Greetings Zulu-traders.We've seen a marked difference in trading behavior and results of our recent favorite Zulutrade provider Coolie 1997 in the past few weeks.
In response to my post Zulutrade Provider Coolie 1997 responds! back on 10/13, we had a lively exchange with 14 comments where Coolie responded to various questions and described his method for his Zulutrade positions. Based on his performance, and degree of loss control, we went live with Coolie back on 10/12. From there, he went onto a high of +59 pips on a max drawdown of -89 pips.
That was the end of his run and now i'm down about -500 pips on Coolie not counting the -100 pip open loss in an EUR/USD position. Every trader goes through drawdowns and that is to be expected. But this is an outright change in behavior. Here is some hard data to back up that observation:
From his start on Zultrade back on 6/29 through 10/13 Coolie had an average high of 49 pips, and average max drawdown of -41 pips and an average profit per trade of nearly 26 pips. Since 10/13, he's had an average high of +48 pips, an average max drawdown of -103 pips and an average gain of -79 pips.
Also, Coolie hasn't closed a trade since 10/22. In term of his open trades, here are the stats:
AUD/JPY 10/27 - 1 BUY at 84.14 - now 80.99 down -315 pips
EUR/USD 10/27 - 1 BUY at 1.4813 - now 1.4712 down -100 pips
EUR/JPY 10/27 - 1 BUY at 136.864 - now 132.38 down - 448 pips
USD/JPY 10/23 - 1 SELL at 91.93 - now 89.98 up +195 pips
Overall, he's down about -668 pips on open positions. Generally, I don't have a problem with that except for the sharp difference in trading behavior. Many of these positions moved in and out of profitablity (within past profit-taking behavior anyway) but these trades seem to be abandoned overall.
I don't know what's going on with Coolie, but here are my theories:
1) He's decided to revert to his own trading style (long term position based on fundamentals) he uses for his own real money and eschewed his prior Zulutrade trading style (aka 6th sense).
2) He's no longer engaged with Zulutrade and busy with work, personal or other family matters.
We're not due an answer, but Coolie, if you are reading, please give us an idea what you are doing. Absent your response we have to conclude you are not longer engaged and have to go onto to find other providers who pay more attention to our money.
To Coolie 1997 and all our readers - hope all is well with you and your family.
Best regards,
Tcxmon
I almost think it has to do with #1 you have listed. He does keep making trades, so it would appear that he has not abandoned trading. To say the least I am a bit disappointed in the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteTownjet-
ReplyDeleteAgreed - he's on the job - just not the one we signed him up for!
Oh well, plenty of other providers on Zulu who are more active, and more 'hit and run' oriented (Bigwin, Cheetah) and a few others I have in mind.
I think its important, that we set aside some funds for longer-term trading, because its hard to make any serious money taking 10-pip profits.
Thanks for commenting,
Tcxmon
Townjet-
ReplyDeleteBy the way - remember that EUR/USD trade that you bailed out on, and you thought too early? Well I stuck with it and got stopped out today down -180 pips. That closes the last of my positions with Coolie and i'm pretty disappointed with his turn of behavior as well.
But it bring up an interesting point. I was up on this trade at one point close to 50-pips, but it went against me 100 pips, then back in my favor 30 pips, then against me again, this time hitting my -180 pip stop.
So I see why providers take profits when they have them. Its not so much that you are taking a profit, its that you are avoiding a loss. There's always another day, and always another move to be traded in Forex. But if you don't take profits when you have them, they can pretty easily turn into losses.
I have to get out of the "Buy and Hold" mentality if I have in equities where i'm trying to hold on for some decent gains before closing a position.
Obviously, the sustainability equation still applies - where you have to make enough up on your losses to make back what you loose on your loosers. But if you wait too long, your winners can turn into loosers!
Tcxmon
That is a bummer on the EUR/USD trade. I was not in on that position in my real account as I did not have 3 open trades for coolie, regardless, I still took 4 big losses by coolie that wiped out 420 pips.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a really good subject in regards to profit taking when it comes to currency trading. It is a topic that I have pondered at times. You see many traders out there that take the smaller gains and I think it has to do with, "hey I am in the green, and I don't want to take a loss now" so they take the few pips when it is green. I think if I was as avid a trader, watching my trades constantly, I might respond the same way. I do see some bad sides to this... Mostly being that a good method has a balance of strong stop loss management in place AND has a strong gain management in place. I think at times focus gets put on stop loss management and gain management does not get as much scrutiny. The gains are what cancel out the losses that will happen with the method, pushing us steadily higher into profits. I think many signal users are deceived by the many gains when they view many of the signal providers on Zulu. They forget that there is loss involved at what cost, and of course many signal providers on Zulu try to hide those losses in one way or another.
Right now it looks like coolie is not doing either stop management or gain management like he use to. It looks more long term like his USD/JPY pair that pulled 224 pips. Is he switching over longer term when it comes to this management? Kind of like msp-novafx
I am certainly not the best, or have the best advice, with currency trading, but you may remember me talking about a method I have been working on of which I think I took a pretty good approach on. My focus when back testing the method was to find maximum possible gain on each potential trade as well as a stop loss that would suite the overall maximum gains in the history and pull consistent profits over time despite getting stopped out at my stop loss every now and then. I have set a limit and set a stop on every future trade I plan to make. The only drawback is I wish I had a stop move strategy that could maximize a gain, as I found many trades could push way past my limit.
I like to say, “When you are in the green, take the green”. But it has to match balance with your stop loss in a positive pip manner, or you will not make money.
When I was making money with coolie I had one time where I stopped out at 105, there was one or two other times I took a smaller loss, but with the average 30 to 40 pip gains that incurred on the green trades, I came out on top several hundred pips at the end of my first month. Then we all know what happened after that…
Anyway, I ramble on too much. Good topic though on taking gains.
Hi Tcxmon,
ReplyDeleteSorry for a long absense.
I have been seeking what trade style is the best for Zulu and me. Zulu users like short term gain, and my real trade style is very long one.
The change of trade style made the users' lot smaller. The total lots of all the users became 10-15%.
Even though my job prevents me from trading 24 hours a day, the answer is almost 1), not 2).
Sorry again for a sudden change and a big loss, please use me effectively by putting stop order, betting small lot, etc.
See you sometime,
coolie1997