Part 1
Part 2
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We're going to start this post with dealing with common heckles. Some people have heckled me already in this posting series. I know from having done things like this publicly a few times before there are catchphrase heckles to be dealt with, and we'll do this one and for all here. If I've linked you here, you've done a FMH (Frequently Made Heckle).
If you're not a heckler, you can skip the line break for the strategy stuff, but this section may still be interesting for you.
FMH 1 : Elliot wave does not work all the time.
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I know. The clock in my living-room does not work all the time. If it tells me it's 2am and I look out and it's broad day light, I use some discerning judgement based on my experience of looking out of a window, and I suspect it may be incorrect. If it tells me it's 8.30am and I look out and see little kids with school bags walking past the window, I suspect the clock may have a point.
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When I write all the rules and exceptions in my posts, I am not doing this to make the posts longer. These are rules and exceptions designed to describe situations when it probably is happening. Of course it does not "Always work". I am not say it does. Your assumption I have not thought through the same extraordinary simplistic, "But, what if ...." questions is either you under estimating me, over estimating you, or both.
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FMH 2 : Fibs levels do not work, studies show it is as good as random.
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Two points. Firstly, I've read some of these studies. These hypothetical things done by people who have never traded in the market and want to produce intellectual ideas about it. While reading through the method of the experiment it's apparent to me it won't work. I could save them some time if they call me and tell me their hypothesis;
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"Nope. You'll lose about 20% a year doing that. Good general idea. Okay starting point, but you get fucked here, here and here. Work on that".
I will not value the opinion of someone paid to write papers on fibs over my experience being paid to trade them. I will not go out my way to try to get you to value my opinion. I've learned people will either test things I say and know the truth of them for their selves with me posting the amount of interesting evidence/results that I do, and others would not test it if I posted a million examples.
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Point two. Not perfect does not mean not practical. Fib levels do not react absolutely perfectly. I suspect the reason for this is so many people use them to put stops behind these days. In days gone by, they were probably more accurate, but as stop clusters became more predictable and concentrated this change. Game theory sort of stuff. Read more about my thoughts on this here.
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The thing is, for those who pay enough time and attention, there are patterns of when the fibs either do work very well, or "do not work" in the exact same way over and over again. If they do "not work" in the same way over and over, that's the same as working to me. I am looking for patterns to trade for profit. Not to compile a pretty chart of data points as to if price turned specifically on the 61.8 over a million samples.
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FMH 3 - "Everything you're saying is wrong", "You're an idiot", "I am non-specifically and non-constructively disagreeing" (Yeah, people drop that last one, verbatim, all the time)
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Pics, or it didn't happen. I am willing to "get up here" so to speak and succeed or fail in front of everyone. I'm posting what I do, and explaining all my rational. Results are being tracked. Time and continuity will display my outcomes. Is there a way you suggest you can provide stronger proof I am wrong that I am proposing to prove I am right?
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If you're just saying you think I am stupid, because you know the market so much better than me my standard reply is as follows;
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" If you'd like to propose, explain and track a strategy you think will outperform this we can both keep our records and that will best determine who's opinions have profitability. It seems something that would be good for the community. "
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Pics or it didn't happen. Only analysts and economists are paid for opinions. My job demands a far more practical approach.
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FMH 4 - "What REALLY happened with (insert news related thing) this and your guesses were just lucky".
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If I said it would happen yesterday, then set trades for it happening and profited from them today; it does not matter to me the reason you give me for it tomorrow. If you choose to view the market as being like this, you may. If it ever does start to become more relevant to me making profits or not, I will pay attention to other things. Right now, I do not follow them closely and that has never mattered. Either I am consistently lucky, physic or right. Pick the flavor for you.
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I will not engage in conversation on any of these points coming from a closed minded perspective. By which I mean you only commenting to tell me why you're right. If you feel someone has to add balance with these comments, go ahead. I encourage people to be scientific in their approach and having different viewpoints helps with this. Do your own experiments.
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I will answer honest questions, and will gladly engage people who disagree with me and do so from the perspective of personal study. Usually we can both learn and teach if both of us have firsthand knowledge. This is rare, but enjoyable.
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On to GBPUSD. As I said may be possible in the previous post, the trade for the bigger run up post Chicago was missed. This can happen. It's better to miss bad opportunities than squander good money on bad ones, and at the time I had the option of entering, there was no way to tell the difference between these - so I did nothing.
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Later in the day price continued to be consistent with the formations of a spike pattern. Here I engaged the market.
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GBPUSD 1 Minute
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My entering pattern was to first open two small trades with a 13 pip stop. This was an emergency stop, I always planned to tighten it up (it'd only hit in the event of an immediate capitulation). The risk here was about 0.15%. When the market moved a bit lower, I entered more positions and having more data felt better about where to place stops. All stops went to 6 pips or less (bigger position, same starting risk).
