Holy Graily Bob 'n Dotty 'n Super Slope 'n Flying Buddha

[Gertje]

Steve, you are an never ending phenomenal source of inspiration to all of us!

I'm more convinced than ever that becoming successful long term means accepting the short term losses and downturns if a strategy is a good one. You are right. Day by day, week by week and month by month we are getting closer and closer.

Thanks for the support!

+ 1. Absolutely

+1 as well.

I'm also getting more and more convinced that we expect too much to soon.
Of course we want to be billionaires in a few years, but the truth is; we can't.
Since the bank gives us 0,1% interest inA WHOLE YEAR, making 1% in the same year would be an awesome return. Yet we are looking for 1%+ on a daily basis.....

2-3% weekly, on a steady basis would be perfect, one can adjust to the financial needs by depositing more or less, or let the account grow for a few years first. I know I can cover my expenses with 10% monthly from a €50.000 account, and have some cash to spend on a beer in the weekend. Or even two.

[cozybooks]

Gertje, I couldn't agree more. My week started with the two AUDUSD trades I had open from last week go screaming off to hit their SL - a $ 25.53 loss right off the bat after last week's losses. Ugh! Since then this EA has been trading up a storm, a few of which are in trouble, but there are a bunch of wins, so I'm sticking with it.

BTW, those of you who can use Global Prime and haven't done so yet, imagine trying to make money on some of the crazy U.S. dealers. I happened to be sitting at my desk a few minutes ago when I started seeing errors popping up continuously on a stoploss insert. I took a look at the trade - it was a sell on GBPJPY, with the stop loss on the trade set to 150.73 and price sitting at 150.78 and moving up. Hmmm... my math is usually pretty good, so I'm thinking that trade should already be closed. I'm thinking the dealer must be using some newfangled New Math.

Luckily, HGBDSSFB was frantically hopping up and down and managed to get my attention, and I closed the trade manually for a 76 pip profit ( I guess I should be grateful that it let me do that!

I'm sticking with my long term live experiment with trading in the middle. Yes, I expect to make minor adjustments along the way as I learn more, but I still think I've got a winner long term until it proves otherwise.

Happy Trading!

[eaymon]

Hi all,

I am collecting set files to set up the EA showdown if you have one with ripe settings please share!

I currently have:
HGB_SS_FB CSS 1D1W _1HFB.set
and MilaneseAPTM 1TP 3SL.set
(credit to cozybooks and whoever else helped to get to this point)

are there any other set files for this EA that are high fliers?

Eaymon Latif

[cozybooks]

Hi Eaymon,

I've attached the current set file I am using on EURUSD for my Trading in the Middle Live Experiment (I changed it for this upload to allow both long and short trades. I have separate set files in each account for buy and sell.

EURUSD has average settings, but my BE and SL are different for each pair - currently doing 2.5 Daily ATR for a SL, and 2.5 Hourly ATR for a BE, so I'm not sure this would be of much help in a testing environment.

Also, I've uploaded the modified version of the EA that I use, which doesn't close trades on an opposite signal. This is one of the bigger considerations for me going forward, to see if this actually helps or hinders the EA. I'm planning on starting a new set of tests next week to run at the same time as my LIVE version in October to see if there is a big difference in profit between the two.

I'm only about 85% hands off at the moment, so unfortunately my results wouldn't be of much help.

Thanks, and best of luck testing!

Steve

[cozybooks]

A crazy week Trading in the Middle. I started the week with three trades open from last week all closing within the first day or so at their SL, putting me down nearly $36.00 after last week's big loss.

Closed trades rebounded strongly after that, but I have some new open trades deeply in debt.

Closed trades finished the week in the black, which really was a staggering comeback and needed a whole bunch of solid wins. Buy Trades finished down - Minus $ 30.85. Sell trades closed with big wins however, ending the week at Plus $ 45.99 for a net positive of $ 15.14. This would make for a fine week, but I have open trades that are running about $ 33.00 in the hole. We'll have to see if they can dig their way out at all.

One big change for next week. I have studied a bunch of charts and have decided to go back to setting these both true: CloseOnOppositeFB and OnlyCloseWhenSuperSlopeAgrees. I know that a manual check on the charts isn't very accurate, but I looked at a couple of years on a few different pairs and concluded that on average I would do 200-300 pips better per pair per year by changing to these settings.

The Live test continues. It will be nice to see the month change over and get a new start!

Happy Trading!

[SteveHopwood]

V 1h is in post 1.

cozybooks just pm'd me with a bloop spot. Line 1041
if(SsHtfColour != blue)

should be
if(SsHtfColour != red)

Nice spot coz

[cozybooks]

Trading in the Middle Live is done for the week. NFP on Friday, so I am finished with all trades closed.

