Hello everyone.
I decided to write this post due to the fact that quite often on the forums people ask for an advice about trading education. I noticed that people regularly recommend YouTube channels. Including wicksdontlie, now called Raja Banks. Opinions on this channel differ. Some write that there are a lot of useful information there and a big advantage is that he shows the history of his trades. Others say that he is a scammer and the history of his trades does not mean anything, because he owns a broker on which he trades.
The channel has 164K subscribers and about 3k people are watching his live streams.
Having some experience in trading, I decided to watch few videos from this channel so as not to guess, but to have a clear idea of what is shown to people on this channel. I will only note those moments in which I see sufficient meaning, so everyone can draw clear conclusions for themselves.
What was taken as the basis for the analysis.
https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=nw4cqVpP3L4
In this video, he shows the history of his trades from April 1, 2021 to February 2022.
https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=akYaHKfv69Y
History of his trades from January 1st to April 7th.
So we have data from April 1, 2021 to April 14, 2022. Data after April 7 was also taken from the streams.
With this information, we can compare the time at which he trades. Next, understand what results he has during the stream, and which are outside of it. Then, of course, all this was checked by opening the stream on YouTube and comparing the data.
Of course, the work is boring, there could be mistakes on my part, but I don’t think that they are very critical and they should not significantly affect the results.
1. PnL
If you read the chat during the stream, everyone is delighted with the profit that Raja makes from his trading.
Total profit from April 1, 2021 to April 14, 2022 before commissions - 3 043 950.54 usd.
Only xauusd and gbpjpy commissions were taken into account, since that's where the most of the trades are. Commissions from 1 lot xauusd 7 usd, from 1 lot gbpjpy 7 usd.
9 156.21 lots were traded on xauusd. 9 156.21 x 7 = 64 093.47 usd.
4 437.66 lots were traded on xauusd. 4 437.66 x 7 = 31 063.62 usd.
Net profit 3 043 950.54 - 64 093.47 - 31 063.62 = 2 948 793.45 usd.
The number is beautiful, but now let's see what happens during the stream.
Profit before commissions - -56 313.68 usd.
Xauusd and gbpjpy traded 5 772.57 lots. 5 772.57 x 7 = $40 407.99 usd.
Total net profit -56 313.68 - 40 407.99 = -96 721.67 usd. 96k loss.
So, it turns out that when he trades in front of people and everyone can follow how he opens and closes his trades, he trades like the majority. He is losing money.
This is the same as if you want to learn how to play tennis, you find a video on YouTube where a person shows how cool he plays and that he is a pro, and when you meet on the court you will find out that he cannot hit the ball over the net. It's the same here. He shows you huge profits, but when you come to the stream, you only see how he loses money.
2. Biggest winning trade
According to the history of his trades, we can see that there are trades for 20k, 50k, 100k, 200k profits... But what about trades during the stream? During the stream for more than 12 months, the 2 best trades were 11 650 usd and 10 525 usd. Trades in gold with a volume of 50 lots, which is generally nothing. All other trades are less than 10k profit, and this despite the fact that he trades volumes of 25, 50 and 100 lots... All this is due to the fact that he says that you need to take profit if the price goes in your direction, 10 pips and leave a runner.
If you trade according to this scheme, then you will never have big profitable trades, which, as a rule, generates the main profit. By the way, if you look at trades that he took outside the stream, then he did not trade according to such a scheme. He holds the entire position from beginning to an end. So why he is talking about taking profits during the stream? Perhaps I was lucky, but a couple of times I saw a situation that makes it clear why this is being done...
3. Close 10 pips an leave a runner...
I am not a supporter of closing a large part of the position and leaving a runner. I described the reason for this above, if you do this, then you will never get big profitable trades, and without them it is not so easy to trade in profit. But for the stream, such trades are very useful, because they increase the win rate and create the appearance of success. And they also allow you to manipulate information quite well. Here's a great example...
https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=k9zSewOyTtY
Position xauusd for 25 lots is open. On the chart there is an inscription that there was a trade for xauusd +20 pips. If we open a position of 25 lots and take 20 pips, then we will see a profit of 5 000 usd. Watch the stream at 58:22 and you will see that the profit was 2331.41 - 175.01 (commission) = 2 156.40 usd. If translated into pips, then this is 8.63. It is clear that in reality it can be 20 pips, but what is the point if most of the position is closed earlier, and this runner goes into profit, which in monetary terms does not make any sense. This is confusing. Let's say next time he opens a position of 25 lots and takes a loss of 10 pips and writes xauusd -10 pips trade. It seems that he earned 20 pips on the first trade, and lost 10 pips on the second trade. 10 pips profit. But in reality +20 pips is 2 156.40 usd and -10 pips is -2 500 usd. In pips we have a profit, and in money we have a loss.
