Q: Hello Van, I’m looking forward to attending Blueprint next month. In the meantime I have a “Holy Grail” question.
On page 181 of Super Trader in the first bullet item you state that we need a huge number of winners and a small variation in the amounts won and lost for us to achieve a Holy Grail or very efficient system. To me this speaks to small profits with a large opportunity factor.
However, it appears that a lot of your other teaching says that you don’t need a high percentage of wins you only need to catch the big R wins to make serious money in the markets.
Now if this is specific to a particular system or a specific market we’re looking for, then I’ll just disregard and both can work. But if not, then they would seem to be opposed. Any comments or feedback you have would be welcomed and appreciated. Regards, Joe
A: Trading systems can work well with either less frequent bigger wins or more frequent smaller wins. For me, a Holy Grail system is one with a large number of wins where the ratio of the mean R to the standard deviation of R is high. This belief relates to my beliefs on system development for different market types and the importance of using position sizing to achieve objectives.— Van
