Stop Guessing the Markets.
Master an Established Breakout Strategy
With 17+ Years of Positive Out-of-Sample Performance.
Join the Key Breakout Workshop
to learn and trade a robust, simple and evidence-based strategy
without giving up your day job.
17+ YEARS • 1 VARIABLE • 0 TWEAKS
One Day Online Workshop 21st November 2026
A Strategy and Portfolio Master Class
AUD5,500
Includes 90 days of live trading mentorship and 6-months access to the Workshop’s video recordings
Taught by Brent Penfold
– a full-time systematic futures trader and authour of three Wiley trading books.
Book now and take back control
Past performance doesn’t indicate future results.
Please review The Performance over 4 Trade Plans.
“After last year’s workshops and switching on PortX3 – I had an epiphany … I was taking on too much risk … attending your courses (and switching to RealTest) was the best thing I ever did!!”
T.W Australia
Sound Familiar?
If you’re like most traders I talk to, you’re probably dealing with at least one of these:
- Results that swing from good to bad with no clear reason why.
- Hours in front of the screen that don’t fit around work and family.
- Finding it difficult to sleep due to painful losing positions.
- Strategies that look great in back-tests, then fall apart once you trade them live.
- Hesitating, second-guessing or skipping trades when it matters most.
- Believing you and your mind are the weakest link (no, you’re not. It’s usually either your losing strategy or poor money management, not your psychology).
- Believing there are market secrets you are yet to learn (no, there aren’t any, except for “the best loser is the long-term winner”. POP. 1970s).
- Believing others are doing it easier (no, they’re not. Over 90% of active traders lose).
I’ve been there. After more than 40 years in the markets, I’ve learnt the answer isn’t more complexity. It’s a simple, robust plan you can trust enough to follow, especially when you’re in drawdown and the world feels uncertain.
Key Breakout Dashboard
A Note from Brent
Hi, it’s Brent Penfold here. Thanks for dropping by and considering my 2026 Workshop.
Let’s be honest, 2026 hasn’t made trading any easier. War in Ukraine, conflict in the Middle East, record debt, rising yields and a sluggish China all add up to a lot of uncertainty.
And uncertainty is poison for most traders. It breeds hesitation and self-doubt. At its worst it causes paralysis, and good opportunities get missed.
Experienced traders see it differently. They know the uncomfortable trade is often the right one. But to take it, you need a plan that works in all conditions: bull and bear cycles, trending and mean-reverting markets, expanding and contracting markets.
That plan is Key Breakout, a mechanical approach I released in 2009 and continue to trade every day. It’s what I’ll be teaching you on 21 November.
What You’ll Learn
Key Breakout – a fully disclosed, 100% rule-based strategy for trading a diverse portfolio of liquid markets under all conditions. It only has a single variable. A single variable I have not tweaked in 17 years.
PortX³ – my proprietary, rule-based method for building small portfolios that suit your capital and risk appetite, without falling into the trap of “data mining”.
Plus money management and a practical approach to trading psychology, so you walk away with an all-round trading education, not just a set of rules.
Is this Workshop for you?
It’s a great fit if you:
- want a mechanical, rules-based approach that takes the guesswork out
- have a day job and can spare about an hour a day after the close
- have a smaller account and want to trade futures sensibly using Micro Futures
- value evidence over hype and are prepared to put the work in
It’s probably not for you if you:
- want a get-rich-quick system or guaranteed returns (there’s no such thing)
- prefer discretionary or intraday trading
- aren’t prepared to follow the rules through the inevitable drawdowns
Key Features and Benefits of my Key Breakout Workshop
By the end of the Workshop, having learnt both Key Breakout and PortX³, you’ll walk away with:
The Edge
- Pedigree – Built on a core market truth that has endured for more than 50 years.
- Robustness – Backed by 17+ years of positive out-of-sample performance.*
- Simplicity – Purely mechanical, evidence-based trading with zero guesswork.
- Portfolio – Use PortX³ to build small, robust portfolios free of data-mining.
- Scalability – Trade any account size, small or large, across any market.
The Convenience
- Accessibility – Trade professional markets with less capital using low-margin Micro Futures.
- Compatibility – Keep your day job, since Key Breakout trades off end-of-day bars.
- Execution – A calm, simple routine that takes under an hour a day.
- Automation – Recommended software can do the heavy lifting of verification and trade management.
The Value
- Mentorship – A bonus 90 days of live trading and mentorship after the Workshop.
- Learning – A bonus 6 months’ access to the Workshop’s video recordings to reinforce key ideas.
- Pathway – A clear path to repeatable, sustainable trading, today and into the future.
- Investment – A lifetime strategy for the cost of one bad losing trade.
- Savings – Save over 50% compared with buying each component separately.
* Past performance doesn’t indicate future results.
Let’s take a look at each;
The Edge
Pedigree
I released Key Breakout in 2009, but the idea behind it is much older, over 50 years in the public domain.
