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 >>In this video, we discuss the winning strategy of our August 2024 Strategy of the Month contest and two other strategies that we found particularly interesting among those submitted by participants:
•A multiday trend-following strategy on Live Cattle (the contest winner!)
•A strategy for RBOB Gasoline futures based on Pivot Points
•A breakout strategy on Gold using the Donchian Channel
In addition to his win, Pietro also walks away with the competition's grand prize: a €1,000 Amazon gift card!
Pietro’s winning strategy is a multiday trend-following system designed for Live Cattle futures. Tested on market data since 2010, it earns an impressive $142,760, maintaining an excellent net profit/drawdown ratio of 20 and an average trade of $171.
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! I’m one of the coaches at Unger Academy and today we’re going to be diving into the results of our "Strategy of the Month" contest for August.
We’ll reveal the winning strategy and showcase a selection of other great strategies you’ve submitted.
As usual, we’ll break down the core logic behind these strategies and markets they target, and of course, their performance metrics, providing you with some actionable insights.
Just a reminder—the "Strategy of the Month" contest is exclusively for Unger Academy students and rewards the top strategy developed using the Unger Method.
Each month, the participants have a chance to win a €1,000 Amazon gift card by submitting their strategy.
Also, if you’re interested in accessing the code for the winning strategies, you can join the Unger Strategy Club, an exclusive service from our Academy, where you’ll get the open-source code for this month’s winning strategy and all the previous ones.
Plus, you’ll gain access to live masterclasses for advanced training and monthly videos where we’ll break down one of the best strategies in our portfolio.
But that’s not all—we’ve recently launched an exclusive VIP plan, giving you access not only to the winning strategies but also to all those that, although they didn’t win, passed our coaches’ evaluation.
Alright, so let’s jump in and review the best strategies you submitted for August!
Strategy #1: Gasoline Futures Based on Pivot Points
First up is a strategy by Alessandro, focused on RBOB Gasoline, a gasoline future with some unique behavior during its trading session.
You can see from the volume trends that certain times of the session have higher trading volumes, while others have much lower activity.
For example, volumes are typically low during the night, but starting around 8:00 a.m. exchange time until about 3:00 p.m., most of the trading happens.
Alessandro’s strategy leverages Pivot Points and calculates these levels using only the session with the highest volumes—from about 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.—to establish a high-low range. When the price breaks these levels, it triggers a trade.
Breaking the high triggers a long position, and breaking the low triggers a short position.
When tested on historical data, this setup delivered impressive results.
Let’s check out the performance report.
The equity curve is steady and positive, and the performance metrics are quite strong.
The strategy has generated about $360,000 in profits from 2010 to today, with a fantastic net profit to drawdown ratio of 14.5 and an average trade value of about $400—more than enough to cover trading costs.
The annual results are consistent, with around 50-60 trades per year, making this a solid strategy.
In addition to other exit strategies like take profit, stop loss, and breakeven, it also has a time-based exit that limits trade duration to about five and a half days, calculated in bars.
Great job, Alessandro! This is a top-tier and highly interesting strategy.
Strategy #2: Breakout on Gold Using the Donchian Channel
Next up is a strategy submitted by Daniele, trading on Gold, using a classic approach.
This is a Donchian Channel breakout system that triggers trend-following entries—long for a breakout above the upper channel and short for a breakout below the lower channel.
It’s an intraday system, so all trades close by the end of the day, as you can see here.
The system is symmetrically designed, which is recommended for commodities, and uses a time window and two neutral patterns to filter trades and eliminate the worst ones.
The performance is fairly consistent, even with a couple of slightly negative years. For an intraday strategy, these are strong results.
The average trade is around $200, which is more than sufficient for this instrument.
The strategy balances long and short trades, and the equity curve is excellent with strong overall results.
Here too, the net profit to drawdown ratio is 13, making this another highly effective strategy, particularly for intraday trading, which is generally tougher than multiday systems.
Strategy #3: Winner - Multi-Day Trend-Following Strategy on Live Cattle
And now, the winning strategy for August, developed by Pietro! Congratulations, Pietro, on winning the €1,000 Amazon gift card!
This strategy focuses on the Live Cattle market using 60-minute bars. Like other instruments in the meat market, Live Cattle has a shorter session, making multiday trading more suitable to achieve higher average trades.
The market typically exhibits trend-following behavior, which Pietro exploited with a simple yet effective approach.
The entry trigger is based on two symmetrical conditions for long and short trades.
For long trades, today’s high must be higher than the close of two previous sessions.
For instance, here’s an example of a long entry where today’s high exceeds the close of the last two sessions, but yesterday’s close must also be lower than the open.
So, after a down day, when today’s high surpasses the last two days’ close, you go long.
The reverse applies for short trades.
The strategy also includes a time window to avoid trades near the session’s end and a relatively small stop loss set at a value of $650.
There’s no take profit, just a trailing stop, and the maximum trade duration is a few days.
This setup shows to produce excellent results.
The equity curve is great, and when we look at the overall results, the net profit to drawdown ratio exceeds 20, which keeps drawdown low while delivering steady results over the years.
The yearly performance is impressive, except for a few negative years early in the track record. So, overall, we see pretty good results.
Moreover, although the average trade for this market could be seen as a weak point, this strategy produces a still solid average trade value of $170.
The simplicity of Pietro’s strategy, paired with its effectiveness, made it our top choice for the €1,000 Amazon gift card this month.
Congrats again, Pietro, for winning August’s contest.
Conclusion
As always, I hope this video has been helpful. If your goal is to create trading strategies like the ones we’ve showcased today, you’re definitely in the right place.
At the Unger Academy, you too can join this contest, exclusively for our students, and win a €1,000 Amazon gift card every month.
Lastly, if you’d like to get the code of the winning strategy, you can subscribe to the Unger Strategy Club.
For more information, click the link in the description of this video.
From there, you can access a free presentation by Andrea Unger, receive a copy of his bestseller book, The Unger Method by just covering the shipping costs, and book a free strategy call with one of our tutors.
Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you in the next video with more trading insights.
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.
