Tradewin (not to be confused with...)

[fibonelli]

The initial price of the system concerns me. It would be far equitable, imho, for a monthly or annual subscription to the system.

Furthermore, if you compare the results in 2002 and the early part of 2003 against all other years, you'll see that there appears to be a bullish bias to the trading system.

I notice that there are up to six entries in one day, isn't this overtrading?

btw my trading system picked up the NEXT buy signal @ 1760 close rather than 1771.

 

[WirralOwl]

I'm a novice in trading, but am trying to get a handle on this sort of software.

If my maths is right, looking at their trades earlier on I can't see how the claim of only staking 5% of the bank is what they actually do? Can someone with some experience of tradewin please help explain?

With a £2000 bank, the value of their early trades in my eyes were in the region of £5000 :

eg. Trade 1 : £8.46 @ £5.77 per point = £4881.42 ?

I'm aware that with most spread betting firms you get leverage up to 10x your stake, ie. a £2000 bank actually gives spending power of £20,000, but even so, its still 25% of the value of the bank per trade ? Seems as though the risk is quite high at such an early stage (unless you use very tight stop losses?). And then within a couple of days of the first trade, they open up 4 more bets all of a simialr value. How is this possible without receiving margin calls?

I'm genuinley interested, so would appreciate any pointers to what part of the bigger picture I'm not seeing?

many thanks

Phil

 

[NETHER]

Hi Phil,

Your calcs are right other than you haven't taken the margin in to account....to trade the position you would only require 10% of the £4881....£488. For the larger capped ftse stocks usually only a 5% margin would be required so only £240 odd is needed to trade.

Hope this helps.

 

[motd2k]

I'm a novice in trading, but am trying to get a handle on this sort of software.

If my maths is right, looking at their trades earlier on I can't see how the claim of only staking 5% of the bank is what they actually do? Can someone with some experience of tradewin please help explain?

With a £2000 bank, the value of their early trades in my eyes were in the region of £5000 :

eg. Trade 1 : £8.46 @ £5.77 per point = £4881.42 ?

I'm aware that with most spread betting firms you get leverage up to 10x your stake, ie. a £2000 bank actually gives spending power of £20,000, but even so, its still 25% of the value of the bank per trade ? Seems as though the risk is quite high at such an early stage (unless you use very tight stop losses?). And then within a couple of days of the first trade, they open up 4 more bets all of a simialr value. How is this possible without receiving margin calls?

I'm genuinley interested, so would appreciate any pointers to what part of the bigger picture I'm not seeing?

many thanks

Phil

It's 5% - the stop would have been set around 850, so 17 points at £5.77 per point is around £100... i.e. 5% of the £2000 starting capital.

 

[WirralOwl]

Aaah...Got it !

Thanks for the answers / explanation.

 

[bowerandy]

Hi there,

One thing concerns me is that, amongst the TradeWin "members" who have responded in this thread, no one has yet mentioned the "double-glazing" salesman style tactics that are used to hook you in if you attend one of their demonstrations. It makes me think that not all of these respondents are likely to be genuine.

Let me explain by running through my recent experience:

I went for a demonstration at their office in Borehamwood on 15th Dec 2006. I had already received their information e-mail which informed me of the basic costs: £4000 up front and £500 pa ongoing charges for "data". The office is in a technology park and is just a sales space - no one from TradeWin appears to actually work there on a day to day basis.

I saw a chap called Jeran who is just a salesperson. Apparently the trader who designed the system and the programmer who built the software live/work somewhere else and trade the system every day from there. My impression is that they probably do trade the system themselves (so it PROBABLY) works but there is no real proof of this - see later.

The system comes as a piece of Windows client software that you install on your PC. It is quite glitzy with real-time charting and indicators and you can drag and drop symbols onto the charts but in reality this is all a bit superfluous. All it REALLY does as act like a messaging client where they can distribute trading signals to users: pre-market and during the trading day. Frankly MS or Yahoo Messenger would have been just as effective but rather less glossy. Having the polished software front-end would probably make you think you were getting better value for your £4K up front.

