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Path: Tom Hougaard — Module 0 / The Evidence
Module 0 · evidence, not hype

Who Tom Hougaard is — the numbers, not the story.

Before you learn any strategy, you deserve to see the data. Below: our analysis of his real broker statement (3,370 trades, January–September 2025, shared by him personally) plus our independent backtest of his strategy on 17 years of DAX data — including the variant that loses money. Then we test you: can you actually read these numbers?

01

Nine months, 3,370 trades — the statement, cold

Source: broker statement, Jan–Sep 2025

Starting account ~£9,900 (+£10,000 deposited along the way), his "public" account. The numbers below come from the statement's official P/L column — not from marketing.

Net P&L · 9 months
+£78,717
£56,788 withdrawn; final balance £43,599
Trades
3,370
≈27 per trading day; median duration 8 min
Win rate
62.5%
2,106 wins / 1,208 losses / 56 breakeven
Profit factor
1.41
gross, across all 3,370
Avg win / avg loss
£129 / −£160
ratio 0.81 — below 1. Remember that.
Positive days
88%
111 out of 126; average positive day +£920
Max drawdown
−£20,473
on cumulative P&L
Longest streaks
26 W / 24 L
26 wins in a row… and 24 losses in a row
Where the money comes from — P&L by instrument Jan–Sep 2025 · values in £ thousands

Specialization, not diversification: the money comes from 4 indices. Everything that isn't an index (gold, oil, FX) is irrelevant or a loss — he follows his own rule. By hour: the US session (14:00–17:00 UK) produces +£52k, i.e. 66% of the entire profit; 13:00 UK is the worst hour (−£5k).
Note: the full monthly analysis shows May 2025 negative (−£427), July at breakeven (+£40) and August missing (holiday) — out of 9 months: 6 good, 2 dead, 1 negative. "Trading is not linear."

02

The central lesson: the tail makes the money

top 10 of 3,370 trades

On the typical trade, Tom is a scalper: he cuts fast (median 8 minutes, avg win smaller than avg loss). And yet the year is huge. How? Ten trades. On the few big days he lets the position run and adds ("adding to winners"). Every dot below is a real trade. Find the golden ones.

3,370 trades. 10 of them = 51% of the entire profit. each dot = 1 real trade
10 trades → 51% of the profit
the other 3,360 → 49%
0.3% of the trades produce 51% of the money without those 10: a mediocre year

This is the real lesson of the statement: you can cut 3,000 trades fast if you let 10 grow huge. Corollary: don't judge by the trade, judge by the tail — if you also cut the big winners, the whole edge disappears. That's not a figure of speech; it's arithmetic on his statement.

"You can be wrong on the typical trade all day long — as long as you're not wrong on the ten that matter." the lesson of the tail · 2025 statement
03

What you do NOT see on YouTube

the expensive parts of the same year

The same statement that shows +£78,717 also contains these rows. We publish them in the same typeface — because they are the price of the edge, not its accidents.

Avg win < avg loss
£129 < £160
the average win is SMALLER than the average loss. The edge lives in the win rate + the tail, not in a textbook "1:3 risk/reward".
Worst day
−£10,856
he lost in one day what he made in 12 average days. Negative days are ~2× more expensive (−£1,673 average) than positive ones.
Biggest single-trade loss
−£10,000
likely a scaled-in position caught on the wrong side — the flip side of "adding to winners".
Consecutive losses
24
with a 62.5% win rate. If your sizing plan doesn't survive that, you don't have a plan.
May 2025
−£427
an entire negative month — for a trader with 88% positive days.
July 2025
+£40
a full month of work, basically at breakeven.
August 2025
missing
holiday. Out of 9 months: 6 good, 2 dead, 1 negative.
Psychological sizing
<5%
to take a −£10,856 day and come back tomorrow, that day has to be under 5% of the account. On 10,000 EUR: max −500 EUR/day.
This is not a highlight reel. It's a full year, red rows included — and that's exactly why it's worth studying. why we start with Module 0
04

Our independent backtest: the SRS over 17 years

DAX cash 5-min · 2009–2026 · 453,244 bars

We don't take any mentor at his word — not even the first one. We ran the School Run Strategy (his signature strategy) across 4,412 trading days, with all 3 stop variants from his playbook, no lookahead, using conservative conventions. Mechanical exit at the close of the day (EOD) or trailing — a proxy for his discretionary exit. The "Net" column subtracts 2.2 pts/trade (spread + slippage). His claim that "99% of days produce a setup"? Confirmed exactly: 99.8%.

StopExitTradesWin ratePFTotal pts (gross)Net (−2.2/tr)Max DDMax L streakLosing years
(a) signal bar extremesEOD7,16232.2%1.26+38,345+22,589−1,764211 / 18
(a) signal bar extremestrailing7,16242.0%1.37+30,996+15,240−1,064160 / 18
(b) fixed 40 pts scaledrecommendedEOD6,78038.3%1.35+50,681+35,765−1,561460 / 18
(b) fixed 40 pts scaledtrailing7,03842.7%1.38+35,613+20,129−1,097130 / 18
(c) half of the signal barloses after costsEOD7,16218.0%1.10+10,064−5,692−2,875395 / 18
(c) half of the signal bartrailing7,16237.1%1.06+3,688−12,068−2,100326 / 18

Honesty, in bold type: variant (c) — the stop at half of the signal bar, given by him as an alternative in the playbook — loses money after costs: PF 1.10 gross, −5,692 pts net, 5 losing years out of 18, streaks of 39 consecutive losses. The tighter stop looks "safer", but the 18% win rate doesn't survive the costs. We publish it just as loudly as the winning variant — a path launches here only with an independent backtest published, including where the strategy loses.

And one more inconvenient truth: even the recommended variant (b) had, in 2020 (COVID), a streak of 46 consecutive losses. The edge comes from average wins of 2–3× the average losses (avg win/avg loss: +76/−35 on variant b) — not from the win rate. Exactly the "Best Loser Wins" profile: you lose often, you lose small, you win big. Average: ~2,900 pts/year gross. Limitations: the EOD exit ≠ his discretionary exit; cash data, not futures; the costs are an estimate.

05

The Module 0 exam: can you read the numbers?

5 questions · instant feedback

Not memorization — interpretation. Every correct answer = +20 XP. All the answers are in the numbers above.

Question 1 / 5 0 XP
Question 1 · losing streaks

Tom's win rate is 62.5%. How many consecutive losses did he still take over the 9 months — and must you be able to take too?

Question 2 · the tail

If you cut the top 10 trades out of Tom's 3,370, what happens to his 2025 edge?

Question 3 · our backtest

Which stop variant from the SRS playbook loses money after costs, on 17 years of data?

Question 4 · avg win < avg loss

His average win (£129) is SMALLER than his average loss (£160). How does he still end up +£78,717?

Question 5 · sizing

His worst day: −£10,856. You have a 10,000 EUR account. What is the maximum daily loss you can afford so you stay in the game, like him?

Score: ·

Module 0 · complete

You've seen the evidence. Now practice.

Module 1 — School Run Strategy: the signal bar, the bracket orders, the 3 stop variants. On real DAX data, no hindsight, with a score.

Now practice →