Gertje plus Squalou plus Forexhard EA

[Fx93]

I'm trying to understand the EA's logic, and noticed it had bought the Euro 3x within a few pips apart, even though I have 20 set in the "pips between trades" row. This would seem due to there being three buy levels on the chart really close together after the gap up this week.

Edit: My "trade Sunday candle" was set to false too.

Screen shot 2012-06-18 at 10.22.35 AM.png

[SteveM]

The buy lines are placed on the chart with the initial buy. Once the price rises above the buy line, a buy is triggered. With a gap that large, 2 buy lines were crossed and the third was just above so all happened close together. I had similar trades after the weekend news.

I think the TradeSundayCandles is used only in starting a trade. Once a trade is active it needs to be followed through regardless of timeframes or you will have more losses.

[Fx93]

Ah ok, I assumed the "pips between trades" was the minimum amount of pips difference before another trade is taken, rather than the minimum of the buy/sell grid setting.

It might be wise to have a setting like this, or just make the grid static so where it isn't affected by gaps, since there is usually a retrace after a gap. This would get one in at a better price.

I started a new demo running this and the old beast side by side. So far this is more profitable by a bit, but also in more DD. I guess it depends on the settings of both.

[Fx93]

I have this weird trade on EUR/JPY opened on 6/13, where there is only 1 grid line present.
Likewise on AUD/JPY with trades opened 6/13, I only have 4 grid lines. I am wondering if there may be an error with JPY related pairs, since they are priced differently (like 1.3480 vs. 88.92, etc.) Was wondering if anyone else has normal grids with JPY pairs, or if it's my criminal possibly?

1 grid line.png

Grid stopped.png

[corliz]

Hi

I have been using the EA for 2 days on EURUSD only. Made almost 500 pips. BUT the EA acts strange.

See the attached screen copy.

The EA opened 10 orders 1 pip appart. IS it correct.

What am I missing? I use default settings.

[Fx93]

Make sure you have the latest version from post #1. If that doesn't work, you'll have to try to change criminals.

SteveM, the lot fix you posted still didn't work for me.

Lot = .01
LotsPerThousandofBalance = .01
Incremental Lot Multiplier = 1

The above opens a .01 lot with the first trade, then the lots/1000 on the next trade. I believe I tried to have "Lot = 0" and it did the same thing. So, I am just doing it manually with "Lot = what I want," and then having "LotsPerThousandofBalance = 0." This is probably better anyway, since I like having more than a few pairs trading.

Also, I like the way the ootb settings take profit, but admit I am unclear on the rules with this:

CashJumpingStopLoss = 5
JslStartsAt = 10

Do these somehow increase with the "Lot = " setting, or does one have to increase these as one increases one's lot size? If one does have to manually do this, would the correct math be to double these as the lot size is doubled? Thanks.

[SteveM]

Make sure you have the latest version from post #1. If that doesn't work, you'll have to try to change criminals.

SteveM, the lot fix you posted still didn't work for me.

Lot = .01
LotsPerThousandofBalance = .01
Incremental Lot Multiplier = 1

The above opens a .01 lot with the first trade, then the lots/1000 on the next trade. I believe I tried to have "Lot = 0" and it did the same thing. So, I am just doing it manually with "Lot = what I want," and then having "LotsPerThousandofBalance = 0." This is probably better anyway, since I like having more than a few pairs trading.

Also, I like the way the ootb settings take profit, but admit I am unclear on the rules with this:

CashJumpingStopLoss = 5
JslStartsAt = 10

Do these somehow increase with the "Lot = " setting, or does one have to increase these as one increases one's lot size? If one does have to manually do this, would the correct math be to double these as the lot size is doubled? Thanks.

It always starts first trade at Lot size (or if Lot=0, criminals minimum)
Subsequent trades at the calculated lotsperthousand unless that is 0

I have also come to the conclusion that I prefer to select lot size myself

Re the Jumping stop: I have made the following changes.

In the section where variables are declared

Code: Select all

// SM edit for variable JSL
double CJSL, JSLSA;

In the section "start()" Not sure if it matters exactly where but I have it between sections
//Look for existing pending price lines...
and
//Look for initial trade lines

Code: Select all

   // JSL setting
   CJSL = CashJumpingStopLoss * Lot;
   JSLSA = JslStartsAt * Lot;

Modify section PositionJumpingStoploss to

Code: Select all

   if (upl >= JumpingStopLoss + (CJSL * 2) )
   {
      if (JumpingStopLoss == 0) 
      {
         JumpingStopLoss = JSLSA - CJSL;
         return;
      }//if (JumpingStopLoss == 0) 
      
      JumpingStopLoss+= CJSL;
   }//if (upl >= JumpingStopLoss + (CashJumpingStopLoss * 2) )

Then set the CashJumpingStopLoss and JslStartsAt values to be suuitable for Lots of 1.0

For example of CashJumpingStopLoss = 500 would be 5.00 at 0.01 lot and 25.00 at 0.05 lot

I haven't yet seen this code to work as currently nearly all my positions are in a loss. But the variables calculate to the correct values and just replace the original variables in the code. I have seen the JSL code work before I changed it.