So what happens is that trading "alerts" are sent through to you during the day. The alerts don't appear to be in a completely regular format so this makes me think that the trading system at the other end isn't truly automatic but involves manual intervention. The signals that come through need scaling to your particular trading account size. They provide a little calculator tool to do this, i.e. to work out what point size you should be trading but really the software should do this for you to avoid errors.

I was told that most signals come through before the UK market open and so can be entered at one point early in the day. Some signals do come through on a real-time basis and it was not clear how many of these there would be and how the performance would be affected for those people who could not monitor their PC at all times. One real-time signal did come through while I was there (at about 11:30am) so it can be that rare an occurrence.

So far, so good. However, Jeran didn't seem particularly knowledgeable about trading systems or he was being deliberately evasive. I asked if the system had been back-tested to demonstrate it's historical performance and to show statistics like Profit Factor, Max Draw-down, Sharpe Ratios etc. He said there were no such data and just referred me back to the "actual trading results" on the website. I didn't see any point in pursuing the back-testing tack and asking him about whether they'd tried to avoid curve fitting by back-testing and then forward testing on different historical data. Frankly, if this is a technical analysis based system and there isn't any back-testing data I wouldn't go near it in a million years. I suspect the information probably IS available back at HQ but probably shows severe imperfections (i.e. high draw-downs) at the level of gearing they use (the early results are very highly geared - the later results are capped at a 25K account size).

If the lack of back-testing data was the first major hurdle for me, the second came fast on it's heels. When I went to the demonstration, the website stated that the historical information there represented ACTUAL TRADES that had been taken since 2002. This interested me because it meant that liquidity had been taken into account as had the spread bet commissions and the (sometimes dubious) nature of the market making activities that the spread betting companies take part in. Thus it implied that the system might actually be tradeable. However, at the demo, Jeran informed me that the website history was just for the ALERTS that had been issued and did not necessarily represent trading in any particular real account. As far as I was concerned this meant the historical results were truly no better than hypothetical results and would give you any idea about the true performance of the system.

I notice now that the website has been changed. It now says: "This website details every single ALERT that has been signalled by the software over the years, not theoretical, actual alerts, that are followed by us and all of our members". Frankly, whether an alert is theoretical or not makes no difference - it is still an alert and not an actual trade.

By this point I'd all but lost interest but now came the final straw. I pointed out that £4000 up front was rather expensive for something that could not be refunded or trialled (and something that would be useless if the people behind it decided to stop supporting it or fell under a bus). Jeran pointed out that he didn't really have to sell the system to me because there were only a limited number of places and these would surely be filled quite quickly. However, he was willing to make me a deal. He would drop the price by £500 and throw in an extra six months "data" (worth £250) but only if I signed up BEFORE LEAVING THE ROOM.

I've never bought double glazing or purchased a timeshare but I can't stand this sort of sales tactic so at that point I was out of my chair and half way to the door. To be fair, Jeran did offer to extend the deadline to the end of the day but I later discovered that the £250 free data was a special offer they were running for all of December (not just Friday 15th) anyway.

So, in short, I can't actually say whether the TradeWin system works or not but really for four grand I'd expect more than just vague "look at these past alerts" hand waving. All I can say to prospective subscribers is BEWARE. If TradeWin are reading this and truly believe they have a genuine product, in my opinion, they should:

1) Get rid of Jeran (or at least tell him to tone down the hard sell tactics). I found his lack of knowledge and smarmy approach very irritating.

2) Ideally, one of the developers should give the demonstration.

3) You must be able to show back-test results so that one can judge whether a system stands a chance of success in the long run. My own opinion is that the APR of the overall system (across all stocks) should be at least twice that of the maximum draw-down and the Sharpe Ration should be > 1.8 or so. With this information I might have been convinced that the system was genuine.