I deliberately look for old ideas, for one selfish reason: robustness. The longer an idea has kept working since it was published, the more confidence I have to keep trading it when drawdowns come. And Key Breakout, like any strategy, has drawdowns.
Is pedigree a guarantee of future performance? Of course not. But it certainly places the odds in its favour.
Robustness
Every trader needs evidence a strategy works.
Not assurances.
Not marvelous metrics.
Not impressive back-tests.
Not perfect equity curves.
Evidence.
And the best evidence is time since release.
Accuracy, expectancy, SQN, CAGR… they all matter less than one question: has it kept working after it was published?
Most strategies don’t survive long past their release date. Key Breakout has shown 17+ years of positive out-of-sample performance*, through the 2020 COVID crash and much more, because it was built to avoid the twin evils of strategy design, curve fitting and data mining:
- One variable, with no tweaks in 17 years
- The same setups and the same variable value for every market
- Symmetrical – the same rules for buys and sells
- Simple, price and pattern-based rules with few filters
- Trades all markets, so no cherry-picking yesterday’s winners
* Past performance doesn’t indicate future results.
“I think this will be my sixth workshop – they are always good value and always interesting… your strategies are simply wonderful – their simplicity makes them wonderful.”
T.W Australia
Simplicity
Complexity kills strategies. It mistakes market noise for market signals.
Key Breakout uses few rules, few filters and one single variable. It’s 100% rule-based and objective, with clear instructions on when to trade, where to enter, where to place stops and where to exit. No interpretation, no opinion, no judgement calls. And it’s fully disclosed, with nothing held back.
“I love the simplicity of the strategy – ‘not a wave count in sight!’”
– P.A, Australia
Portfolio
Key Breakout can trade any size of portfolio. But if you have a smaller account, you face a double whammy:
- Underperformance – trade fewer markets and you’re more likely to miss the ones that deliver the big trends.
- Data mining – you’re forced to pick which markets to trade, and it’s tempting to pick yesterday’s best performers. As sure as night follows day, yesterday’s winners are rarely tomorrow’s.
Emm. What to do?
That’s where PortX³ comes in. It’s my proprietary, rule-based technique for building independent, objective small portfolios that help minimise both risks. You simply decide how many markets you can afford to trade, follow the rules, and voilà: a boutique portfolio with no personal opinion and no data mining in sight. :o)
It works across all markets, not just futures. Honestly, to my mind, PortX³ is a huge game changer for the smaller private trader.
I believe learning my PortX³ technique alone will be worth the price of admission to my Workshop. :o)
Scalability
Scalability is Key Breakout’s middle name. It hasn’t been data-mined to only work on a few favourable markets, so you can trade:
- Any market – currencies, crypto, interest rates, indices, energy, metals, grains, softs or meats
- Any account size – small or large, with the help of PortX³
- Any holding period – four trade plans: immediate (1–3 days), short (5–7 days), medium (20–30 days) and long-term (30+ days)
Key Breakout can easily scale along with the growth in your trading account. As you accumulate more risk capital and your account balance grows Key Breakout allows you to keep trading, adding more markets to your portfolio. And as your confidence grows it can allow you to hold winning positions for longer.
As I said Scalability is Key Breakout’s middle name.
The Convenience
Accessibility
Limited risk capital is most private traders’ biggest obstacle. Nano, Mini and Micro Futures have changed that. They let you take baby steps into futures, into global markets and into systematic trading, at a fraction of the risk and margin of standard contracts.
A trader once asked me whether you can back-test on standard contracts but trade the small contracts. The answer is yes. Arbitrage keeps prices in lock-step, so you do all your research on the standard contract and execute on the smaller Nano, Micro or Mini contract depending on your preference.
Compatibility
It’s a myth that you need to trade full-time to trade well. Key Breakout trades off daily bars, not intraday bars, so everything – collecting data, managing open positions, finding new setups – is done between sessions.
Orders and stops go in together on a “set and forget” basis. No need to watch the screen all day. I don’t. There is no need to give up your day job.
Execution
Key Breakout has clear, easy-to-follow rules on when to trade, where to enter, where to place stops and where to exit. All you really need is the rules and access to daily data. About an hour a day is enough. No worries. However if you can code or use software, you’ll find it easier, and you can run your own back-tests to validate the performance.
Automation
I teach the method, not code, so I don’t supply software for Key Breakout. However if you’d like to automate it, I can introduce you to one of my traders who’s highly proficient in RealTest and has generously helped others code Key Breakout. See my Software page for more.
The Value
Mentorship
For 90 days after the Workshop, you’ll watch me trade Key Breakout live, with my own money, in real markets, in real time. During this time attendees can email me any question they like.
The live trading will be delivered through my Daily Study Guide, issued after the North American markets close. Each day you’ll get trade management instructions for all open positions and new setups, a detailed chart example and a copy of my actual Interactive Brokers order.
Some educators show a day or two of live trading. I’m not aware of anyone else who does it for 90 days. For me it’s no big deal, because I trade Key Breakout every day, day in, day out.
