Steinitz Fractal Pterodactyl

[sfx1971]

Hi,

A few years back I played around with an indicator called the 'fractal breakout indicator' from Don Steinitz, got some very mixed results and eventually gave up on it.

During that time he would constantly bombard my inbox with testimonials from traders who had supposedly doubled their accounts in a month (I can't even begin to imagine the risk you would have to take to get those results).

Anyway, he has released an automated version of this indicator called the 'fractal pterodactyl' and I would be very interested to see this one on test. Based on the fact that if those testimonials were real then this robot could easily match if not better Mr Steinitz' claims.....

Trouble is that Don is a bit of a slippery character and I doubt if he would donate a copy for testing, he would no doubt insist upon purchasing a copy at $379.......

Here's hoping!

[Thomas]

I have tested the Steinitz Fractal indicator about a year ago. It performed very well in trending markets but had poor performance in ranging markets. At it´s best period it had about 90% winners but as many other automated systems it lost it all in a short period where the market conditions changed. Very interested in hearing other members feed back about this product because if the developer can make some way to make it filter the bad trades I think this product actually can work.

[Simon]

I don't want to get on the bad side of anyone in the Forex industry but I got onto Don's email list (and after 7 emails requesting he unsubscribe me, I STILL get emails from him).

I looked into the Fractal indicator, the results looked too good to be true - and of course they are.

sfx1971 & Thomas, you are absolutely correct - the indicator gets killed in a choppy market. Most do.

I have looked at over 2,000 technical indicators and I can tell you, they are a distraction. Price action is the ONLY game in town - it's boring but I'm afraid it's true.

Marc and I have looked into every system ever conceived and I'm afraid that support and resistance and price patterns are your best bet.

I have looked into buy/sell arrow signals extensively and have even developed my own - I have spent three years doing this. Despite all my knowledge of technical analysis, I cannot get over the problem of ranging/choppy markets. In my opinion, it cannot be done with indicators alone.

The issue is that you will never know that you are in a choppy market until it is too late - you will have lost your profits from the trend. Worse still, if you are using a manual system, you will probably have lost confidence and miss the breakout you have been waiting for!

I have tried turning these systems into automated strategies, but then the issue becomes curve fitting/over optimization. These strategies will work well in a given year, but it is hard to get almost ANY EA to perform profitably over a 5 year period.

I'm not going to begrudge Mr. Steinitz his living, but in my opinion, I have done the same work as him in a similar way and concluded it is not going anywhere near my live account. I haven't charged you a cent for my advice but since I've just saved you a packet, you can send donations to my Paypal address... [only kidding].

Simon.