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The 5 Questions Podcast
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The 5 Questions Podcast
From Engineer to Trader: Harry Vas Reveals the Big Footprints System for Market Accuracy
Harry Vas shares how his engineering background shaped his precise approach to trading, revealing his Big Footprints system that identifies institutional market movements with exceptional accuracy.
• Moving from engineering in Kuwait to entrepreneurship in Canada led to Harry's first market experiences
• Early success turning $3,000 into $30,000 was followed by a devastating loss that became a crucial lesson
• Discovering that conventional trading approaches only achieve 50-60% accuracy drove the search for better methods
• Big Footprints system uses price charts instead of time charts to filter out market noise
• The system works across multiple markets including forex, bonds, stocks, indices, gold, and Bitcoin
• Recent trades show impressive results: $150 move in gold over 12 days and 4,000-point Bitcoin move in hours
• Three key pieces of advice: move away from day trading, focus on swing trading, and use only money you can afford to lose
• Markets are not random - institutional players leave predictable patterns that can be identified
Connect with Harry:
LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harry-algometatrends/
https://x.com/HarryV44322/status/1959095053256704209
TELEGRAM: https://t.me/+FMfHYCmDg1Y1MmIx
I'm sure you do not want to live in a building which is 50-60% safe.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the 5 Questions Podcast, where we unlock real estate and business insights one question at a time. Welcome to the 5 Questions Podcast. I am your host, mario Lamar, our guest on today's show, has built bridges, towers, companies, then turned that precision on the markets. Founder and CEO of Future Wealth Group and co-developer of Big Footprints. Welcome, ari Vaz. Ari, welcome to the Five Questions podcast today. Thank you, mario. How are you doing? I'm doing very well. I can't wait to have a good conversation with you because you've done a lot of things in your life and I want to tap into your insights and help our listeners that are curious about investing in the trading markets. So my first question to you because you didn't start there, you were more in the engineering and construction. So, from steel plants in India to high rises project in the Kuwait, to a family office in Canada, what single principle from engineering still drives every trading decision you make today?
Speaker 1:Thank you for your question. It has been a long journey. I was in Middle East Kuwait for 10 years. Before that, in India steel plant manufacturing we were doing a specialized project. I was involved in that and then multi-rises in Kuwait revolving restaurant towers, everything. And when I moved to Canada I became an entrepreneur. At that time our engineering degree. I got my immigration based on engineering. But when you land here you don't have local experience. So I became entrepreneur and I got involved in import-export business. During the import-export business I was buying and selling in US dollars, so I started investigating a little bit about the Forex market and other things. That was my beginning in the financial market because of something else Because of Forex that I needed US dollars. That I needed. So that's how I got started in there.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's good and from your experience in engineering and your past experience and what you were doing, how did you convert that into the decision-making process that you put into trading today?
Speaker 1:Excellent question. Basically in engineering, you need 100 precision, accuracy and precision. I'm sure you do not want to live in a building which is 50 60 safe no no, you don't want to drive on a bridge which is 50 60 percent safe.
Speaker 1:It has to be 100 safe. So when I ventured into the financial markets due to my import business, I got some very good education in technical analysis. You would be surprised that my first account, which was after, paying $5,000 for my first education in technical analysis it was a good luck or momentum. Something was there that my first account from $3,000 went into 30,000 in three months. That is 10 times.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's very good.
Speaker 1:When you are doing that good and basically you do not know anything about the market. One day I stepped away from the computer for a couple of hours. I had to drop somebody at the airport for four or five hours. I went away and to be on the safe side it was late hours, when the market doesn't move, so I removed my stop.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:To be safe, that in case there's a spike or something and takes me out and guess what, After four hours I return my account. 30,000 is down to 4,000.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, that is not good that woke me up.