More importantly, you’ll see how I run my trading as a business: rule-based, objective and without the hesitation and emotion that sabotages most traders.
Learning
You’ll have 6 months’ access to the Workshop’s video recordings, to pause, rewind and rewatch as many times as you like while you get comfortable with Key Breakout and PortX³.
Pathway
You’ll walk away with:
- the complete rules for Key Breakout and its comprehensive manual
- the full historical trade file in Excel, so you can validate it yourself
- PortX³ for building small portfolios free of data mining
- a sensible approach to money management and trading psychology
The 90 days of live trading are designed to help you build the habits, discipline and confidence to follow your rules, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Now, I won’t pretend it’s painless.
Key Breakout does lose.
It does suffer drawdowns.
It will bruise you.
But at least it’s real.
And being real makes it verifiable.
And being real provides you with a real pathway to sustainable trading not just for today, but for tomorrow and into the future. :o)
Investment
Most traders pay for their education the hard way, through losses. The Market is a demanding taskmaster.
Now you can keep paying the Market’s price, or you can pay someone who actually trades a fair price for a robust strategy, a portfolio construction methodology and 90 days watching it traded live.
For many traders that’s a great investment when you compare it to the cost of one bad losing trade.
Savings
Each component of my Workshop is available separately on my website:
| Component | Price |
|---|---|
| Key Breakout | $5,500 |
| PortX3 | $5,500 |
| Daily Study Guide (90 days) | $490 |
| Total if bought separately | $11,490 |
| Workshop price | $5,500 |
| You save | Over 50% |
Attend my Workshop and save over 50%!
What past attendees say
“Thank YOU for sharing your experience and research. I’m at a point where I’m going to be scaling up my trading operation… In the world of trading education, you’re one of the good guys in my book.”
– M.L, USA
“…it’s rare to find someone like you who imparts depth and quality of knowledge gained from decades of their trading experience. You know many others “promote” they have it, but you Brent, who rarely promotes, have consistently delivered it over the many years I have known you …. and I mean many years! ”
– R.T, WA
“Being online made it possible for traders like myself to learn about your work… It was really great to be in company of like minded traders.”
– N.S, Canada
“It really exceeded my expectations.”
– J.D, USA
“Thank you so much for your workshop, which is just amazing.”
– J.S, Australia
Workshop Essentials
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| When | Saturday 21 November 2026 |
| Time | 8:00am – 6:00pm Sydney time (AEDT) Convert to your local time » |
| Where | Online via Jitsi (a free video conferencing platform) |
| Price | AUD5,500 |
| What you’ll need | An open mind and a preparedness to work hard |
| Repeaters | Already own Key Breakout? You receive a 50% discount. Email me for payment details. |
| Please note | Attendees are required to sign a Sale Agreement containing a non-disclosure clause. |
| Questions | brentpenfold@indextrader.com.au |
Workshop Takeaways
- Robust Strategy – Key Breakout, with 17+ years of positive out-of-sample performance*
- Flexible Portfolios – trade small or large portfolios
- PortX³ – my proprietary small portfolio construction technique, a game changer for private traders
- Documentation – Key Breakout and PortX³’s comprehensive manuals
- Results – all historical trades in Excel to help with validation
- Video Recordings – 6 months’ access
- Bonus Live Trading – 90 days watching me trade Key Breakout with real money, in real markets, in real time
* Past performance doesn’t indicate future results.
Quick answers
Do I need a big account? No. PortX³ is designed to build sensible small portfolios, and Nano, Micro and Mini Futures let you trade at a fraction of the margin of standard contracts.
Is Key Breakout like a Turtles channel or volatility breakout system? No. It’s pattern-based, not a channel or volatility breakout strategy.
Do I need to code or buy software? No. The bare minimum is the rules and access to daily data. However if you’re able to code it would certainly make validation and trading of Key Breakout much easier.
Do you recommend any software? Yes. I recommend RealTest as its set up how I trade and I have a trader who is very generous in helping others to code my models in RealTest. But really, any good software should work.
How much time will it take each day? About an hour, after the close. Orders and stops are placed on a set and forget basis.
What happens after the Workshop? You’ll receive my Daily Study Guide for 90 days of live trading, plus 6 months’ access to the video recordings.
I already own Key Breakout. Can I attend? Yes, as a Repeater at 50% off. Just email me.
More questions? See the full Workshop FAQ.
Book Now and Take Back Control
No one can remove the uncertainty from markets or trading. But where there’s uncertainty, there’s opportunity, for those who are prepared.
If you’re looking for a robust, simple, evidence-based way to trade, a sensible way to build a small portfolio, and the chance to learn from someone who actually trades, then I’d love to see you there.
If you want to treat trading as a business with an edge rather than an interesting diversion, book now and secure your place. I look forward to meeting you online on 21 November.
Yours sincerely,
Brent Penfold
Futures Trader
Author
Futures Adviser
Director, Brent Penfold Futures Pty Ltd.
Futures trading is high risk and not suitable for everyone. Please read the full disclaimer below.