Best Thread 55000 % in ONE month !

I also participated in that contest. Volatility was extremly high during that time
period, so ist's perfectly possible to get this kind of performance. So congrats to Magellan,
he beat me by a mile. (i finished 10th place, with 800% performance)
I wonder how much he was risking per trade. I hope he will tell us something about his
strategy and MM.
 
Thx, ok I found out about his MM: Like I expected
he goes "all in" all the time. With his real money he puts
his winnings in a save bank account. So he starts with 20k,
finishes a day with 50k, and puts 30k away , to start over
with 20k. ( Thats I understood his MM, not completly sure about)
TP about 4-5 Pips, SL 2-3 Pips. He does not reveal his strategy
in detail, but it's hard to copy anyway I think. I got this information
from a german forum. happy trading!
 
Thx, ok I found out about his MM: Like I expected
he goes "all in" all the time. With his real money he puts
his winnings in a save bank account. So he starts with 20k,
finishes a day with 50k, and puts 30k away , to start over
with 20k.
( Thats I understood his MM, not completly sure about)
TP about 4-5 Pips, SL 2-3 Pips. He does not reveal his strategy
in detail, but it's hard to copy anyway I think. I got this information
from a german forum. happy trading!

Wise move - if the broker goes bust, they probably only guarantee 50k.

If he's making 30k per day with real money - the kid done good!

The one thing we dont know is how much he risks per trade. If he risks a silly amount like 5%, he'd soon blow up. On a demo account this is not such a problem, as you know you are not risking losing anything.

If hes making 5500% per month on a real or demo account risking only 1-2% max per trade he is doing superbly.
 
Of course he risks 5% or even more.

The good news is, if one can replicate his results, one can still make loads with a fraction of the risk. If he risks 10%, you can risk 1% and make 10% of what he makes.
 
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Of course he risks 5% or even more.

The good news is, if one can replicate his results, one can still make loads with a fraction of the risk. If he risks 10%, you can risk 1% and make 10% of what he makes.

IMHO when you're scalping with a huge volume of trades your % risk becomes irrelavant. Your risk management then has everything to do with your ability to read price action in quick time. If your ability to read price is basic or your holding period is a lot longer then % risk becomes critical.

LT
 
Unless my math is screwy...

Thirty trades at 1% would be a 34.8% gain.

Thirty trades at 10% would be a 1645% gain, 47.3x as much.

Also the commission would affect the 1% rate quite a bit more.
 
Of course he risks 5% or even more.

The good news is, if one can replicate his results, one can still make loads with a fraction of the risk. If he risks 10%, you can risk 1% and make 10% of what he makes.

It doesn't work like that I'm afraid. 10% returns compounded over a given period/fixed number of trades, is far greater than 10 times, 1% compounded over a given period/fixed number of trades. Basic maths.........
 
It doesn't work like that I'm afraid. 10% returns compounded over a given period/fixed number of trades, is far greater than 10 times, 1% compounded over a given period/fixed number of trades. Basic maths.........

Yeah, I know. iirc BSD said those returns were not compounded.
 
Yeah, I know. iirc BSD said those returns were not compounded.

I really can't see how those returns would not be compounded. In a sense the 5500% information is useless without us knowing how much magellan risked of his capital per trade.

The best information would simply be to know, how many pips total Magellan made in that month, and what was his maximum pip risk per trade (stop loss size).

Sure, the better his performance/higher his % of winners, the more he would likely be inclined & willing to risk per trade.

But total pips profit, and cap risk per trade, and SL size max is the key info needed, not the capital growth over 1 month.
 
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Like I said he used always his whole margin. He tradet mostly USD/YEN.
Margin for 10 Lot= around 16.000 Euro. Everybody started with 100k.
The Pipvalue with 10 Lots= 82 Euro. So he could trade 62 Lots max.
(The Pipvalue might have been slightly different in the timeframe of the contest)
He used a SL=3Pips. 62x3x82Euro=15200 Euro. His risk per trade was
about 15% in theory. But the max. allowed contracts are 50 Lot per trade.
If uses market orders, which I assume, his TP or SL will be mostly hit before he can
enter a new order. So he was hardly ever with more than 100 Lots in the market.
This means even his risk was very high in the beginning of the contest, it became
very small with his larger account, because the max risk never exceeded 15000-30000 Euro per trade.
 
Like I said he used always his whole margin. He tradet mostly USD/YEN.
Margin for 10 Lot= around 16.000 Euro. Everybody started with 100k.
The Pipvalue with 10 Lots= 82 Euro. So he could trade 62 Lots max.
(The Pipvalue might have been slightly different in the timeframe of the contest)
He used a SL=3Pips. 62x3x82Euro=15200 Euro. His risk per trade was
about 15% in theory. But the max. allowed contracts are 50 Lot per trade.
If uses market orders, which I assume, his TP or SL will be mostly hit before he can
enter a new order. So he was hardly ever with more than 100 Lots in the market.
This means even his risk was very high in the beginning of the contest, it became
very small with his larger account, because the max risk never exceeded 15000-30000 Euro per trade.

Hi Cosmo

True. Perhaps compounding was not necessary if risking big %'s of capital. Still very superb performance no doubt, but i wonder what it would have equated to at 1-2%...



To achieve 800% over the 1 month (which b.t.w. is pretty damn gute ;))
How many pips total profit did you make?
What was maximum sl size?
What was your maximum capital risk per trade?

Thanks.
 
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Yeah, I know. iirc BSD said those returns were not compounded.

Hi mate, wasn't me who said that RE Maggi here.

