I know we didn't come to an agreement on this bet, but here is a look at my trades over the 10 days starting from the following trading day (7/31) after the quoted post. You'll notice a $200 withdraw which I put pack in the account the next week (having a kid is a ***** sometimes ). There's a $5.08 difference due to my mistake of thinking I had been charged a fee for withdraw. I have factored that out below.




45 trades

+$142.96
-$ 58.50 ($1.30 X 45) fees
-$ 5.08 (deposit/withdraw difference)
+$ 79.38

I didn't exactly light the world on fire, but I was net positive... good thing you didn't take the bet.

Decided to play a straddle on the CPI release this morning. Buy stop was at 1.1776 and sell stop was at 1.1746. Buy stop was filled at 1.1778 (green line) which is not too bad slippage for such a big release. Sell stop cancelled and now trailing SL.

EZ game

This was your fault, saying you wouldn't post in real time.
I would gladly have taken the bet (I offered it), but you said you wouldn't post in real time, so there's no point. A person can doctor anything with close to zero effort, only real time posted trades can adjudicate something like this.

If you want to post your trades in real time, then I'm in. Really, I find your excuse of being at work bizarre - you trade, open 2p2, paste trade...done in < 1 minute...if you forget or can't on that trade, then that trade doesn't count. It's not rocket science and there is zero difficulty involved.

I never said "I wouldn't post in real time". I said there could be slight discrepancies is all given being at work. And your demand of price taken at the time of post was a little ridiculous. Price moves insanely fast in FX as I'm sure you know. That <1 minute you say can easily be the difference between a winner and loser when you're trading 5-minute candles. I can't doctor what's on my platform and even if I could, you could easily disprove it by looking at the time of my entries/exits on a 1-minute chart and validating that price was indeed at that level.

Your terms were weighted towards increasing your odds, which I don't blame you for necessarily. When I presented an obstacle you didn't choose to negotiate or even say what you just said above. But if you go back and look, I never said I wouldn't post in real time.

Forget 2p2 posting. Just send him your brokerage statements. Make sure you identify your broker and account # beforehand, so he knows you're not cherry-picking accounts.

You just delete a few losing trades from what you import. Piece of cake.

If you're trading such short term trades that you're in an out in a minute, yeah, we can't do the bet. I thought, looking at your screenshots, that you were trading on much much longer time frames than 1 minute.
No. They increased yours if you were skilled. They increased mine if you weren't. There's no net advantage to either of us. If you mean verification, that wasn't my intention. It was for things to be verified. I didn't realize that 1 minute was the difference between winnign and losing for you. There have been tons of screenshot frauds, it's super easy.
The obstacle was nonsense and I assumed you were wanting back out, so I let you do so gracefully. Then you came back crowing about another lucky run (unless you have 20% weekly EV trading forex?), so I commented.
This is a nothing. You now saying that you trade 5 minute charts and 1 minute can make a huge difference IS an obstacle. Up to you. We take the price at the minute of your post. Only way to verify it. If that's an issue for you, if you think that 1 minute will turn +EV into -EV, then ok, we don't have to do the bet.

How would that work? If it's html, you just delete your 10 biggest losing trades. Unless he posts in real time on here, or I can log into his account (which would never happen, obviously), there's no way to verify this.

I don't even know how I would do that. It's just a screen capture from my MT4 platform's account history tab. There's no deleting trades. I guess if I were good at photoshop it could be done, but I can barely work mspaint. However, I see where you're coming from. Point taken.

Your broker doesn't send you daily/monthly statements? You could just forward the email. Anyway, I'll stop being nosy for now.

When I used to trade with Oanda I got monthly statements. I think with Tradersway (current broker) I have to request them. But even so, TS has a point that even those could conceivably be altered. I think in hindsight he's right that the only way for him to be sure is by not only posting in real time but taking the price at the time of posting. This would be totally doable if I was still trading on the timeframe that I was at the start of this thread. But given that I'm not, it really isn't.

Having started on 5/19... Month 3 is now in the books. The account is up to $769.51 which is a monthly return of 84% (ended Month 2 at $418.89). For a while it looked like I was going to return somewhere around 25-30% but then hit a pretty big home run on Wednesday.

Balance


YTD Graph - FF trade explorer (The two black vertical lines represent a $200 loan I took out then put back in)


YTD Metrics


Month 3 Trades

Congrats man. This is starting to turn into a big score for the validity of TA. Initially, I was skeptical since it seemed like it was too easy to learn and that making money from the markets couldn't be as simple as following price action, but I may have to re-consider.

