Sentiment Survey

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Here's the problem with price: If I make it too low, the current premium services could lose members, and that would not be my intention and Intrepid and Revshark wouldn't appreciate that. But I will make it much cheaper (-50%) for the current premium service members to discourage them from cancelling.

It will start on Monday, but here's some info: http://www.tsptalk.com/plus.php
 
i don't think anybody can find any thing wrong with a proven over time +186% return for a few bucks per month. i dare you. also i couldn't walk away from a gs-13 maxxed step unless i really believed in what i was doing and was good at it. or else had me a sugar mama, in which case i'd be doing it fo sho.

not to detract, but i wouldn't sign up for and rigidly follow a pay service even if it was free. because i enjoy matching my vision and roulette strategery against the man's market any day. even if i lose, the freedom is more valuable to me. which probably explains my 2.5% return this year. but i'm ok with that.

the whole key here is what is the price point? a cup of starbucks? show me the money!

 
I believe Birchtree intends to keep his account thread available for free to the general public. That should be sufficient.

I'm curious, since I didn't start paying attention to my TSP account until 2010, how did the Sentiment Survey manage to avert the heavy losses of 2007-8? I traded my account based on the survey in 2011 - one of it's down years - and was appalled at how it just sat in stocks throughout an entire correction of about 20%.... But barring catastrophic events such as '07-'08, it's almost a buy and hold system.
 
I wonder if the 2007-2008 bear market, and to some degree, the dot com bubble burst, had a permanent impact on our readers pysche. That will change one day, but for now bearishness has been relentlessly high despite the big gains.

The system has only made 2 ITF's in 2013. In 2012 there were 7 IFTs. 4 in 2011. 12 IFT's in 2010. In 2008 there were 0 IFT's before the new rules were implemented. The new rules made a big difference but I'd have to go back and find the old spreadsheets to see the actual number.

Yes, new rules were put in place and posted for a long time. If you know them, great. You can follow them. But please keep it to yourself. Thanks.
 
tsptalk said:
Yes, new rules were put in place and posted for a long time. If you know them, great. You can follow them. But please keep it to yourself. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Haha. Sorry. Honestly, like I said, I followed the system in 2011 - which is why I know the rules pretty well. I haven't checked in so long, I didn't realize you had taken the rules down. I'll keep quiet from now on. I was just asking because I might consider signing up, and was curious to hear your thoughts on how it might save its followers from potential catastrophes.
 
Handballer said:
Is $18 / month too much? I think so.
Click to expand...

that depends almost entirely on what the $18 gets you. if it is beer and smokes then i have no problem spending that per day, and it's never enough. but if it's to secure my financial future and a life of ease in retirement for a month then it just doesn't pencil out here and now because i expect to keep working until i die. but everyone is entitled to their own horizon.
 
I'm too cheap to pay a dollar, but you have to understand there are VERY few people who invest the amount of time I do, so I can easily understand why Tom would need to monetize what he does. On a slow week, I invest 10 hours, on a busy week I'll crank out 12-hour days of backtesting and I'll be dammed if anyone thinks I'd give that away for free. Many people want a free meal, but few are willing to invest the effort to create the meal for themselves, Tom is the latter.

If I was unable to manage my own money, Tom would be one of the few here I would trust to manage my life's savings and I wouldn't lose any sleep over that decision. Frankly, that is the biggest complement I could pay anyone...
 
When the Ebbchart system started out, I couldn't have received more complaints. Apparently I was evil! What happened? 2000 people signed up within 3 months. But it's fleeting. Some people will pay. Many won't. I get it.

Another thing. In January, TSP Talk will be 10 years old. I never charged for anything I did here - except to charge our premium service authors a percentage of their sales. I've given away thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollar worth of travel mugs, T-shirts, pens, planners, hats, etc., over the years. Paid tens of thousands for advertising. Pay 5 figures a year for servers, services, software, etc. (the forum software and mobile software are not free.) All I can say is, aren't you glad I am willing to pay for things? $18 is too much? That's fine. I get it. Is +187% too much? ;) There's still a lot of free stiff here for the rest of you, and I appreciate your contributions here on the forum. You pay me that way by giving content for others to come read.
 
tsptalk said:
When the Ebbchart system started out, I couldn't have received more complaints. Apparently I was evil! What happened? 2000 people signed up within 3 months. But it's fleeting. Some people will pay. Many won't. I get it.

Another thing. In January, TSP Talk will be 10 years old. I never charged for anything I did here - except to charge our premium service authors a percentage of their sales. I've given away thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollar worth of travel mugs, T-shirts, pens, planners, hats, etc., over the years. Paid tens of thousands for advertising. Pay 5 figures a year for servers, services, software, etc. (the forum software and mobile software are not free.) All I can say is, aren't you glad I am willing to pay for things? $18 is too much? That's fine. I get it. Is +187% too much? ;) There's still a lot of free stiff here for the rest of you, and I appreciate your contributions here on the forum. You pay me that way by giving content for others to come read.
Click to expand...

