Gravy Trains & Weather Vanes

[andwen]

Brilliant stuff Charles.

Congrats on your efforts here

[lwtrade]

Hey Charles, Just to be clear with the changes...

Are we setting off our seed, then the HGI_GTWV (with settings to manage all pairs) is managing from there? Does it add another trade if TP or SL hit? And are we still considering the support/resistance line (SR) line?

I just got up to see what the ea had done overnight and windows had done an auto update and restarted the VM!!!!

Darn you Windows!!!!

Thanks for the updates

LW

PS, I went off on a bit of a tangent (about 2 weeks) and things were going pretty well, but had to close all open orders and left me pretty much flat. It's the couple of large losses that got me there. It was in the green except for 2 or 3 buys that turned and 2 sets of WV's that had turned.

[RisklessPips]

Hey Charles, Just to be clear with the changes...

Are we setting off our seed, then the HGI_GTWV (with settings to manage all pairs) is managing from there?

Yes

Does it add another trade if TP or SL hit?

No - GTWV ONLY opens a trade after BE. If you get to TP - take what you predetermined as bounty and set off another seed. If you get to SL - your risk tolerance has been met, get out and set off another manual seed.

And are we still considering the support/resistance line (SR) line?

Not 100% essential but if you do, you have a better chance of getting GT's.

It's the couple of large losses that got me there. It was in the green except for 2 or 3 buys that turned and 2 sets of WV's that had turned.

Might I suggest review your risk management strategy - if you have this right you should almost never have an issue with a concept such as "large loss" - All losses fall within your tolerance limit !

I will post my results for the week later today - its been a good one !

Charles

[RisklessPips]

Results GTWV on H4 - EOW 15th Sept 2017


Results with AUDJPY (I ditched this pair this week and include it here for sake of comparison)

Cumulative results (i.e from start of open demo account to date - init balance 500 USD, 1:100)
End of last week - Expectancy per dollar traded = -5.9%, Expectancy per trade -0.23 (Dataset 368 trades)
End this week - Expectancy per dollar traded = -3.8%, Expectancy per trade -0.15 (Dataset 410 trades)

Weekly results
Last week - Expectancy per dollar traded = -27.7%, Expectancy per trade -0.88 (Dataset 155 trades)
This week - Expectancy per dollar traded = +11.8%, Expectancy per trade +0.53 (Dataset 42 trades)

Lessons :
Cumulative results - A 2% improvement in what the strategy is expected to return per dollar traded - This is great in one week ! It is still negative so room for improvement (but look at the results below without AUDJPY for comparison.)

Weekly results
This weeks results show a huge improvement in large part because I dtiched the AUDJPY. However other tweaks also contributed to this highly welcome move towards the sweetspot.
11.8% return per dollar traded is a very good start albeit the dataset is tiny and therefore not totally reliable as a long term indicator.
What surprised me was the large number of trades taken last week as opposed to this week (155 vs 42) - I was adding manual trades last week and none this week. Lesson in overtrading perhaps ?


Results without AUDJPY

Cumulative results
End of last week - Expectancy per dollar traded = -0.9%, Expectancy per trade -0.04 (Dataset 307 trades)
End this week - Expectancy per dollar traded = +1.2%, Expectancy per trade +0.05 (Dataset 348 trades)

Weekly results
Last week - Expectancy per dollar traded = -18.7%, Expectancy per trade -0.62 (Dataset 126 trades)
This week - Expectancy per dollar traded = +15.4%, Expectancy per trade +0.68 (Dataset 41 trades)

Lessons :

Cumulative results
A +'ve expectancy per dollar traded in cumulative results without the AUDJPY ! - Last week I noticed from the GTWV analyser my win / loss rate was poor due to being overly aggressive with my SL strategy and thereby cutting of legroom for price to do its thing.

I relaxed that SL strategy and now the win / loss rate is hovering around 60/40. I want it around 70/30 so this week I will leave my SL strategy in place and tweak my profit stops.

Weekly results
Without the AUDJPY +15.4% return per dollar traded and 0.68 cents per trade. Great work but the dataset is small (41 trades) and therefore statistically insignificant - but we are moving in the right direction.

Notes - The sweetspot on H4 is looming in sight - This is an ever changing target but now Holy Graily GTWV should assist in hitting it more frequently because previously I've had to do that work manually and not always on time.

Next week the plan is no hard tweaks, I am looking at raising the win / loss rate to near 70 / 30. I am also keeping a v close eye on CHFJPY - It may go the same way as AUDJPY.

Charles

[RisklessPips]

GTWV Housekeeping
Holy Graily GTWV is now certified useable and fit for purpose.

I have moved the code with a few minor changes to the HGI signal processing to my post on page 6 "Get it here" along with its setfile guide.

