Goldy

[jptwardy]

Thanks

[jptwardy]

Just throwing these results from the past few days to see if this is what is to be expected and is similar to what others are seeing? The current equity drop will presumably be slowly corrected in future days? Thanks

[AltosT]

I ran it last week as was OOTB but the account got wiped out. It sure can pile profit on when the market suits but I now have to review how NOT to get wiped out.

[SteveHopwood]

Version 1a is in post one, with the explanation at the end of this post.

Another brilliant week last week, albeit with caveats.

The equity currently stands at $19,575 - remember the opening balance was $5,000.

I started the week by stress testing lot sizing at 0.01 lots per $750 and early results were spectacular. Then the market started its steady rise and the account came within a whisker of a margin call. I brief fall in the market took the equity gain to its target and the account was saved. I hurriedly reverted to my original 0.01 lots per $1,000.

The week continued and the profits piled up. The margin level percent frequently fell to under 1,000% and several times to under 600 percent - something I am never happy with, so I have moved now to 0.01 lots per $2,000. This is the default in V 1a. Logically, the bigger the account becomes then the lower should be our lot size as the profits will still be large but the risk correspondingly low.

Version 1a:
With reference to my near margin call and the previous two posts (thanks folks), what happened was a classic example of one of Bob's 'leaky toiled market'. Here is what happened:

• Goldy started a new grid and the market filled both the bottom buy stop and top sell stop.
• The market rose left the market sell order behind.
• Eventually, the gap between the lowest market buy and the open sell order became large enough for Goldy to delete the existing sell stops and move the sell stop grid to within hailing distance of the buys.
• The market fell just enough to fill the (new) sell stop order, so now there were 2 open sell orders.
• This process repeated over and over again until there were a lot of open sell trades, all becoming increasingly into DD.
• In the meantime, the initial buy order remained open so it was doing well, but the other grid orders were hitting their TP and closing. The account balance was rising but the equity was falling and falling.

To attempt to combat this I have introduced a new input - MaxTradesAllowedPerPair. This defaults to 10 and should possibly be lower - 5, perhaps? We shall see. Taking the example of last week's Leaky Toilet, Goldy would have seen 10 open sell orders and stop sending fresh sell stop grids. The distance between the account balance and equity would have continued to rise but less quickly. The market is very high at the time of writing so a correction is inevitable. Maybe MaxTradesAllowedPerPair would have allowed blown accounts to survive. We shall see.

-------

An idea occurred to me whilst writing the above. Maybe Goldy should stop sending take profit target when one side of the position reaches MaxTradesAllowedPerPair? Maybe Goldy should then start looking for Bob's offsetting opportunities? Maybe she should delete existing TP's and stop sending them with fresh grid stop orders? We shall see. Let's watch how MaxTradesAllowedPerPair copes for a week or two then think again.

For those of you unfamiliar with offsetting here is how it works, using last week's trading as an example:

• Imagine that Goldy has cancelled all buy and buy stop take TP's and stopped sending them with fresh buy stop orders.
• The total profit of x buy orders is equal to or greater than x of the worst sell orders. The worst sell orders will be those at the bottom of the list i.e. the biggest losers. Close the x sell orders and x buy orders, so that the profit on the buys offsets the losers of the sells.

[ChartRunner]

Great to hear you had another strong week—well done! That equity growth from $5K to $19.5K is seriously impressive, even with the close calls. Your stress-testing insights on lot sizing are incredibly valuable, especially the reminder of how quickly risk can escalate with tighter margins. It's a smart move scaling back to 0.01 per $2,000—keeping things sustainable as the account grows is definitely the way to go.

I also had a solid week running the OTB setup of version 1.0, and I'm really pleased with how it's performing.

Goldy.JPG

Love seeing everyone’s progress and thoughtful reflections—this kind of open sharing is what makes the forum such a great place to learn and grow together!

[ChartRunner]

An idea occurred to me whilst writing the above. Maybe Goldy should stop sending take profit target when one side of the position reaches MaxTradesAllowedPerPair? Maybe Goldy should then start looking for Bob's offsetting opportunities? Maybe she should delete existing TP's and stop sending them with fresh grid stop orders? We shall see. Let's watch how MaxTradesAllowedPerPair copes for a week or two then think again.

That's a very interesting idea, and I appreciate you thinking outside the box! The concept of pausing TP orders once MaxTradesAllowedPerPair is hit makes a lot of sense—it could definitely help prevent over-complication and allow the system to shift focus toward more strategic management like offsetting.

Offsetting itself, as you explained, is a solid approach to smoothing out drawdowns, and using profit from stronger positions to neutralize the weaker ones has real potential when done carefully.

Just a thought —maybe we could explore enhancing Goldy with dynamic order spacing using ATR (Average True Range)? That way, order spacing adapts to current volatility, potentially reducing risk during fast markets and capturing more efficient entries in slower ones.

Also, regarding the Risk-to-Reward ratio, the current 20-pip TP versus 30-pip grid gives us a negative R:R (<1:1). Maybe we could look into increasing the TP to match or exceed the grid spacing—say, 30 to 40 pips. That could improve overall expectancy and make the system more robust over the long term.

Really enjoying the shared learning and collaboration here—keep up the great work, everyone!

Looking forward to seeing how this plays out over the next couple of weeks. Please do keep us posted!

[icebrewer]

Hi Steve,

Thank you for sharing and constant update on Goldy, I really enjoied it!

One report on latest V1a:
I have updated the EA on my end to V1a, with MaxTradesAllowedPerPair feature, but the live result seems bizar. Goldy will swallow and spill stop trades constantly with no reason. Feels like the detection function on distance between current price and pending trade is functioning all the time, resulting in pending orders kept sending and deleting.

Wonder if anyone else is having the similar bug? I assume it is due to the miscalculation with MaxTradesAllowedPerPair function.

Wish all the best!

Regards,
Brewer.

[AltosT]

I seem to be running normally here. It is a busy screen but nothing abnormal for a grid type system.

[SteveHopwood]

Hi Steve,

One report on latest V1a:
I have updated the EA on my end to V1a, with MaxTradesAllowedPerPair feature, but the live result seems bizar. Goldy will swallow and spill stop trades constantly with no reason. Feels like the detection function on distance between current price and pending trade is functioning all the time, resulting in pending orders kept sending and deleting.

I have not seen this. Others will report if this happens to them.

As AltosT wrote, it is a busy screen. I will have a look though, to see if I can spot anything - I always do when someone reports a suspected bug. There is always the possibility of LUC paying us a visit. He has not done so for a long time.

FYI folks, as I have effectively cut the lot sizes by 50% I have done the same with the profit target. I have set PercentageOfEquityForProfitTarget to 0.5

Two TP closures so far today have taken the account to the right side of $20,000.

[wallywonka]

How did the changes go this week Steve?