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As price reached the best level, I opened my largest trade. Stop went from 3 - 6 pips with big stops being 2 pips. Effective stop something like 3-4 pips. Targets hit for 10 - 12 pips, giving an effective pay off on risk just short of 1:3. I do not use aggressive position sizing in this part of the trade (usually it already carries made profits), so the net risk was low. Around 0.25%. Net gain in positions was 0.6%.
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GBPUSD 1 min
From left to right the positions get bigger. Notice also the biggest position (low) takes profit a good bit before where I forecast the high (bulk close). This trade hitting should give assurance of breakeven on this trade, so the risk on capital is gone on this trade on a double top move, then profits accumulated in the breakout.
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Results for the day;
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https://preview.redd.it/96zq7cy1j9i31.png?width=821&format=png&auto=webp&s=d324348621a5c0931a90de207fe8aebb116f934d
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Current Gain = 0.65%
Max risk exposure possible - 0.4%
Max real equity drawdown - < 0.2%
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Due to not being entirely available for trading today this was a big under-performance of what the strategy could have achieved. It's been a decent example day to show the logistics of how the trades can form. To make 2 - 3% today with the same draw-down was possible.

Part [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
In preparation for the possibility of GBPUSD (et al) making some major spike out moves on large charts and potentially entering into sharp corrective moves, I've been honing in on another area of trend trading mistakes. Up to now, the main focus has been on the 50/61 trap [2] [3]. This has been largely effective. Some pretty wild swings, but it's ultimately swinging in the right direction. This is to be expected. Markets have made this sort of pattern for decades. I've no idea why people think it's not there or is going away any time soon. For the time being, betting on it has great odds.
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I've said in previous posts the 61.8 trap formation is one of the areas where most of the money is made and lost in Forex. This is the other one. Between these two points, it would be my guess this is where most retail traders lose their money. It's where I've lost most of mine, I am sure of that. They are cunning traps, and these traps snap down hard. In the 50/61 trap section we've covered how to enter into the start of trend legs, and now we'll cover how to exit at the optimum profit level (and reverse).
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We'll start looking at what I've explained previously while alluding to this mistake. This is the first selling mistake, indicated in the chart here with a 3 as we switch from black to blue.
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https://preview.redd.it/l0hwb7k9eqi31.png?width=715&format=png&auto=webp&s=a49ea3bbf2cac1ecaca171baa16b5cac241b2111
Source: https://www.reddit.com/Forex/comments/clbxk2/shorting_noobs_common_trend_following_mistakes_im/
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The mistake is explained as "breakout trading rushing in", and also as an area people are stopped out using H/L rules.
I've explain many times in many ways how news events can carry what essentially amounts to misinformation in terms of what you do in trading, and how these events are often found marking out the extremes in trend moves. I've mainly focused on entering in line with the trend to this point, but the same is true for the end of a trend/start of correction.
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https://preview.redd.it/k3m9fkngfqi31.png?width=715&format=png&auto=webp&s=9f2b56e619445b0ce8e58352bfbca02e6428ae42
https://www.reddit.com/Forex/comments/clbxk2/shorting_noobs_common_trend_following_mistakes_im/
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I've also explained how I design my trade plans ignoring any news there may be in the sense that I do not do analysis on it (or try to guess it). While doing this I've explained that I do think it's very possible news events will feature during the moves. They usually do. I do not need to know about them. All I need to do is make a trade plan that understands it might have volatile moves in it, and how a person would give themselves the best chance to profit from that.
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https://preview.redd.it/0dboiov1gqi31.png?width=709&format=png&auto=webp&s=61b89626b18a18452b27ef2756631bd58d6ca445
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This news stuff is very important. You need to understand that when I think about news events, I think of them in terms of the sort of price moves they create ... because nothing else matters!
I know in some parts of the cycles price moves fast. Sometimes it moves in ways that abnormal, seeming. I also know that when there are news events, these are the things that happen. So when we are trading in areas where I know price can move aggressively, I also know there may be news triggers for this. Here are the areas I'd expect news triggers. Red circles are sell news and green buy news.
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https://preview.redd.it/sj07v00khqi31.png?width=736&format=png&auto=webp&s=6f71af323d151cfc6fe6b83f2c19465b3c8c907c
Of course, the way the market actually moves does not have to make any sense at all relative to the news. Let's face it, it rarely does. Not without some mental gymnastics anyway. This is why I'm not paying attention to that. There are points at which I actually expect the news move to make no sense at all. One of these is in the rally to retest the high, notice the circle for the news event is before the spike up.
