now). Another thing to consider is this. On black monday in 1987 the VIX changed 313% in a single day and I made a rough estimation that the loss would be approx US$40.000. With other words on a day with extreme moves like black monday your account would probably be wiped out. I asked my coach a long time trader how to reduce such risk and he told me that he traded on 9/11 and told me that on those days the bid/ask spread can be extremely wide, he said so wide, he have seen 200 or 300 points spread that day on options depending on the symbol so he said on a day like that it will be impossible to get out at a decent loss so he recommended me using a spread or at least entering a stop-loss before entering the trade to minimize the extreme open ended risk a bit. Another thing to consider are opening gaps. The market the VIX options are traded is open just a couple of hours a day so if something happens overnight you can't get out of your position like you can with many futures nowdays. Opening gaps can be very large if things happen overnight in Asia or Europe and this strategy have open ended risk so opening gap is another thing to consider here. I shared my concerns and asked Mr. Yanping Zhang from YZ Income Fund on 8/28/14 why he does not set a stop-loss before entering trade and his answer was: "good job, and keeping digging. no one knows the future, I just try my best to do a better job and make money for my clients. Thanks YZ". The answer was not satisfying me and it kept me thinking. On 10/6/14 I asked him if he can help me suggest a stop-loss if I'd like to use one and proposed to set one 7 points above the strike price and the answer I got back was: "trading is art, follow your own judgement." So that leaves me to end my review of this system. I'd like to share you one lesson from the book "Hedge Fund Market Wizards" from Jack Schwager: Lesson: 39 "Volatility and Risk Are Not Synonymous". Low volatility does not imply low risk and high volatility does not imply high risk. Investments subject to sporadic large risks may exhibit low volatility if a risk event is not present in the existing track record. For example, the strategy of selling out-of-the-money options can exhibit low volatility if there are no large, abrupt price moves, but is at risk of asymptotically increasing losses in the event of a sudden, steep selloff. So some strategies, such as option selling, can have both low volatility and large, open-ended risk, and some strategies, can have both high volatility and constrained risk.

Risk control has been a disaster over the last 2 sessions, I thought YZ had controls in place, yet drawdown has exploded to -35%, he should have massively reduce your positions between -5% and -10% as usual, accounts are getting wiped out, what happened???????? I wonder whether the SP was in front of his screens.........

I must admit, this is probably the best system in C2 (which isn't saying much). YZ seems like a good trader but I think system probably carries more risk of tail event than YZ would like to admit. My biggest gripe is system owner should be TOS certified = skin in the game and a vested interest in system himself. If system blows up then there is no repercussion.

The review prior to this claims YZ will not blow out your account. I think potential subscribers need to be aware of the risk of a system like this. This system sells naked options. It doesn't get any riskier than that. The chances of it blowing out your account are enormous. I've unsubscribed because of this. There's a reason why a lot of brokers are asking for high margin requirements on short selling options.

I am a long-term subscriber. This system is exceptional and among the very best on C2. Consider the excellent returns, and the length of time the system has produced such returns, with excellent win %, Sharpe ration, respectable DD, etc. YZ will not blow your account out. Risk management is excellent. This system will make you money. Communication is quick, and the weekly commentary is excellent. The only criticism I have is that the manager did not grand-father existing subscribers' rates with the new price increase, but that is getting nit-picky. I cannot believe someone left a 2-Star review because they were too daft to find the email icon, which is in the same place as it is for all systems. I also cannot believe C2 allows such a review to stand.

I've been trading YZ for 4 months. I am very satisfied how the system developer communicates with subscribers and of course how the system consistently produces income.I highly recommend it

I've been trading YZ Income Fund for a year now and I cannot be happier. Whatever proprietary system YZ uses to trade the VIX he has developed a winner. YZ keeps you informed and stays in touch with subscribers by sending a weekly update on the market and the positions as well as a P/L chart. If you are looking for a system that has relatively low stress but the potential for high returns give YZ a try.

I've been trading this system for 6 months. YZ trades options on VIX to generate reasonably steady income whether underlying S&P is calm or choppy. Risk is well managed and communication is good. It is easy to trade manually (particularly at IB) although trading can become more intensive in the day or two before settlement. YZ has an excellent feel for the settlement game and is clearly an experienced volatility trader. A good diversifier/volatility play.