Interview With an EST Member About His Journey to Mastery

Hey, tell us about your journey with with est. Just a little bit. How were you feeling about your trading before we met?

Yeah, so I think I only knew one style of trading which was basically min reversion. And I, I was already trading systematically basically from 2012 till 2020 when I joined EST. And my trading system was doing well from 2012 to 2020. And then Covid hit and that's when I suffered greatly because I was relying on one trading system only. And yeah, it basically went pay shape. I suffered quite a big drawdown, which have never happened before, and I didn't really understand how to untangle it. And that's when I stumbled upon the ES2 website. And yeah, that's kind of like opened my eyes because. Oh yeah.

There'S a lot of trading systems that I could use to diversify because at that time I knew that I had to diversify because if one system fails, I don't have any backup. And also I didn't know how to evaluate the trading system like, well, I knew how to do like a backtest and do like a simple evaluation of the trading system, but I don't know why it fails. And I kind of felt like, oh, maybe I was just lucky, which in hindsight I think I was lucky. So yeah, so that's how I was trading before I joined est.

Yeah. Nice. So what, what were you when you came into the program? What were you worried about or concerned about? Because you know, there's a lot of sharks, there's a lot of bad education. Did, did you have any, any, any concerns there?

Sorry, I'm still not. What do you mean?

When, when you were making decision, the decision to join the Trader success system, what were you worried about? Did you have any concerns before you joined?

Oh yeah, my concern was more about like how to develop the trading system. And like.

Yeah, I was. I'm not sure whether I was just being lucky or like, I don't really understand analyzing a trading system in a deeply manner.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So how is. So how does the program helped you then? So you know, that's where you were. Where are you?

Yeah, so it helped, it helped me a lot with the program because in.

It basically show me the things that I don't know and it's kind of open up a lot of.

My ass a lot because like I was like, oh, I was very lucky because I was trading too boldly before. I was risking too much position and I was relying too much on one strategy and also one market. Yeah, yeah. And then the Program kind of like, let me know that. Oh, okay. There's a lot more out there and there's a lot of things that we can do to minimize the risk.

Yeah, got it, got it.

We're talking about mastery today and advanced techniques. What's your favorite advanced sort of analytical or backtesting technique? What's the thing you like the most?

I've actually got two. So the first one is basically the brute force method for optimization when developing a system. And the other one is the unconstrained backtest.

Yeah, nice. Okay, so the brute force optimization is a good one. Let me just, I'm going to talk about it shortly on the next slide, but let me just frame it up for everyone. Most trading software allows you to optimize everything all at once, simultaneously by pressing a button. You wait ages, the computer churns through 360 million combinations of variables and it gives you the one best answer. Now, if you look, if you've kind of been piecing together what I'm putting down over the last couple of days, you'll probably realize that the one best answer optimizing from the past is going to be a curve fit disaster and it's not going to work in the future. Right. But the method Henjo is talking about is my method that I teach for taking all of that data and finding stability in that massive combination of, of different parameter back tests and getting a, getting an optimization that actually works with a high degree of certainty in the future. That's right. Right. H ho, Nice. And then the unconstrained capital back test, Tell me about that.

What, what?

A, what is it really quick? And then B, why do you like it?

It's basically taking all the possible traits that back test can do. So if you, when you run a backtest, for example, you have limited capital and you can only take, let's say 20 positions and that one single, it makes you a profitable system based on that one system. But that's just like one version of the backtest. The unconstrained backtest is taking all the trades that is possible by using that system criteria. And sometimes it can show whether your single backtest evaluation is actually based on luck. Because what happens if you only take in all the favorable trades into your portfolio backtest, so you have like a really nice looking curve. Whereas the unconstrained backtest, when you take all those trades, you will see visually that, oh, maybe it's whether it's because of luck or whether it's because of all the systems, whether all the trades are performing as expected. And so that means the system is robust.

Okay, cool. Hey. So there's a lot of people who are new in the crowd. Hinger. And one of the things we learned earlier in the week is that, you know, there's a lot of words that we hear in this that kind of we don't understand. It's confusing and whatever. What would you say to someone who is listening to this journey? Because we're talking about the five stage journey this week and they might be sitting in a bit of overwhelm or a bit confused or they don't really understand some of the things you just said or all of the things you just said. What would you say to them? Just to kind of give reassurance?

I would think I would say, like, take it step by step. There's actually like a very structured program in the ESC program. It's segregated by different modules and you'll have time for you to learn. And so that's from the program side, but on the other side, you have like a very great community where you can ask question as well. As for me, my favorite will be the System Builders Club. I like developing systems and then when I develop a system that I thought is great, I present it in there and people take holes in it and it's like, oh, okay, that's something I've. Well, it basically.

Stresses the system's ideal. So people can give input like whether it's working or not. And then they can also offer simplification as well or improvement. And yeah, so I guess in summary, yeah, just take it easy. You are fully supported. You've got the program structure to help you and the community as well. And of course you have Adrian and the team who is very active in helping you as well. Yeah, yeah.

Nice. Thank you. Hey, I really love that. And System Builders Club is my favorite meeting. It's the meeting of the week, every week that I look forward to the most. And I think you're absolutely right. A lot of people will be sitting there thinking, well, if I develop a system, how do I know if it's right? How do I know if it's good? And. And bringing it to the community and having the community probe and ask questions and challenge. I mean, that's gold, right? I do it for my systems and I get huge value because the community is so good. And you know, when everyone else brings theirs as well, I think it's really powerful. Henjo, thank you so much for coming. Thanks for sharing your perspective. You know, I really love, you know, whenever we come to System Builders Club and you're presenting. I'm always excited because it's always going to be something good. You're always open to feedback and discussion. And I just want to thank you for being such a great part of the community. I really, really appreciate it and value you. So thanks again for taking the time to share with us today. Yeah.

Thanks, Adrian. Thanks, everyone.

Thanks, Angel.