So when I make winning trades that take profit in some news event, it's entirely correct to say I did not know that was going to happen. However, it's entirely incorrect to assume I did not calculate there being "some event". It is wrong to think yourself mere cannon fodder to these sorts of events, you can do better (Test! I'd like you to come to understand this, and it must be learned, there's only so much I can teach).
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Now, I had been setting this up to trade the possible swing from GBPUSD making a spike out low, and this would have been some time from now (at least days, I'd expect) but we've got a chance to test out this feature early using social indicators. Social indicators are a thing. They are really useful for spotting these.
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https://preview.redd.it/b458e36bkqi31.png?width=751&format=png&auto=webp&s=49d8e44741989d6c8ee7121733f0d2dd7b2e31ab
Main sorts of indicators. "What just happened?", "HUGE breakout on XXXXXX", "Game changing news .... XXXXXX breaks the highs ... to the moon". Any of this stuff, when you see it and go look on a chart for counter signals of whatever it is that is implying. Look and see if we've had the conditions that predict this kind of breakout - then fade the public chatter.
Look out for flash in the pan news events. Do not follow these, they are nonsense. I promise you, when there's someone who tells you otherwise talking about what they think happened, I am executing on my positions. When they first found out something was happening, I may well have been hitting my take profits.
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These "market movers" tend to be over and done with in an hour. Unless you followed them ... then you're stuck in a shitty trade for as long as that takes.
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Bringing us to our social trigger. Someone posts a Trump tweet. Apparently these are important. I've not noticed. I am in trading positions most of the time he tweets, usually a few days later I find out that was "why it happened". The thought of using this for real time indicators to follow is madness to me, now. There's a time I'd have thought that perfectly logical. When you do the charting hours, it does not make sense. So should be ignored.
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https://preview.redd.it/fy503xs3kqi31.png?width=506&format=png&auto=webp&s=6c4ffa3db2d85fd672e4665185636202e3de7dfe
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Maybe not entirely ignored. When I seen this, I went and checked for counter trading signals on USDJPY. Seen one instantly (social indicators are fucking accurate, I'm being serious).
This was the position I took. I also suggested the poster stopped following this bullshit.
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https://preview.redd.it/kjzszt9ylqi31.png?width=689&format=png&auto=webp&s=5cda228fd244b558cfe3efaecb171bb7cbfaa8bf
Source: https://www.reddit.com/Forex/comments/cvdjzv/will_the_usdjpy_breakout/ey3xr6y/?context=3
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I explained the mistake.
https://preview.redd.it/qbl9mbdamqi31.png?width=567&format=png&auto=webp&s=e346d013d4c4919ae709f6be22d476917194fcb7
Source: https://www.reddit.com/Forex/comments/cvdjzv/will_the_usdjpy_breakout/ey43knb/?context=3
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Here is what that looks like on a chart. Blue circle is where the breakout alert comes, green circle is where I bought.
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https://preview.redd.it/uc33jx6roqi31.png?width=810&format=png&auto=webp&s=7df939a336ef903f67628fc9a410cf452c84a356
We can see this is probably not something we want to be basing our trading decision on. Quite evidently.
After taking my position, I took some time to explain the situation to someone who commented saying they'd bailed out on a sell after reading through my posts (good things happen when you read my posts with an open mind). Price spiked 100 pips from the price they escaped on.
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https://preview.redd.it/9gwu2mfdpqi31.png?width=738&format=png&auto=webp&s=23e5a1a7fdd0d076e38f1d6318845848041cf1f0
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https://preview.redd.it/99vbci1gpqi31.png?width=688&format=png&auto=webp&s=2bba455a946f836fe94e4f82b08f2481e4edcb02
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So our strategy to trade from here is simple. We buy into the sharp drops on USDJPY. We watch for short term drops and mini false breakouts - then we buy for the "swish" up move. The same strategy I said could be used on GBPUSD early last week, you know ... before the news made it happen.
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We do have to be cautious, price can re-test the lows (and it can do it in one big fast candle). It can even make a further breakout (which could be stronger). For as long as USDJPY trades above the lows it's made in the start of the week, though we should see all drops in price as opportunities to buy with great risk:reward.
With this in mind, I've activated my trend traders on USDJPY, they should start to sell the false sell offs for me, and be putting me in nicely near the end of the bear traps. We might be on the way to seller mistake #2. Where the break/retest trade fails, and if we this should be very profitable betting against those who get slaughtered in the quick correction.
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Update:
This has done really well, as would be expected. This really is a deadly part of the market for trend followers.
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https://preview.redd.it/yi8qqdjq7ri31.png?width=817&format=png&auto=webp&s=eeb5ade882dfc3a7ff1d17bfbd432f994be7065d

TL;DR - I will try and flip an account from $50 or less to $1,000 over 2019. I will post all my account details so my strategy can be seen/copied. I will do this using only three or four trading setups. All of which are simple enough to learn. I will start trading on 10th January.
