luckyluciano
Recruit
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- 3
Here is my story with this fund: I was one of the fools that bought the whole "3 year performance" thing and impressive returns and all that. Within weeks of having funded the account, I noticed the guys were way above their historical drawdown. I emailed them asking about their money management systems in place, and why the hell they were allowing that to happen. They reply I received from Ethan Cooper (the "trade desk manager", if he really exists) was the following
"As previously expressed, this correspondence is intended to serve as a courtesy reminder that such activity is entire customary and normal aspect of participating within any managed account program. On an intra-month basis, it is an inherent aspect of the standard "ebb and flow" of a managed account in conjunction with the ongoing and dynamic nature of market prices and daily behavior as we move through our customary "profit cycles".
As you are further aware, these temporary draw down periods only occur every 5-6 months in between our customary and consistently ongoing profit cycles. Therefore, your patience and professional courtesy as our Trade Manager initiates an expedited recovery and new levels of customary success remains genuinely valued and appreciated. As always, the upcoming Holiday Season often times poses slow periods of trading as market liquidity winds down toward year-end as well."
One week after that the account was +150% at some moment. I though "Damn, these guys are good, but why the hell aren´t they closing the wining positions, as the profit was far exceeding the average monthly win". That night I went to bed with an unrealized profit of 4500 USD (from an initial account of USD 3,000).
The next morning (yes, 8 hours later) I opened the platform and realized that the account was on $0!!! YEs, USD 0.00!! The "fund" had turned a nice profit into a complete loss!!! I was pretty pist off about it and email the trading desk (same guy as before) to ask what they had done. His reply was the following:
"I sincerely appreciate your patience and professional courtesy in awaiting a comprehensive response to your important concerns. That being said, and when considering the current issue at hand, it will be necessary to recognize, acknowledge, and understand the fact that we are participating within the most risk-abundant, highly volatile financial market in existence during a time in which we are currently enduring a global economic Depression and underlying climate of unprecedented nature on a worldwide scale since the Great Depression.
As such, we have recently experienced inevitably difficult market conditions, based on unprecedented interest rate changes for the first time since 2008. This has transpired on a magnified scale, which has catalyzed unfavorable results uncharacteristic of the achievements the Fortress Fund Trade Managers contracted to oversee the program, as well as all global asset managers, have experienced within a customary economic climate during ideal market conditions. Within such an atypical world environment, unorthodox losses oftentimes result in ultra-aggressive, overly speculative novelty programs such as Fortress Fund.
This unfortunate development has combined with your account having experienced severely inopportune market-entry timing in proximity to the initiation of this recent unfavorable market state.
On that note, I find it very important I address your important concern in comprehensive fashion. The Fortress Fund Manager was utilizing a very sophisticated, methodical employment of positional hedging within client accounts so as to effectively mitigate what otherwise would have been an instantly catastrophic, adverse price movement across all major currency pairs. When hedges are in place, equity remains intact.
Of course, it is a physical impossibility to successfully accomplish negative trade eradication without the necessary periodic release of said hedge positions in strategic fashion at prospective turning points in price action so as to allow corrective price moves to neutralize open draw down while being offset by realized profits generated through the aforementioned hedge orders. When hedges are released, it is necessary to allow price movement to "breath" and illustrate directional bias.
Furthermore, pending re-hedge orders must be strategically placed at selective points far enough in proximity to important support or resistance levels to ensure any re-entry into the hedge is not made in vain. Therefore, equity will bleed in nominal, successive amounts until the proper, successful corrective point is reached. Under typical market conditions, the average trend-based price movement which would necessitate the employment of positional hedging lasts but 1-3 days and requires no greater than 1-3 hedge releases prior to successfully identifying the correct turning point necessary to remove clients from trades intact.
Unfortunately, we have been faced with an astoundingly resilient multi-day directional trend based price movement of unparalleled nature resulting from these FOMC announcements. Your account did not sustain the necessarily successive (and extensive within these circumstances) release attempts and equity "bleeds".
We continue to face a global economic climate of unparalleled proportions since the Great Depression and have chosen to participate within the most volatile, risk prevalent market out of all the financials. As such, and when combined with notoriously thin, unfavorable summer market conditions and a unique disconnect of customary inter market behavioral correlation losses uncharacteristic of standard performance within ideal conditions do occur.
