Strategies never work 100% of the time. What Will make you profitable is how you handle the bad days. It's all in risk management on how successful you will be. Some traders won't do a thing in periods where their strategy won't work others figure out a secondary strategy for those time periods.
The market doesn't care about your strategy. It does what it wants. You have to adapt to it.
It takes a man a long time to learn all the lessons of all his mistakes. They say there are two sides to everything. But there is only one side to the stock market; and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side. It took me longer to get that general principle fixed firmly in my mind than it did most of the more technical phases of the game of stock speculation.
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
Chapter III
Do not obsess over win rate—as if that’s the holy grail. I’ve had stretches where I win only 40% of the time, yet still end up with better PnL than traders pulling 60–80% win rates. Why? Because I don’t focus on maximizing gains—I focus on controlling losses.
My wins are solid. My losses are tiny. That’s the whole game.
This isn’t about chasing some “fool-proof” strategy. It’s about having a decent strategy paired with fool-proof risk management.
Trader identity + risk management > win rate every single time.
You could have a solid strategy that works almost every time, but you can never have a perfect record. The market gods look down upon you and laugh in your face and steal your money. It happens. It’s why risk management is so important, set a stop loss and lose the minimum instead of blowing up your port.
Know when to trade and when to sit on your hands.
Hold until it's time to sell.