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As I see it there are two mains ways to understand how to make money in the markets. The first is to know what the biggest winners in the markets are doing and duplicating what they do. This is hard. Most of the biggest players will not publicly tell people what they are doing. You need to be able to kinda slide in with them and see if you can pick up some info. Not suitable for most people, takes a lot of networking and even then you have to be able to make the correct inferences.
Another way is to know the most common trades of losing traders and then be on the other side of their common mistakes. This is usually far easier, usually everyone knows the mind of a losing trader. I learned about what losing traders do every day by being one of them for many years. I noticed I had an some sort of affinity for buying at the very top of moves and selling at the very bottom. This sucked, however, is was obvious there was winning trades on the other side of what I was doing and the adjustments to be a good trader were small (albeit, tricky).
Thus began the study for entries and maximum risk:reward. See, there have been times I have bought aiming for a 10 pip scalps and hit 100 pips stops loss. Hell, there have been times I was going for 5 pips and hit 100 stop out. This can seem discouraging, but it does mean there must be 1:10 risk:reward pay-off on the other side of these mistakes, and they were mistakes.
If you repeatedly enter and exit at the wrong times, you are making mistakes and probably the same ones over and over again. The market is tricking you! There are specific ways in which price moves that compel people to make these mistakes (I won’t go into this in this post, because it takes too long and this is going to be a long post anyway, but a lot of this is FOMO).
Making mistakes is okay. In fact, as I see it, making mistakes is an essential part of becoming an expert. Making a mistake enough times to understand intrinsically why it is a mistake and then make the required adjustments. Understanding at a deep level why you trade the way you do and why others make the mistakes they do, is an important part of becoming an expert in your chosen area of focus.
I could talk more on these concepts, but to keep the length of the post down, I will crack on to actual examples of trades I look for. Here are my three main criteria. I am looking for tops/bottoms of moves (edge entries). I am looking for 1:3 RR or more potential pay-offs. My strategy assumes that retail trades will lose most of the time. This seems a fair enough assumption. Without meaning to sound too crass about it, smart money will beat dumb money most of the time if the game is base on money. They just will.
So to summarize, I am looking for the points newbies get trapped in bad positions entering into moves too late. From these areas, I am looking for high RR entries.
Setup Examples.
I call this one the “Lightning Bolt correction”, but it is most commonly referred to as a “two leg correction”. I call it a “Lightning Bolt correction” because it looks a bit like one, and it zaps you. If you get it wrong.
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https://preview.redd.it/t4whwijse2721.png?width=1326&format=png&auto=webp&s=c9050529c6e2472a3ff9f8e7137bd4a3ee5554cc
Once I see price making the first sell-off move and then begin to rally towards the highs again, I am waiting for a washout spike low. The common trades mistakes I am trading against here is them being too eager to buy into the trend too early and for the to get stopped out/reverse position when it looks like it is making another bearish breakout. Right at that point they panic … literally one candle under there is where I want to be getting in. I want to be buying their stop loss, essentially. “Oh, you don’t want that ...okay, I will have that!”
I need a precise entry. I want to use tiny stops (for big RR) so I need to be cute with entries. For this, I need entry rules. Not just arbitrarily buying the spike out. There are a few moving parts to this that are outside the scope of this post but one of my mains ways is using a fibs extension and looking for reversals just after the 1.61% level. How to draw the fibs is something else that is outside the scope of this but for one simple rule, they can be drawn on the failed new high leg.
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https://preview.redd.it/2cd682kve2721.png?width=536&format=png&auto=webp&s=f4d081c9faff49d0976f9ffab260aaed2b570309
I am looking for a few specific things for a prime setup. Firstly, I am looking for the false hope candles, the ones that look like they will reverse the market and let those buying too early get out break-even or even at profit. In this case, you can see the hammer and engulfing candle off the 127 level, then it spikes low in that “stop-hunt” sort of style.
Secondly I want to see it trading just past my entry level (161 ext). This rule has come from nothing other than sheer volume. The amount of times I’ve been stopped out by 1 pip by that little sly final low has gave birth to this rule. I am looking for the market to trade under support in a manner that looks like a new strong breakout. When I see this, I am looking to get in with tiny stops, right under the lows. I will also be using smaller charts at this time and looking for reversal clusters of candles. Things like dojis, inverted hammers etc. These are great for sticking stops under.
Important note, when the lightning bolt correction fails to be a good entry, I expect to see another two legs down. I may look to sell into this area sometimes, and also be looking for buying on another couple legs down. It is important to note, though, when this does not work out, I expect there to be continued momentum that is enough to stop out and reasonable stop level for my entry. Which is why I want to cut quick. If a 10 pips stop will hit, usually a 30 pips stop will too. Bin it and look for the next opportunity at better RR.