4) You should allow access to a genuine statement for a real spread betting account that has been trading this system for a period (why not pay one of your subscribers for this info if you want it quickly). You would need at least six months worth of trades so people could compare your alerts to what real trading could achieve.

5) If you want to maintain a high upfront fee then you must have a trial period of, say, one month. You should also have a guarantee of a partial refund if you decide to stop doling out signals in a subsequent two year (say) period. If you had these, and TradeWin actually works, then I think you would significantly increase the uptake of this high price system. If the system makes a loss in the trial period .. just offer to extend the trial for another month.

6) You need to take this paragraph out of the FAQ e-mail that you send to prospective customers.

"Why sell it? In a market where the amount of participants has no bearing on the success of the strategy, there is absolutely no reason not to get others involved! It allows us to develop and invest in future enhancements of the strategy. Making our system available to others does not preclude us from making money and nor does it affect the profits of our traders…If it did, then it wouldn’t be available!"

This is quite plainly nonsense (did Jeran write it?) and just makes you appear bogus. Even if your customers are spread betters the SB company will still take real positions in the underlying stocks if there are not enough betters on the other side to hedge the positions you recommend so the market must be affected.

---

Until they do these things it looks more like they are out to take money off the greedy/stupid rather than offer a genuine value for money prospect for their customers.

I hope this (rather long, sorry) message is of some use to those people who might be interested in taking a look at TradeWin. It would be interesting to hear back from the TradeWin people themselves if they have any answers to the above points.

Best regards

 

[WirralOwl]

Thank you very much indeed for taking the trouble to post your experiences in detail, bowerandy.

Unfortunately they confirm some of the fears that I already had and raised several other important issues, that are hard for me to ignore.

From my original calculations on this thread, I wasn't comfortable with the amount of risk involved in the early stages. £5K per investment against a geared 'bank' of £20,000 doesn't leave much room for error in those vital early days. All the more reason for a good support system to be in place - which doesn't sound to be the case here.

The lack of back-testing is also a worry (not sufficiently adressed it would seem), but as you point out perhaps the biggest concern would be to invest £4K in the software, only to find it become obsolete, should the original programmer/trader(s) withdraw their support, fall out with the company etc etc. The salesperson's response to this key issue is hardly reassuring either...!

I'd agree there's nothing worse than hard-sell tactics, and the lack of a trial-period is surpising and concerning for a product demanding such a high up-front fee.

Think I'll keep reading my TA books and learn from my own mistakes for now...

Best regards

 

[motd2k]

I just fail to see where you're cooking up this level of gearing from. Nowhere, either in the trade history, or their stake recommedations, will you see them suggesting that you risk 25% of your bank on a single trade.

 

[bowerandy]

I just fail to see where you're cooking up this level of gearing from. Nowhere, either in the trade history, or their stake recommedations, will you see them suggesting that you risk 25% of your bank on a single trade.

No, I think WirralOwl may have a typo in his stats; they don't recommend a 5k bet out of 20K early on. However, taking the first trade, we have a 2K bank and £5.77 per point. This is claimed to be a 5% risk but, in reality, the risk depends on the stop that set and (in more detail) the expectancy of a gap opening down through that stop.

So the first trade in 2002 is BUY ABF £5.77pp @ 867. 00. Ostensibly, the risk is where the stop is set which (since this trade loses) is presumably at 846.0 which works out to be a loss of £121, around 6% of the total bank (and this is for a loss in the stock of 2.4%).

The real danger comes when positions gap down below the stop. I haven't looked through all their trades but , depending on the system, there must be a reasonable chance of gaps down of 10% or maybe 20% (of the stock's value). A 10% gap down would stop out at a massive £500 = 25% loss. A 20% gap down would be a 50% loss.

From my point of view this would normally be an unacceptable level of risk. Of course, we could judge the likelihood of such a gap down if we had some backtest results; but we don't. Regardless of how the system works though, if, say, you had five positions open and we had a general market crash of 10% (similar to the UK one day fall in the 1987 crash) then you would have lost all your bank and 25% more in one fell swoop.

