Did Martingale work for someone?

Martingle does work. Its a 100% guarantee. I'm not about to say that martingle is the best path to travel. Actually if anything avoid it. To simply say it does not work is just not true. Martingle comes down to accounting for the draw down. Its going to draw down fast! Super fast. If you have a large account and trade small allowing room you will survive for a long time. It gets super boring and the returns are not good in a ROI point of view. I have done much martingle trading. I found that I can absolutely make more ROI with way less draw down looking for 3-1 trade ratios. I have never busted a forex trading account using martingle. Most people do. I'm sure if I spent enough time I might get a 10 trade in a row loss and bust a account but it sure wont be because the martingle didnt work. It will be because I didnt have enough money to place another trade.

Ok. So it works but only for the others. So I shall not avoid to not abstainning myself trying something else.

Go antimartingale: the more equity you have the lower the percentage of it do you need to risk to make the same money: that way your capital becomes more and more secure.

It's a good thing to learn how different systems/strategies work, if you can apply them (on a demo account of course) much better. The idea is to develop your own strategy, suitable for the type of trading you do.

I think the personality/character of each one of us matters a lot in creating a good system that can be profitable.

Just because It works doe not mean its the right path to take.

I have a years worth of trading martingle on a live account where I made a whopping 1%. It was over 600 trades. Never had a losing streak over 6, had enough to cover 10 trades.
My wining percentage was 46%. This was not a martingle grid.

I try to give a person advice from experience. Maybe save them a year of wasted trading.

You try to make people look bad and offer nothing in return.

Oh and before you try to say, "well if you had 46% wining trades you should be rich." These were 1/1 ratio trades for the martingle strat.

I been running martingle way before forex. I had a bit of a horse racing addiction. I looked for horses with even odds. Used the martingle strat for 2 years. Made a return of 3%, until I busted that account because I didnt have the balls to put in the last bet of 512 bucks on a horse.

So please break down what I say again to divert people from actually learning anything useful.

Normally I try to post constructively (for example, see post #8 earlier in this thread).

I apologize for any offense. I have deleted my previous post.

Post 8 is a good constructive post. I did read it but didn't see it was yours. LOL!

I played martingale back in the noobies days.

Yes I have blow once straight out using martingale on live account lost 2000$


But I will say it's indeed one of the best MM way to beat the market. The only problem here like many mention was the "LACK of capital to keep doubling.


So there has been LOT OF variation of half martingale... : like 1,1,2,2,4,8,16,32 Or 1,1,2,3,4,8,16,32 just to name a few.

If truely play small leverage and distance price level in between like say 100 pip..then it's like you will never need to double more than 6 time..

However as a consequence you lose "immediate satisfaction of big gain on your 1st 2-3 trade"

To summarize: if you martingale each...20 pip you get more money but the chance of death trade is high.... If you martingale each 100 pip the chance of death trade is almost never going to happen but the waiting time will destroy your mentality.

So what can you do about it.... people often use the term "scale in your order" or "stack on to a losing position like 1,1,1,1,1,2,2,2,2,3,3,3,3
etc... because that way it's safer.

You got me confused. You clearly show some understanding of why Martingale doesn't work. You even lost money using it. Yet, you argue that it's of the best MM to beat the market!!? As if MM could ever provide any edge. As if it would be wise for any of us to think he can beat the market.

Just about every other method of trading is easier than martingale.

martiangle is a "lucky tools".

same thing that you put your money on play rollet ..

People capable of succeeding, are the people who almost instantly dismiss martingale imo. If you recognise it as the catshit it is then kick some dirt over it and move on - there are a thousand and one other half-brained theories and mathematical fallacies out there just waiting to trap you, and if you are stuck debating this concept you are probably going to spend your whole career mired in all of them. Just my humble opinion.

Totally agree with you here. Martingale based on pure luck.....

I use successfully a special type of Martingale strategy based on a complicated math formula (to calculate the next lot size) that would never lose on markets that would at least retrace a few pips. I have written an EA based on this strategy.

Yes, martingale works for me too. It works in forex if you have a good method to identified trend. And able to manage the trades if the price move againts your define trend.

For martingale, I found that swan day can be avoided if you make use of previous daily high and previous daily low into your EA.
Only trigger the first signal when the high or low is hit. Then only entry made according to the breakout and price action in the direction of the trend.
Using 0.1,0.1,0.2,0.4,0.6 and 1.2 .... try look at ur chart. I am using USDJPY.

