It will be no surprise to hear that the best foreign exchange trading systems are the ones which make money! The problem is simply the simplest way to identify which ones those are, and particularly, the simplest way to decide which system will work the best for an individual trader, i.e. You.

First let’s rule out some systems that never earn cash for any person, at least not in the long run. These are the type of systems that gamblers infrequently call loss recovery systems. They involve varying the risk according to whether the last trade won or lost. The idea is that if your last trade lost, then your next is more likely to win, so you take a larger position. However this idea is totally wrong. Stats disprove it every time. So with that rant out of the way, let us take a look at the simple way to identify a rewarding system. To do that we’re going to introduce the concept of edge. It is a easy calculation but you do need a fair number of results to determine it from.

Edge is simply the probability of a win multiplied by the average profit on a winning trade, minus the chance of a loss multiplied by the average loss on a bad trade. Results are calculated after taking away the spread and any other per trade costs.