This elevated risk level is presumably the reason why they decided to cap the bank at £25K later on. Perhaps the Risk of Ruin is more acceptable for small amounts but not for large amounts of cash? Anyhow, I'd say that their current level of risk (i.e around quarter of the early days) is about right.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not necessarily saying that the actual TradeWin system doesn't work. After all, a 47% tax free gain in 2006 (still counting the whole account to get a more reasonable level of gearing) seems worthy of investigation - which is why I went to the demo. It's just that, with the unprofessional nature of the offering, I came away thinking it wasn't such a good deal for a relatively high value investment.

Best regards

 

[motd2k]

Andy,

You're right - the risk is all about where the stops are set, and about where those stops get executed in the event of 'freak' events suchs as halts and large gap downs. For me, however, this isnt a problem with the tradewin setup - 5% risk stops are fairly realistic for a growth invester (which you'd have to be to be considering using spread betting in the first place!).

I think ultimately this is the major point. You're talking about a product based around spread betting, and whichever way you slice it, this is always going to involve risk. Yes, I agree, individual stocks could gap 10% down. If you were risk adverse, you could have used CRB's (Guaranteed Stops). On the flip side, however, stocks can gap up as well as down.

I think the demo has obviously left a slightly sour taste with you, taking a step back from that, as a subscriber, i'd be happy to show you my trades - good and bad, as and when they close - but on top of this you have to remember that the alerts you're recieving are not just 'buy x' and 'sell y', they're also suggesting the limit orders, and fixing up trailing stops - this management side of things is obviously essential for success, but they seem to fail to market it.

It's not often I come across as a 'fanboi', but i'm actually pretty happy with the product they supply - although I do share the reservations expressed on here about the datafeed upkeep.

 

[captain kid]

I was interested to read the comments of bowerandy although cannot believe he has gone to that much effort. well done.

The most interesting part about the thread was that you doubt my/other TradeWin members who have 'tried' to give an appraisal of their system, after having used it, yes used it, not just seen it. I'm not going to say all what you state is incorrect and that I agree with everything tradewin do; but do I think Tradewin is worth the money? yes.

The same old story applies with forum posting: don't write a positive review otherwise you'll be accused of working for the company

People are greedy, they do take 'a gamble', that’s why I bought Tradewin! That’s not a bad thing and its made me a great deal of money, not just from using TradeWin, but also in my work life too.

I can only state what I have seen and since October 2005 all the trades they have on their site are the same as what I've traded all bar a couple of holidays! They take in to account the slippage and quite often I make more from the trades than they do. OML yesterday was closed by the system at 188.50 and I was out at 191.50.

Why would they make lots of calcs on drawdown, they provide you with all the figures on the website, so that you can see it for yourself.

Sales is about selling....if you have a discount to offer and can create a sale before you go out the door, rather than buy something else or read another TA book (only to be disapointed as I have been over the years from trading myself) why should they not push their product. Particularly if it as good as they say......which from a Tradewin users perspective...it (for me) very much is.........

On a lighter note Wirral may be you should try GCSE maths before anymore TA books...just a joke
Anyone still worrying about 1987 should not spread bet full stop!

I think the answer is a system has to suit you personally. I can vouch for the results since Oct 2005, work on thise figures only? Then take a look like bowerandy did.

 

[fxtraderlou]

Just throwing in my 2 penny worth - am still happy with the tradewin system. I am now £400 ahead at end of 2nd month and continue to find it easy to use. I think the comments on Jeran were a bit harsh - he seemed like a good enough chap to me - in fact when he offered me the price if I signed today I said I couldnt do that as I needed to think it through - there was no pressure at all. He is a sales man you go there to see the product he is going to try to sell it to you thats his job - every one likes a deal its how the sales business is done. Im not surprised the 2 key partners arent at the office - would you be if this was your system ? no they dont need to be this is just another part of what they do now i.e sell the product as well as trade themselves. As for the rented office well again its common sense if you know you have a couple of days a week where you demonstrate your product to your clients why do you need an office for the rest of the week ?