Speaker 1:That was a real wake up call. That technical analysis didn't help me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What happened? I still not able to figure it out. I couldn't figure it out. I have not been able to. So what I did first thing is stop trading for six months.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I went deep into technical analysis more analysis, more indicators. Eventually I realized that the success in market is best education. You can only make 50 to 60%.
Speaker 2:Well, that brings us to our second question that I want to ask you and because you've said 50 to 60% is a maybe would never fly in construction. Like you mentioned, you don't want to go live in a building that you have 50% chance of falling down. When did you realize and you talked about it a little bit that most trading approach were exactly that, and what changes changed in your process the day you decided that precision was everything or nothing?
Speaker 1:Basically the markets have, especially for traders, institutions is different game. For retail traders and small office people who are trading, the failure rate is very high. I tried to figure it out how come people come in for six months, lose everything and go back, and even people who are successful, they have a success rate of 50 to 60% and then if they have a risk reward of more than one to two, then only they can survive. But again it is a yo-yo life. That is when I saw the statistics in the market that 90% failure rate. Best of the effort is 50 to 60% risk reward. Unless it is that 50 to 60% can be with the risk reward of more than two, it is a failure.
Speaker 1:That's why I realize that precision and some accuracy is needed. If it is not there, anybody and everybody like 90 percent of the people. So basically 10 percent people are making money. They are making money from the 90 percent because it's a zero-sum game. Nobody puts money for the winners. It is people who are losing the money, people who are winning there. So, zero-sum game 10% are making. That is what made me think about some precision, some accuracy, and that's when we started working on that. I opened a prop office in Toronto with about 55 traders. Unfortunately none of them succeeded. But those failed traders taught me so much that here I am. I have a system which is called Big Footprints. It is giving me unbelievable success and I'll explain a little bit later. So that got me started into precision and accuracy in the market. And now the flip side of that problem is that nobody believes that it is possible to do it.
Speaker 2:Well, that brings us to my third question, talking about big footprints. Why don't you give us your elevator pitch for big footprints? You know what is an institutional footprint, how does it work? Your rule-based framework that translate it into a timestamp entry, the defined stops, the structured exits, maybe the options, forex equities? Give us that elevator pitch.
Speaker 1:Okay, over the period of time, while working on my algo, we discovered that institutions are the main players in the market. They are the one who move the market and they are never random players. They have their own formula which they will never explain, never tell us, never share with us, but they are not random players. That's why institutions are always making money. Of course, every 10 years they need a bailout. That is a different thing, but they are not random players and somehow we found out that they are leaving footprints in the market and we have tried to catch those footprints and now, using our algo big footprints, we are able to pinpoint the entry exact with timestamp. It gives us the date and the time the trigger has happened. For those.
Speaker 1:We used optimized price charts. Everybody 99 people in the market at least, I have not come across anyone who uses price charts. We use price charts, compared to 99% who use time charts. What is the difference between price charts and time charts? Price charts if there is no movement in the market, no new candle will be formed. But price charts every 30 minutes, new candle will be formed. But price chart every 30 minutes new candle will be formed. So that way we are able to cut out all the noise. So basically, the big footprint is simple entry exit, and it also generates the stop loss where the market most likely will not go. So we have entry, exit and stop loss. These are the three parameters that every trader needs and that's how we have been able to use this successfully and it seems to be working very well.
Speaker 2:Wow. So from one chart you get the three data points that you need to be successful. And this is you co-founded the-.
Speaker 1:Sorry, actually I have two charts, two charts. One generates the signal, that gets transferred to the tradable chart, and that's how just two charts Okay. Actually you can say I can trade off the one main chart also, but very limited chart. I can trade off the one main chart also, but very limited chart. And surprising thing is that we have a template which works for forex, bonds, stocks, indices, gold, anything that is liquid enough in the futures market. Bigfoot can handle it, even Bitcoin.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's amazing. So maybe for people to visualize and understand better, can you give us a story, walk us through maybe, a recent trade where big footprints kept you calm against the crowd. I would call it. Meta markers showed up, maybe. Where did you place the stop? Uh, and what created conviction to?
