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BOOK YOUR FREE STRATEGY SESSION NOW >>In this video, we discuss the winning strategy of our September 2024 Strategy of the Month contest, along with another strategy that we found particularly interesting among those submitted by participants:
•A breakout strategy for Nasdaq futures using Bollinger Bands (which won the trading contest!)
•An opening range breakout strategy for Nasdaq futures.
As part of his victory, Pietro also scores a fantastic prize: a €1,000 Amazon gift card!
It’s worth noting that this is Pietro's second Amazon gift card win... That's right! He also snagged a victory in the August 2024 contest with a clever strategy centered on Live Cattle futures!
For his September win, Pietro switched things up, using a breakout strategy on Nasdaq futures. His winning formula? A sharp use of Bollinger Bands to catch those perfect market moves!
Backtested from 2010 to the present, the strategy boasts an impressive average trade of $655 and a steady equity curve.
The Strategy of the Month contest is reserved for Unger Academy® students and rewards the participant who developed the best strategy using the Unger Method™ with a €1,000 Amazon voucher. To learn more about the contest and how to enter, click here.
If you are a student of the One Year Target or AlgoTrader Fast programs, we remind you that you can obtain the codes of the winners and top candidates from the competition by joining the Unger Strategy Club! click here to learn more!
Whether you are looking for insights to diversify your portfolio or want to get an idea of the strategies we teach at Unger Academy®, don't miss this video!
Enjoy! 😉
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this brand-new video.
One of the coaches and researchers at Unger Academy here, and today we’ll take a look at the results of our Strategy of the Month contest for September.
We’ll reveal the winning strategy, which you can see on the screen right now, and we’ll also dive into some other great strategies submitted by our students last month.
As always, we’ll share actionable insights by analyzing the logic behind these strategies, the markets they’re applied to, and, of course, their performance.
Just a reminder: the Strategy of the Month contest is exclusively for Unger Academy students, and it rewards the best strategy developed using the Unger Method.
By submitting your strategy, you get the chance to win a €1,000 Amazon voucher every month.
Also, if you’d like access to the winning strategy codes from this contest, you can join the Unger Strategy Club, one of the Academy’s exclusive services. As a member of the Club, you’ll get access to the code of this month’s winning strategy, along with all the previous winners.
In addition, the Unger Strategy Club gives you access to live advanced training masterclasses and monthly videos with actionable insights, where we break down the rules of one of the strategies in our portfolio.
But that’s not all! Recently, we launched an exclusive VIP plan that gives you access not only to the winning strategies but also to all the candidate strategies that passed the rigorous evaluation by Unger Academy coaches.
Strategy #1: An Opening Range Breakout Strategy for Nasdaq Futures
Alright, so let’s dive into the trading systems you’ve submitted in September.
Today, we’ll focus mainly on the Nasdaq index, which is one of the top-performing markets right now.
Let’s set aside the winning strategy for a moment and take a look at another one, also working on the Nasdaq.
This strategy is very similar to one already in the Unger Academy’s database.
However, it’s worth revisiting because, as mentioned, the Nasdaq is performing really well, especially with breakout strategies.
And this strategy is all about breakout logic.
Specifically, it’s an Opening Range Breakout strategy, which uses the market’s opening price as a trigger for trades, like this short trade, for example. The opening price is adjusted by a multiplier of the range from the previous day, or days, depending on whether it’s a long or short trade.
The position is managed with a stop loss, a take profit, and even a breakeven stop, which we can see in action here.
If none of these exits are triggered, the code will automatically close the trade after about a week.
Now, let’s check out the performance. The equity curve looks great, with an average trade size of $344.
Slippage on the Nasdaq—specifically the mini Nasdaq futures—can be significant, but $344 is more than enough to cover commissions.
The number of trades, which is a key factor, is quite high. That’s a good sign because it provides statistical significance to the results.
