I want to ask people who have used these strategies (at least 10 times), how [B]many pips on average do you make per day[/B] and what is your [B]win rate%[/B].
Also, [B]on average how much time per week do you spend[/B]? Is it possible to spend less than 2 hours per week on the strategy because I live a busy lifestyle (e.g. set the trade at the start of the week and leave it to the end of the week)?
Finally, if someone can recommend a better strategy than the NickB 4H or the Simpletradeforex, please post it here and answer the above two questions.
First, just to be clear, I don’t trade the whole NickB method, only the scalp line part. So these results are for scalp lines only.
There’s nothing wrong with the the rest of Nick’s method, I just trade S+R reversals and breaks my own way so I can’t give numerical results on Nick’s full method.
I average 25-30 pips per week with NickB scalp lines with a win rate of about 65-70%. That included the bad losing streak I’ve been having lately.
Also, remember that you can’t compare the profit potential of two systems by pips alone! A 10 pip per day system can beat a 100 pip system.
Percentage returns or R-multiples are a better way to evaluate trading methods. I make around 5% per month on scalp lines alone. I’m going to guess that trading the entire NickB method would raise that to about 10% per month, but that’s only an educated guess.
I spend a total of about 15 minutes per week trading scalp lines. I look at my charts on Sunday night, set up pending orders, and that’s pretty much it for the week.
You do need to check your charts everyday too see if any new lines have formed, but that takes about 30 seconds to do each day.
Better yet, there’s no rule that says you have to go with only one method.
I don’t advise the Simpletradeforex method for newbies (the movable stoplosses are dangerous for new traders), but if you want to trade it why not go with it and the NickB method? The learning curve and time involvement is so low with NickB you can do both…
By simpletradeforex, you mean the daisy chain method right?
I’ve tried both methods for about the same amount of time now. Both work nicely when they work and both have losers as well.
IMO, the daisy chain method has far more potential. I’ve made far more off of it.
However if all you have is two hours a week to trade, then you’d probably want to go with the nickb method. As with the nickb b method the scalp and S&R trades are usually identified well ahead of time and you can place your trade well ahead of time, and let the trade win or lose just based off of your SL without babysitting the trade.
With the daisy chain method I’ve gotten lucky a couple of times and been in and out of a trade in 30 minutes with +150/ +250 pips, or closed the trade at a loss if I thought it was going bad.
But, thus far that is not the norm with daisy chain trading as you wait for 5 pairs to line up and look for a good entry. So, you can be in front of the screen for a while waiting for the set up, then the actual trade may take anywhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours, to complete. And it’s not like you can just decide where those two hours are. You can’t say, “I’m going to trade between 8-10.” You Look for a set up when it is there, and that could be at many times throughout the trading day.
With the nickb method, if you are strapped for time and don’t want to watch charts, you could at least set it ahead of time with minimal setup.
IMO, there really aren’t any better methods than the nickb or daisy chain on babypips. I’ve been through many here, but not all. So, go ahead and try a few your self. Just going through the free systems is very educational.
Personaly I prefer the daisy chain method because I have plenty of time to trade and want the high possibility of one or more trades a day. The set up for the daisy chain method happens with regularity most days, several times a day.
With the nickb method I’ve waited several days to a week for a line trade. That can be an exercise in patience when it works out or an exercise in frustration when a line is never reached or a trade loses that you waited for a week to pop.
I don’t know maybe try both on your schedule and see if they can conform to you. Maybe you’ll get lucky with the daisy chain method and find that there is a regulary occuring set up within your time window and you can sit down a trade if you see it or walk away if you don’t.
On that subject I’ve found somthing that mitigates the danger of moving the SL while at the same time keeping risk/reward in place.
If you use the Yantz close all scripts and EA, set the hard stop to 250 (I go for 250 pips with this method), that allows you to move out the stops and still have the EA stop you out at -250 if say you happen to get hairy spike to quick to react too.
250 gives the basket enough breathing room overall. So, you could have two or even three trades past the hardstops on the individual trades (because you moved them), a couple slightly postive or BE and still have the safety of the EA closing all if they all go bad and add up to -250.
With the yantz scripts you can also move the SL postive. So, say you go 50 or 100 postive and aren’t sure. Just put in -50 in the hardstop and the EA will close the trade at +50, if it backs up to that and let it keep going if it doesn’t. Then you could just keep moving the SL forward.
[B]Also on the subject of movable stop losses and how to get out. [/B] Here is what I’ve learned first hand about seeing a trade is going bad with the daisy chain and getting out before the hard stops. Most of my losers have been BE to -100 pips, which is damn good considering my winners are at least +150 pips.
If all the H1 candles across the pairs in your chain suddenly change color, in big way. Get out. Now I don’t mean a little wiggle where the candle is deciding it’s color from the start of the hour.
Price USUALLY retraces and occilates pretty good on the 1m. So, if a trade has gone against you and you’ve decided it’s a good idea to get out, you can often wait for a retrace to come back to you and get out with less loss or even break even.
