Interview with KlondikeFX (DARWIN $NTI)

KlondikeFX has been a trader with us since the start. In this interview, we get to know more about him and his trading style. As the winner of our first ever DarwinIA trading challenge he’s proven that he knows what it takes to be a longer term profitable trader.

So, tell us a little about yourself. How did you get started and how long have you been trading for?
My name is Lars, I am 34 years old and currently live in Germany. I am the guy behind KlondikeFX. I fell in love with trading during school where we played a team game virtually trading the stock market. We were pretty bad but it was a lot of fun. After school I studied business administration with emphasis on computer sciences. During that time I was “playing” the stock market with real money and lost some of it due to the dotcom bubble. This experience also marked the preliminary ending of my career as a manual trader. About six years ago I started to dive into trading again but now my focus was solely on algorithmic trading. Winnetou is in development since 2011 and has been profitable every year since its earliest beta stages.
About your trading strategy: what pairs do you usually trade? Do you always trade the same timeframes?
Winnetou is a fully automated strategy currently trading EUR/USD and GBP/USD. It is evaluating price action on multiple timeframes but trading decisions are executed on M1.
As a trader, what would you say is your greatest strength?
As my trading is completely algorithmic driven it takes the emotional and mental component out of the game. Winnetou is not taking bad decisions based on an instable state of mind. I have seen a lot of great manual traders who have a hard time accepting losses. This often results in so called “Revenge-Trades” or overtrading trying to make up for the recent losses. The other extreme would be a trader that is too scared of losing again that he is unwilling to enter any new positions even though the market is offering him great oppurtunities. Winnetou doesn’t eat or sleep and never loses its focus. All he does is trading.
And your biggest weakness?
I would say the greatest strength could also be seen as the biggest weakness. Fully automatic trading lets no room for discretionary actions by an experienced trader which could be helpful from time to time. However all things considered I would say the advantages of an automated trading strategy outweigh its drawbacks by far.
Our algos tell you are very good at Timing. Any ideas for other traders who need to improve on that attribute?
As Winnetou is not only basing its decisions on higher timeframes but also considers price action on a per tick basis it is able to find pretty good entries and exits. The strategy mainly focuses on scalping with an average trade duration of around 2.5 hours. Its success is largely dependant on finding the best entry and exit points. But even if your strategy is built around longer timeframes, I would not completely disregard the lower timeframes. Including micro price action that might squeeze some extra pips here and there.
What is the most important lesson you have learnt in your trading career?
I wouldn’t say it’s the most important lesson, however, always having a clear trading plan will help you a lot with becoming a profitable trader. Even if you are not trading by yourself, you have to stick to your money management plan. Don’t let yourself be influenced by short-term results. A lot of traders/investors would reduce risk after a couple of losses which will make it even harder to recover. If you don’t feel comfortable during a drawdown, you are probably trading with too much risk. Darwinex is doing a great job assessing the risk of different trading strategies. This will make your investment decisions a lot easier.
Finally, any comment you’d like to share with the fellow traders who read this?
Congratulations on finding this site. You have made the first step to make money. Next step would be to choose some Darwins and become an investor 😉