Some people that will not pay may vote the opposite of what they think just to skew the results. Not sure how accurate the results will be any more???? Do we get a mug if we subscribe?:o
 
As for charging now, I think the problem is people get used to getting stuff for free and then can't get used to paying for it. It's a lot like when a new resteraunt opens up. When it starts out the food is great, quantaties large, and prices cheap. If it succeeds it makes a name for itself and it's time to monetize the investment. You have two choices: 1) pay for what you've come to enjoy. 2) find another resteraunt.


I think there is plenty of free stuff on TSPTalk if you don't wan't to pay for SS. I hope no one here would be so petty as to sabotage the survey. Then Tom would have to lock it down for only premium service subscribers. We wouldn't want that. It's something else to skew the results. :rolleyes:
 
Cactus said:
As for charging now, I think the problem is people get used to getting stuff for free and then can't get used to paying for it. It's a lot like when a new resteraunt opens up. When it starts out the food is great, quantaties large, and prices cheap. If it succeeds it makes a name for itself and it's time to monetize the investment. You have two choices: 1) pay for what you've come to enjoy. 2) find another resteraunt.

I think there is plenty of free stuff on TSPTalk if you don't wan't to pay for SS. I hope no one here would be so petty as to sabotage the survey. Then Tom would have to lock it down for only premium service subscribers. We wouldn't want that. It's something else to skew the results. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I hope you are right, but who nows how people will react?
 
Tom, I ran the numbers from 2006 to yesterday and got the following results:

[TABLE="width: 158"]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl66, width: 82, bgcolor: #a6a6a6"]2006 to
[/TD]
[TD="class: xl66, width: 64, bgcolor: #a6a6a6, align: right"]2012
[/TD]
[TD="class: xl66, width: 64, bgcolor: #a6a6a6"]8/20/13
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl67, bgcolor: #d9d9d9"]G Fund
[/TD]
[TD="class: xl65, bgcolor: transparent, align: right"]25.64%
[/TD]
[TD="class: xl65, bgcolor: transparent, align: right"]26.97%
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl67, bgcolor: #d9d9d9"]F Fund
[/TD]
[TD="class: xl65, bgcolor: transparent, align: right"]50.03%
[/TD]
[TD="class: xl65, bgcolor: transparent, align: right"]45.38%
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl67, bgcolor: #d9d9d9"]C Fund
[/TD]
[TD="class: xl65, bgcolor: transparent, align: right"]33.02%
[/TD]
[TD="class: xl65, bgcolor: transparent, align: right"]56.27%
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl67, bgcolor: #d9d9d9"]S Fund
[/TD]
[TD="class: xl65, bgcolor: transparent, align: right"]49.58%
[/TD]
[TD="class: xl65, bgcolor: transparent, align: right"]82.37%
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl67, bgcolor: #d9d9d9"]I Fund
[/TD]
[TD="class: xl65, bgcolor: transparent, align: right"]18.99%
[/TD]
[TD="class: xl65, bgcolor: transparent, align: right"]31.67%
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl67, bgcolor: #d9d9d9"]SS
[/TD]
[TD="class: xl65, bgcolor: transparent, align: right"]127.26%
[/TD]
[TD="class: xl65, bgcolor: transparent, align: right"]166.33%
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

The numbers match except for the SS. The result is still outstanding, but different. Any idea about the discrepency. I used these numbers off the sentiment page:

2006 27.96%
2007 21.32%
2008 -6.14%
2009 6.62%
2010 35.16%
2011 -10.27%
2012 20.62%
8/20/13 17.19%
 
Good points. If the voters decide to stop participating, will losing a third or half of them affect the result of the survey? :worried:
 
Cactus said:
Tom, I ran the numbers from 2006 to yesterday and got the following results:

2006 27.96%
2007 21.32%
2008 -6.14%
2009 6.62%
2010 35.16%
2011 -10.27%
2012 20.62%
8/20/13 17.19%
Click to expand...
I have +37.96% for 2006. I'll have to check on that.
 
tsptalk said:
I have +37.96% for 2006. I'll have to check on that.
Click to expand...
You're right. It's 27.96%. My cumulative spreadsheet had it wrong, but it was correct on the SS page. Doh!

So the total I get now is +164.78% (thru 8/21). Sorry about that. Thanks for catching it before I posted it for everyone on Monday. :eek:
 
ebbnflow said:
Good points. If the voters decide to stop participating, will losing a third or half of them affect the result of the survey? :worried:
Click to expand...
There are close to 5000 people who signed up to get the survey via email each week, and we get about twice as many votes now than we did 2 or 3 years ago, so I'm not too concerned about that.

I remember checking several years ago and I think we were getting more votes than most of these surveys including AAII and RealMoney.com.

I think 100 votes is plenty to get a reading and we get about 5 times that many now.
 
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