A quick recap - I have been trading this live every week since August 1st. I have made a few changes to the set files along the way and anticipate a few more going forward as I learn more. Biggest change thus far is to go back to closing trades on an opposite FB signal if superslope agrees. This week I removed the break even and jump stop settings, and I am setting my own SL manually on trades that are in profit. Most of the time I am only checking on the charts once a day, so I'm spending just a few minutes checking on my open trades and making a quick decision on where to move the SL on profitable trades. I am liking this change. Didn't someone important on this forum say once or twice that there is no such thing as a set-and-forget EA? If a trade is losing, I let the built in SL and superslope/FB take care of closing it for me.

Back on 9/17 I was up $ 98.22. Then came my first bad week, a $ 23.13 loss. The following week, I recouped some of that with a $15.14 win. That left me back at 90.23 profit on my original $ 1,000 investment.

Nice week this week with lots of trades, some bad but mostly good.

$ 31.78 net profit for the week, bringing my total to $ 122.01 net profit on 10 weeks of trading. I am averaging just over 1% per week gain on my original investment. I don't think I can keep up that level, but I'll keep moving forward.

One additional bright note. On consecutive weeks when the EA was beating me up, I left trades open at the end of a week that were running between $22-33 in the hole, but as you can see from the final results, most of these trades came back to some extent, and I did much better by leaving them open, even with the weekend risk. It will be interesting to see how often I end up doing that and how it plays out.

Have a great weekend!

[SteveHopwood]

Trading in the Middle Live is done for the week. NFP on Friday, so I am finished with all trades closed.

A quick recap - I have been trading this live every week since August 1st. I have made a few changes to the set files along the way and anticipate a few more going forward as I learn more. Biggest change thus far is to go back to closing trades on an opposite FB signal if superslope agrees. This week I removed the break even and jump stop settings, and I am setting my own SL manually on trades that are in profit. Most of the time I am only checking on the charts once a day, so I'm spending just a few minutes checking on my open trades and making a quick decision on where to move the SL on profitable trades. I am liking this change. Didn't someone important on this forum say once or twice that there is no such thing as a set-and-forget EA? If a trade is losing, I let the built in SL and superslope/FB take care of closing it for me.

Back on 9/17 I was up $ 98.22. Then came my first bad week, a $ 23.13 loss. The following week, I recouped some of that with a $15.14 win. That left me back at 90.23 profit on my original $ 1,000 investment.

Nice week this week with lots of trades, some bad but mostly good.

$ 31.78 net profit for the week, bringing my total to $ 122.01 net profit on 10 weeks of trading. I am averaging just over 1% per week gain on my original investment. I don't think I can keep up that level, but I'll keep moving forward.

One additional bright note. On consecutive weeks when the EA was beating me up, I left trades open at the end of a week that were running between $22-33 in the hole, but as you can see from the final results, most of these trades came back to some extent, and I did much better by leaving them open, even with the weekend risk. It will be interesting to see how often I end up doing that and how it plays out.

Have a great weekend!

Wonderful to read, Coz.

I have a thought re this part of your post:

On consecutive weeks when the EA was beating me up, I left trades open at the end of a week that were running between $22-33 in the hole, but as you can see from the final results, most of these trades came back to some extent, and I did much better by leaving them open, even with the weekend risk.

I would be prepared to bet that our perception/tolerance of risk decreases as the size of our account increases.

So we in the Western world lose 10% of our $100 account balance? It is play money, so who cares?

We lose 10% of our $1,000 account balance? A few tears into the beer perhaps, and get someone to beat our brains out.

We lose 10% of our $500,000 account balance? Where is the nearest tall building? Ok, so a slight exaggeration, but I bet we would have lowered our risk exposure to about 1% by the time our account reached these (for us) dizzy heights.

[cozybooks]

Steve, I think you are completely right. I was thinking along those lines on much smaller terms. Would I have done the same think with a $2,000 account? Sure, it's only $40-60. But what if it was a $10,000 account? Now we're talking more in the $300+ range - for me personally that's enough money to at least make me stop and think about it.

On the other hand, if I closed all trades every week on Thursday or Friday, the EA would have only made about half the profit it has made. I think in the end you are right. As our account balance goes up, most of us naturally become more conservative and are willing to risk a smaller and smaller percentage of our balance.

Let's hope we all have plenty of opportunities to become more and more conservative...

[SteveHopwood]

On the other hand, if I closed all trades every week on Thursday or Friday, the EA would have only made about half the profit it has made. I think in the end you are right. As our account balance goes up, most of us naturally become more conservative and are willing to risk a smaller and smaller percentage of our balance.

Let's hope we all have plenty of opportunities to become more and more conservative...

Don't take too much notice of people who insist on shutting down their trades in time for the weekend come what may. What they do makes them happy.

I would have been out of business a long time ago and SHF would have ceased to exist had I done so.

Ignore the stop loss brigade. What they do makes them happy.

I would have been out of business a long time ago and SHF would have ceased to exist had I religiously sent all my trades with a stop loss. Stop losses only ever do one thingy.

Bob has the right of it. I have been in this business for over a decade now and can speak with authority and total confidence in the rightness of what I am about to write. As Bob says, trade so that you can always trade another day.

That way we do indeed have plenty of opportunities to become more and more conservative...