That article is complete rubbish. If they write this in Objections 1.: In other words, profitability is not an edge because it may be the result of luck. So whatever you proof you can provide, it will always be marked as LUCK. Which makes it by definition impossible to proof anything at all. For me the tests they did are luck too. Proof me wrong.
Most traders aren't flipping a coin. My take on your link is that the material presented is a marketing effort by "Price Action labs" to sell their 897.50+ dollar per year trading system. It is a pattern recognition program but they claim it is "price action trading". In an effort to sell their "system" they mention people thinking they have an"edge" with indicators. No $hit? Indicators don't work for short term trading?" Who would have thunk that? In my opinion you would be much better off learning to read the order flow. Learn how to use the Depth of Market and the tape. Trade just one product and learn it well. It will take considerable time before it "clicks" and that is why most retail traders just stick with their indicators that "sort of" work.
That is such stupid thinking in this day and age of spoofing. The order tape is a fraudulent depiction of real intentions. Now if you can profit from the fraud, then you now have a good system on your own.
This is an interesting observation : would this be the main reason topsteptrader is so badly considered? Too objective in highlighting pass or fail? ( ps: still on my combine)
Asking if somebody is consistently profitable is a stupid and irrelevant question. Consistency is only a small part of the correct mesurement of performance. Even the best trader in the world (Viktor) was not able to be profitable 20 years in a row. Profitable means make more than only 0% a year. Three samples below, who is the best traders? It would be logical that only a couple keep losing. If you lose all the time you should stop trading. So logically only the morons stay losing, those with enough brains would stop losing for the simple reason that they stopped trading.
I'd say it depends on what you want and when you can pull your money out. It seems that: 1) TraderA : huge volatility in his trading. Interesting if one can pull out the money when one wants, and wants huge returns with huge risks. The idea being to pull out the money when a given profit target is reached. 2) TraderB : very stable trading. Good for papy and mamy who want to grow steady and do not want any heartaches on their investment statement 3) TraderC: very interesting. Main concern is in 2007. I would not know how to best exploit the way TraderC performs.
If consistently profitable would be the rule to follow, probably 95% of all funds would be eliminated for investing. You will have a big job to find 10 funds that are consistently profitable for at least 20 years. Because that's what people repeat here all the time towards daytraders or short term traders. Your answers show already that choosing is not just looking for consistently profitable traders. There is much more to watch at.Even more important things then consistently profitable (like time of recovery after DD). On ET many people only think black or white. They don't understand that grey is possible too. And then, maybe, the answer could be: Maybe you should take a fund that is not consistently profitable instead of a consistently profitable one. Because of other reasons that are important too, or even more important. I think that understanding mass behavour is the key to succes. Mass behavour makes people repeat statements they read somewhere, because they see it everywhere, without any critical reflection. Famous statements are: 99% of all traders lose. Almost nobody can be consistently profitable. You should be the richest man on earth....... The same happens in trading. Most money can be made from this mass behavour by taking the opposite side.