Make that $47,541 drawdown as of 9/30/15.
The drawdown is now at $57,674 from the peak and it appears every single person who ever subscribed is losing a massive amount of money at this point:
My warning on Maximus Decimus on July 25 (Thanks to TSH who was the first to warn about it):
iām surprised he hasnāt even scale down his size as drawdown continuesā¦
Curious how the individuals of this forum would classify (Martingale or Not a Martingale) my newest algorithm FuturesDW.
Please note that I use Collective2 as both a training ground for new systems and a means of recording a track-record of these systems in order to prove or disprove my algorithms approach. Admittedly, so far my systems have yet to prove profitable over the long term (I wouldnāt be here if they made money consistently) - however I love the process and enjoy constructive criticism.
JF
There is no way to scale down the position size because heās trading 1 lot futures with martingale entries. Maximum Decimus now down $58,373 for 23 auto traders who ignored the forum warnings.
AshM ā
Great thread here! Let me know your opinion on Forex USD TM (link below). I love this system especially the drawdown being less than 10% to date but I worry about the high win percentage (87%), no TOS badge and smooth short term performance (as you mentioned above) but the stats seem favorable. The concern I get is when I look at the creatorās other system (EMini Swing TM). It has a 43% drawdown and then a single trade with an 80% drawdown (8/3 to 9/15 trade). This is the same creator but a totally different system so Iām not sure if I should correlate the two systems but I canāt help but wonder if the Forex system could all of a sudden go south on drawdown like the eMini did. Just curious based on your experience with martingale systems here. Iāve been burned more than once outside of C2 using Zulu back in 2009 and I am probably over paranoid. Any input is helpful as I really like this particular system but probably have happy ears.
Forex USD: https://collective2.com/details/93394264
EMini Swing: https://collective2.com/details/91328127
In my opinion youāre not being paranoid. The stats on Forex USD look good. However, it is a martingale system so I would expect future draw downs to be painful once the instrument starts to trend instead of mean-revert. I would ask the developer if there is a limit to how many entries he will make per trade and if there is stop loss in place and what the risk is for each trade, if he has one, then size your account accordingly. But thatās just my 2 cents!
Response from system owner isā¦ 1.) Max of 5 entries per currency pair so total max of 20 and 2.) Stop loss is typically about 500 pips but that is not usually reached, same for target as exit.
On 8/13/15 15:16 he sold 7 USD/CAD and many other occasions he had at least 6 open on a single pair. You might want to ask if 5 is a new policy? This is why it is hard to trust systems where the developer is not trading it themselves because you never if they will stick to their stated risk levels or not. Perhaps using a max unit size would help mitigate this.
Hi AshM, I agree with you, the equity cure looks too good to be true, but I failed to see how the system is doing the martingale. Can you shed some light on this? thanks
If youāll notice in this screen grab that he kept adding more leverage to a losing position until it reversed (he added up to 7x position size before the market corrected and he was able to get out). It is unclear how long he will keep adding to losers before giving up and cutting losses. This is a trademark of martingale trading and it usually ends badly from my experience:
I use Martingale betting playing blackjack with a strategy that allows up to 8 consecutive loses before total catastrophe!
Iāve played in this way 10 times since my last ācatastrophicā loss of $400 and since then have won about $1200 so $800 in profit - and in that time Iāve only had to go āall inā once.
What makes blackjack interesting though is that about 1 in 8 bets offers the opportunity for a blackjack which pays 3:2 or doubling your bet when the odds are in your favour (double down / split) so the longer period you are prepared to double the great the chance of one of these opportunities arising.
For example if youāre on a bet of $64 and you have 2 aces versus dealer showing a 5 you can split your cards to a $128 bet adding $65 to your account from the beginning of your losing streak instead of $1 based on not splitting.
The odds are well in your favour but of course if the dealer gets a 6 and a 10 and you get 2 5ās itās all overā¦
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https://collective2.com/details/95371653
This one looks like a martingale too.
JamesRose you might have escaped the fate once or twice, but when the statistic sample got large enough, you will eventually get caught. Doesnāt matter that you stop adding after 8 losses, you will eventually get a string of 8 losses. Unless you are lucky to quit doing it all together before it catches you.
PatternZ is using an aggressive trade size percentage, but it does not seem to be a martingale system because 1) It is only adding 1 additional unit per trade, and 2) it is not scaling in to losing trades-- it is pyramiding on to winning trades after the trade is profitable which is a well established successful method of trend following money management. Notice that the additional unit is added after the market has moved in his favor:
Patternz max dd 61% future drawdowns may be worse ā¦
On the other hand, he never lost any of the original starting capital. I think this strategy is an exercise in aggressive shoot-for-the-moon position sizing and pyramiding using net profits while preserving the initial capital. Very hard to follow once itās lifted off the ground but fun to watch.
You may be able to find bad martingale strategies that didnt lose the intial capital as well ā¦
Youāre absolutely right. But the odds are much worse for martingale strategies to blow up due to the (usually unlimited) addition of units during a draw-down when margin is already reduced. In trend following, a small limited number of units (1 or 2) are added only when profit has been accumulated already so the added leverage does not impact the original account as much. Of course both can blow up but Iād choose the 1 unit pyramid scheme over the unlimited martingale scheme as the having the better chance over the long run.
YZ Investments (YZ Income Fund / YZ Futures Fund) barred from the NFA for deceptive practices:
http://www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet/CaseDocument.aspx?seqnum=4235
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Serious allegationsā¦
