Is Tom Hougaard the real deal?

[NoahA]

I meant to ask you and Noah, after observing him all these years, are you able to figure out how and what method he trades, i.e., does he use indicators, etc.?

Thanks for your time sir.

Based on what I saw, no indicators. It was a lot of support and resistance and bar counting. Its all kind of solid if you ask me. One is something like the 4th 10 minute bar sets up the trade after the open so you go long above or short below. Of course the stops could be huge, but when you think about it, its no different than traders following momentum. After the first 30 minutes, the market tends to show its hand, and if its gonna be a trend day, its off to the race.

Now he did his analysis on the DAX I think, but the idea can maybe be applied to other markets. Friday in the ES was chopping, but if you look at Thursday, its obvious that after the first 30 minutes, the market broke the low of day, and dropped another 20 points at least, so that I assume would be easily a profitable trade if you applied his way of trading. (But like I say, his stats were for a different market)

Its too bad his youtube didn't last longer because the one time I looked, he did show his actual charts every now and then. Everything that he was doing could have been replicated in real time, and he showed people discipline. You can argue that maybe he got lucky for years, but his results I think were totally legit. I wasn't really paying attention anymore, just checking in on the results on some days after it was all done.

 

[Laissez Faire]

I meant to ask you and Noah, after observing him all these years, are you able to figure out how and what method he trades, i.e., does he use indicators, etc.?

Thanks for your time sir.

I never watched his livestream, but listened in on a podcast or two. I liked what he had to say on money management, but what I was told from others that he wasn't actually that good at running winners in practice. From what little I've picked up about his trading it's basic retail TA 'price action'.

I 100 % don't believe in 'following' other traders. Anyone doing that is a n00b. And being a n00b is of course okay and following someone may be good if you want to get some inspiration or ideas to research/back-test, but ultimately, you need your own tested methodology backed by a ton of experience. That's the only way.

At the end of the day it's still my belief that anyone who has something really, really good would not share it with the public for free or even for a fee. So, can basic retail TA concepts be traded profitably? I think so, but again, you have to make it your own and you have to understand exactly what it is you're doing (or trying to do).

 

[ironchef]

Based on what I saw, no indicators. It was a lot of support and resistance and bar counting. Its all kind of solid if you ask me. One is something like the 4th 10 minute bar sets up the trade after the open so you go long above or short below. Of course the stops could be huge, but when you think about it, its no different than traders following momentum. After the first 30 minutes, the market tends to show its hand, and if its gonna be a trend day, its off to the race.

Now he did his analysis on the DAX I think, but the idea can maybe be applied to other markets. Friday in the ES was chopping, but if you look at Thursday, its obvious that after the first 30 minutes, the market broke the low of day, and dropped another 20 points at least, so that I assume would be easily a profitable trade if you applied his way of trading. (But like I say, his stats were for a different market)

Its too bad his youtube didn't last longer because the one time I looked, he did show his actual charts every now and then. Everything that he was doing could have been replicated in real time, and he showed people discipline. You can argue that maybe he got lucky for years, but his results I think were totally legit. I wasn't really paying attention anymore, just checking in on the results on some days after it was all done.

I really appreciate your detailed and thoughtful response. You and @Laissez Faire are two reasons I keep coming back to ET.

Thank you.

It is interesting observation about the opening 30 minutes.

In my day trading experiment, I found the opening 1-5 minutes very tradable because at opening there are imbalanced in buy/sell orders and if someone can figure out the imbalance, it could be profitable. But of course to trade the first few minutes, you have to use 1 min or sub min charts.

Take care.

 

[ironchef]

I do not trade with prop firms anymore and I also left the hedge fund. I just trade my own personal account.

Keep it up, be patient and you will get there.

For those of us trading our own funds, time is our friend because we don't need to show short term, quarterly, profits, small drawdowns and can go for strategies with big drawdowns if we have time to recover.

No one is going to fire us unless we gamble away the grocery money.

Good luck to you.

 

[NoahA]

I really appreciate your detailed and thoughtful response. You and @Laissez Faire are two reasons I keep coming back to ET.

Thank you.

It is interesting observation about the opening 30 minutes.

In my day trading experiment, I found the opening 1-5 minutes very tradable because at opening there are imbalanced in buy/sell orders and if someone can figure out the imbalance, it could be profitable. But of course to trade the first few minutes, you have to use 1 min or sub min charts.

Take care.

Thank-you.

I for example didn't agree with many of his trades when I watched and plotted them live. They all seemed so late. But I also couldn't argue with his results. Yes, some trades were total loser right from the get go, but then some worked very nicely because the momentum kept going. This is also perhaps why he doesn't trade ES I don't think. It doesn't have the same momentum. NQ can go up 100 points with barely a pullback, but ES generally won't even go 20 points. So if your style is to jump on a momentum trade that breaks out of something, you need the type of market where this will work. If all he wants to do is squeeze 20 to 50 points from a 100 point move, then this is highly doable.

But yes, his results this year are lacking for sure. Its crazy to think he made millions in years prior, and I have no reason to doubt him because everything I saw when I watched over a few months was 100% legit. You could literally follow his trades to a T and make money. But when I started watching him, he hit a rough patch, and so I was never inclined to take his trades. But at the same time, he is still overall profitable. So the trick would be to not cherry pick his trades. He might easily have 20 trades a day, between the EU and US session, and some days one might be bad, but the other makes up the profit. If you are trading large size, then even being positive by 10 points on something like the NQ is still $1k for example.

So it all comes down to just accumulating the points and taking your setups, and this is what I think he is trying to show day after day. He has nice monthly summaries where he adds up points won and lost, and also $$ won and lost. So its hard to argue with anything. I think if anyone is mad at him, its because they either haven't been around long enough, or aren't taking every trade, so they perhaps have the losses but not the wins.

Let me actually share one of his updates for July which I think was just before his rough day. Look at Nasdaq, 13 losses vs. 15 wins, and -150 points! This is balanced nicely by DAX, but it still has 20 losses vs. 36 wins. A much better win rate, but still not spectacular. But when you add it all up, its $65k (yes, I know its pounds, but I don't know where that symbol is on my keyboard... LOL)

And all of these are trades that I'm sure are called out in real time because I had watched enough of his live trading to see that he does legitimately call it out in real time.

Anyway, so my point is that I don't understand the hate. He gives so much more transparent info than anyone else, including those here at ET. For example, and no offence to @poopy , but he only every shows his wins. And he only ever updates when its a good day. You go weeks without seeing some post, and all of a sudden he has a 5% or 10% on a huge account, which is of course good, but how does it all add up at the end of the month??? Where are the red days?

It may also be that his greatest strength is trade/money management. In his book, he talked about holding for big wins, but I saw him taking lots of profits, which is good, but I didn't like the breakdown between his book and what I saw live. But he does often explain live that he let 30 points turn to a break even trade. So you have to take profits! If you're hoping for 50 points, you to accept that sometimes you will miss 30 and get zero. But if you take 30, you could have gotten 50, so its a game of chance really, unless you can find a conclusive way to evaluate what type of market is conducive for holding longer.

Anyway.. hope some of that helps.

 

[Sprout]

Thank-you.

I for example didn't agree with many of his trades when I watched and plotted them live. They all seemed so late. But I also couldn't argue with his results. Yes, some trades were total loser right from the get go, but then some worked very nicely because the momentum kept going. This is also perhaps why he doesn't trade ES I don't think. It doesn't have the same momentum. NQ can go up 100 points with barely a pullback, but ES generally won't even go 20 points. So if your style is to jump on a momentum trade that breaks out of something, you need the type of market where this will work. If all he wants to do is squeeze 20 to 50 points from a 100 point move, then this is highly doable.

But yes, his results this year are lacking for sure. Its crazy to think he made millions in years prior, and I have no reason to doubt him because everything I saw when I watched over a few months was 100% legit. You could literally follow his trades to a T and make money. But when I started watching him, he hit a rough patch, and so I was never inclined to take his trades. But at the same time, he is still overall profitable. So the trick would be to not cherry pick his trades. He might easily have 20 trades a day, between the EU and US session, and some days one might be bad, but the other makes up the profit. If you are trading large size, then even being positive by 10 points on something like the NQ is still $1k for example.

So it all comes down to just accumulating the points and taking your setups, and this is what I think he is trying to show day after day. He has nice monthly summaries where he adds up points won and lost, and also $$ won and lost. So its hard to argue with anything. I think if anyone is mad at him, its because they either haven't been around long enough, or aren't taking every trade, so they perhaps have the losses but not the wins.

Let me actually share one of his updates for July which I think was just before his rough day. Look at Nasdaq, 13 losses vs. 15 wins, and -150 points! This is balanced nicely by DAX, but it still has 20 losses vs. 36 wins. A much better win rate, but still not spectacular. But when you add it all up, its $65k (yes, I know its pounds, but I don't know where that symbol is on my keyboard... LOL)View attachment 345154

And all of these are trades that I'm sure are called out in real time because I had watched enough of his live trading to see that he does legitimately call it out in real time.

Anyway, so my point is that I don't understand the hate. He gives so much more transparent info than anyone else, including those here at ET. For example, and no offence to @poopy , but he only every shows his wins. And he only ever updates when its a good day. You go weeks without seeing some post, and all of a sudden he has a 5% or 10% on a huge account, which is of course good, but how does it all add up at the end of the month??? Where are the red days?

It may also be that his greatest strength is trade/money management. In his book, he talked about holding for big wins, but I saw him taking lots of profits, which is good, but I didn't like the breakdown between his book and what I saw live. But he does often explain live that he let 30 points turn to a break even trade. So you have to take profits! If you're hoping for 50 points, you to accept that sometimes you will miss 30 and get zero. But if you take 30, you could have gotten 50, so its a game of chance really, unless you can find a conclusive way to evaluate what type of market is conducive for holding longer.

Anyway.. hope some of that helps.

He got so much hate from those not accepting personal responsibility for their own trades that he shut down his telegram

 

[dontrader01]

I have been really enjoying and learning allot from his live youtube vids. Sucks he got so much hate and decided to stop. Also love watching his reactions to some of the silly questions he gets asked.

 

[dontrader01]

He got so much hate from those not accepting personal responsibility for their own trades that he shut down his telegram

View attachment 345156

I thought he was just stopping youtube live ? Then again Tom always says he is stopping then after a break comes back and keeps going.

 

[dontrader01]

Tom says it took him about 3 months of research to come up with the 1st bar negative. I am currently looking for some software that can help make that research faster. Ninja trader i am sure can do it.

I am wondering as to which data he uses as he trades on TD365, which has limited historical data. Does he use data from the exchanges to base his stats on. The other question does he have software to go through the first, second, third, forth etc bars for each day for the past 10 years and come up with a distribution. Or is he manually looking at every single day himself ? And taking notes.

I have asked him a few times to do a vid or give some insight on how he comes up with his strategies and builds his stats library. I guess its up to me to do it.

 

[ironchef]

Thank-you.

I for example didn't agree with many of his trades when I watched and plotted them live. They all seemed so late. But I also couldn't argue with his results. Yes, some trades were total loser right from the get go, but then some worked very nicely because the momentum kept going. This is also perhaps why he doesn't trade ES I don't think. It doesn't have the same momentum. NQ can go up 100 points with barely a pullback, but ES generally won't even go 20 points. So if your style is to jump on a momentum trade that breaks out of something, you need the type of market where this will work. If all he wants to do is squeeze 20 to 50 points from a 100 point move, then this is highly doable.

But yes, his results this year are lacking for sure. Its crazy to think he made millions in years prior, and I have no reason to doubt him because everything I saw when I watched over a few months was 100% legit. You could literally follow his trades to a T and make money. But when I started watching him, he hit a rough patch, and so I was never inclined to take his trades. But at the same time, he is still overall profitable. So the trick would be to not cherry pick his trades. He might easily have 20 trades a day, between the EU and US session, and some days one might be bad, but the other makes up the profit. If you are trading large size, then even being positive by 10 points on something like the NQ is still $1k for example.

So it all comes down to just accumulating the points and taking your setups, and this is what I think he is trying to show day after day. He has nice monthly summaries where he adds up points won and lost, and also $$ won and lost. So its hard to argue with anything. I think if anyone is mad at him, its because they either haven't been around long enough, or aren't taking every trade, so they perhaps have the losses but not the wins.

Let me actually share one of his updates for July which I think was just before his rough day. Look at Nasdaq, 13 losses vs. 15 wins, and -150 points! This is balanced nicely by DAX, but it still has 20 losses vs. 36 wins. A much better win rate, but still not spectacular. But when you add it all up, its $65k (yes, I know its pounds, but I don't know where that symbol is on my keyboard... LOL)View attachment 345154

And all of these are trades that I'm sure are called out in real time because I had watched enough of his live trading to see that he does legitimately call it out in real time.

Anyway, so my point is that I don't understand the hate. He gives so much more transparent info than anyone else, including those here at ET. For example, and no offence to @poopy , but he only every shows his wins. And he only ever updates when its a good day. You go weeks without seeing some post, and all of a sudden he has a 5% or 10% on a huge account, which is of course good, but how does it all add up at the end of the month??? Where are the red days?

It may also be that his greatest strength is trade/money management. In his book, he talked about holding for big wins, but I saw him taking lots of profits, which is good, but I didn't like the breakdown between his book and what I saw live. But he does often explain live that he let 30 points turn to a break even trade. So you have to take profits! If you're hoping for 50 points, you to accept that sometimes you will miss 30 and get zero. But if you take 30, you could have gotten 50, so its a game of chance really, unless you can find a conclusive way to evaluate what type of market is conducive for holding longer.

Anyway.. hope some of that helps.

Did he disclose his entry/exit criteria or can you from watching him live?

A 36 wins vs 20 losses is actually very good provided the losses are reasonable.