Agree with previous reviewer. Since inception, with all variables being more or less equalized, this system has done a bit better than USST, with less DD and risk.
In reviewing this system I should note that I first decided to join after viewing the live trading results dating from 2007 to 2014, mostly recored before the proprietor started trading on Collective2. In particular I was interested to compare these results against the Collective2 results achieved by the other well known APPL trend-following system, US Stock Trader.
At first blush, USST seems to win hands down with a monthly return of 3.2%, compared to Simple Swing (SS) which only gets 2.08% per month for the pre-Collective2 live results. However USST employs 200% leverage compared to 150% leverage for SS. Remove leverage from both systems and you get an internal rate of return of 1.6 for USST and almost 1.4 for SS. USST still seems to win except you need to consider exposure to the market. As traded on Collective2, USST averages 109% exposure, and SS about 70%, making the latter potentially less volatile. If you employed additional leverage to increase SS exposure to that of USST, the monthly percentage returns for both systems would be almost identical I believe.
If the systems were not traded on IB ($1 per trade) then SS might actually be the winner as, for example, paying $7 per trade, or $14 for the round trip, would destroy results for USST which trades almost twice as frequently as SS. Thanks to IB's cheap commissions structure, USST does well, but it is not the clear-cut winner that it first appears to be.
For me there were further advantages to trading with SS. Mainly it is the very high level of communication provided by the system proprietor. And also the proprietor has 2 other systems, for which he'll give a discount for trading multiple services with him.
Of course live trading is where the rubber meets the road, and it has to be said that for the first few months since we joined (March 2015) the system has performed poorly. In fact about as poor as any period in the 7 years of live results forwarded to me. However I am willing to put this down to the choppy, trend-less nature of the indexes and also AAPL for the last 6 months or more. For example Bespoke Invest wrote recently that the Dow has wobbled above and below the 50 day moving average some 33 times in the last 6 months. The previous highest record was 28 times back in 1918! So this has been a very choppy market, unkind to many trend-following systems, (although USST with its higher frequency trade model has actually done pretty well in recent months).
The good news is that Simple Swing seems to be on the mend again, and as I write this, the drawdown has been frustrating but not devastating, and recently our account has gone green.
During the time of the drawdown the proprietor has been most encouraging, helping me compare this to drawdowns in the past, and to see that ultimately the system is robust and capable of recovering. In the past the greatest damage to my account has been jumping from system to system, e.g. experiencing a loss in one, jumping to another, only to see the former system recover. The proprietor's hand of experience in this case was invaluable and we stayed around long enough to see the recovery.
There is still a way to go in terms of us pulling ahead now and really living up to the live results prior to 2014. I have high hopes however that things will go well and propose to write a follow-up review in another 6 months or so. If indeed the system continues its recovery and comes closer to matching the pre-Collective2 live trading results, then I'll have no hesitation in giving this system 5 stars.
