Gravy Trains & Weather Vanes

[RisklessPips]

While my EA tests complete - here's a question for you, after all this is not just a practical strategy but also a trading philosophy.

Is price your friend or your foe in the markets ?

[lwtrade]

Neither? It simply is what it is. It will take all your money without feeling or emotion.

Maybe that's the 'nothingness' we should feel when trading? It is what it is!

Reminds me bit like this speech, but as in, trading is a storm:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dXxTAu2RCM[/youtube]

Yeah, the indi was going to place our white sup/res line (which drops in x pips below current price) then when price closes on the other side, it basically runs one of the x2 scripts.

Was stuck on 2 things...

1. The supres line updates continually so if while you are moving it around you crossed the current price, it would fire. Probably needed a button to activate/deactivate.
2. how does the indi know which direction is WV and which is GT?

Would have to spend time thinking about it, but hopefully Steve's EA negates the need for this anyway.

[andwen]

Price is both friend and foe, but only if you allow yourself to think of it that way.

Price is but a benchmark from where we wish to start a process and is only relevant for that moment in time, where after it is no longer relevant.

Ultimately it doesn't matter where we start. It only matters where we finish.

[RisklessPips]

GTWV EA.

This EA (at bottom of this post) was developed by Steve Hopwood from his MPTM with additional requests from me.

Please read this post carefully to understand what this EA does, how it changes GTWV operationally and how to incorporate it in your trading.

This EA does the following things

1) Manages a subset or all trades on the account – Managing means it :
a) Adds a SL to your trades
b) Adds a TP to trades
c) Adds a BE level for trades
d) Trails price in two different ways, standard or jump trails. (You choose which to use)

The above functionality was always in MPTM

New GTWV features:

e) Opens ONE new trade at a time in either direction once the previous open trade(s) have broken even
f) A limit you specify controls the number of open trades per pair in either direction. Thus if you make the setting 4, the EA will open 4 longs and 4 shorts per pair as and when previous trades break even.

Note – The EA only places one trade at a time so there is no need to set this limit to an unrealistic high number in the expectation of getting more out of the market.

Setup

The setup profile on Empty4 platform is exactly the same as before, with a modification that instead of having my navigator in the bottom left, I now have a pair I am not trading on there upon which I place the EA.

This EA is “wired” OOTB with a setfile ready to work H1 for GTWV.

However, I am encouraging you to explore and be adventurous – so feel free to change these on any TF you are working until you get the sweetspot for the TF.

What is the sweetspot ?

The sweetspot is the point at which settings on the EA will deliver a combination of BE/SL/TP and trails for daily profit required.

Practical Operation Guidelines

1) Add a new “subjective” seed as detailed in this thread manually.
2) Add a well thought out S/R zone manually.
EDIT - 25/8/17 Alternatively add a stop order (contra to the seed i.e a WV) and give it an expiry time you will check later to ensure it is still valid. When prices get here the WV order will be triggered even if you are not at your trading station.
3) Fire up GTWV EA
4) If the seed becomes a GT, watch as the EA adds one new trade each time the previous GT hits BE up to a maximum of trades you allow it to open.
5) If the seed becomes a WV by closing beyond the S/R you must add one contra trade manually – (Note - This is different to the past where we added 4 contra trades)
EDIT - 25/8/17 - See the edit to point 2 above
6) Watch as the EA adds one new trade each time the previous WV one hits BE up to a maximum of trades you allow it to open.
7) If your margin level falls below 100% turn the EA off OR set the maximum open trades to 0 to allow previously open trades to close and reduce your margin used.

Pros of the EA

1) You will be ‘almost continuously' in the trenches. No more cherry picking winners and bypassing lemons with indicators.

2) A new trade will be opened when price dictates it is time to do so by making the previous trade BE. You no longer need to be at your trading station to enter continuation trades when price tells you to do so. This allows you to do other things without having to be glued to your screen all day or every few hours.

3) Still has the MPTM code which is now commented out so those of you who want to use candlestick trails of hourly closures etc can add these back to your personal copies of the EA.

Cons of the EA

1) (Particularly) If your broker has wide spreads the price movement required to get a trade to BE can be large. The EA adds ONLY one new trade at a time and therefore fewer trades may be opened between crossing the S/R and hitting the SL.

The number of trades that fit into the gap between SL and S/R zone (for WV trades) may be diminished. You may not make enough particularly during faster price moves to compensate for the guaranteed loss on the SL.

Remedy - You can compensate for this by adding more trades manually with the correct comment / magic number so the EA can manage them too.

EDIT 25/8/17 - On reflection this is not a 'real' con of the EA. This would be true if the method was dipping in and out of the market - as a 'continuously in the market' method the impact of this spread issue is negated. Read the later post on my testing strategy and expectancy to understand more.

Other Observations

The GTWV EA does not take away user responsibility.

1) You must add the seed trades manually
2) You must add the initial WV trade manually
3) You must determine (and periodically rebase) your S/R zones manually
4) You must determine how many lots to trade
5) You must determine profit making settings for BE/SL/TP/Trail stops
6) You must determine how many open trades you want in each direction

The EA automates the mundane task of opening trades and managing these once open.

You have final responsibility for how you use this EA.

One last thing. Steve developed this EA and it works exactly as I specified. I have posted the mq4 so no addon requests to Steve please - if you need additional functionality edit the code, test it and repost it here for others to use if it relates to GTWV.

Thanks and happy testing

Charles

Holy Graily GTWV EA Setfile Explanations Do Not use these in your EA - Updated 15/9/17

GTWV HGI Variables Useage.pdf

Read Steve Hopwood's warnings available on his posts before using these EA's.

GTWV Trade Manager ADX HGI & RR V2.01 Added 23/10/17

GTWV TM - ADX HGI & RR.mq4

Put in your experts directory
hgi_lib.mqh is required in your include directory to use HGI signals (available on the main HGI Forum)

GTWV Analyser EA Updated 15/9/17

Gravy Train Analysis EA.mq4

[SteveHopwood]

Brilliant post, Charles.

[lwtrade]

Thanks Charles and Steve. Will start testing Monday.

[andwen]

My congrats and thanks also.

:hi:

[RisklessPips]

Update - I reviewed my choice of pairs with reference to volatility and I am now working with

AUDJPY
EURUSD
EURNZD
GBPAUD
GBPCAD
NZDCHF
USDJPY

Below I post my M15 profile (although I am testing M15 thru to W1)

Last weeks frontrunner - H4 Increased balance by more than the 20 USD per day I am targeting with a drawdown of about 50 USD on Friday close.

I did not post my results because I was waiting for the EA to come on stream and my previous rsults were achieved manually.

Now that the EA is here - I will post results on Fridays with the "final" setfiles that achieved those results.

GTWV new setup.png

In the image above taken at 8.30 ish (5.30 GMT) all pairs are in their channel as expected during Asia session. I am waiting for London to open and volatility taking prices to the range limits to kick in.

Charles

[RisklessPips]

GTWV EA opening short contra WV trades merrily as each previous one breaks even.

The buy will get to SL in TIME - hopefully enough WV trades will have been opened to mitigate that guaranteed loss.

I of course retain the option of adding more Short trades manually particularly if the broker spread is spiky and or large.

[RisklessPips]

Monday was a v quiet day for GTWV. Little volatility at the channel edges.

Below I post EURUSD on a W1 chart loading up a Gravy Train

On the longer TF's (H4 and up) if you read the EMA's well and your subjective seed is accepted by price and becomes a GT you will really understand why I call it a GT

This pair alone made 25% of the daily target

GT W1.png

Charles