Im not saying this is the right system for anyone else Im just trying to balance the comments on this thread a bit by giving the opnion of someone who is actually using it !



:cheesy:

 

[Trader1UK]

Anyone have anymore feedback on tradewin or has any other person tested this strategy/software?

Thanks

 

[imagnus]

Anyone have anymore feedback on tradewin or has any other person tested this strategy/software?

Thanks

It does what it says on the tin. I have followed the trading history for over a year and can gauarantee it is 100% correct. You do not need to be at a computer all day as the alerts can come as an sms to your phone. With CMC you can use your phone as a dealing platform or telephone to deal. It is a valid concern regarding long term maintenance of downloads and support, so if you do go ahead get some assurances. More advice if you want it.

 

[Euro_d]

Another issue to considder

I am not going to address the pros & cons of this software to give signals and returns.
Clearly, the system is aimed at relatively novice traders who are looking for the grail, or at least assistance with finding it.
We all have been there and the desire is completely understandable, however, it seems to me that one of the major dangers has been ignored in the replies.

Anyone embarking on, or seeking to improve their trading skills should not consider any system that involves a large up front commitment. My logic for this is simple and based on my personal experience some time ago.

Let’s assume you have conducted you own due diligence and are satisfied with the system and the company's ability to sustain support for your investment and believe that it can produce the expected results:
What would happen if one day the data feed stopped and the company did not answer your calls?

Not only would you be several thousand pounds out of pocket, you would also have learned absolutely nothing!

IMHO, it is much better to subscribe to a tips service on a monthly basis, then, if it all goes wrong, you have only lost a maximum of one months tips. Similarly, if the tips fail to perform you can dump them.

However, it is significantly better for your long term trading good, to buy a charting package and, if you must, some custom indicators and see how they perform.

That way, the charting package is always yours, you can choose your data feed, (anywhere from free end of day to intraday tick) and are free to add whatever indicator you choose.
The software is ALWAYS yours!

Of course TradeStation used to be the "de facto" package, TS2000 is still available. The downside is that it is not easy to learn and most indicators are relatively expensive. TS8 is not an option as it is tied to a broker and difficult (but not impossible) to have a third party datafeed.
BUT, you can buy the software (TS2000), a whole bunch of indicators and a years tick data for £4k.

Another option is to use the Metatrader platform. This is a very sophisticated package and what’s more, it is totally free as is the data feed.
There are thousands of indicators and systems that are free (and of course, some that are not).

Until recently Metatrader was exclusively aimed at the forex market but this is changing rapidly and many brokers that are offering Metatrader are now including a huge range of markets in addition to FX. US stocks, indices, metals, energies and so on. Very shortly you will see UK stocks (CFD's).

So, in conclusion:
I can see no reason to buy an expensive package when you have a great risk that that one day, sooner or later, the thing will stop working and you can do nothing about it!
Please, seriously consider investing your hard earned cash and dreams in something tangible.

Oh yes, before I get IM's asking me what system did I get burned on:
2 Click. Search here for the thread.

It worked very well until it died.

Yes, I am a full time trader.

Good luck.
Euro_d

 

[Visaria]

What's the MAR ratio for this system?

 

[ZigZag-UK]

What's the MAR ratio for this system?

I believe that the MAR ratio is the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) divided by Maximum Draw Down (MDD%).

For the 5 years from 2002 to end 2006 the compound annual growth rate for Tradewin was an impressive 132.23%pa.
There have been two major draw downs in that period.
In 2002 Q4 the running P&L fell from 6427 to 3565 (-44.5%).
In 2004 Q1 the running P&L fell from 32308 to 16284 (-49.6%).
So the MAR ratio = 132.23 / 49.6 = 2.67

I don’t use the system, but generated some statistics on the published results from 2002 to end 2006. Overall, the return for Tradewin from 2002 to end 2006 was +6654%. (2002=216%, 2003=334%, 2004=74%, 2005=93%, 2006=46%).

