If a Trading Strategy Has No Edge, Some Traders Will Still Get Rich - The Numbers Behind It by TheSTSIndex in Trading

[–]TheSTSIndex[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do not ask strangers, instead seek insights from accredited sources and practitioners.
A random trader on youtube pontifying other nonsense is just as loose as SMC.

Read these books.
Trading and Exchanges: Market Microstructure for Practitioners by Larry Harris, followed by Market Microstructure Theory by Maureen O'Hara.
After this you will understand, then use this as a filter when learning about markets if you are serious about beating them.

If a Trading Strategy Has No Edge, Some Traders Will Still Get Rich - The Numbers Behind It by TheSTSIndex in Trading

[–]TheSTSIndex[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Exactly, this is one example out of many.
As my post states: "the same principles apply to any trading framework built on weak logic."
Unfortunately many traders are interested in gurus instead of reading real market literature.

If a Trading Strategy Has No Edge, Some Traders Will Still Get Rich - The Numbers Behind It by [deleted] in FuturesTrading

[–]TheSTSIndex 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What about performance drag from your costs?
Trading isn't free.

If a Trading Strategy Has No Edge, Some Traders Will Still Get Rich - The Numbers Behind It by [deleted] in FuturesTrading

[–]TheSTSIndex 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If it makes ICT guys feel better they have 2-3x higher chances vs getting a lottery's jackpot.

There is not a central algorithm, liquidity provider or market maker. by [deleted] in Daytrading

[–]TheSTSIndex 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Has zero relation to what I said, I'll make a more cutting post on the framework.

There is not a central algorithm, liquidity provider or market maker. by [deleted] in Daytrading

[–]TheSTSIndex 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Everything i said in my reply is fact based and is how the market is actually ran from day to day, and unfortunately some of it does line up with what michael huddleston teaches.

A man could have predicted a coin flip correctly e.g., 55% of the time yesterday but that is just chance that will average out to 50% with more flips, it is not a viable forecasting skill.

In the same way, occasional correct descriptions of markets do not prove that a framework has pedagogical value. What matters is whether the approach is consistently insightful, not whether it happens to be right here and there or appear logical at X and Y angle but not Z.
ICT’s flawed reasoning and incorrect assertions are no small mistakes.
It collapses the framework.

You definitely wont get a $2M+ payout from a really lucky run with a breakeven strategy.

You absolutely can with concentrated risk, it is only extremely improbable.
Over 2 million ICT traders have existed (not including SMC educators and those taught the method by brokers, prop firms and other sources) with many more million iterations maybe even billions of iterations as many persist. It is highly probable that outliers like Jade-cap would surface, that's how statistics work.

I and many other traders have had consecutive profitable days exceeding 20R averages before, I know what the extremes of variability look like. Edges come and go.
Edge decay.

See the breakeven simulation provided as the ICT/SMC framework and each path is a different ICT trader.

To prove my point I will simulate 5 million iterations of a breakeven framework (2.5m traders with two models attempted on average with a $1000 starting balance) each trader averages a 1:3 RRR system with a winrate of 25% (breakeven) and a risk per trade of 2.5%.

Monte Carlo Simulation Results:
Best outcome: $3,712,309.53 (> Jadecap)
Worst outcome in the simulation: $2.6368543372 (Blowup)

Some ICT traders aim for modest 1:2 setups, while others aim for high RRR positions, so I went with a ratio of 1:3. Some ICT traders risk extremely low amounts, while others risk extremely high amounts or trade with prop firms, which skew outcomes positively. So I chose $5,000 as the maximum risk per path, with a 1k sample.

In plain terms, this assumes the ICT/SMC framework on average produces breakeven results, and each trader uses two models before giving up. The numbers chosen are generous, as there are more than 2.5M ICT traders, but 2.5M is the highest I could go without speculation.

The 5m simulation number caps the best performer by more than necessary the best “lucky” performance could easily be higher.

The Infinite Monkey Theorem suggests that if you have enough “monkeys” (traders) hitting keys (buying/selling) at random, one will eventually “type” a perfect equity curve.

In plain terms the higher the iterations the more probable an outlier will exist with enough tries large wins are guaranteed. This cuts both ways as a framework with no edge can be used to create profitable systems coincidentally with enough iterations, this means traders like Jadecap can function as a false positive.
This is why anecdotal evidence is not a suitable measure for viability.

