My Experience with Waxie and Trendfund (Trendfund.com)

Back when I joined Trendfund.com, the market was totally careening out of control. The Nasdaq was rising on a daily basis, and it seemed that every few months, the Nasdaq would add another 1000 points. Daytrading chat rooms were extra hot at the time, with Tokyo Joe, Anthony Elgindy and Michael Parness operating three of the most influential chat rooms on the Internet. Elgindy focused on the short side, Tokyo Joe focused on scalping stocks that he had already bought, and Parness seemed to be more into swing trading. Parness's style was the most like my own, so I joined up. I mean, he had run $33,000 into millions in a short period of time, so I had to check it out.

The chat room was organized chaos. There were hundreds of people in the room, all waiting for Waxie to announce his next trade. When he would announce the trade, everyone would clamor in after him, and the stocks that he recommended would always get a boost. It would usually be impossible to get in at the same price as Waxie, as he would buy first and then announce the trade. By the time you got around to buying, the stock had normally risen at least a few % already.

Waxie was quite the character. He was definitely into self-promotion, constantly announcing how rich he was and saying that Adam Sandler would be starring in the movie based on his life. If a chat room subscriber had the audacity to question one of his trades, Waxie would unleash a tirade and ban the user from the chat room. It was quite comical to watch; I mean, here we were, paying hundreds of dollars per month, and he was banning people left right and center. It was hilarious.

I will say this about Waxie; at the time, he made a great prediction on the Nasdaq. When everyone was saying that it was just going to keep going up and up, he said that it would be trading at a fraction of what it is in a few years. He was right, as the bubble deflated. Presumably, he made a lot of money on the way down, as he was constantly shorting the big-cap tech stocks. Not all days were profitable though; I remember when Greenspan shocked the markets with a surprise rate cut, tech stocks flew and Waxie took a beating on the day, as he couldn't cover his short positions in time.

For me, the main problem was following someone blindly. I liked to know why I was getting into a stock and what the exit strategy was; blindly following someone is a sure recipe for disaster. I can't speak for anyone else, but my time at Trendfund.com was short because I didn't find much value in it. How do others feel about it? I am sure that opinions are mixed, but I would be interested in seeing the company's monthly churn rate.

If you are thinking about signing up, you may want to ask around a little bit and see what other people's opinions are. Do a search on message boards such as Elite Trader or Silicon Investor to get an idea of the general opinion of Trendfund.com. Like I said, it didn't work for me, but you all might be different.

Filed under: Company Reviews

COMMENTS

Comment by Mike on February 20, 2009 @ 1:53 am

I am a happy Trendfund customer. Waxie ALWAYS uses stops, and ALWAYS tells you what your stop policy should be with his trades. If you follow instructions, the risk is definitely limited.

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Comment by Joseph Kaye on February 02, 2009 @ 3:18 pm

I had a positive run with trendfund until the January time Grenspan came in and announced a rte cut and the market soared, while the short positions I had triggered the stop loss orders but the masive amount of orders locked up the servers and they were not executed until the end of the day when the market was at its peak.
THe chat room was run by TIny (a big guy who is the opposite of Tiny). Waxie (aka Michael Parness) rarely came into the room. He did bring in his trade info, after he got in, and usually he got out and then would report back, sometimes hourrs later, and so if someone got burned he'd put them down as dopes, they should have got out and take care of their trades.
Yes, though he also would puch for people to follow the trades suggested, and psoed as proper given his analysis.
I am sugestign that if you are in such a group you limit risks, usse tight stops, and dont b,indly follow without sdoing your own analysis with another means such as a separate system.

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Comment by Glenn on November 03, 2008 @ 12:35 pm

What trading services do you find worth the money, if any?

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