Trader of the Month (June 2024): Michael Wins with a +136% Return (He’s in the World Championships Top 5!)

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How did Michael, our June Trader of the Month, achieve an astounding return of +136%, earning nearly $13,000 in one month with a drawdown of only 5%?

Here's a teaser about Michael… he's currently competing in the World Cup Trading Championships and ranks in the Top 5!

For more details, including the markets he traded on and his risk profile, check out today's video!

We'll dive into his performance and also highlight two other traders who achieved exceptional results in June:
-Alessandro, who earned €15,890, translating to a +32% return with a minimal drawdown of -6%
-Daniele, who made €9,620, equating to a +59% return with an -8% drawdown

Watch the video now to learn:
-How Michael clinched the "Trader of the Month" title
-Detailed insights into the trading performance of Michael and the other standout traders
-The markets they traded, the strategies they employed, and their risk profiles
-Their top tips for those venturing into live trading

Remember, the "Trader of the Month" contest is exclusive to Unger Academy® students and awards a €1,000 Amazon voucher to the participant with the best live trading performance of the month (click here to learn more about the contest).

Enjoy the video 😊

PS. If you want to watch previous Trader of the Month videos, just click here!

Transcription

Introduction + What is the Trader of the Month

Hello and welcome to this new video where we'll go over the results of our Trader of the Month contest for June.

We'll review the statement of our top-performing student, but we'll also highlight the impressive achievements of those who didn't win but still delivered noteworthy performances.

Lastly, we'll share some practical tips drawn from our traders' real market experiences.

Remember, the Trader of the Month is the contest that is exclusive to Unger Academy students and rewards the best live performance with an Amazon voucher, which for June was €2,000.

Alessandro, who earned €15,890 (with a return of 31.72%)

Let's start and dive right in with Alessandro's statement. In June, he earned €15,890, achieving a 31.72% return with a very modest drawdown of 6.23%.

This chart shows his equity line peaking mid-month and then staying more or less stable around the same levels, with a slight dip at the end. As you can see, this is truly a remarkable performance.

Especially when you consider the return relative to the drawdown.

So, what instruments did Alessandro trade?

Mainly American bonds, Live Cattle, Lean Hogs, Micro Mini SP500, and Micro Euro-dollar.

Great job, Alessandro, you achieved really impressive results! So keep up the good work!
Unfortunately for Alessandro, since we had some incredibly strong competition in June, this performance was not enough to make him win the contest.

Daniele, who earned €9,621 (with a return of 58.74%)

So let's move on to another best performance, Daniele. Here is his statement, where you can see a profit of €9,621, with a fantastic return of 58.74% and a pretty low drawdown of just 8.38%.

As you can see, this equity line is incredible. Just look at it—it rises almost continuously from the start to the end of the month.

A 58% return is already a very impressive result, but the consistency shown over the month is even more admirable.

Moreover, an 8% drawdown paired with a 58% return is truly exceptional.

Daniele, you've done an amazing job and deserve an honorable mention. Returns like these are rare, but your performance, too was not enough to win you contest.

Michael, the winner, who earned €12,864 (with a return of 136.16% and a drawdown of 5.41%)

So let’s move on to see what our contest winner did to outperform his competitors! His name is Michael, and in June, he earned $12,864, making an astonishing return of 136%, with just over a 5% drawdown!

These results speak for themselves! What’s interesting is that Michael is also competing in the Robbin's Cup, so the World Cup Trading Championships, so he’s pushing a bit harder than usual.

As you know, it's common to leverage more in trading competitions. But despite this, Michael managed to keep his drawdown at 5%, which is an extremely low percentage, especially if we relate it to the incredible return of 136% that he made.

As of recording this video, Michael is among the top positions in the Robbin's Cup, and we’re very proud to see another of our traders succeed so well.

Here you can see Michael’s equity line, which is based on the trades he sent us.

The performance is consistent and the drawdowns are very low compared to the return achieved.

So, congratulations, Michael, you did a fantastic work and deservedly won our Trader of the Month contest for June!

Michael has been a student at the Unger Academy for four years. He went live after just six months of study, starting with micro contracts.

He immediately began live trading, skipping the simulated trading phase.

He has had a good start but faced some challenges, particularly in developing robust strategies.

In fact, it took him another year to develop strategies capable of handling all the market phases.

Now, he is very satisfied with his live trading results, even aside from the Robbin's Cup.

Professionally, he’s a doctor. He had no programming background, but he learned programming with EasyLanguage without too much trouble.

He uses a portfolio of about 25 strategies, selected from hundreds he has developed over the years.

And he wanted to stress the fact that all these strategies were developed using the Unger Method.

Michael includes in his portfolio only the strategies that show stability across all market phases.

He uses our Titan software primarily for position sizing management, while he prefers to perform strategy selection manually, using an out-of-sample phase and analyzing how strategies behave in different market phases.

Besides his proprietary strategies, he also uses two strategies from our Million Dollar Database and one from the Unger Strategy Club.

He prefers micro futures for better portfolio diversification and activating more strategies on the same underlying asset.

After developing and testing strategies for many markets, he now focuses on Nasdaq, DAX, Bund, Gold, Crude Oil, and even single stocks, where he uses intraday strategies he developed with the Unger Method. This is not a very common approach, however Michael managed to develop intraday strategies on US stocks successfully.

Of course, since he’s participating in the Trading Championship, he has a higher risk profile and uses leverage aggressively. However, as we have seen, he also managed to keep the drawdown low, which is definitely great.

Also considering that he made a lot of trades in June, he definitely did an excellent job.

Finally, I asked him for advice for those new to live trading. He emphasized the importance of using an out-of-sample period for strategies, telling me that his first mistake was activating strategies without proper real-market verification.

And of course, we know that the out-of-sample phase helps prevent overfitting.

He also advised against manipulating strategies during live trading, which is a pretty common temptation among newbie traders. He said that it’s better to let them run as they are without turning them on or off based on market phases.

So thank you, Michael, for your insights and congratulations on your outstanding results!

Conclusion

Okay, so if you aim to achieve similar results with your live trading and while you do that, you also want to participate in our exclusive contest for Unger Academy students, with a chance to win a €1,000 Amazon voucher every month, click the link below.

It will take you to the contest rules page, where you can also book a free consultation with one of our tutors who’ll give you all the information that you need.

That's all for today, see you at next month's contest and happy trading everybody!

Need More Help? Book Your FREE Strategy Session With Our Team Today!

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.

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Andrea Unger

Andrea Unger

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.