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https://preview.redd.it/mhkgy35ze2721.png?width=1155&format=png&auto=webp&s=a18278b85b10278603e5c9c80eb98df3e6878232
Another setup I am watching for is harmonic patterns, and I am using these as a multi-purpose indicator. When I see potentially harmonic patterns forming, I am using their completion level as take profits, I do not want to try and run though reversal patterns I can see forming hours ahead of time. I also use them for entering (similar rules of looking for specific entry criteria for small stops). Finally, I use them as a continuation pattern. If the harmonic pattern runs past the area it may have reversed from, there is a high probability that the market will continue to trend and very basic trend following strategies work well. I learned this from being too stubborn sticking with what I thought were harmonic reversals only to be ran over by a trend (seriously, everything I know I know from how it used to make me lose).
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https://preview.redd.it/1ytz2431f2721.png?width=1322&format=png&auto=webp&s=983a7f2a91f9195004ad8a2aa2bb9d4d6f128937
A method of spotting these sorts of M/W harmonics is they tend to form after a second spike out leg never formed. When this happens, it gives me a really good idea of where my profit targets should be and where my next big breakout level is. It is worth noting, larger harmonics using have small harmonics inside them (on lower time-frames) and this can be used for dialling in optimum entries. I also use harmonics far more extensively in ranging markets. Where they tend to have higher win rates.
Next setup is the good old fashioned double bottoms/double top/one tick trap sort of setup. This comes in when the market is highly over extended. It has a small sell-off and rallies back to the highs before having a much larger sell-off. This is a more risky trade in that it sells into what looks like trending momentum and can be stopped out more. However, it also pays a high RR when it works, allowing for it to be ran at reduced risk and still be highly profitable when it comes through.
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https://preview.redd.it/1bx83776f2721.png?width=587&format=png&auto=webp&s=2c76c3085598ae70f4142d26c46c8d6e9b1c2881
From these sorts of moves, I am always looking for a follow up buy if it forms a lightning bolt sort of setup.
All of these setups always offer 1:3 or better RR. If they do not, you are doing it wrong (and it will be your stop placement that is wrong). This is not to say the target is always 1:3+, sometimes it is best to lock in profits with training stops. It just means that every time you enter, you can potentially have a trade that runs for many times more than you risked. 1:10 RR can be hit in these sorts of setups sometimes. Paying you 20% for 2% risked.
I want to really stress here that what I am doing is trading against small traders mistakes. I am not trying to “beat the market maker”. I am not trying to reverse engineer J.P Morgan’s black boxes. I do not think I am smart enough to gain a worthwhile edge over these traders. They have more money, they have more data, they have better softwares … they are stronger. Me trying to “beat the market maker” is like me trying to beat up Mike Tyson. I might be able to kick him in the balls and feel smug for a few seconds. However, when he gets up, he is still Tyson and I am still me. I am still going to be pummeled.
I’ve seen some people that were fairly bright people going into training courses and coming out dumb as shit. Thinking they somehow are now going to dominate Goldman Sachs because they learned a chart pattern. Get a grip. For real, get a fucking grip. These buzz phrases are marketeering. Realististically, if you want to win in the markets, you need to have an edge over somebody.
I don’t have edges on the banks. If I could find one, they’d take it away from me. Edges work on inefficiencies in what others do that you can spot and they can not. I do not expect to out-think a banks analysis team. I know for damn sure I can out-think a version of me from 5 years ago … and I know there are enough of them in the markets. I look to trade against them. I just look to protect myself from the larger players so they can only hurt me in limited ways. Rather than letting them corner me and beat me to a pulp (in the form of me watching $1,000 drop off my equity because I moved a stop or something), I just let them kick me in the butt as I run away. It hurts a little, but I will be over it soon.
I believe using these principles, these three simple enough edge entry setups, selectiveness (remembering you are trading against the areas people make mistakes, wait for they areas) and measured aggression a person can make impressive compounded gains over a year. I will attempt to demonstrate this by taking an account of under $100 to over $1,000 in a year. I will use max 10% on risk on a position, the risk will scale down as the account size increases. In most cases, 5% risk per trade will be used, so I will be going for 10-20% or so profits. I will be looking only for prime opportunities, so few trades but hard hitting ones when I take them.
I will start trading around the 10th January. Set remind me if you want to follow along. I will also post my investor login details, so you can see the trades in my account in real time. Letting you see when I place my orders and how I manage running positions.
I also think these same principles can be tweaked in such a way it is possible to flip $50 or so into $1,000 in under a month. I’ve done $10 to $1,000 in three days before. This is far more complex in trade management, though. Making it hard to explain/understand and un-viable for many people to copy (it hedges, does not comply with FIFO, needs 1:500 leverage and also needs spreads under half a pip on EURUSD - not everyone can access all they things). I see all too often people act as if this can’t be done and everyone saying it is lying to sell you something. I do not sell signals. I do not sell training. I have no dog in this fight, I am just saying it can be done. There are people who do it. If you dismiss it as impossible; you will never be one of them.