There are far more long trades than short ones. Let’s also take a look at the performance of both sides of the strategy. Here’s the long side, and here’s the short side.
I’d focus more on the short side, which has been heavily filtered and spends most of its time in a loss.
But that’s to be expected, because shorting a bullish market like the Nasdaq is extremely challenging.
Expecting short trades to perform as well as long trades is like hitting your head against the wall—it’s just not going to work.
So why keep a short strategy in a bullish market like this?
Because short trades are useful during difficult periods, like potential bear markets.
For instance, in 2022, this strategy did well on the short side, even though there were still some small losses due to the stop loss.
As we can see, both the long and short sides have a Percent Profitable around 27%.
This makes the strategy quite tough from a psychological standpoint.
You’ll only win 27% of the time, but when you win, you’ll win big, as we can see here.
In fact, it only took one trade to make up for the losses in the following years.
This strategy is based on the concept of outliers, where a market breakout covers all the small losses accumulated before.
Strategy #2: Winner - A Breakout Strategy for Nasdaq Futures Using Bollinger Bands
Now, let’s look at the winning strategy, also based on the Nasdaq and also using a breakout logic.
This system is a little bit different and more original, which is why we decided to award Pietro. It also uses breakout levels, but they’re based on Bollinger Bands.
Bollinger Bands are used here not for mean reversion, as is typical, but for breakout trades.
In addition to the Bollinger Band cross, we place a stop order at the high of the previous bar, adding extra confirmation to our trigger.
It’s an only-long strategy with stop-and-profit exits, as well as an exit based on market strength, calculated with a moving average.
So, if the close falls below the moving average after the breakout, we’ll close the trade to protect our operations.
The results are excellent, and the average trade size is fantastic.
While we’re making fewer trades overall, the returns are still very good, and the strategy is consistent.
2016 wasn’t a great year, but that’s normal because from 2010 to 2016, the Nasdaq behaved more like a mean-reverting market. Since 2018, though, it’s shifted toward being a breakout market, as reflected in the average trade size.
So, congratulations to Pietro for the originality of his code. We highly value originality in these contests.
It’s great to see our students put in so much effort to develop unique strategies, and we truly appreciate it.
It shows how the Unger Method can be adapted to various approaches, thanks to its versatility.
Conclusion
I hope you found this video helpful, as always.
If your goal is to develop trading strategies like the ones we’ve reviewed, you’re in the right place.
At the Unger Academy, you can participate in this contest, which is exclusive to our students, and you’ll have the chance to win a €1,000 Amazon voucher every month.
Lastly, if you want the winning strategy’s code, you can join the Unger Strategy Club. Check out ungerclub.com to see if it’s the right fit for you.
For more information, click the link in the description or the first comment. From there you can get a free presentation from Andrea Unger or have the best-selling book "The Unger Method" sent to your home for just the shipping cost. You can even book a call with one of our team members for a free strategy consultation.
Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time with more actionable insights. Goodbye!
We'll help you map out a plan to fix the problems in your trading and get you to the next level. Answer a few questions on our application and then choose a time that works for you.
BOOK YOUR FREE STRATEGY SESSION NOW >>Andrea Unger here and I help retail traders to improve their trading, scientifically. I went from being a cog in the machine in a multinational company to the only 4-Time World Trading Champion in a little more than 10 years.
I've been a professional trader since 2001 and in 2008 I became World Champion using just 4 automated trading systems.
In 2015 I founded Unger Academy, where I teach my method of developing effecting trading strategies: a scientific, replicable and universal method, based on numbers and statistics, not hunches, which led me and my students to become Champions again and again.
Now I'm here to help you learn how to develop your own strategies, autonomously. This channel will help you improve your trading, know the markets better, and apply the scientific method to financial markets.
Becoming a trader is harder than you think, but if you have passion, will, and sufficient capital, you'll learn how to code and develop effective strategies, manage risk, and diversify a portfolio of trading systems to greatly improve your chances of becoming successful.
