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hmm....on what basis you are saying "Graeme Samuel" is NOT PipEasy?? What proof can you provide to support your claim that you know him from high school? Can you shed some light on his motivation why he would spend months on this thread trying to help us and yet BS about his personal life?

In all my numerous private chat/interactions with Graeme, not once has he tried to sell me anything! I found him to be extremely professional and helpful.

EDIT: Thanks for sharing your perspective on 3x20 exercise

1. With respect to high school, We went to Sydney Boys High School since 1995. Feel free to verify. If your lucky, he may be kind enough to share a picture his mum took of us when we were in year 7. Our photo is too cute to be shared in the forum.

2. No one can assume another person's motives and be 100% accurate all the time. However what I do know is this. Pro traders generally don't care or bother with novice traders who lurk around forums looking for the ultimate holy grail. This is because they had to go through ALOT to get to where they are now and also because it addresses the issue of opportunity cost(Making money trading vs helping traders in forums).

As for Sun Woo, he regards Greg Wilson (perhaps the best intraday trader in this forum) as his mentor. Now there are some established pro traders who do attempt to help other traders in some informal fashion. "TheRealThing" and "PeterCrowns" are other good examples of this. Notice how they write so little and yet what they share is beyond sufficient in terms of what a novice trader really needs to realize to become profitable. Yet novice traders ask for more.

Perhaps Sun Woo wanted to follow his mentors example of helping other traders but give alot more but going a whole 9 yards (i.e trying to meet the demands of the struggling novice traders). He is human so I am sure he too will reach an exhaustion phase if he gets hundreds of private messages on a daily basis.

Hence if his primary motive is to help other traders then he is not obliged to talk about his personal life. Although I PERSONALLY think it is more professional to be candid if your intentions are genuine.

3. You are right about his marketing. He does not try to sell his trading methods. Infact he thinks negatively of those who make alot money selling trading related things when the authors themselves lack the skills to be profitable. He does not need to sell anything to people here in forex factory. His trading profitability is way beyond that.

He is not obliged to share his trading secrets. But he did anyway on a voluntary basis but people still fail because they don't listen on a subconscious level. Hence this alone discourages pro traders to help others.

Here is an intraday example of his chart analysis he shared with me when I was learning last year. You will notice that he uses an almost an identical setup to gregwilson (except the choice of moving averages). He uses 5 and 10 EMA's just like his equity millipede approach.

Happy trading.

Yon

yonseo,

Thanks for the input on the "3x20" exercise. It could be very frustrating at times indeed. Disheartening, even. But now you made me question my perspective on it. I probably expected to gain something it was never mentioned to be gained that way.
Thanks also for the charts shared. The analysis on these feels a lot "pipEASY" indeed.

Best regards,
Barbossa

Thanks Yon for your detailed response. Everyone has the right to protect their identity and I respect that. It is just a bit strange for Pipeasy to assume someone's identify by calling himself Graeme or have multiple profiles here on FF. Nonetheless, I choose to believe in what I see and since I have learnt a ton from this thread and his detailed charts, I care less about his true identify/background. I have increased my trading skills by ten fold since I ran into this thread... he continues to be an inspiration for me even after reading some of his posts a dozen times and that is what matters to me personally.

Just curious if you are still in touch with him and how he feels now that you have 'disclosed' his true identify?

If what you are saying is true then seems like PipEasy is still in his 40s, probably not had or having any health issues, not yet retired and has no plans to ever publish his book. Were his wife Deb, astrophysicist son, friend Joe/Marion all fictitious characters also? Did he ever run a import/export business or have a stake in some casinos? Is he a full time trader or working at some institution?

Hi Vee,

Last time I met him was around late April this year and that was like a little over 10 years the last time I saw him in person. He is hard to reach since he is also a highly sucessful enterprenuer in other departments such as real estate and "hostile takeovers".

In another words he doesnt need to trade. That his ultimate edge in FOREX in my humble opinion.

As for how he feels I would not know until he shows up here. I'm only encouraging him to get his balls out and just be himself such like other REAL pro traders like gregwilson, therealthing and petercrowns.

He did tell me however in April that that he is planning on writing a book. He didn't say when. Only time will tell with respect to what name he will use as the author if he does release his book. At the end of the day its all up to him.

