Greetings Zulu fans-
After last week's wipeout, i'm back into research and demo-account mode. So I scanned the top 20 providers and applyed this criteria. See my Feb 2009 post for some rationale behind these criteria:
1) No large, open drawdowns.
2) Consistent effort
3) 80% or better winning percentage
4) No "Painting the Tape"
5) No large drawdowns in History - ability to take reasonable size losses
Here are the raw results, those with an asterisk (*) are demo-worthy:
- Rascave - Large open losses - almost -3000 pips
- LowestDD - Large open losses - over -5500 pips
- Coolie1997 - Different pairs, worthy of a demo account - 83% win rate *
- scalp trades - He got whacked by GBP recently, I've seen that movie too.
- pipking - Promising if not for large losses in the history - 400 pips, -500 pips
- Got pips? - Large open losses - almost -1400 pips
- Trendcatcher - Looks good - only 1 large open loss *
- Euro-Asian Capital - Large open losses - over -400 pips
- Pro-B5 - Still demo worthy, but small profits remain a concern *
- Pipsvitamin - Large open losses - -5700 pips
- FXMachine - Large open losses -8300
- fxicb - Large open losses - 1460 pips
- FAST PIPS - Large open losses - -4000 pips
- AkhterFX - Nice record, only 1 large loss - looks like a winner!*
- zun - Sometimes days/weeks w/o trade, but good win size!*
- Signal - Large open losses, too many aliases
- pippingfx - Large open losses - 11,900 pips
- Active FX Trader - Looks too much like Bigwin, clobbered by GBP/JPY
- GasCan69 - Keeps losses around -150 pips which is good*
As a result, I created 5 different demo accounts, with these providers:
- Coolie1997
- Trendcatcher
- Pro-B5
- AkhterFX
- Zun
- GanCan69
I didn't limit the accounts for multiple positions, but put a -180 pip stop on each position.
Let's see how they make out. Have a good week and happy trading!
Nice Tcxmon,
ReplyDeleteI am glad I am not the only one out there looking for a good provider. Did you notice Pro-B5 changed his strategy? He now mentions he will put a safe stop at 120 to 300. Not sure I like that. I will probably continue to keep an eye on him. As you probably already know I am doing a double month on coolie1997, Davincy, and GasCan69. They are doing great for Sept. 09. (still got a few days left, I will post on my final results). I will take a look at Trendcatcher, AkhterFX, and zun as you suggest. I hope we can find some good ones.
PS - I am working on my own signals. I have a slower method that looks promising (maybe 1 to 10 trades a month). I started a signal provider account 'simplepips', not visible yet. I have made 4 successful trades so far, that could have actually been better (I've been a bit conservative/chicken and taking around 20 pips instead of the 50 I am planning to go for, of which all four wins would have hit 50... dang). happy trading
Just wanted to let you and everyone know that GasCan69 just bit it today for me in my demo account. I keep a 100 pip safe stop on him. He hit that on 2 of the 5 losses,(maybe 3), in a row. Ouch! Hope no one was using him in a live account. I believe he still has 2 of those bad trades open for larger losses. I was trading at 2 trades with one lot. Not sure what happened but this is the kind of thing that makes practice/demo account very valuable. Lets you see the character and actions of the signal provider under pressure. GasCan69 failed miserably. I was up 371 pips then after today I am at -83 pips. GasCan69 obviously panicked... Good to know. I am now considering not following him for next month.
ReplyDeleteJT-
ReplyDeleteYes, I saw that.
We should consider the merits of using the 'Reverse' checkbox. If most Zulutrade providers loose money, then we should make money by doing the opposite, right?
Thanks for keeping on top of your game and for the regular comments!
http://zulumon.blogspot.com/
You are right tcxmon, I am demoing a few providers on the reverse and proper management would be key to that , because :
ReplyDelete- when trading on reverse, zulutrade respects close signal sent by provider, but since they are closing opposite trade it is rarely good for revese (there is no "bypass close" at the moment) , the only option I see would be to set TP and hit it before provider provides close
Queb-
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments.
Understood that reverse will show a lot of small losses, since most providers will take a gain when they have it. So you may have tolerate a whole string of small losses before the big loss comes along and makes it all back.
Then again, nobody said making money in forex was easy! Thanks again.
http://zulumon.blogspot.com