Trading Cup 2022 Trader Spotlight – Staggering Performance of 1600% Gains
In today’s blog, we highlight a trader’s performance in our ongoing Trading Cup 2022 trading contest who amassed a staggering 1600% gains during the month of July.
We uncover how this trader achieved these stellar gains, the strategy used, the trading instruments selected and more.
My goal here is to deliver the highlighted trader of the month, his key strengths and weaknesses, and how he handled his drawdown periods.
The Trading Cup leaderboard updates regularly so you can see the top 10 traders competing their results and our statistics section showcases their key trading metrics to give you insights into their strategies.
You can check out the live stats through the Trading Cup homepage https://www.tradingcup.com/en.
In today’s trader profile, I’ll be reviewing Peter Smith. In particular, we are looking at Peter’s ability to turn his starting balance of $1,500 to a whopping $24,000 in the month of June 2022. And yes, he achieved the 1,600% return in just one month.
He performed a total of 977 trades across different trading instruments including:
Indeed, an interesting mix of instruments.
Most of his largest wins were focussed heavily on the UK Brent.
In fact, these typical large trades profited an average of $500 per trade comprising 19% of his final PnL (Profit and Losses Equity).
He held his drawdowns very well.
His biggest win was $710 while the biggest loss was $583!
In total, his average gain across all 977 trades was $23.48 including 4 break-even trades and 260 losses.
The fact that he won 713 out of these total trades is mind blowing! Such a high win ratio with an excellent drawdown control. What a trader!
Here is a break-down of his full monthly trading statistics:
Total Trades: 977
Break-even trades: 4
Loss trades: 260
Won trades: 713
Win rate: 73%
Average gain on wins: $54.30
Average loss on losses: -$60.67
His average loss on failed trades was slightly higher than his average gains on his wins. This is a clear example of good drawdown control of a highly skilled trader knowing his starting balance is only $1,500.
Famous trading quotes can be seen through this trader ‘keep your losers small while your winners big’. Would you agree?
Some of the questions that sprung to mind when reviewing his statistics were:
Does he use algorithmic trading strategy?
How much leverage was he using?
To answer these questions, we extract the major trades that delivered the bulk of his success.
To find out more about algorithmic trading, you may visit this blog https://acy.com/en/market-news/education/expert-advisors-benefits-forex. Also, leveraged trading helps traders but can be risky, please read this article https://acy.com/en/market-news/education/forex-leverage-explained-margin to know more of its mechanics.
In his first 100 trades we can see small trading volumes averaging 0.25 per trade only. On a AUDUSD position, this would equate to $25,000 per trade, which is quite large relative to a balance of just $1,500.
From this data, he has a mixed results of wins and losses. He must have been testing the markets first before deciding to increase his position size.
Gaining confidence over time, he then increased his trading volume in the next trades until he finished July’s journey with an average of 1.57 lots per trade but he reduced it to 0.28 in the last 242 trade executions.
You could suggest that when he had a high conviction on a trade setup, he increased his position size, but knew when to pull back when his trading strategy was less favourable.
His smallest trading volume was 0.01 while the largest was a staggering 15 lots.
On an account of this size, it would be fair to say he is overleveraging, taking on massive risks. And fortunately for him, this led to strong gains during that period.
It is important to understand that trading at this level of leverage is beyond risky and not recommended.
Let’s go back in time and take a sneak peak in to some of his prominent trades that show his overall strengths primarily on the UK Brent.
UK Brent hourly chart via ACY MT4
This is his biggest win, gaining a total of $710. I can see he did not place a stop loss or take profit, which indicators he was closely monitoring the trade as the trade progressed.
Instead, he placed at a market trade, hitting the order book after he saw confidence on the immediate resistance and support areas on the hourly chart.
In light of this, you might consider him an experienced trader. This trade is perfectly orchestrated quickly within the hourly candle.
How? This trade duration only lasts for 3 minutes. Astounding!
Meanwhile, below shows his biggest blunder during the period.
UK Brent hourly chart via ACY MT4
This adds more support of my claim earlier that he is an experienced trader, why?
3 reasons:
He knows what is coming for the trading instrument, he speculated the nearby support would hold.
But the trade entered volatility through a support breakdown within the same hour. Totally went in the opposite direction. Then after 2 hours of holding, he decided to trade the price action as a fail of support. Then closed at 100.609 wasting no time. This trade cost him $583.20.
If you noticed closely, this chart happened first than previously. The lesson we get from here? He managed to win the next trade on the very same instrument getting a net profit of at least $126.80. Turned the tides in his favor. This can be a sort of revenge trading but does not happen all the time. Only experienced traders can do this.
Based from these trades, I assume he made use of leverage and applied the basic skills in locating where the immediate support and resistance levels are.
Again, I say he knows what he’s doing and understands the high risks involved in using leverage. I think he traded manually without using any Expert Advisor (EAs).
Congratulations to this trader who made tremendous gains in the month of July!
If you are a trader or a fund manager, showcase your trading skills by joining the Trading Cup 2022 competition!
With its latest addition of an MMR system, making sure every participating trader has equal chances thus promoting a fair contest.
Stay tuned in our blog and social accounts for more trader spotlights and always remember that trading involves risk.
Original article written under my name here: https://news.tradingcup.com/en/news/trader-spotlight-staggering-1600-percent-gains
Nice analysis