Can sharing a profitable strategy stop it from working.

[john7722]

There are a lot of people who claim to have a profitable trading system .
Some are willing to share it, some are very secretive about it.

Would sharing a profitable trading strategy really stop it working?

 

[David's faith]

Depends on it's nature. If it is purely PA maybe not, if it's an arbitrage like calender spread or correlation between stocks everyone can do and its only difficulty beeing to find it than it is almost certain to disappear.

 

[greejan]

I guess it depends on the trading system. If you are taking advantage of a market inefficiency only you know about in the while world, then yes. If you are doing trend following like millions of people are, then no.

 

[tomorton]

Every strategy in trading has been thought of before and some people are using it somewhere. It won't make any difference if you tell everyone you know and even if they then tell everyone they know.

All the losing traders (70-80% at any one time) are probably using profitable strategies, they just can't make them work profitably.

 

[Peter8519]

Which is more likely that a person is willing to try out a system?
1. profitable system
2. unprofitable system
Obviously, people would want to share their profitable systems. It's entirely a different matter whether the system is profitable or not. Then again, why would anyone willing to share their profitable system? They would throw in their kitchen sink in order to squeeze out as much profit from the market as possible.

 

[maxinger]

No. It will not.

Trading is an art, not science.

Science can be taught.
Art cannot be taught.

 

[Millionaire]

Victor Niederhoffer thoughts on the subject:

 

[SunTrader]

From a man who went bust not once but twice.

 

[notagain]

Ratio avg win/ avg loss = 1.47, momentum and likely range.
If a trade loses at a position that is a good entry in the opposition direction, stop and reverse.

 

[tomorton]

Which is more likely that a person is willing to try out a system?
1. profitable system
2. unprofitable system
Obviously, people would want to share their profitable systems. It's entirely a different matter whether the system is profitable or not. Then again, why would anyone willing to share their profitable system? They would throw in their kitchen sink in order to squeeze out as much profit from the market as possible.

It doesn't matter if you share a profitable system or not. Firstly, most traders who pick up that system will not be able to use it profitably. But more importantly, there are no secret back doors into forex which make money for those who know about them.

Knowledge is a strange thing, not like any other commodities, in that you can give it away but you still have it.