But for now I will address trading related matters since thats the primary focus of this thread. I'm just too candid


Yon

Was this before or after his import/export stint?

Thanks Yon. I appreciate your response and able to relate why someone who is quite successful in other areas of life would want to protect their privacy and true identity. I guess we just have to respect that and wait for PipEasy to come back if he ever chooses to.

I agree with your comment about his real edge. Not having the need to withdraw or generate income from trading is a tremendeous mental edge. He also has the immense trading skills to limit the drawdown.

Use common sense.

A wise investor always moves on to higher profitability opportunities based on their current capital. Thats capitalism. The more you have, the easier it is even when it comes to lowering risk for higher rewards. I am sure you can discern which has better R:R when your capital is growing.

FOREX on the other hand is a false hope vehicle for undercapitalized traders due to the availability of increased lotsize allowed by leverages of up to 2000:1. Of course it does bring success to the slow and steady.

Yon

I do no think that there is such a degree of potential profit differential between the real estate and import/export business to delineate via common sense which came first in his career.

From my knowledge "cleaning business" was his first.
Also other high risk/high return ventures not worth mentioning.
He didnt finish high school nor does he have a degree.

Consider Jesse Livermore (didnt finish school), Bill Gates(didnt finish his harvard course), and Warren buffet (didn't make it to harvard) rolled into one but consider the success they achieved. Even though the success is not necessarily in life as a whole. Thats the best way I would describe his skills.

But if your serious about trading, the real lesson you will find here is what he wrote about trading, not about his imaginary life. Imagine losing couple of hundreds of thousands, going through divorce, lack of sleep, depression etc and then becoming above and beyond 99.9% of the traders out there. If you had to go through all that, how likely will you be in sharing your trading methodologies and give ALOT of your time for FREE?


Yon

Actually you are right in terms of discerning which is first. My apologies. It is actually possible that one could do both simultaneously as opportunities present itself.

EXACTLY.
I can still confidently say that psychology is 95% of the game in FOREX.
I have a fibonacci money management method which makes it almost impossible to blow your account mathematically but most people will blow their account anyway because they wont be able to emotionally stick to the rules.

Imagine having a cash flow of 6~7 figures in other ventures that do not share the risks that FOREX carries when one chooses to trade with a leverage of 2000:1 on a standard lotsize of 1.0.

If an undercapitalized trader (Trader A) wants to trade like that he could do so with a $200-300 account and do the 3x20 exercise, it would be a do or die situation. The first loss keeps the trader out of the game. If the trader practiced on demo for about 6 months and realizes that his overall win rate is over 80%, this is perhaps a skill beyond what most traders can do. Mathematically speaking if he has a string of wins in his initial trades, then based on probability he may be able to stay alive quite long in the game. However I would argue that due to psychological factors he wont be able to sustain the 80% win rate he achieved on a demo. Blowing the account is almost inevitable.

Now compare this to another trader (Trader B) with a 6~7 figure capital(+6~7 figure capital flowing in from other ventures) position trading using the same lot size. This person can liberally stack positions whenever he/she wants in the direction of the trend, place stops at B/E for previous positions when new positions are successfully added, which means the worst case scenario is losing pips from your most recent position and yet you have all your other positions in profits.

On top of that even if Trader B starts with initial losses, the 6~7figure cash flow from other ventures allows the trader to keep probing positions in the direction of the trend and just one surviving probe alone is MORE than enough to cover all the losses and much more. But of course there will be many other legs leading to EXPONENTIAL PROFITS.

Now if anyone with the experience and skills to make razor sharp entries, actually tried this milipede approach but still failed, then it is most likely due to the fact that you share the same circumstances of Trader A.

So if you share the circumstances of Trader A, then unfortunately you are at a huge disadvantage psychologically and the only real hope you have is the power of compounding from good money management and insane discipline which I am sure that 99.9% of traders are unable to adhere to strictly.

Therefore YOU (Trader A) is playing a different game to Sun Woo (Trader B) in the realm of capitalism.


