Three traders at different levels of experience test VantagePoint.

Trader One

The installation process for VantagePoint is effortless because the accommodating support team installs it for you if you need any assistance. Once it was set up, the one-on-one tutorial ensured I was using the program in less than an hour. VantagePoint is unique in giving you a charting package that incorporates intermarket analysis in the indicators. This is part of what enables the indicators to be projected one day into the future. Once you have selected your markets, you can begin to decide which combinations of indicators to use to filter your trades.

You can learn more about each of the indicators at the VantagePoint Learning Center, which has various informative and easily followed tutorials. Access to the Learning Center is either through the program’s help menu or from the tradertech.com website.

I had not seen intermarket analysis translated into a technical indicator before. This original concept has a great deal of merit. The software lets you apply intermarket analysis in a far more scientific way than would be the case if you tried to estimate the effect of movements in any correlated market on your target market.

I was also impressed with the IntelliScan® tool for identifying specific trading setups quickly and clearly. You decide what combination of indicators you wish to use to identify each high-probability setup and sort according to your preference. It includes access to the predictive neural index, which indicates if an instrument is likely to rise or to fall over the next two days. The program includes many classic indicators (engineered to incorporate intermarket analysis), plus the proprietary predicted neural index.

Even though the algorithms driving this software are complex, the beauty of the program is that it is very simple to identify high probability entry points and stop loss points. It is well worth your time to investigate the potential of this software.

Ulla Decken is a part-time forex trader and a full-time financial planner.

Trader Two

VantagePoint is an end-of-day charting package based on proprietary trading indicators. The indicators, based on L. Mendelsohn’s trading philosophy and strategies, have been refined since 1991. VantagePoint offers trading in stocks, futures, currencies and ETFs.

VantagePoint is a neural network engine, which performs intermarket analysis of the target instrument (i.e. BoA) and 25 correlated markets/instruments. The analysis outcome is presented by proprietary versions of standard indicators (MACD) that predict the next day’s values (hence predictive MACD). A proprietary neural index predicts market direction, and attempts to eliminate market noise. Over the course of many years, independent third parties have verified the accuracy of this proprietary technique as around 80 per cent. Traders can combine the proprietary indicators based on their market understanding and trading preferences.

There are numerous options; sufficient to suit any type of trader. Once a trade is executed the predictive indicators guide the trader in setting trailing stops and a trade exit. The interface is simple, easy to use and very intuitive. To maximize the benefits offered by VantagePoint, detailed training is recommended. The company offers excellent support. Their sales support team is fantastic. I had issues with the settings on my computer and the support offered was second to none.

Personalized one-on-one telephone training is included in the price, which is based on the number of markets and categories within the markets traded. Numerous training videos are available to VantagePoint users. I recommend that any new user read the book by Mendelsohn.

Once a trading strategy is selected, VantagePoint offers an inbuilt scanner to report instruments where the strategy conditions have been met. Being an end-of-day package, the trade identification and management overhead should be low.

VantagePoint, in my view, is ideal for a trader looking for proprietary software that does the market analysis and allows the trader to pick markets and trading conditions. Its market longevity and positive reviews are a solid recommendation for VantagePoint as the first choice for a trader who can afford to spend only a limited amount of time on trading.

Tom Frtunik is an FX spot trader.

Trader Three

What many traders want in a trading system or strategy is consistency: is this program a shor t-term wonder fitted to current conditions or does it work consistently over a wide range of markets and time frames?

By this measure, the latest version of VantagePoint Intermarket Trading Software stacks up remarkably well. VantagePoint has long advertised accuracy rates o f 80 per cent or more, basing its statistics on its predictive neural index that forecasts whether the typical price (average of high, low, close) will be higher or lower two days in the future.

Previous versions have be en tested for accuracy by many independent researchers. For this review I asked yet another (a PhD and long-time stock and currency trader) to perform an accuracy study spanning more than a year of trading ending 22 September 2010. The results: Vantage Point’s predictive accuracy was 79.2% for the S&P 500 Index e-mini futures, 77.0% for Canadian National Railway, 81.2 % for Apple, 79.6% for gold futures and 79. 2% for crude oil futures.

Using a neural network process to select the best parameters and predictive indicators that meet the criteria set by its trademarked Intelliscan® feature, VantagePoint provides reliable short-term trend forecasts to give traders an early alert for trades they can take with confidence, making it possible to recoup the cost of the software quickly.

Darrell Jobman is a Senior Analyst for www.TraderPlanet.com and commodity trader.

VantagePoint response

When my father, Louis Mendelsohn, began to trade almost 40 years ago, he did technical analysis the hard way – with hand-drawn charts on graph paper and a hand-held calculator. Then, in the late 1970s as a commodities trader, he quickly saw the value of the newly invented personal computer as a tool that could revolutionize the way traders analyze and trade markets. He developed trading software for his own use and then, realizing that other traders could benefit from his software, formed Market

Technologies in 1979, to develop and license trading software. A few years later he pioneered the first commercially available trading software in the world that performed strategy back testing. By the mid 1980s, he began to realize that the markets were becoming ever more inter twined amid the growth of the global economy, and introduced the first commercially available trading software in the world to perform intermarket analysis.

This led to his application of the pattern recognition and forecasting capabilities of neural networks to intermarket data, with the release of VantagePoint in 1991. His initial goal to develop easy to use, yet powerful, trading software that could help individual retail traders analyze markets and become successful is still the mission of Market Technologies.

Today, my father and his research and development team at Market Technologies continue to refine and improve VantagePoint’s performance by adding new features and enhancements to the software, applying it to more global markets and incorporating additional predictive technical indicators, while making sure that VantagePoint is easy to install and use.

Intuitively, traders know that related markets influence each other. Based on the dynamics between these related markets, VantagePoint’s proprietary indicators, with patent-pending technologies and millions of dollars in R&D, produce very accurate short-term market forecasts that provide traders with early alerts to changes in trend direction, giving individual traders the competitive edge needed to succeed in today’s highly interconnected and volatile markets.

As a second-generation, family-owned business, we treat employees and customers as part of our extended family, as is reflected by comments in the reviews. VantagePoint is used by our customers in more than 115 countries, and our goal is to make every one more successful as a trader.

To learn more about achieving that trading success yourself, go to www.VP2010.com or contact us by phone. We’ll be glad to give you a free live demo of VantagePoint that can change your trading and help you achieve your goals in life.

This article was originally published in the Nov/Dec 2010 issue of YourTradingEdge magazine. All rights reserved. © Copyright 2011, Your Media Edge Pty Ltd. 
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