For the period 2002 to end 2006 :
Total Trades = 885
Buy / Long = 596 (67%).
Sell / Short = 289 (33%).
Note: The % ratio of Buy : Sell trades has shifted from 59:41 in 2002 to 92:8 in 2006.
(Long: 2002=82 2003=125 2004=140 2005=149 2006=100 )
(Short: 2002=56 2003=67 2004=77 2005=80 2006=9 )

Of these 885 trades, 391 (44%) were winners. 494 (56%) were losers or breakeven.
Winning Trades = 391 (44%)
Breakeven Trades = 63 (7%)
Losing Trades = 431 (49%)
(Win: 2002=69(50%) 2003=77(40%) 2004=95(44%) 2005=99(43%) 2006=51(47%) )
(Lose: 2002=60(43%) 2003=96(50%) 2004=113(52%) 2005=106(46%) 2006=56(51%) )

The average holding period on all trades was 11 days but winning trades were held twice as long as losing trades.
Average holding period on 391 winning trades = 15 days.
Average holding period on 63 breakeven trades = 9 days.
Average holding period on 431 losing trades = 7 days.

The average P&L %adjustment on all 885 trades was +0.6%
Average %P&L on winning trades = +5.0%
Average %P&L on losing trades = -3.3%

The average concurrent trades = 9. The peak was May/June 2005 when there were 22 trades active.
(Average concurrent trades: 2002=5, 2003=10, 2004=12, 2005=12, 2006=3)
(Maximum concurrent trades: 2002=9, 2003=18, 2004=20, 2005=22, 2006=9)

The system trades the FTSE, DOW and XETRA.
The breakdown of 885 trades by market :
FTSE = 700 ( Win = 314 (45%))
DOW = 185 ( Win = 77 (42%))
XETRA = 0 (Only started 2007)

Of the FTSE trading stocks, the most successful was BAA (now taken over) which had 14 trades and added a total of +66.6% to P&L. Next was ABF (P&L +42.5% in 11 trades). Other successful trading stocks for the system were HSBA, SPW, STAN.

The least successful trading stock was BA. (BAE Systems) which had 10 trades (4 Buy & 6 Sell) – all were losing trades which reduced the P&L by –37.7%. Other unsuccessful trading stocks for the system were IPR (6B&1S), BATS(6B&5S), GUS (4B&1S) where all trades were stopped out at a loss.

Summary: The system has more losing trades than winning trades, but still manages impressive results.

 

[Visaria]

Excellent analysis! Many thanks for that. I think I read that the amount of leverage being employed each year has fallen. If so, then I do think that it's difficult to come up with a useful MAR ratio.

Do the results from the Tradewin website exclude dealing costs (i.e. spreads and commissions)?

I note that the CAGR has been falling since 2003. Is that because of less leverage being employed or something more ominous?

A couple of hefty drawdowns, the 2004 one being much more scary since, presumably, they are using less leverage in 2004 than in previous years. Any other drawdowns, of say 30%+, in the data?

The system having more losing trades than winners is fine. I'm ectastic if my systems win 1 in 3 trades!

 

[ZigZag-UK]

According to the website www.tradewin.co.uk the stake (money risk) was set at £100 for the £2000 bank at the start of 2002 and then moved in units of £50 for each £1000 change in the bank. When the bank reached £25,000 at the end of 2003, the stake was capped at £1250, so the £/Point leverage has fallen as a percentage of the bank since then.

According to the website spreads and commission are taken into account…
“Slippage is taken in to account within the closing price. The cost of the spread is also taken in to account, as the entry and exit prices are quoted as the bid or offer price of the spread at CMC markets when the position opens and closes.”