But I am not using the martingale because I am using another better EA of my own for a better profit and risk management.

all i can say is, i give up using this method. in the long run, the drawdown are scary. been years develop EA martingle grid sequence, try many exit strategies. off course it had a straight up profit curve, but with fx trading the most important thing how secure your investment, especially when you applied on big bucks. marty lover still do exist, mostly swarming the net with positive result but at micro, nano event cent account. provide me a link real martingle performance with over 100k account, i will re consider to use this method, maybe.

Generally, with pure martingale you risk 100% of what you have, it's statistical fact. There always would be the trend long enough to whipe your account.
Only chance with martingale is when you have rally deep pocked (well, the market has deeper) or you have quite deep pockets and starto from really small contract size like 0.01 lots and then you are averaging it considerably ofted to get your BE closer to the market price. However, in any case you should prepare to take stop loss or loose everything you have on your account and be stopped out by your broker...

Martingale is a great tool for margin call. You can risk less/deposit more money, but your profits will be smaller. Like someone said rearlier, you always risk 100%/, of your account, so until you make 100% profit using grid/martingale you can always lose overall. What if the trends come again and you will hit MC couple times? There was a discussion on other forum, where people bought martingale EA for couple hundreds, it worked few months with something like 40-50% profit. then the trends were back onto the market, and all traders was wiped from the money in 1-2days (the biggest lose was around 50k usd - confirmed by Myfxbook).
If you wanna make money, try something different. Reverse martingale. When you add to position only from your profits (open orders in profit), then you can say that your broker is using martingale, hence you got opposite trades to them, martingale always lose, so you will make money. Hovewer its not that easy as couple years ago, ADR has dropped and we need to wait for more trending markets.

So you all are just averaging down and increasing the lot size..that is dumber than just switching positions for what this MM method was intended for..

Enter Long 1 Lot SL 30 pips (SL taken out) TP = what ever the number

Enter Short 2 Lot SL 30 pips (SL taken out) TP = 15 Pips (because of the preserving of capital - if the initial assumption was wrong the point should be the salvage of capital and looking for another signal)

Enter Long 4 Lot SL 30 pips TP = 15 pips (why, because the current loss is 60 pips)

etc...

This is just an example of how this MM should be used..and the sticky note "handle with care"

Modification of the lot size: 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 ....

If the price is bouncing inside a 30 pip channel do recognize it unless you want to wipe the account...

On a 10,000 $ acc:

1) 1 lot , 30 pip sl = 9700 $

2) 2 lot , 30 pip sl = 9100 $

3) 3 lot , 30 pip sl = 8200 $ or 4 lot , 30 pip sl = 7900 $

4) 5 lot, 30 pip sl = 6700 $ or 8 lot , 30 pip sl = 5500 $ (50 % of the account)

5) 8 lot , 30 pip sl = 4300 $ (<50% of the acc left)

So after price bounced 5 consecutive times in the 30 pip channel you were left with the 50% of your original account...

On the side note repeat all of this with 0.1 lot sequence: 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.5 0.8 1.3 2.1 3.4 5.5 ...

With 30 pip sl and 5 consecutive losses: 0.1 x 300$ + 0.2 x 300$ + 0.3 x 300$ + 0.5 x 300$ + 0.8 x 300$ = 570$ draw down which leaves 9,430 $ on the account..a much larger row of losses can be sustained..

5 losses in a row: 1/2 * 1/2 *1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 = 0.03125 * 100 = 3.125 %

1,000.00 $ account: martingaling with 0.01 lots using fibonacci sequence

10,000.00 $ acc: 0.1 lots

100,000.00 $ acc: 1 lot


How many consecutive losses before account wiped out on a 10,000.00 $ acc using 0.1 lots and 30 pip sl:

0.1*300$ + 0.2*300$ + 0.3*300$ + 0.5*300$ + 0.8*300$ + 1.3*300$ + 2.1*300$ + 3.4*300$ + 5.5*300$ + 8.9*300$ = 6,930.00 $

Total number of consecutive losses = 10

1/2 ^ 10 *100 ~ 0.098 % ~ 0.1% ~ 1 in 1000 trades

Margin required for processing trades using default 1:100 leverage: USDJPY pair (for simple calculation)

position number - position size - sl in pips- required margin - available balance after sl executed - tp to brake even

1 - 0.1 - 30 - 100 $ - 9970 $

2 - 0.2 - 30 - 200 $ - 9910 $ - 15

3 - 0.3 - 30 - 300 $ - 9820 $ - 30

4 - 0.5 - 30 - 500 $ - 9670 $ - 36

5 - 0.8 - 30 - 800 $ - 9430 $ - 41.25

6 - 1.3 - 30 - 1300 $ - 9040 $ - 43.85

7 - 2.1 - 30 - 2100 $ - 8410 $ - 45.71

8 - 3.4 - 30 - 3400 $ - 7390 $ - 46.76

9 - 5.5 - 30 - 5500 $ - 5740 $ - 47.45 <--- at this point a higher leverage is required to continue taking a positions

10 - 8.9 - 30 - 8900 $ - 3070 $ - 47.87

11 - 14.4 - 30 - 14 400 $ - (- 1250 $) - 48.13 account wiped

Didn't include commissions in the calculation.

