Comments on: Forex is a scam!

By: John

John — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 01:52:27 +0000

You apparently weren’t paying attention when I said a sample of one individual who has admitted to using all different kinds of time frames and trading styles over a year’s time is insufficient evidence of anything – good, bad, or otherwise – no matter how many trades. Of course, if he’s been trading with some no name, unregulated broker then I might allow for potential shenanigans. Otherwise, show me evidence that the employed methodology should have been profitable.

Of course the real question is why someone wouldn’t stop trading (at least live) after say the first hundred or so trades when the win % was so low.

By: ken

ken — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:26:51 +0000

it’s still noteworthy that you’ve failed to address mr hertz’s principal contention –> nobody’s gonna be wrong 89% of the time. i’m no math teacher, nor do i possess a graduate degree in finance. however, i do have a phd in LIFE, and my decades of living tell me nobody (smart, dumb, expert or newbie) is getting snookered 89 times out of a 100 without someone else pulling strings. period.

By: John

John — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 19:16:34 +0000

You’re seriously comparing trading to baseball? Seriously? Talk about babble.

Wins in baseball are binary. You either win or you don’t. Your run differential doesn’t matter. In trading that run differential most definitely matters. If you win 99 times out of a 100 and that 100th trade wipes out all the profits from the rest of the trades then it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference that you won 99% of the time, does it? Flipping that around, if you lose 70% of the time but the other 30% are big enough winners that you’re well in the green, does it matter one iota that you only had a 30% win rate?

This is NOT me saying that the size of your winners is the determining factor. It’s me saying it’s a combination of win % and the relative sizes of your wins and losses that decide your performance.

By: ken

ken — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 18:43:08 +0000

typical wall street crappola. dick hertz’s (great handle!) point is well taken. movement is ultimately up or down. u can’t be on the shitty side of a trade 89 times out of 100 with over 1000 trades executed without it being manipulated. winning % is not the determining factor? lol. ok, tell that to the red sox and the yankees. this moronic babble is why regular americans are totally fed up with wall street and the corrupt pirates doing the fleecing. lies, deception and then for a change a pace, more lies.

By: John

John — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 02:10:19 +0000

Seeing as I can demonstrate to you systems which have very high win % but very poor performance (and vice versa) – and you could probably think of some yourself – clearly win % is not the determining factor in profitability. It’s part of the equation to be sure, but not all of it. This is one of those things newbies fixate on, usually to their detriment.

By: John

John — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 02:00:42 +0000

I didn’t say reported by the CFTC. I said reported to. The brokers report the figures. Maybe you don’t want to trust them either. Fine. Whatever. I’m not going to get into a debate on that here. You are, however, a sample of one and your year’s worth of experience bouncing from method to method and time frame to time frame mean very little by way of proof. I’d say the same to someone claiming brilliance on the basis of one year’s great performance too.

By: Robin Latrell

Robin Latrell — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 21:36:29 +0000

Winning % is not the determining factor in profit?? Don’t tell me — you work for the Obama Administration, right? Up is down; debt is good; higher taxes mean greater revenue; some day, cars will run on farts. Don’t quit your day job. I hope it has nothing to do with finance. And if it does, let’s hope nobody listens.

By: dick hertz

dick hertz — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 21:30:27 +0000

LOL. Yeah, OK, let’s all believe what the government of the United Staes tells us. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission guys used to lunch with the SEC guys who conducted the Madoff audits for all those years, right? Wow, someone actually PAYS to write articles?

By: John

John — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 19:58:27 +0000

Nice handle. Since the reported statistics to the CFTC show that about 30% of retail forex traders make money each quarter, clearly it’s not impossible. Thus, your logic is flawed from the start. And that assumes win % is the determining factor in profitability, which it isn’t.

By: dick hertz

dick hertz — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:31:47 +0000

I am an experienced equities trader with more than 12 years of online trading. I have educated myself regarding FOREX. No expert here, but I probably know as much as the next guy with 11 months of FOREX trading under his belt. Here’s the point: After 1,455 trades over the course of 11 months, 89.9% of my trades have resulted in losses. All types of trades: from 2 minute scalps to trades lasting almost 10 months. I have used numerous technical analysis tools, many of which have proven helpful and profitable in my stock trading.
Even if I flipped a coin before every trade, I’d probably be some where around 50% in terms of losses and profits. On a bad day of coin-flip trading, I would almost assuredly be right at least 1/3 of the time (33%). It is virtually impossible to be wrong almost 90% of the time – UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. There is NO mathematical model to support it. NONE. Even if I did the exact opposite of what I believe the charts suggest, I would still not be wrong 90% of the time. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. Therefore, the ONLY logical explanation is that the FOREX market is fixed. How and to what extent, I don’t know. But there is simply no other explanation.