4. Magick keys
If you have watched a couple of streams, you would see that he does not use it himself, which is generally understandable. I would rate the benefit of this device below 0. It is much more convenient to open and close a position with a mouse click in the terminal, rather than grab some other device and start doing actions with it, you also need to charge it. And look at half of these buttons... zoom in, zoom out, stats, calculator... Who needs it? If only the buttons necessary for trading are left in this device, then only 3 of them will remain, and it is problematic to sell a device with 3 buttons...
Stackoverflow keyboard is clearly an exception.
5. So simple... and free
https://youtu. be/_N0pJZbRfyg?t=4320
Here we hear some guy called Uncle Ted telling how easy the gold trade is going to be right now. Gold is really falling, and he says that it is very simple and understandable. And all this is free for you. Everyone in the chat is delighted, they say what a great guy he is. The problem here is that there is nothing complicated just to say where the price will go. When you don't take trades, there is no risk. If, let's say, a gold trade went down a little and returned up, then you can always say that so far it was not necessary to enter the trade, but you need to wait for the confirmation. This is the problem with almost all streams, you are not shown trades in real time, everyone just draws some kind of lines and smartly tells how they earn and how simple everything is. And of course, one more question on this situation, if this is such a simple trade and it is easy to make money on it, then why Raja did not take it. It turns out that in words everything is simple, but on the stream we see a loss.
6. September 2021
An interesting month was September 2021
When there were no streams he took 12 trades, all 12 were profitable and the profit was about 502 000 usd. Win rate 100%. When he was trading live during the stream. 14 trades, 1 profitable and 13 losing trades. Win rate 7%. Loss - -60800 usd.
7. June 2022
Just look at the first half of June 2022, there are only losses on the stream, but there are thousands of dollars of profit outside the stream.
8. FOMC 15 june 2022
https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=5legbUskock
It's just a gamble. At the beginning of the day he lost 15k during the stream, then the first trades on the FOMC gave a loss of 37k, then gave a drawdown of 60k. It's just luck that the price went up, if you think that this was a good trade, then you are still very far from successful trading. Interestingly, when he closes the profit on this trade, he says that when the first 2 trades were at a loss, he closed them with a minimal loss, but when these trades went into profit, he held them and therefore, at the end, he earned more than he lost. Unfortunately, he did not say that these trades just gave a drawdown of 60k and could easily go even lower.
And this catchphrase at 1:01:20 "If you guys would have copied exactly what i did, you would have been in profits today".
Today yes, but what are the results since the beginning of the month during the streams?
June 1 - 0, June 3 - -28k, June 6 - +1.6k, June 8 - -4k, June 10 - -37k, June 13 - -9k, June 15 - +20k. Total in June -57k. Loss of 57 000 usd.
So if you guys would have copied him from June 1 2022 till June 15, you would have been at a huge loss.
9. Good advice
The most helpful advice you will hear on this stream is that you should limit your trading. Don't overtrade.
https://youtu. be/BhN48b7S7RM?t=7513
Here he says that he finished for today, but if you look at trade history, you will see that he took another trade. Of course it was profitable. If he said that he is done for the day, then why is he trading? It looks like on the stream he tells you what you want to hear.
10. About this post
I'm not a hater, I'm not jealous, I'm not writing this post out of malice. It's just that people talk about how useful this channel is, in the chat everyone is delighted and happy, going to bootcamps. And I decided to take some time and figure it out, to see what useful information is provided on this stream. Everyone spends time differently, someone watches videos with cats, someone sits and watches how a person loses money during the stream, someone earns on the trust of people by deceiving them, but I decided to take the time and do this work, maybe someone will find it helpful.
Pros of this channel:
1. Gives you the opportunity to be part of the community for a fee.
Cons of this channel:
1. Doesn't make money trading while streaming.
2. There is a very high chance that his results are fake. For more than 12 months, he has about 3 million usd in profits, but at the same time he has a loss of 100k during the streams.