Conclusion: The probability here is on the traders side assuming that all necessary precautions are taken. Meaning that the position size is adjusted to the size of the money in the account. That the trade is monitored 24/7 until conclusion. The initial goal is to preserve the trading capital. Assuming that the trader took a signal based on his/her system and he has an adequate SL and TP levels in the ratio of more than 1:1 (ideally 1:3), at the SL level a reverse order sits and awaits its execution to return the lost money from the bad trade. This money management strategy is not a replacement technique for blindly entering the markets. It should be viewed as a recouping technique, of the lost capital.

Since the probability of the total account loss are low, but exists, one should realize at what point is good to take even a small loss. For example at the 4th level if the price hovers around 34 pips, why not take it and incur a total loss of only 10$.

The only question you gotta ask yourself when the number of losses start to pile up: "Do I feel lucky?"

One side note: The good side I can see here is that you are always trading with the trend and not against so there is a good chance for this plan to work. Using this on a higher time frames is also preferred, because even if the channel forms there is a good chance that it can get you to that TP target before returning.

Trading is a risk taking business, so one should evaluate his/her risks before committing to a trade.

Do I use this method all the time? No. I have tried it and got to a 5th level at the most. I am thinking to use only 2 levels so if a trade goes sour I can try do double and reverse, and if that fails accept and move to another trade..

Final conclusion: To really use this method safely one would need to use micro lots (0.01) on a 10,000 $ account and mini lots (0.1) on a 100,000 $ account...you see how absurd that can be (making cents, and dollars when all that money sits there unused )

With 1 2 4 8 16 32 martingale, you need only one win, following a losing sequence, to return to breakeven(+1).

With 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 martingale, you need two consecutive wins. That's the tradeoff.

Realistically, there is no way of using this method safely, because you will always encounter losing sequences. The longer you trade, the bigger the longest losing sequence will be.

If you have an edge, then you don't need martingale, which means that you can trade with relative safety. Any losses are simply made up over time.

For example, if you lose (say) 7 times consecutively at 1% per trade, you're down 1+1+1+1+1+1+1 = 7%. It will require around 7.5% gain to recover to breakeven (why not 7%? — see this post. To recover from drawdown of N% requires a gain of (100 x N)/(100 – N) %).

If you use fibo based 'gale, after 7 straight losses, you're down 1+2+3+5+8+13+21 = 53%. Now it will require a 113% gain to recover to breakeven, or 47 consecutive wins at 1 unit, if you prefer to look at it that way. Needing 47 wins to recover from just 7 losses is very poor money management IMO. Or of course, you can risk a position size of 34 next time, and if that trade is a loss, you're down 87%, from which there's no realistic hope of recovery.

So what is the probability of encountering 7 consecutive losses? A 65% win rate at 1:1 RR yields a profit factor of almost 2.0, which, according to Paul Tudor Jones, if maintained throughout a long trading career, is outstandingly good. Now, if you have a win rate of 65% at 1:1 RR, the probability of 7 consecutive losses in any 500 trade sequence is around 27%. See attachments. That's probably a lot higher than most people think.

Martingale is for nickel-and-dime 'traders', so that when they blow their account, the loss is inconsequential. No serious pro uses martingale. To anyone who doubts this, read Jack Schwager's Market Wizards books, or Ralph Vince's 'bible' on expert money management. The word "martingale" doesn't rate even a single mention in any of these books.

Ask any regulated fund manager, who manages more than $10 million, how he sizes his positions.

Jarratt Davis (whose investment company is part of the IPM group, which manages > $250m) sizes consistently at 1% equity risk for every 100 pips, i.e. 1:1 leverage. That is exactly the same ratio as micros on a $10k account, or minis on a $100k account. Professional traders manage risk.

(And to anybody who thinks that can't generate an acceptable return, an average of 30 pips per day x 20 trading days = 600 pips, or 6% return, per month. Compounded that's approx 100% p.a. Compare that to the returns on US Treasury bills!)