Speaker 1:either old or exit the trade. All right, I'll give you a recent example of a gold. Gold has been moving a lot. Okay, if the gold price is around 3400, you you would be surprised since the inauguration this year, or you can say 2025. Gold on its own has moved more than $1,200, $1,300 up, down, up down. The last trade that I can look. I pull up my chart here and I can give you exactly. I pull up my chart here and I can give you exactly On 7th of August, at 2044, means 844 in the evening, we got a trigger for short. Okay, so it gave us a trigger for short and the gold was around $3,500 at that time. In about 12 days, the gold hit $3,350. That's a $150 move. $150 move, clean one chart. Unfortunately, I cannot show you the screen, but I'm looking at a screen that clearly shows me and this $150 move we are talking about, if we take one standard lot, that is a $15,000 move in 20 days.
Speaker 1:If we just go with mini, it is $1,500. Still not bad. With mini it is 1500.
Speaker 1:Still not bad. Yeah, another thing that we have done in big footprints that we are able to separate any chart, any chart, any trading price frame. We are able to separate the chart into bullish chart and the bearish chart, which I don't think anyone has been able to do it Recently in LinkedIn. Two weeks ago in LinkedIn, I put in a contest or challenge that anybody who replicates of a chart, they will get $1,000 cash from me. Up till now, in two weeks, nobody has said that. Now I'll give you another example of Bitcoin. On Friday, as soon as 10 o'clock Powell started speaking, the Bitcoin shot up. We got a signal at 8.22. This is very rare. 8.22 means August 22. At 10.06, six minutes after Powell started speaking, we had a long signal and Bitcoin went almost like 113 to 117. That's a 4,000 move in less than three hours.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:But we got a clear signal and guess what happens. That is Friday, the Friday. The market closed at 4 o'clock 435, whatever the different time period zones we are in and yesterday, on the Sunday evening, when the market opened, rumors are that somebody sold 25,000 Bitcoins and my chart gave me a signal. 24th of July, at 8.19, two hours after opening, we got a signal to go short. And guess what? It was around 114,000 at that time and yesterday it touched 109. Overnight last night it touched 109,600. That is 3,600 move after we got our signal. So first we got 4,000 Friday, but of course, ahead of such announcements, I personally stay out of the market. Let the market dance. We don't want to interfere or get burned, stay out. But Sunday, when it came short, that is a good signal to take and up till now it is still staying. Unfortunately I cannot share the chart, but from Friday the drop has been more than 7,900.
Speaker 2:That's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's. But who sold 25,000? Rumors are BlackRock sold. Nobody would know. This is what the problem is. The institutions never share what they are doing. They have their own strategy, but my footprints, big footprints, caught that somebody is selling. This is the signal. Take it or leave it. We have always a choice and what.
Speaker 2:What I like about your offering with big footprints is it's not just for one type of of asset, so meaning bitcoin, and maybe you don't like bitcoin, but you can still use it for gold and you or you can still use it for forex or whatever you decide or you like to trade, you you can use your strategies to be successful.
Speaker 1:Any liquid futures contract can be traded here Commodities, corn, oil, platinum, anything.
Speaker 1:That is amazing we have to take about one minute through our mathematical formula to optimize every instrument. Once we optimize it, we can see very clearly now optimization. I'll explain in a way. You, the SPX, is the biggest biggest animal, I would say, in the market. For optimizing SPX, I need 7,000 ticks, 7,000 units. I would call it and you would be surprised 20 to 30-year T-bonds, which are the biggest in the market. Just like SPX, they work only on 50 units. So we have figured out the formula the biggest bond market 50 units. The biggest SPX market 7,000 units. Look at the difference. But we can optimize anything in less than 30 seconds.
