Coming soon: free P123 membership + Designer terms chages

Dear All,

We’re about to launch a free (useful) P123 membership geared to users that just want to follow systems. We’re thinking of allowing free users access to the following:

  • Ability to signup for a R2G models
  • Access to pre-defined P123 screens (with simpler interfaces, no backtesting, etc)
  • Some of the research pages: stock snapshot, basic chart, etc, t.b.d.
  • Community access of course
  • TRADE will be accessible with a per account fee

We think this will be a win-win situation for everyone: us, investors and designers.

For Designers terms changes, we’re thinking of allowing designers to pay extra to launch more models. The limit of 6 models was done to avoid 1 designer launching a multitude of system to keep only the one that does well. Also to avoid one designer to flood the space. However with the new incubation period and an additional fee for extra models, there’s no reason not to allow designers to launch more than 6. It’s also a lot less confusing.

Let us know your thoughts. Thanks

I like the idea of lowering the barrier to R2Gs access. That puts P123 more inline with sites like Collective2. I’m agnostic on the other features except community access. My only concern there is controlling spam.

I’m also open to a la carte pricing. Perhaps that could be extended to Books, too.

Walter

It makes perfect sense from a business perspective,

As a non R2G designer or user, I feel it is a shame that R2G is draining so much development attention, away from more P123 capabilities.

Trade being an extra sounds perfectly reasonable as well, you probably just want to make clear that errors could happen, and P123 cannot be considered responsible or liable. i.e. disconnections, resets, etc.

I like P123 will be more accessible to public but concerned about community openness too. Probably would be nice to have less membership levels and less non essential restrictions, like number of saved ranking systems and screens, starting capital, number of assets/book etc.

Will add a little problems of mine. I am having Investor membership and gradually moving (at least trying) from subscription of R2G’s to self-modeling and Screener membership. For sure would prefer to make this step cost effective. But this seem is hard to do.

Investor can model, but having very restricted data access generally it is impossible to test the model. So as Investor I can’t be sure I am succeed in modeling and upgrade the membership.

Otherwise, I can upgrade membership first, get full market data, find out my designed models are so-so and then spent a lot of months refining with full market data. And this can lead to fullly rethink, relearn an redo all I found out building with restricted market data.

This is just what is stopping me from upgrade. I am wiling to pay for Screener, but I am willing to do this feeling I have more or less working models.

I was thinking about proposal to move from 2 year trailing market data access to fixed date start: subscription start - 2 years. So if I am subscribed uninterruptedly for 3 years, I could have 3+2=5 years of market data. Same for Screener membership 5 year limit. If this could be still too slow, let 2-3 additional years of market data for every 1 year of subscription.

First, this could be some bonus to constant subscribers for loyalty. Second, this could push older Investors to try self modelling and then for membership upgrade as there are still a lot of quantitative restrictions between subscription levels. Lastly, it looks a bit not logical, as today I have no access to the market data I had access to a year ago then subscribed. Anyway market data access is up to its price and it seems I am paying for it all the time during subscription time in addition to 2/5 trailing years.

Glad to see P123 continuing to improve its services.

If TRADE will be offered to free users, does this also imply that TRADE will be enabled soon for R2G models? Autotrade would also probably be highly desirable, as the average investor is probably not willing to spend a lot of time maintaining their portfolios.

Dear Marco,

glad to hear that my recent request for additional slots against an extra fee will be so quickly adopted, I think it makes perfect sense, particularly if a designer wants to issue more systems, while not requiring the additional specifications that a manager membership plan offers.

Also, I expect the free membership to not only attract more subs for the R2G models, but in mid-term also additional paying P123 users, which should help to keep the pricing as stable as possible, while adding new features (most expected by myself: European data; full-fledged Auto-TRADE via IB).

Thank you for the continuous improvement of this great platform.

I also think this will be good to get more users, but I think P123 should also change the trial terms as they seem to be too generous, and some users might simply use multiple trials instead of signing up and paying, just because they can.

I think 15 days (as advertised vs 30 real) is enough to get an understanding of P123 and since the purpose is to have a trial and not to use all the data, perhaps limiting the backtest period to 2 years or 5 years would also be apropriate. I dont think it is fair for a trial user to have more capabilities than many paying users, considering that these are not really necessary for an understanding of P123.

I would rather see you focus on the higher end of market and enhance P123 so that it is a viable alternative to FactSet’s AlphaTester or ClariFI Modelstation. You could offer premium subscriptions for factor research for revenue generation.