Like...

sry I did not respond before at you description of live trades

Range Breakout was a clear wp. Entry was spot on. I don't think necessary the exit was all that bad.

You can time the exit by duration, target or signal. In the breakout scenario you are betting long on volatility. This means you can time the exit by differentiating upside and downside volatility. And exit f.e. when the ration of up/down vol crosses some threshold.

In a sense you exit by looking at the slowdown of the directional move. Reasoning is that the slowdown in semi efficient market is indicative of directional alpha being arbitraged out, and you should jump out of the move also. This would actually keep you in that trade a lot longer as there was no slowdown.

As the first trade, I don't think I can comment to much. If you could post more samples maybe some ideas come up.

1. Returns are completely unverified, and bizarrely, OP refuses to provide real time posts. Of even a fraction of his trades when it's convenient. There have been lots of cons on the Internet, it's easy to fake this stuff.

2. Do you believe the forex market provides a return of 100%/month, which OP is claiming? Forex is tradable without slippage up to unbelievable size. There is nothing in the market that provides anywhere near these returns.

One of three things are possible:

a) Forex has consistent returns available to an average person trading for the first time, of> 50% month
b) OP is a fraud
c) OP is on an enormous heater.

An if OP is on an enormous heater, all of his results are likely be a heater, because the 100%/month heater has to be grossly outsized relative to the expected return in forex, which cannot be anywhere near even 50%/month for a large number of reasons. So the size of the variance must be enormous.
There is absolutely zero that OP has posted that should make you reconsider anything at all. The whole thread is worthless; OP has refused to do even a handful of real time entries and exits. It is seriously not that hard to post in real time...OP is now down to (absurdly, bizarrely) claiming that a few seconds is the difference between winning and losing, for trades that are held for hours. And claiming that he is unable to post be he is trading at work and might get distracted; he is however able to have a trading window open and watch ticks and make trades, but typing 100 AUDUSD @ 0.73 and hitting submit is too much for him.

This is true, although I believed him just because I can't fathom why someone would create a thread to lie about results on a forum. Like, what does OP stand to gain from doing that? At the same time, humans prove to be extremely irrational, regardless of how weird the behavior is.

Also, I definitely don't believe returning 100% is possible. I assumed OP's smaller sizing gives him a greater edge in his trades. An institution trading huge sums can't scalp as effectively since their volume has such a large effect on the price.

Mr. Baseball and Rikers contributions, as well as other high-content contributors on youtube also add more evidence that TA can be profitbale, even it is not the most optimal way to make $ in the markets.

I still remain skeptical to venture into trading TA for prolonged period of time, especially since I can make money through other means, but I also try to keep an open-mind to new opportunities. I don't think it's healthy to view everyone as a liar or scammer since I am already a naturally skeptical person to begin with.

I play breakouts a lot. I almost always use wide entry channel and a tight exit channel. 32 bar(entry)/5 bar(exit) are my favorites but will use others as well. A lot depends on current market conditions and how fast of bars you are using as well as type (time, tick, range).

It is always very tempting to get out of breakouts early as when they work they usually work extremely quickly meaning you have to wait for the tighter trailing stop channel to catch up which can be uncomfortable. This makes getting out early or too soon very common and very painful. The only way these kinds of trades work in the long run is to let them run their course and ALWAYS wait for the market to turn back over before exiting. This is easier said than done. The biggest mistake a breakout trader can make is taking profits too soon.

FFS, this again... From now on, I will start posting some real-time trades in here. I would've thought that the Forex Factory Trade Explorer would've been enough. Seriously - go on Forex Factory and look at any member that has a Trade Explorer (it will show at the bottom of their post if they do). You can't fake that. And I submitted the actual link to my TE in an earlier post, so that squashes the possibility of me doctoring the screenshot. You submit your account info and the website tracks all of your trading in real time. It is a 3rd party that is completely unbiased.


a) At no point did I say that I was trading for the first time. I have traded real money in the past (albeit unsuccessfully up until this point)

b) See mark "twang" response... I, too, cannot fathom why anyone would go to these lengths to fake something like this for such a long period of time. There's no logic to that at all.

c) This could very well be explained by an enormous heater. I certainly cannot provide any compelling evidence at this stage otherwise. If I were to analyze the majority of my winning trades, it would be from betting against the USD (I touched on this already at the end of my 2nd month). What I've been doing is really nothing complex. The focus of my success to this point has been acknowledging that I will lose as many, if not more, trades than I win. Knowing that, I make it a point to cut losers short and let the big winners (9 times out of 10 shorts of the USD) run as long as I'm able to. So far it has worked. Perhaps it will all come to a screeching halt. We'll see.


