Tobiasforexgarden has developed an automated system that works with a portfolio of 11 currency pairs and reaches a satisfactory level of risk diversification. His overall performance is consistent with reasonable drawdowns. He operates on a Real account and he is updating his social page frequently.
His main Trader account is “tobiasfoxexgarden“. He has been trading for 58 weeks and has generated a 47% annualized Return on Investment (ROI) and 164.8 pips Maximum DD. The overall NME is currently very low at 88$.
Let’s meet him and see what he has to say about his engagement with ZuluTrade.
Tell us about your trading background and how you got started trading
First of all: I have never worked professionally as a trader. I have acquired the necessary knowledge by myself and have built up the corresponding (experience) know-how over the years.
I started trading stocks in the mid-90s and gained my first trading experience. Already at the end of the 90’s I increasingly worked with options, warrants, and CFDs. And from there the way was not far to forex trading. It was a smooth transition, but I think since about 2010 I focused on forex trading.
I’ve gained a lot of experience over the years, of course, but I’ve also learned a lot. That made me a very safety conscious trader. It’s everything about a stable profit with manageable risk. And so you will never find strategies in my portfolio that have to do with gambling strategies like Martingale or something like that.
Important learning over time was that I am away from manual trading. The personal emotions are just hard to control and it gets harder the more money you trade for others. With automated strategies, you leave the trading to the machine and I don’t interfere. All my strategies have been backtested over years, tested over months on demo accounts before I put them on live accounts. So I have a relative certainty that I can rely on the strategies and don’t have to intervene. Naturally, I always have a look at e.g. big news and then pause the systems.
When did you first discover ZuluTrade? What was it about ZuluTrade that got your interest?
I discovered ZuluTrade really only 1-2 years ago. I was looking for a platform where I could share my strategy. And so I tested various platforms and ZuluTrade appealed to me the most in comparison. ZuluTrade offers high transparency for strategy providers and followers. It offers a large number of cooperation brokers, so you don’t have to bind yourself to a particular broker. And it offers the followers a wonderfully easy way to follow a trader without having to have any technical knowledge.
Give us the basic structure of your strategy.
I trade a maximum of 11 currency pairs. At the moment the number has been reduced due to the Brexit problem, but as soon as this has been decided – it doesn’t matter in which direction – I will be able to finally start up again. There is always a TP and SL value, although these are rarely reached. Because as soon as my system has identified a profitable approach (by using various indicators), it will be checked continuously whether trend strength, direction, and other factors still fit. SL and TP are continuously adjusted – at least in the background. As a result, most trades are closed before the original SL or TP values are reached. Unless a trade runs too fast in the wrong direction. In these cases, the SL will be hit or the trade stays open longer. On average, I currently have a trade length of 10 hours.
What’s your trade management approach – taking profit and exits, trade size and account- level risk management?
As mentioned above, one of my most important concerns is to take only controllable risks. Especially because I trade not only, but also, with my own money. In this strategy described here, I risk a maximum of 2% of the capital with every trade, so that even a long series of losses can be absorbed. There is always a TP and SL, whereby the sizes are different for each currency pair. Therefore, I also recommend using the pro-rata method of Zulutrade.
How can your followers get the best by your strategy?
Since my SL values are individually different depending on the currency pair, the best way to follow my strategy is using the Pro-Rata method. The approximate size of my master account can be seen in the description under Recommended Settings. So you follow me with the same risk that I also trade on my account and do not run the risk of taking too much risk. Unless you consciously decide to do.
How do you feel when you have a good and a bad trade? How are you dealing with this?
I learned not to put the single trade on the gold scale. My systems are well tested and it only becomes critical when a long series of losses would occur. Then I don’t look at the individual trades but would question the system as a whole. This is also possible because I take a manageable risk per trade, so that a single trade should never be critical. And as described above, the topic of emotions in trading is one reason why I switched to automated trading in order to eliminate it as far as possible.
Finally, if you could give some advice for the aspiring traders out there, what would it be?
First, pay attention to the risk you want to take per trade. Never go so high that you can’t handle a loss or a series of losses.
And second, keep your hands off Martingale or other gambling strategies. There are so many providers who promise performances of 50, 100% per month and may have delivered that for a few months, but with such systems will always come to the point where they implode. As tempting as they are.
More Traders’ Interviews to follow…Stay Tuned!