Hello All! Nice to be back in this site after a long break. I have been trading on and off with mixed success and failure though in my last successful period, I was able to convert an account with 1X$ to 3 or 4X$ in 30 to 45 days. Though I had a system my losses were due to my own breaking the rules of the system and the system lacked few key parameters which I fixed now and started trading again since last 2 weeks. I am more disciplined and strict with closing wrong trades and I am able to convert 1X$ to 30X$ in 2 weeks or less. Though I still made some mistakes which I was able to correct quickly and able to maintain the discipline. I want to know how long (in weeks or months) needed to measure a system's consistency to say this is a good system or reliable? It depends on the market cycle or economic conditions or it is based on the trading system alone? Thanks for your time / replies.
1X$ into 30X$ in two weeks?! Well, franky the system is not good enough. Good system is able to turn 1X$ into at least 70-120X$ in the same time period. Moreover, it has to be easily scalable. If it's not able to handle let's say 100 mln dollars - this is again not a very good system. Open a paper trading account and try to turn 100 mln USD to let's say at the very least 5 billion in 2-3 weeks max and then please write back here and share your success. If you succeed - you may very well have a good trading system. And do not listen to those who will say it is not good enough - most will just feel jealous. You can even create a site and sell your system for let's say 69,99 USD. Sounds like a nice businessplan to me. You can even write a book... nah, just hire a ghost writer who will do this for you, name a book "How I turned 100 mln into 5 bln in 3 weeks! Secrets of a Pennhurst market wizard". You can sell it on Amazon for the same 69,99 USD. You will be both rich and famous.
I understand it is not believable. But this is not demo. I have to admit that I took very high risk in initial trades but later scaled down. Let us say I took 1X$ to 10X$ in 1-2 weeks and move by profits of 8X$ and start with 2X$ again. No Paper trade. I have done enough demos. I trade with my own funds a bit small though. And this is Forex and gbpjpy is the only ccy pair I trade. And my entries are based on a semi automatic system generated and stops are usually tight.
I would say one needs at least 12 months to judge any trading system's performance as well as trader's psyche response to drawdowns caused by following it - one full calendar year. Solely my opinion. Obviously you use an insane amount of leverage now and it will catch you up rather sooner then later. If you spend 2 months doing fine using this strategy and then all of a sudden you blow up your account - you begin from the very beginning. These 2 months do not count as successful. The funny thing is that by using leverage like this and doing multiples of your account in weeks you destroy yourself as a trader - if you do not understand it now - you will later. And it is not a pleasing process I can assure you.
I don't think it never, truly ends...even the best systems or traders...are always on the verge of suffering a noticeable hit ...that's just simply the nature of this game...of trading the market. I like this answer -- the bottom line. But alot of rich, or better off, people...are rather conservative or simple...so you'll never know based on just looking at cars.
There's no one answer, for some people unless the markets drastically change how they operate, they will likely remain profitable or keep their edge. For others their system may be relying on a bull market, bear market, neutral market or certain type of buyers or pattern that disappears or changes over time.
We generally don't consider anyone "consistently profitable" under they have consistently won for at least 3 months in a row. It takes about 6-9 months to get consistently profitable in the first place, at the very earliest. It took me 10-12 months before I got it and that was over 5 years ago. I have had to press the reset button on everything recently and it is back to scratch again. You're only as good as your last day, last month, last year. Measuring anything in days or weeks in this game is just asking for humiliation and setting yourself up for disappointment. I don't want you to feel shamed and I sincerely hope your system is working well, but with 250 trading days in a year, taking a sample of 30-40 days is just going to hurt yourself mentally in the long-run. The red flags I generally look out for is when someone says they have a "system". A system is different to a trading approach, or trading philosophy or methodology. A system is more rigid, where-as the others are more organic and built off experience and subject to change at a moments notice. Every system has a shelf-life, just like milk at the supermarket. If you need any help, feel free to ask.
If I am using the incorrect wording I apologize, my intention was not to constrain something into a pigeon hole by using the word system. but by system I meant a group of factors, indicators or etc that help you read and analyze the markets. Not just "X" stop "Y" target based on this one thing and good luck, because it won't help you read the overall markets or with any other types of trades. I'll correct myself and say trading philosophy or methodology.