Yon

It's great that you mentioned the golden phrase "CASH FLOW" highlighted in bold above. I am still researching but almost turning into a believer that there is no need to diversify at all with this approach. If you have a decent cash flow coming in from different ventures (heck/ one could use a revolving business line of credit if your trading skills are at a decent level but let's not go there!).

I see absolutely no need to close a long/short leg upon retrace on daily/weekly/monthly TF. If all we are doing is going with the flow and following the price, we are in essence diversifying every time we take a opposing position (as evident with brokers who allow back-end netting to bypass hedging restriction) in order to freeze the floating profit.

To a long term GROWTH INVESTOR, things like Realized loss, increase in Account Balance curve, floating profit/loss (in MT4 terms) does not hold any importance imho. The only thing that should matter is whether your floating account equity growing at the end of every week/month. As long as your follow basic price action principles at key areas of interest and participate in the market on a frequent/routine basis, your floating equity will be fluctuating but mostly smooth on a weekly equity curve chart. If you focus on key price levels which have the potential of price never to come back in the next 12 months or so, then 100-300 pips loss is so miniscule in the grand scheme of things. For instance, there are several pairs that have come bak to Jan 1st 2012 price levels.

Taking this a step further for those who want to quit their current 9-5 jobs, it would be so much easy on the mindset to transition into full time trading if you already have your x2 annual trading income already in floating profit BEFORE you quit your job.... much better stress-free approach to plan for rather than trading under immense pressure to achieving 1%-5% per month target.

EDIT: I think the opposite of above theory applies if you are an INCOME INVESTOR... account balance/realized profit would carry more weight. Taking a step further, one could possibly play the role of income investor also the same framework when a pair (like GBPUSD) ranges on weekly for months. If your portfolio is net swap positive, it could also constitute as a 'dividend'.

EDIT1: How about VALUE INVESTOR? I think this type of investor is also covered within the GROWTH strategy when we try to put probes near the tip of Wick. The tip of wick or near open is presumably the 'cheapest' price/value within a prevailing trend.

Some people seemed to be interested in my money management I briefly mentioned. Another trader politely showed interest due to the fact that money management isn't discussed much in this thread. Afterall, holy grail seekers look for the perfect entries/exits. I was guilty of this too last year.

Since I am a strong believer that secrets do not exist in trading, I will gladly share.

I will be upfront that I am probably one of the least experienced FOREX traders in this forum. This ignorance on my part could provide a valuable lesson to experienced but struggling traders about the importance of psychology and risk control. Hence if any trader wishes to criticize this method, then I will say thank you in advance since it will only encourage me to find a better method if it exists.

I just happend to be lucky that pipEASY(aka Sun Woo Lex Kim) is the first currency trader I have met in my life and the only currency trader I know in person. The concept of EDGE was already mentioned in this forum. Like what pipEASY said, if you cannot define your edge in 3 seconds, then you dont have it.

My edge is risk management. Being a mathematics/education major, when the situation involves numbers, I can calculate the risk of a situation much more quickly than most people. I am sure there may be people who want me to elaborate on my view of this concept. But that is for another time for the sake of the topic about the fibonacci method. My weakness however is the lack of experience that do not allow me to see good opportunities as clearly or as quickly as some pro traders out there. This is because my eyes are more tuned to the charts of the Korean Stock Market that do not allow short selling.

One of the questions I asked Sun Woo around April this year was:

"If a system was reasonably profitable, how much capital in terms of pips should it be able to withstand?"

This question wasn't addressed clearly even to an established pro trader so I had to rephrase the question:

"Around how many pips should one be ready to lose before realizing that the trading plan does not work?"

His answer was: "Around 1000pips"

At the time I understood the question as having at least 1000x amount of capital if you are going to risk x amount per pip. (i.e at least $10,000 to trade on a standard 1.0 lot size).

This seemed reasonable because even if one does the 3x20 exercise with a hard stop loss, It requires around 50 consecutive losses to blow your account. This means that if you toss a coin at some random specified time (e.g every 30minutes) to make a yes(heads) or no(tails) decision whether to enter or not using the rules of buying when price is above the open and selling when price is below the open, surviving 6 months shouldnt be too hard when all your entries are mostly in the direction of the trend. However if a person plays above ths above rules and still blows his or her account, he or she is worse than a coin toss and that alone tells the person to uninstall MT4 and stick to their day jobs. What I am sure however is that most will not be able to withstand strings of losses and will double or more their lotsize (Martingale style) to recover their losses to get back to at least breakeven.