:)

Think you mean this:

Thx, ok I found out about his MM: Like I expected
he goes "all in" all the time. With his real money he puts
his winnings in a save bank account. So he starts with 20k,
finishes a day with 50k, and puts 30k away , to start over
with 20k. ( Thats I understood his MM, not completly sure about)
TP about 4-5 Pips, SL 2-3 Pips. He does not reveal his strategy
in detail, but it's hard to copy anyway I think. I got this information
from a german forum. happy trading!

I'd say that he compounded the living daylights out of his trading style to end up 50K% plus, in fact think he said so somewhere.

But that's what I'd recommend as one of the most effective ways to grow your account anyway, doing a fixed fractional style, ie risking a fixed 1% or 2% (more in his challenge) or whatever on every single trade, thereby ensuring that you keep growing your trading position sizing along with your growing trading account, and thereby fully maximising the potential of your method without increasing percentual risk that is kept at sensible levels from the outset to ensure your survival in the inevitable eventual rough patch.

And I think that's what he is to a lesser degree also doing in his real trading account, compounding till he's turned his 20K into 50K, and then clearing out the account back down to 20K, and starting fresh.
 
Btw if someone wants to do the homework here is how much he risked per trade in the challenge:

ABNAMRO wisely have max leverage of 50:1...

He said he always goes all-in, which means that he compounds up and trades with as large a position per trade as his account allows him to lever...

And limits his actual risk to 2 or 3 pips per trade...

ANd there you go, there you have the ingredients.

:D
 
I don't know about the total points a made,
the broker only shows the history of the current month.
I did a lot pyramiding because of the high volatility. My
initial risk was very low, maybe 1%. Even with pyramiding
I used not more then 20-30% of my margin. I had pretty tight
stopps and if the postion moved in my favor a added another
position, while trailing the stopp of the first. And so on.
I had lot more losers then winners, but my loses were small and
I had a few really big winners. Markets were crazy during that time,
volatility was so high, I had to trade in th 1min timeframe, even in the
10sec timeframe. I remember GBP/JPY dropping 400 Pips in just 4 min.
My biggest downdraw was about 7% during that contest.
 
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Super stuff Cosmo !!!

I was googling for something just now and stumbled on one of your posts in the candletalk forum, where you mentioned something to the effect of "only being up several hundred percent" because you had completely internalised the meaning of sensible money management.

Well right you are RE importance of sensible money management, but 800% in one month is still by absolutely all measurements an absolutely fantastic performance, and even more so when you weren't risking more than 1%, and had a max dd of 7% !!!

Absolutely Amazing stuff.
 
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I had lot more losers then winners, but my loses were small and
I had a few really big winners.

That is interesting and shows that you know exactly what you're doing.

The math is a little confusing to me, perhaps someone can comment on the following:
$100,000 ... equity
$1000 risk ... 1%
$100 ...... price of stock
20 cents ... typical .2% gain shown on this thread and others

Something doesn't compute, as this would result in a $2 gain.

It would be interesting to see a summary or averages of the risks and returns for Magellen or Cosmo,
and how they differ between playing for paper and for real.
 
Thx, ok I found out about his MM: Like I expected
he goes "all in" all the time. With his real money he puts
his winnings in a save bank account. So he starts with 20k,
finishes a day with 50k, and puts 30k away , to start over
with 20k. ( Thats I understood his MM, not completly sure about)
TP about 4-5 Pips, SL 2-3 Pips. He does not reveal his strategy
in detail, but it's hard to copy anyway I think. I got this information
from a german forum. happy trading!

This means he goes 20k for each trade, which is 100 percent of his equity?
 
That is interesting and shows that you know exactly what you're doing.

The math is a little confusing to me, perhaps someone can comment on the following:
$100,000 ... equity
$1000 risk ... 1%
$100 ...... price of stock
20 cents ... typical .2% gain shown on this thread and others

Something doesn't compute, as this would result in a $2 gain.

It would be interesting to see a summary or averages of the risks and returns for Magellen or Cosmo,
and how they differ between playing for paper and for real.

I don't quite get the question. Are you missing out on leverage which they had at ABNAMRO of a max 50:1.

Anyway, they weren't trading stocks, but forex.

This means he goes 20k for each trade, which is 100 percent of his equity?

He is always all in (plus leverage of potentially a max 50:1), but of course that does not mean he is risking even anywhere near his all, as he exits trades when they run a few pips against him, so he loses a few percent of his equity max per trade.
 
@ John
"All in" means all margin you can get for your equity. The 20k into 50k
was btw just an example i made up to explain his MM. Maybe he turns
10k into 12k or 20k into 70k, I don't know. He just said he takes his
winnings aside. And I have seen him turn in 18k into 62k in a few hours,
but I don't know if he can do it on regular basis.

Risking 1% with 100k starting capital means I can trade about 10-15 Lots
with a 10 Pip Stopp, depending on the pair you trade. Example: The Pipvalue for
USD/JPY is 1Pip=8.2 Euro with 1Lot. Trading 10 Lots a pip is worth 82 Euro. An executet 10 Pip Stopploss would result in a loss of 820 Euro or 0.82% of 100k.
 
Just an observation based on my Oanda demo trades. I think the same will apply though…

Looking at the charts posted at the start of the thread, it appears that Maggie was never actually stopped of a trade out automatically i.e. He never used a hard stop level. All his entries / exits are shown as blue / orange triangles which indicates they were executed purely manually.
A trade that is stopped out automatically is indicated by a small red/ brown filled circle.

This must mean he has very fast reactions when getting out of a losing trade early.
He must also have very good discipline; I guess these things are obvious though just from his results.

Best Regards,
Neil
 
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