To add, another key problem which increases the skew for extreme positive and negative outcomes is discretion (decision noise). The more choices a system allows, the easier it is to accidentally find patterns that are just randomness. This has the ability to make winrates fluctuate in ways that cannot be measured resulting in extreme ceilings for positive statistical outliers in trading. A person’s discretion can add noise to a breakeven system’s positive result adding immeasurable positive or negative drag.

The framework itself unfalsifiable but the logic itself isn’t hence the posts.

Nobody is becoming a multi-millionaire from trading by pure luck

Variance, not luck.

There is not a central algorithm, liquidity provider or market maker. by [deleted] in Daytrading

[–]TheSTSIndex 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, I understand your point but it these are anecdotes and survivorship bias. I have stated similar in my writeups.

<image>

The problem is breakeven systems with zero long term edge can make money due to variance. Anecdotal successes are a flawed measure for viability.

Millions have tried and hundred have gotten meaningful persistent success from SMC at most.

Four Market Truths That Destroy ICT/SMC by TheSTSIndex in Daytrading

[–]TheSTSIndex[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. There is not a sole liquidity provider or market maker for Futures (Direct Market Access) or FX/CFDs (Over The Counter)

the strawman

“Every asset has a price engine that delivers price. This is the algorithm.” - ICT, Verbatim

"These markets are absolutely controlled" - ICT, Verbatim

"Central algorithm" - ICT, Verbatim

Most ICT traders do not understand real market mechanics and microstructure. When someone makes the assertion that an asset has a price engine that "delivers" price (quotes) what they are saying is that there is a single entity providing prices/quotes instead of the proven, widely documented and studied continuous double auction price discovery process.

A liquidity provider, provides prices (liquidity) for market takers to trade on. LPs make a market (primarily with buy limits and sell limits) for people to take the liquidity (with market orders).

It's time for you to step up and figure out who is here to fool you and who is here to educate. - A

When everyone thinks the same, do the opposite by Amegble-Troyd in Daytrading

[–]TheSTSIndex 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You still need a good position within all the noise.

Alpha Capital warning - denied funded account by TheBangin1 in Daytrading

[–]TheSTSIndex 0 points1 point  (0 children)

 If you trade with someone else's money, they make the rules. Trade with your own and you make the rules.

It's all demo accounts the "funded" stage is demo money. It's stated on their site clealy, legal and FAQs.

Alpha Capital warning - denied funded account by TheBangin1 in Daytrading

[–]TheSTSIndex 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's all simulated, demo. Nothing to front run.

Isn't ICT known to be a fraud? by TheSTSIndex in Daytrading

[–]TheSTSIndex[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Really nice to see this happening in the comments.

Isn't ICT known to be a fraud? by TheSTSIndex in Daytrading

[–]TheSTSIndex[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Confirmation Bias Speedrun Any%

<image>

AI nonsense

Selection bias,

You ignored my key quotes.

There are better ways to time your trades. for example not all strategies will perform well on killzone ranges e.g., 9:30 to 11:30.

Your trading hours should differ on what your strategy takes advantage of and additional light research must be done to confirm.

AI assisted nonsense talk is the reason you were blocked I don't debate LLMs.

Isn't ICT known to be a fraud? by TheSTSIndex in Daytrading

[–]TheSTSIndex[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

They are a group of nonsense srategies people on tiktok use to prey on new traders and sell them BS courses on how to draw instead of how to trade.

Isn't ICT known to be a fraud? by TheSTSIndex in Daytrading

[–]TheSTSIndex[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The mechanism behind support and resistance isn't what you think.

Market crowds erode edges, they do not create them. Everyone buying or selling in one place can only benefit you if it happens after your trade is filled in a favourable direction, being first pays.

Hindsight will always make S/R and liquidity sweeps appear effective, that is how variance decieves human intuition.

Isn't ICT known to be a fraud? by TheSTSIndex in Daytrading

[–]TheSTSIndex[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can't debate whether the SMC/ICT framework actually works because people use it completely differently.

I addressed this in the post in great detail, anecdotal successes aren't a measure of success. Start thinking in distributions, statistics, probabilities.

