Are you sure you want to learn from the authors at Babypips?

Trading Systems Free Forex Trading Systems
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I don’t know if you guys follow the bloggers on this website, but I started doing it and what I found was… funny? For the lack of a better word. These are supposed to be the top that Babypips has to offer, the front line that represents the face of the website. You would assume we can trust them, and that they are competent and profitable traders.

Let’s start with Robopip. He runs a weekly blog where he gives an update on the mechanical trading systems that he runs. One of these systems, the Inside Bar Momentum Strategy, caught my interest a while back. I’ve asked two different coders to automate the strategy (since it has no discretion) and it turned out the method was not profitable in the slightest. Don’t take my word for it, I’ll share the cAlgo that proves it (you can find the thread in my post history).

Despite his system being clearly unprofitable, he somehow managed to close 2020 with almost a 100% return trading only two pairs. Let that sink in: he doubled his trading account using a system that could theoretically be put on autopilot and it would produce free money for you. This is the thread where he shares this return. In the comments, I’ve asked him about it but he did not answer. He is either lying or not telling the whole story.

Okay, let’s move on to another regular author, Hucklekiwi Pip.

Now, unlike Robopip, I have nothing mean to say about this person. If anything, she is even too honest: she has been trading the HLHB Trend Catched System, a mechanical strategy that she developed over five years ago. In 2020, she closed the year with less than 3% return, which you can view here. Maybe she had a bad year, you might say, but in 2019 she made less than 6% return (here. If she decided to invest her capital in any index fund, she would have made more money than she did.

And I wish her my best. I hope she realizes she is trading a system with no edge, as her results so far have pretty much been random. I know this is going to sound condescending, but my point here is that this is not a person I would be comfortable learning from.

Let’s continue.

We then have BigPippin, but honestly there isn’t much to say about him. His articles are your typical, subjective technical analysis where he does’t really commit to a specific trade - and does not follow up on which trade he has taken, nor he shows his track record or at least a recap of his performance. Now, of course, we are not entitled to his track record. His privacy is his own. However, when you adopt the role of a teacher (even only implied, since you’re in the front page of a site that aims at teaching newcomers how to trade), the lack of track record makes me unable to trust him.

Finally, let’s move on to these forums. What a wasteland they are, aren’t there? Beside maybe Dennis, all the authors who come with the next big strategy, end up dissapearing after a few months or a couple of years. What’s left is blind leading the blind, newcomers asking questions and receiving answers from someone with problably less knowledge than them.

Pair the absolute absence of competence in the forum with the untrustworthiness of the teachers, and I see no reason why this place should be recommended to people.

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I learned many things on babypips between 2012 and 2014.
It can save you the money to buy basic trading books and expensive courses.
The school of pipsology is great, I can’t find anything better on the web for free.
Unfortunatelly what you learn here is not enough to build a profitable strategy.

Let’s tell the truth: almost nobody in the world has a robust profitable strategy.
If babypips authors had a robust and profitable strategy that works for years they would manage a Hedge Fund.

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I haven’t looked at the three strategies listed so its possible there are points of similarity between these and what I am currently doing, I don’t know.

However, when you criticise a strategy and criticise a website, that’s only the first of half the conversation. Its like saying to an eager young relative with their fresh new driving licence and a pocketful of money, “Never buy a Toyota”. I’m sure you can guess what their next question will be…

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I agree with this. It’s still a decent school to learn terminology and basic stuff.

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I have nothing productive to add. I am not a profitable trader. This does not mean I can’t call out what I believe to be wrong.

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Let’s use the opposite point of view, there are paid books and courses that tell you less than babypips.

HLHB and Cowabunga make a lot of sense and IMO can developed to be profitable.

I respect babypips because everything is free.
They are not trying to sell you some advanced secrets to be profitable like Nial Fuller and many others.

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That’s fine honesty but we’re not yet able to make progress I feel.

You must realise the irony in naming strategies that you say don’t work whilst not having a strategy that you can measure them against.

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My trendfollowing strategy also works on H1 crossing moving averages.
I risk more than 1% per trade and I returned 3% in 2020 so HLHB worked better.
She is averaging 5% annualized, IMO she should risk 1% to reach 10%.
The best Hedge Funds are averaging 10-13% while SPX500 is averaging 9% with losing years and a DD of -50%.

Running a strategy for 8 years is impressive.
Congrats @Huck !
Consider my suggestion to double the risk per trade! :wink:

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I like this site. I like reading the articles, the beginner questions and being able to respond to the best of my ability. It also shows me that there are hundreds of noobs who will be losing their capital, and my sympathy extends to being a positive for me if I’m trading an opposing position.

It’s all part of the learning experience whatever the outcome - and even better if you can disagree (proof- wise) with the so-called strategies posted by the authors on this site. Shows you’ve learnt a bit.

