A 2x World Trading Champion's Embarrassingly Simple Strategy - Patrick Nill

Summary

Patrick Nill describes moving away from high-pressure scalping toward a more selective swing-trading approach. Trading 20–50 times a day kept him under pressure; he says his results improved after he began waiting for setups and taking only one or two trades.

He generally trades in the morning and says he is active about 150 days a year—typically 2–4 hours a day at home, or about one hour while traveling.

Nill reports 300% performance in the trading championship this year. He also says he appeared on championship leaderboards for six consecutive years and reached the podium 12 times. These are his reported results; he emphasizes that championship risk-taking differs substantially from how he trades private accounts.

Strategy and process

• Set direction: Use Market Profile and volume analysis, alongside major support and resistance zones.
• Set broader context: Review the 4-hour chart.
• Find entries: Use the 15-minute chart and his preferred PBD setup.
• PBD structure: Wait for a strong price push followed by a range, then enter when price breaks out of the range, either with or against the trend.

He favors counter-trend trades in some setups, saying they can offer clearly defined stops and take-profit levels. He does not use footprint charts, order books, or depth-of-market tools; he says these can make him nervous and lead him to change decisions. He may consult colleague Serge on entry timing, but says he usually trades independently.

Risk, instruments, and market context

• Private accounts: He says he risks about 0.2% per trade and prefers a higher risk-to-reward ratio.
• Championship account: He says he typically risks 2–4% per trade, rarely as much as 5%. He prefers a higher win rate in the competition and generally closes trades in the evening to avoid overnight risk.
• Drawdowns: He says he is comfortable with 20–30% drawdowns in the championship, but experienced a drawdown of roughly 50% this year, which he attributed in part to an oil trade.

Nill previously focused mainly on oil and shifted toward the DAX after war-related volatility. He says he may return to oil if conditions calm. He describes pre-war oil’s daily range as roughly $2–$3, with clearer signals and fewer false moves than he sees in the DAX. He characterizes the DAX as more volatile, with moves of thousands of points.

His worst trade was a short oil position held over a weekend as war began. He estimated the gap at 700–900 points, followed by about another 100 points of movement before he exited. He says the position was not large, but recovering from the loss was difficult.

Becoming a father made him more anxious about losses and more conservative with risk. He cautions traders not to assume championship returns are repeatable in private accounts.

Disclosures and source

No explicit “not financial advice” disclaimer appears in the subtitles. The performance figures and trading approach are presented as Patrick’s personal account.

Patrick Nill (also rendered as “Niel” in the subtitles) was interviewed by Andrea for World Class Edge. Tom and Serge are mentioned as trading colleagues.