[Fx93]

I think I'll leave the TP settings to be manually set in case I want to change them. They may be a little too aggressive using .01 lots.

I notice the rule about there having to be two bars close above the box in case of a buy to be not working (with my broker at least), although I have it set as such (see the pic).

Also, I wonder if after a buy for example, if it is a good idea to have the sell line come up to the middle of the box, as this only gives a 15pip leeway of a retrace on a 30 pip box.

Screen shot 2012-06-25 at 2.35.10 PM.png

[Fx93]

I've figured out how I like to trade this, which is to set a pip TP after say a buy 1 that is less than before it can open a buy 2. I've included a pdf of the slightly modified version of the EA rules and trade scenarios.


An Optimal Target Price?
I believe the optimal TP will be less than 20 pips, which is our grid range. It should be: (20 pips – the spread of the currency – slippage) to be exact. We’ll say 20-2-2 to be safe and use 16 pips as the TP. This way if price breaks above the box without hitting the box low, we will have banked 16 pips before the 2nd buy grid line is reached.
If we got greedy and wanted a TP of 30 pips, when the 2nd buy line is opened it would reduce our 20 pip profit to 10. At the 3rd buy line we would have a 30 pip profit, which is 60 pips away from first buy line. Due to spread and slippage, it would have to be opened as well. There is an increasing chance all the while that price will reverse. This is why I believe one’s TP in pips should be less than when the 2nd buy line opens.
If one feels one is missing the volatility with a 16 pip TP, one should increase the grid distance apart as well as the TP, keeping in mind the equation above, which is (spread + slippage + TP < grid size). If trading a currency with a 5 pip spread on a 20 pip grid, we would have to decrease our TP to 13 on that pair. Alternately, we could keep our 16 pip TP and increase the grid size to 23, which is likely the better route since higher spreads often equate to higher volatility. One should ideally only trade currencies with a 3 pip spread or less with this system though. If keeping a 20 pip grid, currencies with a spread of 2 will have a 16 pip TP and with 3 a 15 pip TP.

Here are the inputs that are working for me to have a hard 16 pip TP:

CashProfitTarget = 0
CashProfitPerLot = 0
PipsProfitTarget = 16

CashJumpingStopLoss = 0
JslStartsAt = 0

I've only traded this way since this Sunday, but have banked +250 pips and my DD is -180 pips atm. I've not had any trades with 3 buys and 3 sells on each side yet. Is anyone who is demoing stuck in a big range trade?

Update: Atm with the way the EA is coded, when setting the TP just before the buy 2 grid is reached as I suggest, on immediately successful trades the red sell grid line will not vanish since it was never touched, so one will have to close this manually by toggling stop trading on and off. This is likely a lucky week, but now I'm up 391 pips with a -120 DD! I like the reduced DD ratio I am getting now.

[Fx93]

I had this monster open up last night on the Euro spike, but then it resolved itself this morning miraculously as it went up more:


Buy 10 = 295
Buy 9 = 275
Buy 8 = 255
Buy 7 = 235
Buy 6 = 215
Buy 5 = 195
Buy 4 = 175
Buy 3 = 155
Buy 2 = 135
Buy 1 = 115

Midline = 100

Sell 1 = 85
Sell 2 = 65
Sell 3 = 45
Sell 4 = 25

I currently trade 6 pairs max from these: USDCHF, GBPUSD, EURUSD, USDCAD, AUDUSD, EURGBP, EURAUD, NZDUSD. One form of risk management I am going to adopt is that if a pair begins to be stuck by having 3 trades on each side, I will limit the pairs I trade to 4, including the pair that's stuck. If of those 4 another becomes stuck, I'll limit it to 2, being the two stuck pairs until they resolve themselves. This together with the option of taking a small loss on those pairs should work in most cases. The worst case is if many pairs become stuck at once.

The 1:50 margin required with .1 lots to close the above trade is ~$300x14 = $4200, not including any DD margin. So even with this risk management, and assuming one will only have two of these develop at the same time, one would likely need about $15000 in margin to be relatively safe.

I made 500 pips this week alone, and currently only have 1 pair open with a -60 pip DD! (That is much better so far than the 900 pips with 4500 pip DD I did last month). I've stopped all the others from trading, there is no sense opening new trades going into the weekend gap, which due to recent volatility may be substantial.