3. 252 trades were made during the stream. Profitable 104 (average profit 2640 usd) 42% win rate, unprofitable 146 (average loss 2266 usd). Off the stream he took 239 trades, 182 (average profit 17 290 usd) 76% win rate, 57 (average loss 820 usd). I doubt very much that one person can have such discrepancies in the results.
4. Just imagine that last year of his trading on the stream cost him about 100k (because that amount was lost during the streams). Imagine that at the end of the year you calculate your balance. And you see that over the past year during the streams you have a loss of 100k. What are your thoughts? Great job, will do it next year...
5. Advertises useless magick keys. When he says that this thing will change your trading and that it is very difficult to trade without it, he is lying. This thing is useless. Do not buy it. It will not help you with your trading in any way, but only interferes.
6. Wastes your time. People watching this stream in the hope of getting valuable information, but unfortunately they are just wasting their time. The amount of useful information on this stream tends to be zero. You think this information is useful, because he tells you with a smart face simple and accessible information that you most likely know yourself. It’s just that you can’t trade profitable and you need this ray of hope. And you found it by watching the stream.
Conclusion
Very sad. I don't understand why people in the comments on the stream write that Raja is a GOAT. He is trading at a loss right in front of you, and you say that he is great. You will not learn how to trade by watching these streams. People who bought themselves a ticket to the bootcamp - if your goal is to be part of the community and show that you attended the forex bootcamp, it is good. If your goal is to gain knowledge and increase the level of your trading, then you just threw away your money.
There are people on YouTube who trade in real time, showing their real results. Mostly stocks. But there are few views. Why? Because trading is hard and not very interesting, it's much more fun to watch interesting content. The only bad thing is that you're just wasting your time.
Let's end on a good note.
Is it possible to make money trading forex, stocks, etc. ? Yes it is possible. But it's very hard. You can't even imagine how hard it is.
Watch streams only with transparent results. But don't watch them during trading time. During trading time you should watch the market.
Feel free to share this post. People that are watching this stream are just wasting their time. The sooner they realize it, the better for them.
What do you think? Do these streams really help someone?
Take care. Have a nice day.
I decided to write this post due to the fact that quite often on the forums people ask for an advice about trading education. I noticed that people regularly recommend YouTube channels. Including wicksdontlie, now called Raja Banks. Opinions on this channel differ. Some write that there are a lot of useful information there and a big advantage is that he shows the history of his trades. Others say that he is a scammer and the history of his trades does not mean anything, because he owns a broker on which he trades.
The channel has 164K subscribers and about 3k people are watching his live streams.
Having some experience in trading, I decided to watch few videos from this channel so as not to guess, but to have a clear idea of what is shown to people on this channel. I will only note those moments in which I see sufficient meaning, so everyone can draw clear conclusions for themselves.
What was taken as the basis for the analysis.
https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=nw4cqVpP3L4
In this video, he shows the history of his trades from April 1, 2021 to February 2022.
https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=akYaHKfv69Y
History of his trades from January 1st to April 7th.
So we have data from April 1, 2021 to April 14, 2022. Data after April 7 was also taken from the streams.
With this information, we can compare the time at which he trades. Next, understand what results he has during the stream, and which are outside of it. Then, of course, all this was checked by opening the stream on YouTube and comparing the data.
Of course, the work is boring, there could be mistakes on my part, but I don’t think that they are very critical and they should not significantly affect the results.
1. PnL
If you read the chat during the stream, everyone is delighted with the profit that Raja makes from his trading.
Total profit from April 1, 2021 to April 14, 2022 before commissions - 3 043 950.54 usd.
Only xauusd and gbpjpy commissions were taken into account, since that's where the most of the trades are. Commissions from 1 lot xauusd 7 usd, from 1 lot gbpjpy 7 usd.
9 156.21 lots were traded on xauusd. 9 156.21 x 7 = 64 093.47 usd.
4 437.66 lots were traded on xauusd. 4 437.66 x 7 = 31 063.62 usd.
Net profit 3 043 950.54 - 64 093.47 - 31 063.62 = 2 948 793.45 usd.
The number is beautiful, but now let's see what happens during the stream.
Profit before commissions - -56 313.68 usd.
Xauusd and gbpjpy traded 5 772.57 lots. 5 772.57 x 7 = $40 407.99 usd.
