A short, well-organized trend-following system built on 89/144-period EMAs and Fibonacci retracement entries. The mechanics are genuinely teachable in an afternoon, but the book validates them with four hand-picked winning trades and never runs the method through a real sample.
The one idea
The book sells one idea: find the trend on a big time frame, then use a smaller time frame to time an entry into that trend at a discount, with a mechanical exit already picked before you enter. McRae does this with two exponential moving average bands (89-period and 144-period, both Fibonacci numbers) applied to a longer chart and a shorter chart at the same time. When the short 89 EMA bands sit above the long 144 EMA bands on both time frames, the trend is up. A second layer, the 'Trend Indicator,' tracks swing highs and lows to flag when that trend is turning before the EMAs catch up.
Entries are not discretionary guesswork, they are read off a Fibonacci retracement of the last swing: buy the 38.2% pullback, stop below the 61.8% pullback, and take profit at one of three Fibonacci extension targets. A bundled spreadsheet, the Risk Probability Calculator, does the arithmetic and refuses to flag a trade unless the reward is at least twice the risk. Underneath all of it sits a chapter on money management built around a simple point: a 50% drawdown needs a 100% gain to recover, so position size has to stay small enough that a losing streak cannot end the account.
What it actually teaches
The method runs in a fixed sequence from trend identification down to position size.
SET THE TREND WITH 89 AND 144 EMAs
Plot an exponential moving average of the highs and a separate one of the lows, using 89 periods and again using 144 periods, on two time frames at once (McRae's own example pairs a 4-hour chart with a 30-minute chart). The trend is up once both 89 EMAs cross above both 144 EMAs on both time frames, and it stays up even if the 89s dip back into the 144 band. It only flips to down when both 89s cross below both 144s.
CONFIRM WITH THE TREND INDICATOR
Mark swing points off the highs and lows only, ignoring open and close: two consecutive higher highs than a starting bar makes a swing up, two consecutive lower lows makes a swing down. In an uptrend the Trend Indicator only flips down when the most recent swing low is broken; in a downtrend it only flips up when the most recent swing high is broken. Trade only when this indicator agrees with the EMA trend.
MARK POINTS A AND B, ENTER ON THE 38.2% RETRACEMENT
Point A is the recent low in an uptrend (high in a downtrend), point B is the swing that followed it. Enter on a pullback to the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement of the A-to-B move and place the stop loss just below the 61.8% retracement. The book explicitly skips the 50% level because on the time frames it uses, 38.2% and 50% sit too close together to place a workable stop.
SET THREE TARGETS AND REQUIRE AT LEAST 2:1
Once a pullback low or high (point C) forms, three targets are calculated: Target 1 = 0.618 x (B-A) + C, Target 2 = (B-A) + C, Target 3 = 1.618 x (B-A) + C. The bundled Risk Probability Calculator marks a setup 'Trade' only when the potential reward is at least twice the amount risked to the stop, and 'No Trade' otherwise, even mid-trade if the real point C comes in worse than the estimate used to enter.
SIZE THE POSITION WITH A HARD RISK CAP
Risk no more than 3% of account equity on a single trade (the book adds that most traders with real track records prefer 1%), and cap total risk across every open position combined at that same 3%, not 3% per pair. McRae shows the math: at 3% risk per trade it takes 23 straight losses to reach a 50% drawdown; at 20% risk it takes 4.
What it looks like Monday morning
A reader following this literally opens a charting platform that can plot EMAs of the high and the low separately (not the close), sets up an 89-period and a 144-period band on two time frames, and waits for both to line up before looking at a single trade. Every entry gets tested against the 2:1 reward-to-risk rule before it's taken, and position size gets capped at 1 to 3% of the account, with total exposure across open trades held to that same ceiling rather than per pair.
The honest version of Monday morning also includes rebuilding the Risk Probability Calculator from scratch, since the spreadsheet the book keeps referring to is not included in the PDF and the website it once lived on is not something a 2026 reader should assume still works. Paper trading first is not optional advice here, it's the only way to find out whether the swing-point Trend Indicator and the 38.2% entry actually produce the win rate this particular reader needs, because the book never reports one.
| Target | Formula | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Target 1 | 0.618 x (B - A) + C | 1.1548 |
| Target 2 | (B - A) + C | 1.1613 |
| Target 3 | 1.618 x (B - A) + C | 1.1718 |
Using Point A = 1.1373, Point B = 1.1543, Point C = 1.1443; this trade was one of the four winners shown in the book, no losing example is worked through with the same formulas.
Now as you might expect I have only shown wining trades here.Mark McRae, Sure-Fire Forex Trading
Where it fails
- Every worked example is a winner, and the book says so. All four full trade walkthroughs (EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, AUD/USD, all opened and closed within the same 8 trading days in November-December 2003) are profitable, and McRae states directly that he has 'only shown wining trades here.' There is no losing trade walked through in full, no win rate, no equity curve, and no multi-month or multi-year track record anywhere in the 113 pages. A method chapter built entirely on cherry-picked wins is not evidence the system has an edge.
- The core tool is not in the book you're holding. The Risk Probability Calculator, the spreadsheet that automates the Fibonacci target math and enforces the 2:1 trade filter, is referenced on nearly every page of the trading rules section but is a separate download from a companion website (surefire-forex-trading.com) that this PDF does not include and that a 2026 reader should not assume is still live or maintained. Without it, a reader has to rebuild target and risk-reward arithmetic by hand from formulas the book only shows worked, never derives in general form.
- 'Rules' repeatedly resolve to McRae's discretion. The five numbered trading rules promise a mechanical system, but the walkthroughs constantly override them: choosing Target 2 over Target 1 'because I knew the dollar was weakening,' picking a new Point A after the first one 'kept missing the entry,' or ignoring the calculator's own 'Don't Trade' flag on the GBP/USD trade because closing for 'a few pips' felt pointless. A system that requires this much seasoned judgment to execute is not the same product as the checklist it's marketed as.
- Retail forex market structure has moved since 2003-2004. Every trade example dates to a single 8-day window in late 2003, and the PDF's own file metadata shows it was generated in January 2004. Spreads, liquidity, and the prevalence of algorithmic execution in the major pairs have all changed substantially in the two decades since; a 38.2% retracement entry timed off 30-minute and 5-minute charts on 2003-era EUR/USD does not carry the same edge, if any, once execution costs and market microstructure are current.
- The book assumes a working charting setup most beginners don't have. The method requires simultaneously watching three time frames with EMAs plotted on highs and lows (not close, which many default chart templates use), plus in the advanced section MACD (12-26-9), Williams %R (89), and RSI (13) all overlaid at once. McRae calls this a beginner course, but expects a reader to have already sourced and configured a charting service capable of all of this before chapter one of the method even starts.
Who it is for
Buy it if
You want a clean, low-jargon introduction to trading trend with long moving averages and Fibonacci retracement entries, and you're going to treat every number in it as a hypothesis to backtest yourself rather than a proven edge. It's also a reasonable read for understanding drawdown math and position sizing, which the book explains more carefully than the entry method.
Skip it if
You want any evidence the method makes money beyond four cherry-picked winning trades from a single week in 2003, or you're not willing to rebuild the Risk Probability Calculator and a modern data feed from scratch. Anyone hoping the 2000 date on the cover means a mature, edition-revised text will also be disappointed; nothing in this PDF is dated earlier than late 2003.
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