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TRADING SYSTEMS

With our Trading System Execution Services, Attain executes the specific buy and sell signals of a trading system(s) you have directed us to follow for your account. Many traders find that systems trading can take far more time, experience and expense then they may have anticipated, and welcome the freedom and cost savings of this service.

How it works at Attain

Our Trading System Execution services start with one of our System specialists working one on one with investors to select a Trading System or portfolio of systems which best fits with their investing goals and risk appetite. This includes sharing our research and due diligence, actual fills of client’s using the system, and statistical performance evaluations.

The next step is to open a futures trading account with us. Our registered brokers and dedicated Investor Relations Manager assist investors every step of the way, getting the proper account forms to investors by Fed Ex, fax, or email; then working with them personally to insure their account is set up and funded properly.

We facilitate the purchase or lease of the Trading System from the System Developer, acting as the liaison between the investor and developer, reviewing invoices and deducting system fees straight out of client accounts monthly to avoid clumsy online credit card processing, or having to send money to an unknown entity.

Once everything is in place and you've said "Go!", we handle all aspects of your trading systems investment, from implementing any software or data upgrades to placing orders on the trading floor. Our offsite backups, rotating system specialists, and most of all - our experienced staff - make sure your account makes the exact profit or loss issued by the trading system after all commissions, fees, and any slippage. Should there be an error or some sort of mistake on our part in which your account does not receive the same trade the system issued - we make your account good - crediting any missed profits, minus commissions, fees, and potential slippage. We also use the average pricing system, where all clients trading a particular system receive the same price on entries and exits (an average of all the execution prices for all the clients on each order).

Finally, Attain works with clients to manage their overall portfolio, setting up sub- accounts for trading and tracking multiple systems, hedging currency risk for foreign investors, and setting up cash accounts which earn interest through US Treasury Bills.

Performance

Attain's list of recommended Trading Systems (in BOLD) on the Trading Systems performance page is sorted by Attain's Flag ranking system, with 5 flags being the best. Our rankings are based on eight different statistical categories, which measure risk and experience along with performance. We are not content to merely show the top percentage gainers, and instead view performance in relation to risk as the most important. Those systems not in Bold are ones Attain does not currently work with and doesn't recommend trading.

Below see five Attain recommended trading systems we have selected from our full list which give investors a good sense of the different ways trading systems can operate with each approaching the commodity markets in a different way and on a different time frame.

Hypothetical Model Accounts using Computer Generated and Actual Client Fills

System	Strategy Description	Non Compound RoR	Max DD	Min Investment (000s)
BounceMOC ERL	day trading emini Russell futures	22.21%	(36.59%)	10
Mesa Notes	Swing trading Bond futures	14.57%	(38.29%)	30
SeasonalST ES	seasonal strategy	20.85%	(54.25%)	20
Checkmate	multi commodity trend following program	0.00%	(0.00%)	0
Compass SP	day trading full size S&P futures	41.01%	(82.14%)	30

*Non Compound ROR = The annual rate of return, whos simple aritmetic sum over the total number of years in the period analyzed, yields the cumulative gain or loss achieved by the program during that period. Max DD = The maximum loss between an equity high and subsequent equity low point, or valley.

System Research

Attain's extensive trading system research follows a rigorous quantitative analysis that considers the back tested performance of the strategy, liquidity and volatility of markets traded, types of strategies employed, trade duration, risk of loss, and probability of achieving performance objectives.

Attain has put this quantitative analysis to use in researching close to one thousand different trading systems and advisors to insure the much smaller portfolio of trading systems we do recommend give our clients the best chance for success.

Realistic performance data has been hard to come by for many publicly available trading systems over the years, but Attain has solved the problem by creating a one of a kind database of historical trading performance and actual fill trading results.

Attain has tracked the actual buy and sell prices of every single trading system trade since our inception (tens of thousands of trades), and believes presenting performance statistics based on these actual fills gives the investors as true a picture of what to expect from a system as possible.

We augment our actual client fills with computer back testing. Together, the actual client and computer generated fills create our one of a kind database, which allows users to view the most realistic trading system performance statistics available today.

Added Benefits

There are several added benefits of having your Trading System investment executed through Attain, which may not be available elsewhere.

• Attain recommends all investors hold as much of their account value as possible in interest bearing T-Bills. Many other brokers tell investors futures accounts do not earn interest, don't mention T-Bills, or allow you to buy T-Bills on the margin excess balance of your account only. Read more about earning interest in your futures account here.
• Attain allows foreign investors to hold their accounts in Euros, Swiss francs, British Pounds, Canadian Dollars, Australian Dollars, and more. There is no need to convert the account into US dollars, and there is no extra paperwork needed! This opens up the possibility for access to top rated US Dollar based managers without the US Dollar risk. Your entire initial investment would remain in your local currency, with only profits and losses from the trading of the account in US Dollars.
• Whether it be adding a contract for every $10,000 in profits and subtracting one for every $10,000 in losses, risking no more than 1.35% of equity across a portfolio of day, swing, and trend following systems, or implementing advanced sector filters or position limits - Attain follows any special instructions or money management techniques to a tee. You can also select an exact date you wish to begin taking system signals (instructing us to wait until the next signal, wait for a drawdown 25% of the tested maximum drawdown, etc.) and give special "cut off" instructions to stop a system (instructing us to stop if hits 1.5 times Max DD, the account falls below a certain dollar level, etc.)
• Attain sets up a master account for each client, with several sub accounts related to it for the trading and tracking of different systems or CTAs. This allows clients to quickly see how much each trading systems is up or down in the individual sub accounts, while the master account shows the total account balance.
• We notify you with Custom Reports. We constantly monitor individual client performance, from individual systems within portfolios to correlations between portfolio components. Should a system move outside of its tested risk parameters by eclipsing its stop trade level (usually 1.5 times its pre-release max DD) or the correlation between a pair of systems in a clients portfolio start to increase dramatically - we notify clients by phone or email.