Although it will be no consolation to your frustration, it is of paramount importance you understand that we have endured, as a world society and global investors, a first-time global market climate and world economic condition absolutely unmatched in decades. This marks a unique juncture in this Manager’s 3 year record flawless aggressive trading.
Based upon our longstanding, personalized communication with one another, I'm confident you will recognize the fact that I am sincerely regretful of having had clients, including yourself, eliminated from market participation. Your ongoing recognition and understanding of current conditions as well as the unwavering state of my dedication with the sincere best interest of clients at heart is both valued and appreciated.
For these reasons, I must reiterate that I am genuinely apologetic in having to inform you that the majority of your risk capital was depleted by the Fortress Fund Manager.
Fortunately, the broker's Negative Balance Protection saved your account from total depletion and automatically stopped-out the trading at 90%."
In other words, a very sophistically BS to say they screw it up....but hey "you only lost 90%"!. I mean, WTF!!!! Honestly, a blind monkey might have excited those positions quicker than these guys.
However this is not the worse of all. Upon reviewing the trades, i found out that there were "closed trades" that had never appeared on the platform at any moment. And they were easy to spot. For example, a short trade on the GBPUSD was open on the 17.12, and closed on the 23.12 with a negative swap. Then there were "other" transactions with the same pair (also GBPUSD) that were short, opened and closed on the same dates...but had NO swap. I had been checking the open positions in the platform and those transactions were never there in the first there. So, either the broker "placed" those trades there, or FFF managed to put loosing trades without the platform registering them (although I wonder how could that technologically be possible). I emailed Knight about it and they said to spead directly to the money manager, that they had nothing to do about it.
So let´s recap: Fund with clearly no money management rules, fund blows account overnight (not closing winning positions), trades that were never there suddenly appear as closed (with a loss of course), Broker not regulated....
My only conclusion is that Fortress FX fund has some kind of arrangement with Knight Capital to have a sort of revenue share scheme. Whatever the customer looses, they split it 50-50 (if they are the same company, 100% for them assuming they are market makers). Previously, they had made this public campaign to get clients to trade with them. Isn´t it just was too "coincidential" that right after they get millions in deposits they loose all their clients money??
I hope this serves as a warning to trade with Fortress FX Fund. If anybody wants to contact me regarding this please feel free to do it at luchourquiza@gmail.com.
"As previously expressed, this correspondence is intended to serve as a courtesy reminder that such activity is entire customary and normal aspect of participating within any managed account program. On an intra-month basis, it is an inherent aspect of the standard "ebb and flow" of a managed account in conjunction with the ongoing and dynamic nature of market prices and daily behavior as we move through our customary "profit cycles".
As you are further aware, these temporary draw down periods only occur every 5-6 months in between our customary and consistently ongoing profit cycles. Therefore, your patience and professional courtesy as our Trade Manager initiates an expedited recovery and new levels of customary success remains genuinely valued and appreciated. As always, the upcoming Holiday Season often times poses slow periods of trading as market liquidity winds down toward year-end as well."
One week after that the account was +150% at some moment. I though "Damn, these guys are good, but why the hell aren´t they closing the wining positions, as the profit was far exceeding the average monthly win". That night I went to bed with an unrealized profit of 4500 USD (from an initial account of USD 3,000).
The next morning (yes, 8 hours later) I opened the platform and realized that the account was on $0!!! YEs, USD 0.00!! The "fund" had turned a nice profit into a complete loss!!! I was pretty pist off about it and email the trading desk (same guy as before) to ask what they had done. His reply was the following:
"I sincerely appreciate your patience and professional courtesy in awaiting a comprehensive response to your important concerns. That being said, and when considering the current issue at hand, it will be necessary to recognize, acknowledge, and understand the fact that we are participating within the most risk-abundant, highly volatile financial market in existence during a time in which we are currently enduring a global economic Depression and underlying climate of unprecedented nature on a worldwide scale since the Great Depression.
As such, we have recently experienced inevitably difficult market conditions, based on unprecedented interest rate changes for the first time since 2008. This has transpired on a magnified scale, which has catalyzed unfavorable results uncharacteristic of the achievements the Fortress Fund Trade Managers contracted to oversee the program, as well as all global asset managers, have experienced within a customary economic climate during ideal market conditions. Within such an atypical world environment, unorthodox losses oftentimes result in ultra-aggressive, overly speculative novelty programs such as Fortress Fund.
