John Thomas Financial - performance review

[c1ue]

I like to test out new brokerage services about once a year, just to validate that I am indeed not missing something.

The service this year was John Thomas Financial. They had an interesting thesis, plus the chief market analyst seemed to be reasonably up and up.

If you are curious, said CMA's work is accessible at www.kaufmanreport.com

Well, 3 months later, here's the results:

			Buy price	Sell price	$delta
16-Jan	CX	500	9.568
3-Mar	TZA	100	99.72
5-Mar	TZA	100		103.18	$346.00	3.47%
9-Mar	FAS	3440	2.87
10-Mar	XL	1000	3.52
10-Mar	XL	1000	3.54
10-Mar	XL	1000	3.55
10-Mar	XL	2000	3.54
10-Mar	XL	5000	3.419
10-Mar	FAS	3440		3.39	$1,788.80	18.12%
11-Mar	XL	10000		3.4156	-$629.00	-1.81%
11-Mar	SRS	250	71.242
11-Mar	FAZ	270	56.9
12-Mar	SRS	250		67.345	-$974.25	-5.47%
12-Mar	FAZ	270		51.19259	-$1,541.00	-10.03%
16-Mar	SRS	425	68.2989
18-Mar	SRS	425		62.2234	-$2,582.09	-8.90%
18-Mar	C	8000	3.15
19-Mar	CX	500		5.81	-$1,879.00	-39.28%	Price at end of day 3/19
19-Mar	C	8000		2.6	-$4,400.00	-17.46%	Price at end of day 3/19
					-$9,870.54

Net net: down over 25% - the bulk of it happening in 2 weeks of clear bear market rally territory.

From what I can tell - inept chasing of trends combined with very poor stop losses. Plus commissions were very high - apparently over $1000 for the above.

Fortunately the whole time I was exactly opposite to what these clowns were doing and the losses are small compared to my net gains.

John Thomas Financial did manage to lose much more money than any of the prior tests, even with a much lower buy in.

By the way - they are trading based on 'technical analysis'

Don't let this happen to you!

[c1ue]

Re: John Thomas Financial - performance review

Just received the check from the supposedly closed account.

Somehow the delta went from being down around $11K+ (about -28%) to my receiving a check for a total loss of $15546 (-39.8%).

Actual losses on the securities themselves add up to $11,020.54 so the remaining delta is all commission.

Given total dollar volume of trades (buy and sell) is $286,288.16, this would indicate a commission rate of 1.58%.

Total share volume was 47,170 meaning a 100 share equivalent of $9.57.

My account is still showing $1000 in it though, so perhaps the delta can be reduced slightly.

Quite a poor performance indeed.

If anyone wants to know the actual names of those 'advisors' involved, PM me and I'll pass that info on.

Clearly a fly by night outfit which is incompetent to boot.