I’d like to see:

  1. TRADE on Canadian stocks
  2. AutoTRADE
  3. Global data sets
  4. Ability to do non-equal weighted portfolios
  5. Factor research page like: https://www.capitaliq.com/home/what-we-offer/what-you-can-do-with-it/streamline-quantitative-research/alpha-factor-library.aspx

Hey Marco, way to go, perfect, like it!

Hi Marco,

free membership with R2G subscription capability sounds good. However, free members should in my opinion only have read access to the forums; this will lower the risk of spam in the forum and also keep the discussion level high among the more experienced members.

Once European stocks are included, I see a huge new customer potential. I wonder how you guys plan to advertise to target European investors more in the future.

All good ideas and I welcome it.
SPAM will be a problem as others have already pointed out. I’d suggest allowing “reading” capability for non-paying members but NO right to post. Otherwise they can easily join with multiple identities for “free” and lots of resources have to be provided for policing the board constantly. I think wer all know bad examples on other boards.

That should keep the board “clean”.

Bravo Marco! This was a smart choice. i also agree free users should be unable to post unless it is on certain “free” threads.

All:

 No question R2G and the user-interface is draining resources.  I vote for a nominal fee for all R2G users -- no free membership.  I see this as being fairer, as non-R2Ger's have had to subsidize the entire R2G development.  Meanwhile, core functionality, including a lot of TA capability has been on indefinite hold, which sucks.

 Furthermore,  current membership's experience could become degraded, and not just with spam.  Lots of money, whether through R2G's or hedge funds chasing just a few stocks is a Rx for disaster.  P123, on the whole, is not there yet, but it seems headed that direction.  

 Bill

introducing R2G has had the unfortunate effect of greatly reducing the amount of useful discussion. Now the most vocal posters prefer to keep their ideas to themselves for fear of helping the competition.

The comments from iAvanti and Shaun reflect my own views very well. I would like to see substantially more investment in the quality of the research platform (target certain ClariFI features) and European data. As Shaun points out, premium subscriptions for factor research can generate additional revenue, as can access to a large new pool of customers who are (dying for) European / Non-North American data. Regards, D

You don’t want a separate focused forum where subs can interact with each other and designers can interact with the subs–maybe describe the advantages of their R2G ports?

A designer talking about an R2G port on an R2G forum would not look like he is bragging (promoting)–even if it is not an answer to a question from a sub.

I think there is more stable, long-term revenue in having an up-market product than chasing the masses with R2G money, particularly without having invested more in the analysis of trade impact and capacity.

Without autoTRADE linked to TD Ameritrade, E-TRADE, Schwab, and 401K plans, the adoption of R2G will disappoint I expect. Having R2G-like ETF-timing for mutual funds available in various 401K plans is a much better idea… um, never mind, I’m going to hire some programmers to do that one.

What I really want to see is a few more features that will help your long standing customers compete better but also enhance your offering to larger family offices, wealth planners and small funds:

  1. Daily fundamental updates
  2. AutoTRADE
  3. TRADE on Canadian stocks
  4. Global data sets
  5. Factor research page like: http://www.bursamarketplace.com/index.php?ch=63&pg=218&ac=115&bb=research_article_pdf
  6. Ability to do non-equal weighted portfolios, flexible date, eg. rebalance to holding wts different from portfolio screen dates…

Maybe Marco can walk and chew gum at the same time but it does seem to me that there is an opportunity that should be seized.

If we added daily fundamental updates (to backtesting), P123 would have no equal. Without mentioning competitors by name–no mention of hunting dogs or missile systems–daily fundamental updates along with estimates revision would put P123 ahead of even institutional products.

Do the institutional products make less than say ClariFI? I would spin-off the R2G portion–again I like Portfolio Cubed to fit the new logo.

Be the best at both. Don’t let one limit the other.

Although there are good reasons for certain types of free subscriptions to P123, I see a few problems with free subscriptions that, so far on the forum, have not been addressed.

  1. There are 20 free R2G Ports and 19 free P123 Portfolios (some performing very well since launch). So a free subscriber can have access to many good Ports for years without P123 receiving any income from them. :frowning:
  2. Also, if a large number of free subs trade the low liquidity free Ports the performance will deteriorate to the disadvantage of paying members who are currently trading them.
  3. There may be many current members who are having little success developing their own systems and are currently only trading R2G Ports. They may decide to change to the free subscriptions, thus causing P123 to loose current income.

There probably are simple restrictions to free members that can avoid most of these concerns. P123 needs to think through the restrictions carefully or P123 will have a loss of total income which will make it harder for them to fund many of the site improvements we have been asking for.

I suggest free user membership can only allow to signup non-free R2G model will solve the problem Denny mentioned. So in the end there is no “Free”