Watch for sudden spikes of just one in the basket, If only one pair is spiking and it leaves a huge wick and the rest continue in your direction. Stay in but watch. It’s likely just stop hunting. Don’t let it fake you out off all your trades.
Watch for higher and higher or lower and lower bounces against you (depending if you are long or short). If you look on the 1M and all the pairs are breaking resistance and making higher and higher bounces against your direction. It’s a good idea to look for an exit at a lower loss than the hardstops or BE.
Don’t hold on and hope. If everything on the 1H is reversing against your direction across the whole basket, just look for an exit. It may happen that it was just a quick spike and then did go your way. But, I’ve found that is not the norm and it’s better to get out with small loss and make it up later on a trade that works.
Don’t overleverage! If one -250 loss cleans your entire account you are overleveraged. If you get -100, -200, - 250, -300, and you are starting to worry about a margin call, you are overleveraged.
I set my yantz EA hardstop to -250. Doing the above almost all my losers have been -100 pips. I only let one go to -250 and that was because a trade would not move for me and I was tired and wanted to go to bed, but wanted to see if the trade would make it to my TP.
This is the exact reason I don’t like the system for newbies. You or I can trade this no problem and make money, but if I was a newbie I think my head would explode from trying to follow that!
I think new traders are better off trading a method with a set stoploss until they get the hang of trading, then they can move on to methods where the SL is a little more complicated.
Yes, hard stops are good for spanking new noobies.
IMO, hardstops are somewhat BS and a quick way to lose a LOTS of trades.
Just about every REAL trader I’ve learned from, who does it for a living, has ultimately admitted to either not using a SL or putting them very wide for just in case or adjusting them for his overall outlook on the trade.
IMO, learning when and why to get out of a bad trade, based on their own judgemetnt not a hardstop, is the FIRST thing any noob should learn.
Phil, do you set hard stop losses for the NickB method on a sunday night and do you check upcoming news events that might affect the trades you put on?
Also, does anyone know much about the [B]James16 method (pips/week, %win, %profit, time/week)[/B]? I see a thread here about it and have heard good things about it.
Bzltop, thanks for asking that question, I was wondering the same thing. And in terms of the James16 system, I have heard mostly good things about it. However, 2 traders who I know personally joined the trading room together, they started at the same time and quit at the same time, and they both told me that they were not getting good results. I did not inquire as to the details of what they meant by “not getting good results”, but I could follow up with them if you need me to.
Phil, when you say that you make 5% with the scalp lines of the NickB method, I was just wondering what is your % risk per trade is? Also, you mentioned a lot of losses lately…do you feel like it has just been the summer markets that have led to the recent losses and that things will return to normal for the method?
Phil & The Phoenix, thanks for your thoughtful responses. Sometimes I wonder why I ever go anywhere but BabyPips. The other forums are just filled with so much ego and garbage, that every time I come back for a babypips visit and see a question like Bzltop has asked and see experienced traders giving multiple paragraph, thoughtful responses, it really make me thankful that I found this place. So refreshing to be able to go somewhere and ask basic questions without getting your head bitten off. Thx again.
The bad losing streak was in June and things have already started to return to normal. As for what caused it I have no idea! It’s possible it didn’t have a cause, but was just probability catching up with itself. I’ve actually had winning streaks just a long as the June loosing streak!
I just got a revolutionary new idea that might change the world as we know it! Maybe.
What if you use scalp lines ON the daisy chain? Those lines will probably be placed similarly on all 5 currencies and will cross them at around the same time. This will combine the advantages of the daisy chain with the simplicity of the scalp lines, and everyone will be happy!
I think we need to crown Superdude as the King of Babypips. After a quick glance at my charts it seem he’s on to something…
The last scalp line trade on GBP/JPY happened on Thursday. On a 5M chart it broke the line at 13:55GMT. The scalp line on EUR/JPY also broke at 13:55, and USD/JPY broke a few minutes before at 13:50.
More backtesting is needed of course, but I can see great potential for this. For example, if the USD/JPY scalp had triggered by a few pips and reversed I would not have lost my normal 2% had I spread the risk evenly among the three pairs. I would have seen the reversal happen on USD/JPY and canceled the other orders, thereby only losing .66%.
I’d have to work the math out but I easily see this giving me the equivalent of an extra 10% win rate, since breaking the line by a few pips and reversing is how most of the losers on this method happen.
I haven’t tried the scalp lines although I will be starting it soon. I have been doing the daisy chain system for a little while and I’ve had some great results, this being my first week where I didn’t get good results (I only finished this week with 50 pip positive for the system).
I did adjust some things to fit better for me, stop losses and entries but I really like the daisy chain method, I’ve had really good success with it, I’m going to contiue using it for some time and see how it does in the long run.
As for the time thing, the daisy chain is not for you if you can only spend 2 hours a week on the system. I’ve spent a lot more (something like 20+ hours) I am writing a script (about 90% done but I have a few more tweaks to make) that when the candles all line up on the 5 pairs it’ll shoot me an email which I’ll receive on my phone so I don’t have to spend all day looking at the screen.
Like I said I don’t have any experience with the scalping method but I plan to try it very soon. Will report later!