If I try this 10 times with $50, I probably am more likely to make $1,000 ($500 profit) in a couple months than standard ideas would double $500 - I think I have better RR, even though I may go bust 5 or more times. I may also try to demonstrate this, but it is kinda just show-boating, quite honestly. When it works, it looks cool. When it does not, I can go bust in a single day (see example https://www.fxblue.com/users/redditmicroflip).
So I may or may not try and demonstrate this. All this is, is just taking good basic concepts and applying accelerated risk tactics to them and hitting a winning streak (of far less trades than you may think). Once you have good entries and RR optimization in place - there really is no reason why you can not scale these up to do what may people call impossible (without even trying it).
I know there are a lot of people who do not think these things are possible and tend to just troll whenever people talk about these things. There used to be a time when I’d try to explain why I thought the way I did … before I noticed they only cared about telling me why they were right and discussion was pointless. Therefore, when it comes to replies, I will reply to all comments that ask me a question regarding why I think this can be done, or why I done something that I done. If you are commenting just to tell me all the reasons you think I am wrong and you are right, I will probably not reply. I may well consider your points if they are good ones. I just do not entering into discussions with people who already know everything; it serves no purpose.
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Edit: Addition.
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I want to talk a bit more about using higher percentage of risk than usual. Firstly, let me say that there are good reasons for risk caps that people often cite as “musts”. There are reasons why 2% is considered optimum for a lot of strategies and there are reasons drawing down too much is a really bad thing.
Please do not be ignorant of this. Please do not assume I am, either. In previous work I done, I was selecting trading strategies that could be used for investment. When doing this, my only concern was drawdown metrics. These are essential for professional money management and they are also essential for personal long-term success in trading.
So please do not think I have not thought of these sorts of things Many of the reasons people say these things can’t work are basic 101 stuff anyone even remotely committed to learning about trading learns in their first 6 months. Trust me, I have thought about these concepts. I just never stopped thinking when I found out what public consensus was.
While these 101 rules make a lot of sense, it does not take away from the fact there are other betting strategies, and if you can know the approximate win rate and pay-off of trades, you can have other ways of deriving optimal bet sizes (risk per trade). Using Kelly Criterion, for example, if the pay-off is 1:3 and there is a 75% chance of winning, the optimal bet size is 62.5%. It would be a viable (high risk) strategy to have extremely filtered conditions that looked for just one perfect set up a month, makingover 150% if it was successful.
Let’s do some math on if you can pull that off three months in a row (using 150% gain, for easy math). Start $100. Month two starts $250. Month three $625. Month three ends $1,562. You have won three trades. Can you win three trades in a row under these conditions? I don’t know … but don’t assume no-one can.
This is extremely high risk, let’s scale it down to meet somewhere in the middle of the extremes. Let’s look at 10%. Same thing, 10% risk looking for ideal opportunities. Maybe trading once every week or so. 30% pay-off is you win. Let’s be realistic here, a lot of strategies can drawdown 10% using low risk without actually having had that good a chance to generate 30% gains in the trades it took to do so. It could be argued that trading seldomly but taking 5* the risk your “supposed” to take can be more risk efficient than many strategies people are using.
I am not saying that you should be doing these things with tens of thousands of dollars. I am not saying you should do these things as long term strategies. What I am saying is do not dismiss things out of hand just because they buck the “common knowns”. There are ways you can use more aggressive trading tactics to turn small sums of money into they $1,000s of dollars accounts that you exercise they stringent money management tactics on.
With all the above being said, you do have to actually understand to what extent you have an edge doing what you are doing. To do this, you should be using standard sorts of risks. Get the basics in place, just do not think you have to always be basic. Once you have good basics in place and actually make a bit of money, you can section off profits for higher risk versions of strategies. The basic concepts of money management are golden. For longevity and large funds; learned them and use them! Just don’t forget to think for yourself once you have done that.
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Update -
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Okay, I have thought this through a bit more and decided I don't want to post my live account investor login, because it has my full name and I do not know who any of you are. Instead, for copying/observing, I will give demo account login (since I can choose any name for a demo).
I will also copy onto a live account and have that tracked via Myfxbook.
I will do two versions. One will be FIFO compliant. It will trade only single trade positions. The other will not be FIFO compliant, it will open trades in batches. I will link up live account in a week or so. For now, if anyone wants to do BETA testing with the copy trader, you can do so with the following details (this is the non-FIFO compliant version).
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Account tracking/copying details.
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Low-Medium risk.
IC Markets MT4
Account number: 10307003
Investor PW: lGdMaRe6
Server: Demo:01
(Not FIFO compliant)
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Valid and Invalid Complaints.
There are a few things that can pop up in copy trading. I am not a n00b when it comes to this, so I can somewhat forecast what these will be. I can kinda predict what sort of comments there may be. Some of these are valid points that if you raise I should (and will) reply to. Some are things outside of the scope of things I can influence, and as such, there is no point in me replying to. I will just cover them all here the one time.
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Valid complains are if I do something dumb or dramatically outside of the strategy I have laid out here. won't do these, if I do, you can pitchfork ----E
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Examples;
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“Oi, idiot! You opened a trade randomly on a news spike. I got slipped 20 pips and it was a shit entry”.
Perfectly valid complaint.
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“Why did you open a trade during swaps hours when the spread was 30 pips?”
Also valid.
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“You left huge trades open running into the weekend and now I have serious gap paranoia!”
Definitely valid.
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These are examples of me doing dumb stuff. If I do dumb stuff, it is fair enough people say things amounting to “Yo, that was dumb stuff”.
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Invalid Complains;
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“You bought EURUSD when it was clearly a sell!!!!”
Okay … you sell. No-one is asking you to copy my trades. I am not trading your strategy. Different positions make a market.
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“You opened a position too big and I lost X%”.
No. Na uh. You copied a position too big. If you are using a trade copier, you can set maximum risk. If you neglect to do this, you are taking 100% risk. You have no valid compliant for losing. The act of copying and setting the risk settings is you selecting your risk. I am not responsible for your risk. I accept absolutely no liability for any losses.
*Suggested fix. Refer to risk control in copy trading software
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“You lost X trades in a row at X% so I lost too much”.
Nope. You copied. See above. Anything relating to losing too much in trades (placed in liquid/standard market conditions) is entirely you. I can lose my money. Only you can set it up so you can lose yours. I do not have access to your account. Only mine.
*Suggested fix. Refer to risk control in copy trading software
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“Price keeps trading close to the pending limit orders but not filling. Your account shows profits, but mine is not getting them”.
This is brokerage. I have no control over this. I use a strategy that aims for precision, and that means a pip here and there in brokerage spreads can make a difference. I am trading to profit from my trading conditions. I do not know, so can not account for, yours.
* Suggested fix. Compare the spread on your broker with the spread on mine. Adjust your orders accordingly. Buy limit orders will need to move up a little. Sell limit orders should not need adjusted.
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“I got stopped out right before the market turned, I have a loss but your account shows a profit”.
This is brokerage. I have no control over this. I use a strategy that aims for precision, and that means a pip here and there differences in brokerage spreads can make a difference. I am trading to profit from my trading conditions. I do not know, so can not account for, yours.
** Suggested fix. Compare the spread on your broker with the spread on mine. Adjust your orders accordingly. Stop losses on sell orders will need to move up a bit. Stops on buy orders will be fine.
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“Your trade got stopped out right before the market turned, if it was one more pip in the stop, it would have been a winner!!!”
Yeah. This happens. This is where the “risk” part of “risk:reward” comes in.
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“Price traded close to take profit, yours filled but mines never”.
This is brokerage. I have no control over this. I use a strategy that aims for precision, and that means a pip here and there differences in brokerage spreads can make a difference. I am trading to profit from my trading conditions. I do not know, so can not account for, yours.
(Side note, this should not be an issue since when my trade closes, it should ping your account to close, too. You might get a couple less pips).
*** Suggested fix. Compare the spread on your broker with the spread on mine. Adjust your orders accordingly. Take profits on buys will need to move up a bit. Sell take profits will be fine.
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“My brokers spread jumped to 20 during the New York session so the open trade made a bigger loss than it should”.
Your broker might just suck if this happens. This is brokerage. I have no control over this. My trades are placed to profit from my brokerage conditions. I do not know, so can not account for yours. Also, if accounting for random spread spikes like this was something I had to do, this strategy would not be a thing. It only works with fair brokerage conditions.
*Suggested fix. Do a bit of Googling and find out if you have a horrific broker. If so, fix that! A good search phrase is; “(Broker name) FPA reviews”.
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“Price hit the stop loss but was going really fast and my stop got slipped X pips”.
This is brokerage. I have no control over this. I use a strategy that aims for precision, and that means a pip here and there differences in brokerage spreads can make a difference. I am trading to profit from my trading conditions. I do not know, so can not account for, yours.
If my trade also got slipped on the stop, I was slipped using ECN conditions with excellent execution; sometimes slips just happen. I am doing the most I can to prevent them, but it is a fact of liquidity that sometimes we get slipped (slippage can also work in our favor, paying us more than the take profit would have been).
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“Orders you placed failed to execute on my account because they were too large”.
This is brokerage. I have no control over this. Margin requirements vary. I have 1:500 leverage available. I will not always be using it, but I can. If you can’t, this will make a difference.
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“Your account is making profits trading things my broker does not have”
I have a full range of assets to trade with the broker I use. Included Forex, indices, commodities and cryptocurrencies. I may or may not use the extent of these options. I can not account for your brokerage conditions.
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I think I have covered most of the common ones here. There are some general rules of thumb, though. Basically, if I do something that is dumb and would have a high probability of losing on any broker traded on, this is a valid complain.
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Anything that pertains to risk taken in standard trading conditions is under your control.
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Also, anything at all that pertains to brokerage variance there is nothing I can do, other than fully brief you on what to expect up-front. Since I am taking the time to do this, I won’t be a punchbag for anything that happens later pertaining to this.
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I am not using an elitist broker. You don’t need $50,000 to open an account, it is only $200. It is accessible to most people - brokerage conditions akin to what I am using are absolutely available to anyone in the UK/Europe/Asia (North America, I am not so up on, so can’t say). With the broker I use, and with others. If you do not take the time to make sure you are trading with a good broker, there is nothing I can do about how that affects your trades.
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I am using an A book broker, if you are using B book; it will almost certainly be worse results. You have bad costs. You are essentially buying from reseller and paying a mark-up. (A/B book AKA ECN/Market maker; learn about this here). My EURUSD spread will typically be 0.02 pips or so, if yours is 1 pip, this is a huge difference.
These are typical spreads I am working on.
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https://preview.redd.it/yc2c4jfpab721.png?width=597&format=png&auto=webp&s=c377686b2485e13171318c9861f42faf325437e1
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Check the full range of spreads on Forex, commodities, indices and crypto.
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Please understand I want nothing from you if you benefit from this, but I am also due you nothing if you lose. My only term of offering this is that people do not moan at me if they lose money.
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I have been fully upfront saying this is geared towards higher risk. I have provided information and tools for you to take control over this. If I do lose people’s money and I know that, I honestly will feel a bit sad about it. However, if you complain about it, all I will say is “I told you that might happen”, because, I am telling you that might happen.
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Make clear headed assessments of how much money you can afford to risk, and use these when making your decisions. They are yours to make, and not my responsibility.
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Update.
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Crazy Kelly Compounding: $100 - $11,000 in 6 Trades.
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$100 to $11,000 in 6 trades? Is it a scam? Is it a gamble? … No, it’s maths.
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Common sense risk disclaimer: Don’t be a dick! Don’t risk money you can’t afford to lose. Do not risk money doing these things until you can show a regular profit on low risk.
Let’s talk about Crazy Kelly Compounding (CKC). Kelly criterion is a method for selecting optimal bet sizes if the odds and win rate are known (in other words, once you have worked out how to create and assess your edge). You can Google to learn about it in detail. The formula for Kelly criterion is;
((odds-1) * (percentage estimate)) - (1-percent estimate) / (odds-1) X 100
Now let’s say you can filter down a strategy to have a 80% win rate. It trades very rarely, but it had a very high success rate when it does. Let’s say you get 1:2 RR on that trade. Kelly would give you an optimum bet size of about 60% here. So if you win, you win 120%. Losing three trades in a row will bust you. You can still recover from anything less than that, fairly easily with a couple winning trades.
This is where CKC comes in. What if you could string some of these wins together, compounding the gains (so you were risking 60% each time)? What if you could pull off 6 trades in a row doing this?
Here is the math;
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https://preview.redd.it/u3u6teqd7c721.png?width=606&format=png&auto=webp&s=3b958747b37b68ec2a769a8368b5cbebfe0e97ff
This shows years, substitute years for trades. 6 trades returns $11,338! This can be done. The question really is if you are able to dial in good enough entries, filter out enough sub-par trades and have the guts to pull the trigger when the time is right. Obviously you need to be willing to take the hit, obviously that hit gets bigger each time you go for it, but the reward to risk ratio is pretty decent if you can afford to lose the money.
We could maybe set something up to do this on cent brokers. So people can do it literally risking a couple dollars. I’d have to check to see if there was suitable spreads etc offered on them, though. They can be kinda icky.
Now listen, I am serious … don’t be a dick. Don’t rush out next week trying to retire by the weekend. What I am showing you is the EXTRA rewards that come with being able to produce good solid results and being able to section off some money for high risk “all or nothing” attempts; using your proven strategies.
I am not saying anyone can open 6 trades and make $11,000 … that is rather improbable. What I am saying is once you can get the strategy side right, and you can know your numbers; then you can use the numbers to see where the limits actually are, how fast your strategy can really go.
This CKC concept is not intended to inspire you to be reckless in trading, it is intended to inspire you to put focus on learning the core skills I am telling you that are behind being able to do this.