Well that was a lot of posts you guys made last night...great discussions!
Last nights results on London & NY - Shelley EA +589 pips (0.74% drawdown)
Shelley (manual) +425 pips (4245 pips total) London session only (2.19% max drawdown)
NB 10,2 EA + 519 pips (1363 pips total - only been trading this EA for this week) (0.49% drawdown)
I will preface my comments below by saying that you guys are waaaaay over my head with technical knowledge & your ability to read charts and indicators....me, I like to keep things simple, and that's how I trade...So please forgive me if I have shown nothing but ignorance below
The conversation overnight has been based predominantly around trying to get better entries (thereby reducing drawdown), if that can be achieved...great. Remember that I first came across the London open entry time by accident because it happened to coincide with when I got home from work and was able to check my charts & place orders, so there may well be a better entry criteria!
With that being said though, I have not had a single losing basket (not to say it won't/can't happen) on either my manual trading or with the EA (EA only trading for this week), and minimal drawdown, so this leads me to a couple of conclusions/observations:
1. The TMA slope indicator Bob has provided does an absolutely awesome job of identifying the strength of the trend, combined with the WOH 2x1 it is working a treat
2. We are still yet to see how the TMA slope indicator performs with a full blown reversal....BUT we have had some decent retracements (similar to last night - that did scare a few people), however it was ultimately shown that the indicator
was correct as it seems everyone's baskets closed in profits.
3. At the moment, and talking about how the EA will handle retracements, most people are assuming the EA
won't work, but we don't actually know that yet, because we haven't really seen it yet, other than last night's retracement, which did work out ok. In my opinion, I think this EA, as good as it is performing to date, needs to stay on demo until we can accurately see from trading activity if it does or doesn't work. 1, 2, 3 weeks is simply not enough time to fully experience how the EA will perform.
4. The EA earlier in the week filtered out quite a few trade's due to the WOH not corresponding with the slope direction, I was getting 1,3,4,6 trades compared to 10,11,12 last night and those baskets also closed in profit (using the AdaptiveTakeProfitPips)....so the EA for as much as current market conditions have allowed has filtered out the potentially 'bad' trades.
So
for now, we don't know if it's broke....and
if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
5. Obviously the question of drawdown is an age old forex conundrum and everyone has a different risk profile. I think it's highly unlikely that any strategy/system/EA will ever be able to perform without drawdown...we each need to manage this as best we can for our own personal risk profile, by ensuring our lot sizes are proportionate to our balance and that we stick to trading by the rules (whichever they may be) and that we trade on demo until we are absolutely certain & confident in the system.
For me personally, I would like to again thank Steve & every single contributor here...together the ideas that are generated in this forum are phenomenal and I am confident that we will succeed with our Forex journey...is NB 10.2 (and/or it's incarnations) going to do it....it just well might
Cheers
Shelley
ps. sorry for my ramblings