This unfortunate development has combined with your account having experienced severely inopportune market-entry timing in proximity to the initiation of this recent unfavorable market state.
On that note, I find it very important I address your important concern in comprehensive fashion. The Fortress Fund Manager was utilizing a very sophisticated, methodical employment of positional hedging within client accounts so as to effectively mitigate what otherwise would have been an instantly catastrophic, adverse price movement across all major currency pairs. When hedges are in place, equity remains intact.
Of course, it is a physical impossibility to successfully accomplish negative trade eradication without the necessary periodic release of said hedge positions in strategic fashion at prospective turning points in price action so as to allow corrective price moves to neutralize open draw down while being offset by realized profits generated through the aforementioned hedge orders. When hedges are released, it is necessary to allow price movement to "breath" and illustrate directional bias.
Furthermore, pending re-hedge orders must be strategically placed at selective points far enough in proximity to important support or resistance levels to ensure any re-entry into the hedge is not made in vain. Therefore, equity will bleed in nominal, successive amounts until the proper, successful corrective point is reached. Under typical market conditions, the average trend-based price movement which would necessitate the employment of positional hedging lasts but 1-3 days and requires no greater than 1-3 hedge releases prior to successfully identifying the correct turning point necessary to remove clients from trades intact.
Unfortunately, we have been faced with an astoundingly resilient multi-day directional trend based price movement of unparalleled nature resulting from these FOMC announcements. Your account did not sustain the necessarily successive (and extensive within these circumstances) release attempts and equity "bleeds".
We continue to face a global economic climate of unparalleled proportions since the Great Depression and have chosen to participate within the most volatile, risk prevalent market out of all the financials. As such, and when combined with notoriously thin, unfavorable summer market conditions and a unique disconnect of customary inter market behavioral correlation losses uncharacteristic of standard performance within ideal conditions do occur.
Although it will be no consolation to your frustration, it is of paramount importance you understand that we have endured, as a world society and global investors, a first-time global market climate and world economic condition absolutely unmatched in decades. This marks a unique juncture in this Manager’s 3 year record flawless aggressive trading.
Based upon our longstanding, personalized communication with one another, I'm confident you will recognize the fact that I am sincerely regretful of having had clients, including yourself, eliminated from market participation. Your ongoing recognition and understanding of current conditions as well as the unwavering state of my dedication with the sincere best interest of clients at heart is both valued and appreciated.
For these reasons, I must reiterate that I am genuinely apologetic in having to inform you that the majority of your risk capital was depleted by the Fortress Fund Manager.
Fortunately, the broker's Negative Balance Protection saved your account from total depletion and automatically stopped-out the trading at 90%."
In other words, a very sophistically BS to say they screw it up....but hey "you only lost 90%"!. I mean, WTF!!!! Honestly, a blind monkey might have excited those positions quicker than these guys.
However this is not the worse of all. Upon reviewing the trades, i found out that there were "closed trades" that had never appeared on the platform at any moment. And they were easy to spot. For example, a short trade on the GBPUSD was open on the 17.12, and closed on the 23.12 with a negative swap. Then there were "other" transactions with the same pair (also GBPUSD) that were short, opened and closed on the same dates...but had NO swap. I had been checking the open positions in the platform and those transactions were never there in the first there. So, either the broker "placed" those trades there, or FFF managed to put loosing trades without the platform registering them (although I wonder how could that technologically be possible). I emailed Knight about it and they said to spead directly to the money manager, that they had nothing to do about it.
So let´s recap: Fund with clearly no money management rules, fund blows account overnight (not closing winning positions), trades that were never there suddenly appear as closed (with a loss of course), Broker not regulated....
My only conclusion is that Fortress FX fund has some kind of arrangement with Knight Capital to have a sort of revenue share scheme. Whatever the customer looses, they split it 50-50 (if they are the same company, 100% for them assuming they are market makers). Previously, they had made this public campaign to get clients to trade with them. Isn´t it just was too "coincidential" that right after they get millions in deposits they loose all their clients money??
I hope this serves as a warning to trade with Fortress FX Fund. If anybody wants to contact me regarding this please feel free to do it at luchourquiza@gmail.com.