I have also added the GTWV analyser to the same post.

I have retained the old GTWV EA on that post in case anyone wants to use that version. However note that switching off HGI Signals in the Holy Graily version achieves the same purpose !

Charles

[RisklessPips]

GTWV, Hard Reality and Kaizen Trading

This thread is predicated on the premise that price action is everything in trading. Anything else is (in the long term) speculation, opinion and / or luck.

This is because the variables that go to determining price and hence outcomes on price levels in a market as large as Forex cannot be consistently discerned with accuracy over a long term - If they could we would all be doing it and the majority of traders would be winners, which we know is not the case !

You may or may not agree with this premise.

If you don't then I doubt this thread is of interest to you anyway, if you do - read on.

On Friday just before EOW I posted rules for a game called GTWV Mastermind which you can view "here".

Little did I appreciate at the time there was a subtle, if not profound, context behind the game.

Allow me to briefly explain:

We know GTWV is (almost) continuously in the trenches. That means if you are winning you will pat yourself on the back. If you are losing ONLY YOU can stop the bleeding by getting out of the trench and evaluating your position before either getting back in or staying out permanently.

The responsibility for action with regards to profitability or loss lies directly and squarely on YOU and how you interact with King Price. - This is the hard reality philosophy behind GTWV.

In the game referred to above I indicate "game strategy" in winning is how you handle the BE, SL and trail settings. - These are the trade management protocols.

This is on reflection no different to real life trading !

As so many traders have noticed, it is not trade entry that ultimately matters - It is trade management including exit, risk management and personal psychology management that create lasting as opposed to periodic winners.

How does this square up with our evolving philosophy and strategy ?

1) Trade entry is not an issue in GTWV - Seeds are easily created and now with changes I am testing and about to release, automatic seeding after TP and SL should also become possible with a release of GTWV later this week.

2) Trade management became more versatile and flexible last week with the release of Holy Graily GTWV which uses HGI signals to identify price characteristics before determining which set of trade management rules to apply.

3) Risk management and personal psychology management - These, as ever, are down to you.

Students of Japanese business will know of the concept of Kaizen which translates as continuous improvement. Winning trading requires the application of a similar concept - here is how to do it.

The GTWV environment already has tools for reviewing trades and the trading environment - The Analyser and Rene's Trade Report with extended results as well as PoM. These, as I showed in an earlier post, are central to micro trade management.

Using a current day filter on the Trade report and the account history (for the Analyser) tweak your trade management protocols and review as each trade closes, on a continuous Kaizen basis, how your expectancy is changing.

The aim is to make the expectancy numbers positive each day !

If you have more days of positive expectancy your weekly expectancy will tend to the positive and so on ! If your expectancy is positive - you are winning !

This micro trade management process (similar to the Mastermind game) needs to be handled with caution and do not take knee jerk decisions.

Thoughts ?

Charles

[RisklessPips]

Holy Graily GTWV - Now opens new seeds at TP & SL

LW asked does Holy Graily GTWV open a new seed if a trade closes at TP & SL - This set me thinking.

Holy Graily GTWV has been updated

1) To add a new seed if a previous trade hits SL or TP
2) To correct faulty processing when adding missing SL and TP

This code is Beta - I will continue testing and update the numbered version on successful completion of the tests.

Note - SL & TP replacement trades are seeds so they take the default lot values in your setfile (0.01) - The BE / SL and TP will depend on whether or not HGI signals are switched on.

EDIT - Code removed please see new entry two posts below

Charles

PS - Two new switches in the setfile allow / disallow the creation of the seeds

[RisklessPips]

GTWV ADX

Welcome to a new variant of GTWV that uses the ADX to identify trending and ranging price characteristics.

I offer this as an alternative to Holy Graily GTWV, which uses HGI signals as its method of determining price characteristics and hence management style.

Why would I do this ?

HGI tells you what is going on with price right now and the signals can (and do) come at you thick and fast depending on changing price conditions from candle to candle.

ADX takes a smoothed and averaged view of price characteristics meaning the identification of trends and ranges is likely to be more "stable(?)" from a trading point of view.

We know from a past post we should cater with flexibility and versatility for different market characteristics and not try to manage all situations with a limited set of management tools - Here is another tool you can test out.

GTWV continues to enter trades via seeds - the signal services indicate price characteristics for better trade management purposes only.

The two price characteristic identification EA's are similar in processing logic, including adding seeds at SL and TP. The only difference is in how they determine if you are in a ranging or trending market (HGI vs ADX)

One important difference is that the Holy Graily GTWV has 4 management styles (default, trend, rad and range) while the GTWV ADX has 3 management styles (default, trend and range).