Total net profit -56 313.68 - 40 407.99 = -96 721.67 usd. 96k loss.
So, it turns out that when he trades in front of people and everyone can follow how he opens and closes his trades, he trades like the majority. He is losing money.
This is the same as if you want to learn how to play tennis, you find a video on YouTube where a person shows how cool he plays and that he is a pro, and when you meet on the court you will find out that he cannot hit the ball over the net. It's the same here. He shows you huge profits, but when you come to the stream, you only see how he loses money.
2. Biggest winning trade
According to the history of his trades, we can see that there are trades for 20k, 50k, 100k, 200k profits... But what about trades during the stream? During the stream for more than 12 months, the 2 best trades were 11 650 usd and 10 525 usd. Trades in gold with a volume of 50 lots, which is generally nothing. All other trades are less than 10k profit, and this despite the fact that he trades volumes of 25, 50 and 100 lots... All this is due to the fact that he says that you need to take profit if the price goes in your direction, 10 pips and leave a runner.
If you trade according to this scheme, then you will never have big profitable trades, which, as a rule, generates the main profit. By the way, if you look at trades that he took outside the stream, then he did not trade according to such a scheme. He holds the entire position from beginning to an end. So why he is talking about taking profits during the stream? Perhaps I was lucky, but a couple of times I saw a situation that makes it clear why this is being done...
3. Close 10 pips an leave a runner...
I am not a supporter of closing a large part of the position and leaving a runner. I described the reason for this above, if you do this, then you will never get big profitable trades, and without them it is not so easy to trade in profit. But for the stream, such trades are very useful, because they increase the win rate and create the appearance of success. And they also allow you to manipulate information quite well. Here's a great example...
https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=k9zSewOyTtY
Position xauusd for 25 lots is open. On the chart there is an inscription that there was a trade for xauusd +20 pips. If we open a position of 25 lots and take 20 pips, then we will see a profit of 5 000 usd. Watch the stream at 58:22 and you will see that the profit was 2331.41 - 175.01 (commission) = 2 156.40 usd. If translated into pips, then this is 8.63. It is clear that in reality it can be 20 pips, but what is the point if most of the position is closed earlier, and this runner goes into profit, which in monetary terms does not make any sense. This is confusing. Let's say next time he opens a position of 25 lots and takes a loss of 10 pips and writes xauusd -10 pips trade. It seems that he earned 20 pips on the first trade, and lost 10 pips on the second trade. 10 pips profit. But in reality +20 pips is 2 156.40 usd and -10 pips is -2 500 usd. In pips we have a profit, and in money we have a loss.
4. Magick keys
If you have watched a couple of streams, you would see that he does not use it himself, which is generally understandable. I would rate the benefit of this device below 0. It is much more convenient to open and close a position with a mouse click in the terminal, rather than grab some other device and start doing actions with it, you also need to charge it. And look at half of these buttons... zoom in, zoom out, stats, calculator... Who needs it? If only the buttons necessary for trading are left in this device, then only 3 of them will remain, and it is problematic to sell a device with 3 buttons...
Stackoverflow keyboard is clearly an exception.
5. So simple... and free
https://youtu. be/_N0pJZbRfyg?t=4320
Here we hear some guy called Uncle Ted telling how easy the gold trade is going to be right now. Gold is really falling, and he says that it is very simple and understandable. And all this is free for you. Everyone in the chat is delighted, they say what a great guy he is. The problem here is that there is nothing complicated just to say where the price will go. When you don't take trades, there is no risk. If, let's say, a gold trade went down a little and returned up, then you can always say that so far it was not necessary to enter the trade, but you need to wait for the confirmation. This is the problem with almost all streams, you are not shown trades in real time, everyone just draws some kind of lines and smartly tells how they earn and how simple everything is. And of course, one more question on this situation, if this is such a simple trade and it is easy to make money on it, then why Raja did not take it. It turns out that in words everything is simple, but on the stream we see a loss.
6. September 2021
An interesting month was September 2021
When there were no streams he took 12 trades, all 12 were profitable and the profit was about 502 000 usd. Win rate 100%. When he was trading live during the stream. 14 trades, 1 profitable and 13 losing trades. Win rate 7%. Loss - -60800 usd.
7. June 2022
Just look at the first half of June 2022, there are only losses on the stream, but there are thousands of dollars of profit outside the stream.