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i think that’s probably right

i also think it can fairly easily be improved further by filtering the potential trades through some sort of “price action-based judgement parameters”

it’s “promising”, at the very least (and describing it just that way is probably being a bit unkind and unfair to it, really)

the same can’t, in all honesty, be said of the dreaded “Cowabunga” - i’m firmly with Albenor’s assessment on that one

if you read through all the chat in this forum about the Cowabunga, there are loads and loads of scattered comments from respected members here who have backtested it extensively, and even backtested variations of it, and studied it in great detail … none of whom has a good word to say about it at all, and looking at it myself i can see no earthly reason why it would ever be profitable at all

my own opinion is that its presence here really does the forum more harm than good

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The more rules/filters/parameters you add the more you lose robustness.
There is a lot of blaming moving averages as main signal in this forum.
It is curious that the only strategy proven to work and with a significant trackrecord is based on moving averages.

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and the more you incorporate some price-action parameters, as a substitute for total dependency on indicators, the more you gain robustness

not all that curious, really, when you look at who the forum’s primarily for, how the members are targeted and attracted, what keeps people talking and coming back, and so on - it’s about what i’d expect

i’ve nothing against moving averages, and i use them myself (for trend determination and identification, as many people do - not for trade entries)

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By price action I think you mean candlestick patterns: harami… inside bar…
I have 2 strategies, one work with moving averages crosses and the other with candlestick patterns, results are pretty similar.
The good thing of candlestick patterns is that they allow you to create a parameterless strategy, the bad is that thay need to be filtered with indicators and so parameters are back.

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i don’t use candlesticks myself, so i shouldn’t comment, but i think we can agree that “inside bars” are an example of price action parameters

some do; some don’t

there’s an interesting little book called “Naked Forex” by Alex Netrikin and Dr Walter Peters which sets out some nice, profitable forex trading systems that don’t use indicators at all

i don’t actively trade any of them at the moment, myself, but i have in the past and at least one of them’s pretty good (and it’s really robust, too)

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And why would he tell you the whole story? What’s in it for him? Every successful trader acquire their trading skill painstakingly after years of trial and error. Be polite and nice, and they might teach you a trick or two.

Indeed, she should move on to a new system.

Then don’t comment at all.

Not entirely true, nonetheless babypips is avenue for experience trader to ease boredom and beginning trader to learn still.

Seek and you will find! Discern for yourself . . . Negativity doesn’t get you anywhere

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Well, I would say that joining babypips was the best decision that I made in my forex trading career. I got in touch with several experienced traders who have helped me understand stuff and clear my doubts whenever I was in need of it. I am glad that I got to know about this forum.

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There is a fundamental problem which you feedback attempts to reveal - there is a huge gap between the level of difficulty of really worthwhile trading material (which involves a lot of university degree math and programming knowledge) and ability of newcomers without proper background to grasp it.

This forum is run by advertising - to retain interest of newbies they have to write fancy stuff which is easy comprehend, contains pseudo knowledge related to trading and can be put into practice after short training.

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What kind of argument is that? A person comes, claiming they have a strategy they want to share to help newcomers, then lies about the performance of the method - and I am supposed to be nice to him? He doubled his investment using a strategy statistically proven to be unprofitable and we should just ignore this fact?

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I’m not arguing, just commenting. I do not know if he lies about the performance of the method. Be gracious, everyone is having a hard time trading.

I took a look at his algorithm. Actually, it may work on 2 RIPE condition.

  1. market is trending
  2. entering at the right timing (Tokyo, European or US session)

However, i would like to tweak his algorithm
Below is his original algorithm

Buy Signal

The first candlestick must be bullish (green or white) and if the second candlestick is completely contained by the first, set a buy stop order at the first candle’s high plus 10% of its range (high minus low).

" alphahavoc comment : buy stop at high + 10% seem fine to me "

Place the stop loss at the first candle’s high minus 20% of its range.

" alphahavoc’s comment : i think stoploss at high minus 70% seem more feasible to me , 20% makes no sense , seem like a recipe for doom, nonetheless it may still work if executed at the RIPE timing. A further stoploss allows me to average on pullback to mitigate drawdown risk and improve my risk vs reward on average. "

Set the target at the first candle’s high plus 80% of its range.

" alphahavoc’s comment : Target can be tricky, so long the directional bias is accurate, any kind of target’s projection can be achieved within reasonable boundaries. "

Sell Signal

The first candlestick must be bearish (red or black) and if the second candlestick is completely contained by the first, set a sell stop order at the first candle’s low minus 10% of its range (high minus low).

Place the stop loss at the first candle’s low plus 20% of its range

Set the target at the first candle’s low minus 80% of its range.

Additional rules

If another inside bar pattern forms, the current position should be closed or the pending buy/sell order must be canceled and entry orders must be updated to the latest candles.

Consistently profitable is like one BIG jigsaw puzzle, you have to figure it out for yourself. Personally, i have no flair, took me close to a DECADE to almost reaching the end of the MAZE, hopefully.

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You’d think this piece was written elsewhere other than this “wasteland” :woman_shrugging: