Who is (very) successful with the ICT Silver Bullet strategy ?

[Laissez Faire]

I don't know of many whom are teaching for free on ET. Maybe years ago like my personal hero JH.

Oh, there's still plenty of 'teachers' here...

That doesn't take away from your point but it all comes down to those willing to do the work that others are unwilling to do.

One of my favorite quotes is, "There's no substitute for experience." A mentor can probably fast track your learning by a factor of 10 or even 100, but you still need to rack up that experience and screen time on your own.

The problem for the lonely retail trader is that he's likely to waste his time doing work that's not leading anywhere. So, you can most definitely have a hard working retail trader who's going in circles because he's following the approach dictated by a loser. So, blaming an aspiring trader for

Folks can be profitable with simple EMA's. The technical content is maybe 10% of what's required, the rest is what happens between the ears. I attribute this to why there is such a broad spectrum of reviews of any method.

If that's true, then everyone's wasting their time on the technicals and most certainly does not need ICT, no?

I think skepticism needs to be balanced with open-mindedness; trust yet verify type of attitude.

Agreed. I'm just generally skeptical towards anyone who's in the educational business in this industry. I'm not shopping for any new guru or teacher to follow either. I'm my own guru with the market as my only teacher...

I would of course be willing to learn from others, but I just don't see it very likely that I'm going to learn something of (great) value that I don't already know or can't figure out on my own in the public domain.

 

[MarkBrown]

in old trading days the reference to "the silver bullet" was used to describe a high percentage winning system that occasionally catches a "silver bullet" thus either nearly or completely destroying it. we all have a silver bullet coming our way, it's not something i want let alone buy.

 

[BAT31]

The problem for the lonely retail trader is that he's likely to waste his time doing work that's not leading anywhere. So, you can most definitely have a hard working retail trader who's going in circles because he's following the approach dictated by a loser.

That is so true. The teacher that you encounter is a coin toss that can determine your path for better or for worse. For example, back in 2017, when I was looking for bond education, I had to choose between two Bond Boot Camp offerings, priced at $250 and $999.

I picked the cheaper one, which turned out to be far superior than the more expensive one. Had I chose the more expensive one, I'd still be lost.

 

[hilmy83]

Anyone trading here the Silver Bullet ICT strategy successfully on his (funded/personal) accounts ? Just wondering because of some youtube videos claiming there are solid gains to be made with that setup. Also the mql5 market show a few EAs on the Silver Bullet setup/strategy that look profitable on the backtesting side. But I never followed them with realtime tracking, so I am curious to know if that works any or that good. Yet I do not believe this it can work, but maybe I can get very surprised here. Let's see.

You hedge fund knows you're looking on youtube for trading strategies?

 

[Laissez Faire]

William Eckhardt on the subject:

Have you looked at outside systems?

I’ve looked at about fifty.

Out of those fifty, how many had value?

One. And I don’t think it had value as a system, but it had an element that I was able to use later.

Do you then feel that purchasing systems is a waste of money?

For the most part, I feel that’s true. If you have the resources to evaluate systems, your time is better spent developing your own ideas. I wouldn’t recommend buying systems.

Is the idea that if a system really worked it wouldn’t make any monetary sense for someone to sell it?

Occasionally, it might happen that somebody comes up with something really good and sells it because he needs the money. But in my experience, something good isn’t discovered on a Greyhound bus while leafing through the charts; it’s something developed over a period of years. Typically, if a person has invested sufficient time and money into developing a system, he or she will want to use the system, not sell it.

 

[Laissez Faire]

Not quite related to the topic at hand, but some really good stuff here on how trading is rigged against human nature and how even if we know what to do, doing it can be hard. Similar stuff have been said by others, both traders and researchers.

If trading can be taught, can it be taught to anyone with reasonable intelligence?

Anyone with average intelligence can learn to trade. However, it’s much easier to learn what you should do in trading than to do it. Good systems tend to violate normal human tendencies. Of the people who can learn the basics, only a small percentage will be successful traders.

If a betting game among a certain number of participants is played long enough, eventually one player will have all the money. If there is any skill involved, it will accelerate the process of concentrating all the stakes in a few hands. Something like this happens in the market. There is a persistent overall tendency for equity to flow from the many to the few. In the long run, the majority loses. The implication for the trader is that to win you have to act like the minority. If you bring normal habits and tendencies to trading, you’ll gravitate toward the majority and inevitably lose.

Can you expand on what you consider the normal human habits that lead to losing?

Decision theorists have performed experiments in which people are given various choices between sure things (amounts of money) and simple lotteries in order to see if the subjects’ preferences are rationally ordered.

They find that people will generally choose a sure gain over a lottery with a higher expected gain but that they will shun a sure loss in favor of an even worse lottery (as long as the lottery gives them a chance of coming out ahead).

These evidently instinctive human tendencies spell doom for the trader – take your profits, but play with your losses.

This attitude is also culturally reinforced, as exemplified by the advice: Seize opportunities, but hold your ground in adversity. Better advice to the trader would be: Watch idly while profit-taking opportunities arise, but in adversity run like a jackrabbit.

One common adage on this subject that is completely wrongheaded is: You can’t go broke taking profits. That’s precisely how many traders do go broke. While amateurs go broke by taking large losses, professionals go broke by taking small profits. The problem in a nutshell is that human nature does not operate to maximize gain but rather to maximize the chance of a gain. The desire to maximize the number of winning trades (or minimize the number of losing trades) works against the trader. The success rate of trades is the least important performance statistics and may even be inversely related to performance.

 

[BAT31]

Occasionally, it might happen that somebody comes up with something really good and sells it because he needs the money. But in my experience, something good isn’t discovered on a Greyhound bus while leafing through the charts; it’s something developed over a period of years. Typically, if a person has invested sufficient time and money into developing a system, he or she will want to use the system, not sell it.

This is a pesky point that I'm surprised that all people aren't in agreement. Given the uber-competitive and individualistic nature of trading, I refuse to believe that generosity exists (e.g., simply divulging the intricate details of a highly successful system).

Who simply hands over their money-making edge, thereby losing it as a consequence? Exactly, no one.

 

[MarkBrown]

This is a pesky point that I'm surprised that all people aren't in agreement. Given the uber-competitive and individualistic nature of trading, I refuse to believe that generosity exists (e.g., simply divulging the intricate details of a highly successful system).

Who simply hands over their money-making edge, thereby losing it as a consequence? Exactly, no one.

i did it twice published and privately several times.

one of the published system got run into the ground.

 

[BAT31]

i did it twice published and privately several times.

one of the published system got run into the ground.

RE: Privately: Why?

RE: Publicly: I suspect you won't do that again.

 

[ironchef]

One of my favorite quotes is, "There's no substitute for experience."

The problem for the lonely retail trader is that he's likely to waste his time doing work that's not leading anywhere. So, you can most definitely have a hard working retail trader who's going in circles because he's following the approach dictated by a loser. So, blaming an aspiring trader for

Ed Deming said it a little differently: "There's no substitute for knowledge"

This lonely retail trader spent a lot of time testing and acquiring many of the knowledge, knowhow given out by experts, pseudo experts, amateurs... on ET.

What is important and what worked for me are not someone's secret source or detail trading strategy but general principles which can be used as a foundation to build my own profitable strategy.

And I am going to spend some time looking into ICT.