Money Management:
I had a look at where the initial stops would have been placed on the published trades.
Since we know the entry price, the stake and the £point traded we can calculate where the initial stop would have been placed.
Buy/Long initial stop = Entry price – (Stake / £Pt)
Sell/Short initial stop = Entry price + (Stake / £Pt)
For example, for the General Electric trade opened on 28/03/07 had an entry price of 3548, a stake of £1250 and £/pt traded of £17.36, so the initial stop must have been 3476 i.e. 3548-(1250/17.36). 3476 is 2% below the 3548 entry price. Doing this calculation for all trades shows that the initial stop was generally placed 2% away from the entry resulting in a fairly high £/pt value. This initial %stop has been constant for all trades regardless of the stock volatility, however the stake has been capped at £1250 since the bank reached £25,000 so the £/pt traded has been falling as a percentage of the trading bank since then.

Drawdowns:
The following is the count of P&L drawdowns in excess of –10% for each year:
2002 = 9, 2003 = 7, 2004 = 7, 2005 = 2, 2006 = 1, 2007 = 0
The system appears to have become more stable with fewer significant drawdowns over time possibly as a result of smaller stakes relative to the trading bank.

 

[stevespray]

I’ve actually been following the Tradewin website results for just over 18 months now and would suggest that they seem achievable.

Even as an experienced trader I must admit that I am interested in their system. I do have quite a lot of risk capital so I must point out that I am not looking at this system with a view to it being my only trading system; I’m looking at it as an additional string to the bow. Most of the posts on the thread so far appear to be from peeps seeking a system which with act as their principle method of trading. Given the initial costs of ‘set up’ (ie buying the software + funding a spreadbetting account with a reasonable balance) I would suggest that this system might not be suitable for someone who has under £25k - £30k to throw at the project.

Like any business you will need to draw up a business plan if you are to find any kind of success. A few have already mentioned the risk aspect with regard to on going support / data / signals etc and these of course have to be considered especially in the early days since this is when you will be most out of pocket given your initial capital outlay. This might sound scary but I am afraid this is pretty much the norm with all business start ups. This is of course why some people never consider having their own business and remain contented with the security of ‘a job’ even though their earnings are low.

Looking at the system itself I would agree with a number of the points already made. The trading risks of the system are higher whilst your bank remains uncapped. The draw downs on the system appear less in the latter years because the risk on each trade becomes less and less with respect to your risk capital. The ‘Bank Capping’ system is actually quite a nice system to operate and I’d suggest that it should be part of your initial business model. The reality of life and of trading means that sooner or later you will want to draw an earning from your business. Of course this is the one thing that is not considered in the Tradewin list of trades – the bank just keeps on growing and therefore the statistics get distorted since the growth of their bank serves no real purpose apart from to demonstrate earnings to perspective clients. In reality your business model would dictate that your bank went throw two distinct stages;

i) Initial capital growth which in turn allows larger position sizing or less risk per trade.

ii) A capping of the bank which means that the trade size is now fixed and therefore allows earnings to be drawn.

Of course the two stages could be semi integrated as time moves on as it is always a good idea to allow capital to grow slightly even if you need to draw off some profits as this protects you against the ups and downs of the sequence of winners and losers which the market throws up. It is also true that, as your business grows (in this case your business ‘size’ is pretty much the size of your cash pot), you will need to become more and more risk adverse since a large draw down would, in effect, set you back a considerable period of time if you are required to reduce your position size. This point is well demonstrated by the Tradewin figures.

My own personal financial position means that I am not in need of rapid capital growth. Instead I am looking to build a business which looks for slower steadier growth with less risk which leads to a situation where I can draw a reasonable wage.
In my case I might be looking for a 50% - 60% return pa for a couple of years leading to a situation where I could draw 75% of profits from year 3 onwards.

Out of interest I would be happy to hear from anyone who might want to sell their copy of tradewin if they no longer use it. Is there a second hand market for this kind of thing?

Steve.