8. FOMC 15 june 2022
https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=5legbUskock
It's just a gamble. At the beginning of the day he lost 15k during the stream, then the first trades on the FOMC gave a loss of 37k, then gave a drawdown of 60k. It's just luck that the price went up, if you think that this was a good trade, then you are still very far from successful trading. Interestingly, when he closes the profit on this trade, he says that when the first 2 trades were at a loss, he closed them with a minimal loss, but when these trades went into profit, he held them and therefore, at the end, he earned more than he lost. Unfortunately, he did not say that these trades just gave a drawdown of 60k and could easily go even lower.
And this catchphrase at 1:01:20 "If you guys would have copied exactly what i did, you would have been in profits today".
Today yes, but what are the results since the beginning of the month during the streams?
June 1 - 0, June 3 - -28k, June 6 - +1.6k, June 8 - -4k, June 10 - -37k, June 13 - -9k, June 15 - +20k. Total in June -57k. Loss of 57 000 usd.
So if you guys would have copied him from June 1 2022 till June 15, you would have been at a huge loss.
9. Good advice
The most helpful advice you will hear on this stream is that you should limit your trading. Don't overtrade.
https://youtu. be/BhN48b7S7RM?t=7513
Here he says that he finished for today, but if you look at trade history, you will see that he took another trade. Of course it was profitable. If he said that he is done for the day, then why is he trading? It looks like on the stream he tells you what you want to hear.
10. About this post
I'm not a hater, I'm not jealous, I'm not writing this post out of malice. It's just that people talk about how useful this channel is, in the chat everyone is delighted and happy, going to bootcamps. And I decided to take some time and figure it out, to see what useful information is provided on this stream. Everyone spends time differently, someone watches videos with cats, someone sits and watches how a person loses money during the stream, someone earns on the trust of people by deceiving them, but I decided to take the time and do this work, maybe someone will find it helpful.
Pros of this channel:
1. Gives you the opportunity to be part of the community for a fee.
Cons of this channel:
1. Doesn't make money trading while streaming.
2. There is a very high chance that his results are fake. For more than 12 months, he has about 3 million usd in profits, but at the same time he has a loss of 100k during the streams.
3. 252 trades were made during the stream. Profitable 104 (average profit 2640 usd) 42% win rate, unprofitable 146 (average loss 2266 usd). Off the stream he took 239 trades, 182 (average profit 17 290 usd) 76% win rate, 57 (average loss 820 usd). I doubt very much that one person can have such discrepancies in the results.
4. Just imagine that last year of his trading on the stream cost him about 100k (because that amount was lost during the streams). Imagine that at the end of the year you calculate your balance. And you see that over the past year during the streams you have a loss of 100k. What are your thoughts? Great job, will do it next year...
5. Advertises useless magick keys. When he says that this thing will change your trading and that it is very difficult to trade without it, he is lying. This thing is useless. Do not buy it. It will not help you with your trading in any way, but only interferes.
6. Wastes your time. People watching this stream in the hope of getting valuable information, but unfortunately they are just wasting their time. The amount of useful information on this stream tends to be zero. You think this information is useful, because he tells you with a smart face simple and accessible information that you most likely know yourself. It’s just that you can’t trade profitable and you need this ray of hope. And you found it by watching the stream.
Conclusion
Very sad. I don't understand why people in the comments on the stream write that Raja is a GOAT. He is trading at a loss right in front of you, and you say that he is great. You will not learn how to trade by watching these streams. People who bought themselves a ticket to the bootcamp - if your goal is to be part of the community and show that you attended the forex bootcamp, it is good. If your goal is to gain knowledge and increase the level of your trading, then you just threw away your money.
There are people on YouTube who trade in real time, showing their real results. Mostly stocks. But there are few views. Why? Because trading is hard and not very interesting, it's much more fun to watch interesting content. The only bad thing is that you're just wasting your time.
Let's end on a good note.
Is it possible to make money trading forex, stocks, etc. ? Yes it is possible. But it's very hard. You can't even imagine how hard it is.
Watch streams only with transparent results. But don't watch them during trading time. During trading time you should watch the market.
Feel free to share this post. People that are watching this stream are just wasting their time. The sooner they realize it, the better for them.
What do you think? Do these streams really help someone?
Take care. Have a nice day.
