Trading Contest Champion Tames the Eurodollar Volatility to take 1st Place
Ashley Jessen
JUL 25 2022
Consistency, focus, and nerves of steel allowed our Trading Cup Champion, Riadh Debbabi, to secure the top stop after a gruelling 12-month trading contest.
Forex traders must be willing to take risks and keep learning.
To be the best Forex trader, you must have the right mindset.
You must focus on your strengths and use them to your advantage.
And our revised Trading Cup format saw Riadh Debbabi use every ounce of his edge in the markets to generate a solid 80.6% return with a small 4.01% drawdown.
Let’s look at the final leaderboard for the 2021/22 Trading Cup Championship.
Congratulations to all the top 10, as this year was a tough year to rank highly.
In particular, to Riadh Debbabi, who took the top spot, beating some of the best competitors we’ve ever had.
To generate such incredible month on month returns with such a small drawdown is impressive.
Where are the huge returns?
You may be puzzled when you look at the Total Gain % on the leaderboard and see second place on 56% return while 3rd generated 101%.
The new format of the Trading Cup trading contest uses our proprietary Money Manager Ranking (MMR) and identifies the best risk-adjusted returns.
The MMR incorporates seven factors to identify the best risk-adjusted returns.
It is best to think about it like this: We are looking for those who can generate a steady return on their capital while risking a small percentage of their total balance to get there.
This is why the biggest percentage gains do not feature anywhere on the leaderboard.
But for history’s sake, let’s look at the monthly outperformance by our best traders over the full 12 months.
Best monthly returns in the $1 Million trading Championship
Historically, we ranked our leaderboard according to the largest monthly percentage gain.
Here are the best percentage returns every month of the competition.
The forex market is one of the most challenging markets to tame.
It’s a very unpredictable market, yet time and time again, we find a handful of traders who defy the odds and generate unheard-of returns in a short space of time.
To generate high returns, there is often huge risk involved. High risk will sometimes generate high returns, but high returns are not an indicator that you are a successful investor.
Once again, our MMR ranking algorithm eliminates all those ‘lucky’ traders who get on a winning streak, only to give it all back the next month.
Many people have asked me about the best monthly gain at 1,288% and I’ll do a full blog on this later, but let me add the following stats about their trading for October 2021.
- They traded Gold, Silver, China50, Dow Jones 30, and WTI Crude Oil.
- They completed 297 trades.
- They won 45.2% of all trades, losing 54.8% of the time.
- Their biggest win was a $970.94 trade on the China50 index, but that was only part of a 4-part order on the China50, locking in $1,427.34 in total.
- Their worst trade was a $741 loss on the China50.
- Trading Silver contributed to their success more than anything else. They made a relatively small amount on WTI Crude Oil and lost money on Gold, China50 and the Dow Jones index.
The frustration of generating high returns and not getting on our leaderboard
Imagine generating a monthly gain in excess of 200-300% and not appearing on our Trading Cup leaderboard.
The frustration of many of our most successful traders must have been through the roof as our algorithm weeded out those ‘flash-in-the-pan’ traders.
We aren’t looking for luck anymore. Consistency alongside excellent risk-adjusted returns is where our focus is.
Remember, the goal is to find the best fund managers who could potentially manage millions of dollars of client money. Consistency of risk-adjusted returns is the sole focus.
The rise of the Robots – Automated trading strategies dominate
You are no doubt aware of the incredible benefits of using automated trading strategies to execute your trading plan.
Expert Advisors (EAs) or Trading Robots are not new, but it is interesting is how many traders have utilised them for the Trading Cup competition.
- 70% of the top ten leaderboard used automated trading.
This year we saw the highest number of overall traders using automated trading strategies.
And it makes a lot of sense.
The number one piece of advice to succeed in trading is to create a trading plan and stick to it.
There is no better way to do this than to automate your complete trading system and set it live.
The key benefits of using a trading robot include
- You code your entire trading system, and it executes it automatically for you.
- It takes the emotion out of your trading.
- You will never miss a trading signal, even when you are sleeping.
- Trading multiple trading systems across different asset classes is possible.
- You can have a life outside of trading and no longer need to be glued in front of the trading screen watching every tick.
We’ve previously talked with one of our best Algo traders here and here, who has used his automated trading system to generate well above average monthly returns.
Let’s take a look at the number 1 algo system over the last 12 months.
Diving into the results of Riadh’s trading robot
Diving into the results of Riadh’s trading robot Riadh’s trading bot is focused exclusively on trading the Eurodollar currency pair.
It is one of the most active trading robots, placing over 82,000 trades in 12 months, turning over US$425,000,000.
The system trades in all market conditions.
One of the interesting parts of the strategy is the use of a Martingale position sizing strategy at the core of the system.
Martingale strategies are when you add to your position as it moves against you.
Every trader must be prudent when using these strategies, as markets can trend longer than you can keep adding, and when leverage is involved, it can get dangerous.
Nonetheless, it is the very strategy that enabled Riadh to take the number 1 position and beat over 1200 other traders.
It is interesting to note that 3rd, 4th, and 5th also used a similar trading methodology on the Eurodollar, earning them a top 5 result.
The longer we run our trading contests, the more we are finding automated trading robots being used.
If you haven’t already started looking into Algorithmic trading, perhaps now is the time.
There has never been more information available on getting started with a Expert Advisor trading strategy.
Click play on the video below to listen to Riadh give more information on his Expert Advisor and how he traded his strategy.
What were the most actively traded instruments in the 12 months?
Once again, the number 1 instrument our traders love to trade is Gold. Whether or not there is a trading competition, our low spreads on Gold make this product extremely attractive to active traders.
Here are the top 5 instruments traded by all contestants in the Trading Cup over the full year:
Trading Cup statistics from the 12-month contest
Here are some of the standout statistics we gathered:
- Competitors participated from over 75 countries around the world.
- The most active trader had trading volume exceeding $425,000,000 on the Eurodollar pair.
- The most accurate trader placed 302 trades and won on 99% of them. Imam Sujudi Jap, who came second, managed an incredible 98.6% win rate on 228 trades too.
- The most money made was $197,491 from the eventual winner.
- The most active Forex trader traded 4254 lots.
- The most active CFD (indices) trader traded 2335 contracts.
- The most active metals trader traded 1181 lots.
- The most active oil trader traded 34 contracts.
- One trader placed 3058 trades and won on 91.76% of those trades.
- The best individual trade won $48,550 and the worst lost $131,039.64.
Our first 12-month Trading Cup contest, and the introduction of the new MMR Ranking has been everything we thought it would be.
We hope you have enjoyed watching the best traders compete against each other and see the best of the best rise to the top.
For more detailed insights on developing daily trading routines, risk management, and effective position sizing strategies, explore additional articles on Trading Cup. Our trading experts at ACY and FinLogix are also great resources to guide your journey towards trading excellence.
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Stay tuned to our blog for more trader spotlights and leaderboard updates.
Trading involves risks.
Visit the Tradingcup blog through the link below for more updates: https://www.tradingcup.com/learn