Which Income Strategy Fits You Best?
One of the questions I’ve been getting lately goes like this:
“Nate, should I stick with safer, high-win-rate trades… or go more aggressive with bigger upside?”
Honestly, there’s no wrong answer — it comes down to how you want to grow your account and I have students across the entire spectrum in that category.
So how do you think through this question for you?
If you’re using the Income Machine, it helps to understand the difference between trading styles — because they can each deliver serious results in very different ways.
If you’re someone who wants consistency, fewer surprises, and lower drawdowns, the conservative setups are likely for you.
I’m talking about win rates in the 90+% range with a small compounding edge (the average win is going to be 10-15%).
For some folks, a 10% profit doesn’t sound like much. And while it’s fine if that’s you, I do think we’ve gotten a bit spoiled by talking about triple digit gains all the time – Sure, those are great when they happen, but they come in context of much lower probabilities.
Like Kane shared on our roundtable yesterday, a credit card company might make 27% a year and we all think that is “absurdly high”, right?
These 10-25% trades tend to last 20–30 days which absolutely smashes those absurdly high returns.
Especially if you’re stacking trades — let’s say two per week — you can still build momentum without overloading your portfolio with risk. It’s the kind of strategy that feels boring in the best way — reliable, calm, and scalable.
But what if you want to hit bigger wins with fewer trades?
That’s where the aggressive setups shine. These typically come with a lower win rate — maybe 75 to 85% — but they carry higher average returns, often in the 45%+ range.
You might only run 50 trades a year with this approach, but each one has more capital behind it, and the reward is bigger. You’ll take a few more losses, and the ride won’t be quite as smooth.
But if you stick with it and size your trades appropriately, the net impact should be a more aggressive compounding ROI.
The funny thing about building this tool and getting feedback so far is that so many people are convinced that one is good and the other is bad (or vice versa).
Here’s the truth: both styles work.
And, by the way, the “balanced” approach which is right in between works great too and is the most popular option.
So it’s not really about which one is better — it’s about which one fits your personality, your goals, and your risk comfort level.
That’s why I am specifically not advising anyone which path they should take with the Income Machine – the whole point is to give people the opportunity to find trades, see the potential, and choose the best one.
And if you’re too new to do that on your own, that’s why I want to teach you what to look for, how the math works, etc. so you can be a confident trader!
And we’re adding features nearly every day to make it even better!
The point here, whether you use the Income Machine or not, though is that you have to evaluate how you want to build an account. Just knowing a win rate isn’t going to tell you anything. Just knowing the risk/reward means nothing on its own.
As we discovered recently in Opening Playbook, even the Profit Factor is pretty meaningless (yes, I am as shocked as you).
So make sure you have a full understanding of how these concepts play out and then be reasonable in your expectations as you work to build an account (ie don’t choose a conservative path and then want your $5k account to grow to $10k in a month!).
I hope this helps!
— Nate Tucci
P.S. See setups like this and much more every weekday at 10am ET in the Opening Playbook. Don’t miss it!