So based on the above premises, I thought of a method that allows a trader to stay in the game for AS LONG AS POSSIBLE without blowing their account ONLY if they rigidly stick to its rules. I used the 1000pip ammunition as the basis for this concept.
Here it is:


Mustard Seed Strategy

If you studied the law of nature, the fibonacci series can relate to the concept of GROWTH.

The series is as follows:
1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144,..... and so forth.

If you are unable to discern the pattern then you do not have the mental capacity to trade. Uninstall MT4.

Lets consider 1000pips of ammo as your capital.
lets say c=1000pips

If I was to rewrite this series in terms of c, then:

c,2c,3c,5c,8c,13c,21c,.... and so forth.

So the rule is as follows.

First, it is ideal to begin with "2c" worth of capital rather than "c".

So lets say you have $2000 capital to play with. (Gregwilson is a great inspiration in this regard if you look where he is at today when he made a huge comeback with his last $2000)

The table is as follows:

Level1: $1000 = c -> $1 per pip
Level2: $2000 = 2c -> $1 per pip
Level3: $3000 = 3c -> $2 per pip
Level4: $5000 = 5c -> $3 per pip
Level5: $8000 = 8c -> $5 per pip
Level6: $13000 = 13c -> $8 per pip
Level7: $21000 = 21c -> $13 per pip
Level8: $34000 = 34c -> $21 per pip
Level9: $55000 = 55c -> $34 per pip
Level10: $89000 = 89c -> $55 per pip
Level11: $144000 = 144c -> $89 per pip
Level 12: $239000 = 239c -> $144 per pip

and so forth. You will notice that the lot size increase also follows the fibonacci series.

The most important rule is as follows. Only increase based on your BALANCE and NOT your potential larger EQUITY due to unrealized profits. Once you have enough realized profits that puts your balance to the next level, then you can increase the lots size.

However if you make a realized loss that keeps your balance back to the previous level, then you must strickly lower the lotsize to the previous level. This means if you reach the next level and then your first loss keeps your balance below the current level by even 1pip, then you must lower the size in the next trade.

Now why did I say people will most likely fail to stick to its rules and blow their account? This is because its very difficult for us to trade at a lower size than the size we want to trade. On the other hand its very tempting to increase the size when we are losing. Martingle is for the lose.

If you like simplicity, then when you reach Level 7 you can just cash out the $1000 and consider $20000 as Level 1 and do:

$20,000 ($10 per pip), $30,000 ($20 per pip), $50,000 ($30 per pip), $80,000 ($50 per pip), $130,000 ($80 per pip), $210,000 ($130 per pip), .....

Cash out $10,000 and start from Level 1 at $200,000 ($100 per pip). Personally I prefer this method of simplicity.

The beauty of this method is that the higher level you reach, the more impossible it becomes to blow your account given that you strictly stick to the ratio. Every 1000pip gain puts you to the next level. Every 1000 pip loss pulls you down to the next level.

If you are new to trading then you can use $200 at 10cents a pip. Then if you build enough skills to average 500~1000 pips a months, then rapidly building your account should not be a problem over the several years. That is the power of compounding in line with the law of nature.

I hope this answers the curious.

Yon

Great post Yonseo.

You may recall a post where Sun Woo told people to keep their day jobs while trading and keep adding funds to their account. This relates to CASH FLOW also.

Yon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60MQ3AG1c8o

Trade well
LB

So PipEasy is lex kim.

I was following lex's profile especially the challenge he took to show how a professional turned 1300 to 10k in 10 months or sth along that line. Which ofcourse he failed. He also was maintaining a blog and claimed to live in France being a fund manager.

Now if PipEasy is indeed him what I fail to understand is how a successful guy like him with so many business to run has enough time to create fake profiles along with blogs. Where does he get the time lol

Anyways its not my place to comment on what Graeme chose to do. This thread did make me a better trader.

And on the multiple identity thing if this whole fiasco is made to keep the tread going I think it very lame