Speaker 2:That is incredible. We're already at our fifth question, ari, today. And for our retail traders listening this week, and for our retail traders listening this week, what are three non-negotiables I would have to say to move from an indicator chasing to clarity, conviction and calm, and where should they start if they want to learn more?
Speaker 1:First, my personal first advice after struggling with the technical analysis, with failure rate in the market, with the success of 50 to 60 percent, my first advice is move away from day trading.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Day trading is pure, simple noise. Okay, day trading is pure, simple noise. I can show in my big footprints that the daily charts they don't even show in our charts. So first I would say move away from day trading. Second is pick up a swing. Swings can be like Bitcoin. It was just two days swing, 4,000 up, 4,000 down, unusual, very unusual. But pick up some swing which can be one to three days. Pick up some swing which is three days to 10 days, three weeks and even longer. So pick up any swing of that comfort level and go with that.
Speaker 1:Don't focus on parameters, trading indicators, but parameters. That we need is entry, exit and stop loss. These are the three non-negotiable. That should be precise. Every trader should have a checklist for entry, exit and stop loss. Without that, don't even try it, because if you can't control those three parameters, it is useless. So pick up a swing entry, exits and come up with your own formula.
Speaker 1:Even if I share my formula, even if somebody takes my big footprint chart, they will not know how to optimize every chart. So it is useful. So basically, till you learn, you can follow our big footprints, but eventually every trader should try and come up with their own strategy and my last and most important advice is do not trade with money that you cannot afford to lose. If you cannot afford to lose, if it affects your lifestyle eventually, protect your lifestyle and your capital and then have some surplus money. Start exploring, start exploiting the inefficiencies or learning from the market. Till then you can tag on with somebody who can give you service and, while you are making money, learn and eventually the best thing is come up with your own system. But never use money, borrowed money or never use money that you cannot afford to lose.
Speaker 2:These are great counsels for people who are listening, who maybe want to start trading. They see it as a fast money, but if you don't know what you're doing, you can lose everything in a day, in a matter of hours or minutes yes, there is one opportunity.
Speaker 1:These days there are prop trading offices everywhere. Setups maybe explore those, but in those it is day trading, which I which I advise against. Every prop trading office has a rule that the trading must stop or the position must be closed by 10 minutes after four o'clock. That becomes a day trading. I do not like it. But to practice, to learn to get exposure, that is fine.
Speaker 2:So, from everything that you said today, you obviously tested your strategies, tested the markets, tested a lot of knowledge to go with years of experience. Now, if somebody wants to reach out to you or maybe get their hands on your big footprint strategies, how can they do that?
Speaker 1:I'm very active in LinkedIn. I post almost every week, if not often, so they can connect with me on LinkedIn. I have a Telegram channel where I post my charts free of cost, and I'm also on X, which is X Twitter. So I'm on all those three and we are coming up with something new, but it is not ready as yet where they can access our charts. For now, they can connect with me in LinkedIn, telegram and X.
Speaker 2:We'll make sure to put those links in the description of this podcast. Harry, it was a pleasure to talk with you today. Lots of knowledge. You're my first guest, actually, who really knows and dives deep into trading and strategies. So I really feel privileged to have talked to you and hopefully our listeners can take a piece of your wisdom on their journey of being successful and making more money without losing their shirt.
Speaker 1:One last thing markets are not random and markets will never surprise you if you are prepared. That's what Big Footprints is helping us. We are not doing random things because the market is not random and anybody who wants to be successful they have to first accept that theory or that understanding. Learn first and then play the market.
Speaker 2:Thank you for your counsel, Zari.
Speaker 1:And thank you.
Speaker 2:It was a pleasure to talk with you today.
Speaker 1:Honor. Thank you Bye for now.
Speaker 2:Thanks for tuning into the 5 Questions Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, like and hit the notification bell on our YouTube channel so you never miss an episode. Stay tuned for more insights and tips to transform your real estate and business game. See you next time.