How to ‘detox’ your trading strategies

I haven’t eaten for 10 days.

And I haven’t had a coffee or a beer for almost 3 weeks.

But I feel GREAT.

A few weeks ago I was struggling – I felt tired, was lacking focus, and my tummy was turning into a spare tyre. All I needed was a beard and I could have been Santa’s body double at the local mall!

I was eating rubbish food and drinking too much. The bad stuff I was putting into my body was making me sick, and I was a long way off being in peak health.

So I decided to do a detox. I removed bad food from my diet and drank only fresh juice for 10 days straight.

And the results have been fantastic.

My mind is clear. I have more energy. I can keep my focus for longer, and my jeans are a little looser around the waist. (Not to mention that I’ve ‘reset’ my tastebuds. Now I don’t crave junk food anymore, only clean and healthy eating).

But not only have I done a detox for my body, I’ve also detoxed my trading portfolio.

Some of the strategies in my portfolio weren’t performing so well. They were unhealthy, tired and lacking focus. So I decided to take those strategies and give them a detox too.

I noticed a few strategies were getting whipsawed in recent market conditions. They were taking quite a few false breakouts, so it was time to dig deeper into the strategy to see how I could fix it.

Now some traders would try re-optimizing the strategy or adding more filters to improve performance. But that can lead to over-optimization and a strategy that’s actually worse.

So, I turned to the breakout timing pyramid. It contains 4 specific levels to avoid false breakouts…

And the results have been fantastic –
Lower drawdowns, higher AvgTrade, less trades, and increased profits.

The strategies are much more focussed on taking only the healthy trades. And they avoid the unhealthy false breakouts that can damage your trading account.

Want to know how to give your strategies a detox and apply the Breakout Timing Pyramid to your own trading?

Well, you’re in luck. This week we released a free online workshop on reducing false breakouts.