The exit rule makes the result, not the entry

Before you praise anyone's entries — someone else's or your own — run the same exit rule on random entries. Very often the whole result lives in the exit.

Why this is the main check on somebody else's results

A trade log someone shows you almost always impresses with how many trades finished up. The natural conclusion: this person is good at picking the moment to enter.

But that share is made by the exit. A rule of "close at a small profit and never cap the loss" produces a very high share on almost any entries. Nearly every trade closes green, and the rare bad ones never close at all — they hang there and grow.

So an impressive share can carry no information whatsoever about the quality of the entries.

How to check

First, work out the exit rule the person is using — a log usually makes it visible. Then run that same rule on random entries over the same period and the same coins.

If the share of winners comes out the same, the entries are irrelevant and the exit is doing the work. And then you stop looking at the share and start looking at what happens to the rare losers: they are what decides how this ends.

The same check works on your own results, and there it's especially useful — you trust your own entries far more readily.

What usually comes out

That random entries with the same exit give almost the same share of winners, and the difference is in how many of the losers are ruinous. The approach of a fixed small profit with no loss cap lives a long and beautiful life and then ends in one go.

A second observation: the entries often really aren't random — they go with the recent move. But whether that property is worth anything is a separate test, and it usually turns out to be modest.

What this does not tell you

The check says where the result was made, not how to trade. A good exit without any advantage on the entry is a way to stay in the game a long time, not a way to make money.