A Look Into Win Percentage – Choosing A Forex Signal Provider
December 10th, 2009
One would obviously surmise that a trader with a % of winning trades nearing the 100% mark would be a very good bet. Side B then would tell us that a trader with a win % closer to 0% would be a very bad bet. Obviously, winning a great many trades is a good thing, but that would be to oversimplify the matter. The hope of this article is to explain to you why a 95% win rate is way more of a loser than a 65% win rate.
A trader with a 0% – 40% rate, we will classify as low. Let’s take a look at these low traders. The closer they are to 0% in this range undoubtedly the probability is that they are worse than if they were at least higher in the same range. The lower range puts most traders in the category of a losing trader. Occasionally however, you will come across a trader whose modus operandi is to snag large moves with tight stops. This is a trader that has a % that is a very low win rate but can still be considered a successful trader.
Next, let us look at the 40% – 70% range. Most of your winning traders will fall somewhere in here. They win not because the majority of their trades are winners with few losers. It is quite possible that have more losing trades than winning ones. Their success comes from their ability to correctly manage their trades once opened. They take advantage of stops that will then be executed more often than not. This looks for all the world like a losing trade, and it is, but a small loser. The traders that can manage their trades effectively most often are the ones that are able to cut their losses and allow their winners to take off. There are very few traders out there who have the discipline to take advantage of this simple concept.
Our final grouping is in the very high range of a percentage of 70 and above. Most people want to fall on the bandwagon of a trader who is close to 100%. Most people are making a mistake; they should actually align themselves with the trader of a much more modest % win rate. Why is that, you may ask? The reason for the high win percentage of these traders is that they are most of the time taking profits off the table as they appear. A working plan if they also cut their losses in the same way. Any trader, though with a 95 % plus win rate is not following this plan. They do not accept small losses and go forward with their trading day. Oh no, they allow a loser to run rampant for all eternity and may even add to that position in some circumstances. You can see that this in time will wipe out many months of winning trades in one blow and the results are disastrous. For every 500 pip winners obtained one at a time, one 500 pip loser negates them all. And yet, this trader falls into our “winning” range of over 99% winning trades and is in reality a big loser.
Do not think for one minute that the reason for this article is to convince you that no trader outside the specified ranges is automatically a losing trader. I’m quite sure that there are traders that are successful with a win percent falling outside of the above ranges. The point of this article is to lead you to thoroughly investigate the trader with the 95% win rate as he could implode upon himself (and you) at any minute.
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