Welcome back Zulutraders.Since Zulutrade demo accounts only last 29 days, we have to extract whatever useful information we learned from the demo before the accounts disappear. So here's are the results of our demo accounts started back on 9/27/2009:
Coolie 1997 came out on top +223 pips. At one point he was up almost 500 pips, but 2 of his trades hit my 180-pip stop in the past 2 weeks of the test period.
In my real account I wasn't as fortunate since I joined him right at the top (talk about top-ticking a trade) and took a nasty drawdown pushing my real account to fresh lows. But I don't want that to take away from Coolie since he's had a pretty solid record so far in his just over 3 months on the Zulutrade. Thus far his max drawdown has been -431 pips.
One truism of trading and growing your account is that there's always a bigger drawdown coming your way. So don't be surprised when it happens and realize its just a part of trading. After that you just have to pick yourself up and do what it takes to get your account back on an upward trajectory.
Next up on the demo accounts was Trendcatcher who was up +52 pips over the demo period with a maximum drawdown -120 pips. Trendcatcher does have a way of keeping his losses down and he hit my stop of -180 pips only once in the demo period. He was then able to come back from that loss which is a good sign. I'm going to follow Trendcatcher going forward.
Next up was TheKillerz who was down -158 pips of the 3-week period this demo account was active. His profitability remains lumpy with regular 200-pip drawdowns interspersed with consecutive gains of 50, 90 and 120 pips. Overall, remains worthy of further demoing and we thank Mr Rabea for reading this blog and commenting. BTW i'm listening to "Everything will be all right" from The Killers Hot Fuss and I have to say its wierding me out a bit.
Next up was Zun who was down -182 pips over the demo period with a max drawdown of about -280 pips. I don't think i'll be following Zun going forward because he seems to trade mostly the GBP/JPY and tends to take small profits which in my experience is not a good combination.
Last up was AkhterFX who turned in a disatrous -943 pips. Akhter recommends against using stop-losses on his profile page. He's currently showing -538 pips of open losses, so he's clearly in favor of riding out losses. That might work for him, but it doesn't work for me, so I will not be following Akhter going forward. However we wish him well and we thanks him for reading the blog and commenting.
There's a lot of other cool stuff going on on Zulutrade, so stay tuned for updates. Enjoy your weekend.
Thanks Tcxmon. I always like reading your results. Aston has been my highlight for this month. He does a major no no that I don't like, multiple trades at same time, but manages to make some bigger gains, which outweighs bigger losses. No need for more than one open trade for this guy, any more than that and you are just getting the same trade. Stopped out once at -120 and accidentally at -84. Looking forward to see if he can pull a second month.
ReplyDeleteHave a good weekend.
Hey there Chris,
ReplyDeleteGreat post as always,
I really took a bad hit this week on Zulutrade. I was so excited from the first week and this week really, really let me down. First off, I definitely know that providers will have bad days or weeks or losses. I just didn't think they would have losses that bad. I had the Provider, Sophistication, FX Trends and LowestDD. During that oversold area during the middle of the week, they took Sell Trades and I lost big time. I could not figure out why they made sell trades during that period. I saw no real big retracements during the times it was going up. It is my fault, I should not have allowed those trades. However, I lost a total of -454 Pips between the three of them. On another note, I disabled the three people above and found a provider named profit#1. I observed his stats and like what I see. I tried to get into some trades but on the History, it would not take some of the trades, I had to call customer service three times, I think got it right. By the time I called the last time, the market was closed. Thanks for viewing my thread and Have a great weekend.
Jimmy
JT-
ReplyDeleteThanks, will take a look at Aston. Also will be checking out your blog regularly at:
http://www.zulutrade-top.blogspot.com/
Jimmy-
I feel your pain and i've also under-estimated the drawdowns involved in currency trading.
I also lost about -500 pips this week and I don't want to misrepresent to our readers that i've made money with Zulutrade. In fact, i'm down about 45% on a $10K investment started in early 2009 with Zulutrade. How's that for a harsh reality?
So I wish I could say that this blog can give you the formula to make money with Zulutrade, but I haven't found it yet.
That said, I'm still fascinated with the whole Zulutrade economy and I would suggest that you use demo accounts before you commit real funds.
It reminds me of the guy (Don?) in your trading room who spend $199 for the Forex trading robot and has been running it in demo mode for 5 months! That's serious patience and its just a hit of the level of committment that's requirement to make money in this market.
So go slow and be generous with your time, effort and attention but stingy with your real money.
And keep up the great work you are doing over in the Million $ trading room over at:
http://milliondollartradingroom.blogspot.com
Tcxmon
Hey Chris-mon,
ReplyDeleteI must say that I have spoken before looking. In other words, I did not complete my research before posting on your generous site. After reading your post, I went back into the Zulutrrade site and noticied that the trades that LowestDD took all came back into Winners..I exited those trades in losses when I could not emotionally handle the DD. If I had stayed into the trades and emotionally handled the DD, the trades that I took with LowestDD would have been winners..So, What is the solution to the emotions of DD. In reference to lowestDD, my account could have weathered the DD. As always Chris-Mon, thanks for allowing me to Share my thoughts with you.
JimmyB
I am more in favor of riding out market hysteria than I am drawdowns ;). I take the same trades on my personal account that are pubished to zulutrade. I stood by my word and have not opened 100's of other trades too fade losses/paint the tape. If you followed the rules outlined you would be in pretty good shape.
ReplyDeleteThe system is very accurate and at times the entries are met with great resistance. As I have stated before on this blog I usually deal with a 1-3 day delay and at times it spans out to a week or more. It's a problem I am trying to fix. Although it is extremely difficult to find a valid realationship/solution with time and the pricing algo as markets will always remain irrational.
Corrections for those trades were dramatic in comparison to the snail's pace increase in initial drawdown. Nontheless, thank you for trying me out and good luck with your zulutrade experience.
All the best,
Shawn