An ADX value of 25 or more indicates a trending market (up or down) and 20 or less indicates a ranging market. Anything in between 20 and 25 is managed using the default parameters input in the setfile.

This code, like Holy Graily GTWV in the previous post, is beta - but my testing is almost done and I will release a numbered version of this code before EOW.

EDIT - Code removed - please see new post below


Charles

[RisklessPips]

The GTWV Trade Manager with ADX and HGI

The work behind this EA arose from 3 factors :

1) Effective trade management in terms of stops, taking profits and exits is critical to profitable trading.

2) Effective trade management in turn depends on awareness of and timely reactions to market and price characteristics – trends, ranges and transitions. Applying the correct management strategy for different price situations is an essential skill.

3) Finally, awareness of and timely reactions to market and price characteristics requires analysis or review of prices in the recent past. Such analysis (as done by HGI and ADX) identifies trends, ranges and indecisive price action movements that alert the trader to effective action for trade management.

In essence, trying to manage trades with an EA that does not engage with the three steps above is like using a blunt tool to do precision work.

The GTWV Trade Manager with ADX and HGI attempts to overcome that limitation and create a flexible versatile management tool, adaptable to different market and price conditions, in a timely manner.

The work of HGI and ADX will not be paraphrased here, suffice to say the signals these two indicators provide on price characteristics are tried and tested. There are differences in the qualitative value of the signals they provide which is why GTWV makes both available in order to avail ourselves of the different information they provide.

Trade Management Tasks Performed

1) Monitor trades and open new ones when the previous ones get to BE. This is price driven entry.
2) Monitor closed trades and open new ones in the same direction where the closed one hit TP.
3) Monitor closed trades and open new ones in a contra direction where the closed one hit SL
4) Offer a choice of 6 management styles configurable to suit different market and price characteristics.

The 6 management styles are :

i) Default Style – This may be used in 3 trading situations
a) When neither ADX nor HGI is required as a signal service.
b) When ADX is selected as the signal service of choice and the value for the pair being managed lies between 20 and 25 indicating price is not in a strong trend nor quite ranging.
c) I also recommend it for use when adding new manual seeds before switching on HGI or ADX price signals.

ii) HGI Trend – This is available when HGI identifies a trend up or down
iii) HGI RAD – This is available when HGI identifies a momentum price move up or down.
iv) HGI Range – This is available when HGI identifies a ranging price movement

v) ADX Trend – This is available when the ADX identifies a price trending with a value greater than 25.
vi) ADX Range – This is available when the ADX identifies a price in a range with a value less than 20.

Definition Of Trade Management Parameters

By defining well thought out parameters for BE / SL / TP and trails a high level of trade management efficiency and effectiveness is now possible.

It is in this task where observations of price action will be most important for setting appropriate variable values for each of the market conditions managed by the available styles above.

Continuous refinement of these variable combinations makes the trade management tool sharper, getting ever closer to the sweetspot !

In Operation

GTWV Trade Manager with ADX and HGI is highly flexible in that a great deal of processing is controllable by the trader through switches.

There following features can be turned on and off

1) Allow new trades on BE
2) Allow new trades on TP
3) Allow new trades on SL
4) Allow HGI signals to determine which management style to apply.
5) Allow ADX signals to determine which management style to apply.
6) Allow BE Processing
7) Allow Trailing stop processing - before or after BE.
8) Allow the addition of a missing SL
9) Allow the addition of a missing TP

Notes

1) If new trades are required on SL, they will ONLY be opened if the SL is hit before it gets to entry price. (This happens when trails are allowed to commence before BE).

2) Due to the method employed to check for SL and TP closures there is a 10 – 20% chance that a new trade will not be opened. I am trying to find a solution for this shortcoming in the coding - If you can help I would be grateful.

3)Use HGI and ADX as mutually exclusive signals. If both are on, ADX overrides the HGI. If both are off the default values will be used to manage trades.

4) In order to use the HGI signals functionality, you must have hgi_lib.mqh in your includes directory. This is available from the main HGI forum.

5) The two previous code releases for GTWV HGI and GTWV ADX respectively have now been withdrawn as their functionality is now combined in the new GTWV Trade Manager with ADX and HGI. As usual until I am satisfied there are no bugs in the code it is Beta and a numbered version will be posted when all tests confirm it is appropriate to do so.

EDIT - Code removed replaced with new beta - see post further along.

Charles

ps - Thought for traders of other strategies that use trade management processing.

If you switch the open trades functionality off in GTWV Trade Manager With ADX and HGI (i.e no new opens at BE, TP or SL) you too can make use of the additional management styles to sharpen your trade management in the different price conditions.

[blazej]

Hi Charles,

thanks You for this thread. I took something out from it that made my trading even more efficient right now. I am glad that individulas provide their knowledge here. All the best for You.

Cheers.