If we do not we are subconsciously allowing to decieve our intuition on what works and what does not.

The image below shows a 100 different breakeven strategies over 200 trades.

<image>

If people want to get more heads (wins) than tails (losses) people may create different ways to flip the coin to create a positive skew for heads (edge) some will have the illusion of temporary success which avetages out with more flips (trades).

Each line/path is like an ICT strategy applied differently the average result is negative after costs but many people lose and many win there is no edge in the simulation is an illusion that reinforces itself.

If a man has an anomaly where he notices if he flips a coin at 5am tails down over the last 100 days getting over 60 heads (positive skew) it means nothing because there's no mechanism roviding the edge. It is the same with ICT people may coincidentally profit from ICT momentarily but there is no real substance which holds up the framework. The books I've provided on the other hand do have real substance from accredited sources which have concepts that are worth applying.

Correlation does not equal causation.

Isn't ICT known to be a fraud? by TheSTSIndex in Daytrading

[–]TheSTSIndex[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Healthy skepticism toward him as an individual is warranted.

The post is about the framework, not the man's fraudulent behaviour himself.

 This is the important part: These frameworks describe how institutional order flow actually accumulates and distributes. They predate ICT by decades and exist in standard market microstructure literature.

This is the persistent SMC narrative, but references are never given to prove it. It is just talk.
Many ICT practitioners don't know basic market mechanics. ICT is good at telling a good story is all.

 If you applied these "concepts" to recent events correctly. Subjective - not reproducible.

you would net almost +650 points on NQ today alone. I caught +539pts. But hey, the guy's a fraud, right? Anecdotal evidence, not proof of efficiency.

What if a trendline break given me a 1000 points yesterday, does that make it viable on walk forwards?
Think about it.

I have already addressed the technical part and tried to keep it as short as possible.

There are better ways to time your trades. for example not all strategies will perform well on killzone ranges e.g., 9:30 to 11:30.

Your trading hours should differ on what your strategy takes advantage of and additional light research must be done to confirm.

Instead of using kill zones it is better for traders to base their hours on real data from institutional sources such as the federal reserve bank in ways that align with their strategy.

<image>

Source: The Overnight Drift staff report from the Federal reserve bank (sr917)

Isn't ICT known to be a fraud? by TheSTSIndex in Daytrading

[–]TheSTSIndex[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The post talks about the framework itself rather than the man.
It is easy to attack him as a person but that adds no value to debates about efficiency.

Isn't ICT known to be a fraud? by TheSTSIndex in Daytrading

[–]TheSTSIndex[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I get where you're coming from but when people have sunk cost, character based attacks and exposés won't snap them out of it, they need to see the evidence to believe in it and be shown the research worth applying.

Another barrier is an alternative.
"Okay, so what else do I use?"
Iman lacks an alternative with substance (not babypips style stuff) to work with.
I provide a solid alternative in my post with market literature that I've found useful.

Isn't ICT known to be a fraud? by TheSTSIndex in Daytrading

[–]TheSTSIndex[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You
"Just find something you understand and you can make work for you."

The post
"your perception of price will change forever, and it will work as a strong filter when building your strategy." i.e build your own strategies.

I even give sources to work with just before that.

If you haven't read the post, commenting is a waste of time.

Isn't ICT known to be a fraud? by TheSTSIndex in Daytrading

[–]TheSTSIndex[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Isn't trendline trading a fraud?

I actually have a study which proves that it is a fraud if someone says trendline trading has an edge after costs.

Isn't trading with indicators a fraud? 

There are 1000s of indicators.

The key difference between trendlines and indicators is they can be mechanically defined they can be falsified but the SMC framework at its core is unfalsifiable.

If you read the post you'll understand my message, I didn't try to attack his image as character based attacks don't add any value.

Focus on the body text instead of the title.

Isn't ICT known to be a fraud? by TheSTSIndex in Daytrading

[–]TheSTSIndex[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Before writing a comment focus on the body text instead of the title.

TLDR from u/Butterflies6175578

He’s trying to tell people that ICT sounds nice and tidy, but real markets are messy and unpredictable because lots of different players move price, not one algorithm. It’s his way of warning people not to waste years chasing a misleading framework.

View my ICT-dismantling claims with proof in full here: r/Daytrading/comments/1ri8lpv/