I would've thought you'd know that spot forex is remarkably volatile, particularly around the NY open. And this consideration has far less to do with trade duration, and more so the fact that I place tight stops and execution is everything when you do that, especially when you're trading the small time frames. And, it was only the difference in winning and losing in the context of your wager terms, particularly the stipulation of taking the price at the moment I post on 2+2. If something were to come up in the time between the actual execution and the time I was able to post, it would mean a huge difference between where price was at the actual execution and what price I would be held to per the terms of your rule. I understand your reason for requesting it though, but it's just not worth it given my current trading approach. That you still haven't accepted that reasoning really underscores the fact that you don't trade short-term forex.

Again, there was no point where I ever said I was unable to post. That was purely in the context of the wager, in which I wanted every trade to count, and in which by your rules there was the possibility that every trade wouldn't. It was purely a hypothetical conversation as to being unable to post, and the fact that you're presenting it otherwise is rather disingenuous and frankly beneath you.

At any rate, I will start posting some real-time trades, since apparently 3rd party, real-time tracking mechanisms aren't enough for you.

Thanks.

Perhaps, but perhaps not in the terms you are thinking. In forex, I would be inclined to say that it works. In other markets, I really can't say. I am of the belief that TA works only to the extent that other market participants believe that it works. For forex this may be to a greater degree. For other markets maybe not so much.

Once again, here is the link to my Trade Explorer:

https://www.forexfactory.com/nico1359#acct.10

I proved as well as I could on post #105 itt that this is mine (same last 2 numbers of account #, same broker). The balances also match. You can also look at the "Latest Closed Trades" in the TE and compare them to the screenshots above. This is legit. I will still post real-time trades if that's what it will take to convince some people around here, but at this point if you think that I am a fraud -- it is pure cognitive dissonance on your part.

I just did that. These are some top winners this month. It looks like the variance is enormous, even over decent numbers of trades. Note the monthly wins on decent number of trades vs lifetime getting crushed on a much larger number of trades:



The first guy above is a massive loser overall, but doing 550% over 165 trades - not that much below your total sample.



Here's one of the top winners this year, the first one with a meaningful amount of trades. 300% for the year on 800 trades, 0.7% lifetime on 10x this year's trades.



Given the kind of numbers we see here, the odds are > 95% that you're a losing trader on a heater.

Also, unless I'm mistaking it seems the straight stats can be misleading. This guy, for example, has fabulous returns until you look at his unrealized:



OP's unrealized is locked.



I'm sure all is fine, but I'm wondering if you can unlock the left for credibility's sake.

FWIW, the only thing I do is sporadically algorithmic long short trading
Mostly timed based around high vol, or specific market anomalies that were academically proven.

It is not my source of income.

Cool story, bro.

By the way, you are completely discounting the possibility that some of these people could have evolved from losing traders to winning traders and are catching up, so to speak (the first guy, probably not, but the other two could very well be). But then again, they certainly could be terrible traders on a heater. The biggest problem with the FF forums is that they are a breeding ground for mechanical trading systems that work for short periods of time under specific market conditions. There's always some trader and his charts that look like Jackson Pollock paintings claiming that his combination of rules and custom indicators will tame the market. Sadly, there are traders who will go from system to system, making a little for a while and then giving it back and more eventually. This is why I'm never on their forums. I use the site for news releases and the trade explorer.

You're right they can be misleading. Particularly traders with this particular style who will hold losing trades for inordinate amounts of time with the expectation that the loser will come back to them.

They can also be misleading in the other way around. Mine for instance says that my yearly return is 186% when it should be over 400%. It calculates on "absolute gain" of total deposits, in other words it doesn't net out the $200 withdraw and subsequent $200 deposit a few days later.

I didn't realize this. I can see everything just fine, but I'm guessing it probably defaults to locked for everyone else.

Try looking it up now:

https://www.forexfactory.com/nico1359

Like?

Sell USD/JPY 0.2 lots @ 108.91

Closed at 108.78 for +$23.16
Fee ($1.20)
Balance $791.47