I went on Mike Baghdady’s course.
I have read through a lot of this thread and it seems to me that there are people here who simply want to say their piece on how they were misled by a delusional person. I don’t want to be accused of slander so I will back up what I say. Simply put, a delusion is a belief in something that is not true. A delusional person is someone who holds onto those beliefs. The situation is tragic, while some may come to realise that what they are being told does not add up, the person who holds on to their delusion remains convinced that they are right. What adds fuel to the fire is that unsuccessful trading makes some people vulnerable due to the aggravation and pain of financial loss, so making them more susceptible to delusion. Considering the evidence found on this thread that Mahmoud (Mike) Baghdady has financial problems, does it not become glaringly obvious that the reason for his problems is due to the fact that he is not a successful trader? Does sound reasoning not suggest that if his claims were true he should be debt free and not have any financial problems? Would you take advice from a financial advisor who has financial problems? My advice to new traders would be to be wary not only of Mahmoud (Mike) Baghdady but also of anyone else who makes such claims. My sincere advice to Mahmoud Baghdady would be to look deep within yourself and understand the absurdity of your situation.
I took a course by Mahmoud (Mike) Baghdady (MB) and Mike Douglas at Spyglass Trading in London at the end of 2009, way before this thread even got started. I had only started trading and wasn’t very successful. At the time I was spending hours learning about trading, watching webinars, reading books etc. I came across some webinars hosted by MB on FXStreet and I have to admit I was mesmerised by his words. In my sincere efforts to become a successful trader I knew I had to learn as much as possible, I had to be patient and persevere in my endeavour. As a person, he came across as being very sincere and as a trader he just seemed to make so much sense with his insights and his trading method. I was intrigued by his system, the opening ranges, market side, structural points etc. although he was secretive about exactly how some parts of the system really worked which actually made it even more intriguing. In theory, his understanding behind each concept and overall, his understanding of the market seemed compelling. The problem however, as many people here have already highlighted is that the theory and reality are wildly out of step. MB claims that his system is profitable 70% of the time, I don’t know about the others but I found that even if I did everything I was supposed to do I couldn’t even break even.
So, what is the problem with his system? During the weekend planning session he sets a bias. He looks at the currency futures such as the USD index and others individually. He the makes an educated guess at where he thinks the currency is heading. He looks at the trend and on structural levels which are the significant highs and lows of historical trading ranges. He then looks at each currency pair and starting with the higher time frames identifies nearby levels and the general trend direction. He then looks for a place to go long and a place to go short usually on a lower timeframe and usually above or below a recent high or low. If you want to see examples of his planning you can go here:
MIke Baghdady - YouTube
In my experience I have found that his trades depend on momentum and on a longer term trend. If there is no trend and if there is no momentum the system breaks down and results in losses. Based on the planning session you will end up buying at resistance and selling at support (but for some odd reason he doesn’t like to call them support or resistance, he calls them things like perception level, momentum level etc.), it’s all good if resistance and support break because such a move is followed by capitulation due to the number of stops above and below. But as the more experienced traders know there are many times when such moves are fake-outs or stop loss hunts; the market reverses and plummets in the other direction. Also, if you buy at resistance and sell at support you are usually doing so after a significant move has already taken place and are hoping that the momentum will continue, in other words you end up chasing the trade. There is also a lot of volatility around significant or structural points because they are important. According to this method you are meant to buy above and sell below. However at times there is so much volatility around these points that if you were to do that you would very quickly encounter losses, as the price moves above and below it so many times. In the end you will find that if the market does not trend or the trends are short lived then all the smaller losses incurred by trying to catch any of the larger moves will overwhelm your trading account.
Overall, there may be times when the system is successful, such as recently for JPY pairs which have a strong trend, but then who needs a system to trade the JPY pairs? I surmise that the reason why MB has not been successful recently is because the markets have been so volatile without any clear direction. Can anyone really say for sure in which direction EURUSD is headed. What about if I had asked this question before 2008? MB developed this system under certain market conditions and certain expectations when he worked as a floor trader but that was a different time and under different conditions.
My advice is to check out his planning sessions and compare them with what really happened, if you had taken those trades would you have been successful or not? My advice for any new traders is this. Do not become deluded. The psychological pain of financial loss can make you susceptible to all kinds of wishful thinking. You will, in all likelihood learn the hard way, which means many years and many thousands spent on learning how to trade. In the end, you will discover that the keys to your success were actually the most basic and will have come to you through alot of pain. Whatever happens never ever get into debt to trade. If you are in debt don’t trade, sort out your finances first and only trade with your own money. If you are good with technical analysis but find that you cannot manage your risk or trade on leverage, consider longer term investing in stocks and ideally with no leverage, at least you’ll be able to sleep at night.
Caldera