Gertje plus Squalou plus Forexhard EA

[Jack1]

Hello, all,

I have test this EA on strategy tester on M15 from May 1 to June 30. 0.01 lot, incre...lot Mutiplier is 1.5, target is 300 pips.

Cable got win; but, Euro got lost and stop running. It may be better when a reversal happen, lost trades should be cut off in somewhere, in order to fast get the target hit (or recovery).

Anyway, good idea EA.

I will try it on demo, Monday.

[Fx93]

I figured out what may have been the problem with the EUR/JPY pick I posted. Last night my laptop ran out of power and turned off. When I restarted it and reloaded Empty4 my other two demos worked, but with this one the breakout box indicator and buy/sell grids had disappeared. I toggled start/stop trading, skipped to different timeframes, closed the chart and reloaded the EA on another of the same currency, but none of this helps. Has anyone else had a similar experience?

Does anyone know how I can get the grid back on so the EA can work properly? This is a serious issue with me, because even with a VPS this might happen and it is impossible for the EA to manage the open trades without the indicator and grid. For instance, EUR/GBP below should have likely taken a sell as well and should be showing the rest of the buy grids.

I had the grid (ctrl G) off all my charts, but after my comp shutdown and I reloaded Empty4 they were all back on. So it is like Empty4 reset to a degree, and in doing so removed the buy/sell grid of current trades. I have the old Beast on demo, and it's "grid" graphics are working fine. When I manually apply the breakout indicator to my chart, it applies but doesn't show anything. I don't know if it's my criminal FXDD or a real issue.

I did find the following in a notepad made by the sqDynamicBreakoutbox indicator:

1;39;;;Function "display_stats" is not referenced and will be removed from exp-file
1;39;;;Function "drawFixedLbl" is not referenced and will be removed from exp-file
1;39;;;Function "drawOrderArrow" is not referenced and will be removed from exp-file
1;39;;;Function "tf_to_string" is not referenced and will be removed from exp-file

Screen shot 2012-07-03 at 9.05.31 AM.png

[SteveM]

If there are trades open with the same magic number but no lines drawn, the EA will not continue to open more trades, you can either manually deal with those trades, or hope that it hits TP.
If you want to start the EA again while those trades are still open you need to change the magic number which means the original trades will not be managed by the EA.

In this situation I would put a trailing stop loss on the open trade, and run the EA with a different magic number.

I will try your idea of the lower TP setting as I have had some trades go into big swings and have massive drawdown.

[Fx93]

If there are trades open with the same magic number but no lines drawn, the EA will not continue to open more trades, you can either manually deal with those trades, or hope that it hits TP.

Do you know why not? Is there anyway to change the coding so they stay on regardless?

If you want to start the EA again while those trades are still open you need to change the magic number which means the original trades will not be managed by the EA.

There are about 3 pairs that I cannot get trading again that have no open trades. I've tried changing the magic number and everything else. The EA will apply to the chart but the indicator will not show up and no trades are opening. I tried deleting the EA and indicator from Empty4 then installing again, but this didn't work either.

I will try your idea of the lower TP setting as I have had some trades go into big swings and have massive drawdown.

I think it may be the key to this type of grid trading to work out one's TP so where it is right before where the buy 2 opens up. If you do this, there will still be a red sell line at the box's middle that doesn't go away. I wish it did, and hope there is a fix so the grid never goes away like the old beast. Despite the problems I've had (and am still having), Im up 200 pips this week so far.

Edit: It isn't too bad manually managing this EA by placing pending limit orders at where the grid points would be. The EA does still close out the basket at one's TP, then one can go back and cancel the grid trades on the opposite side.

[Jack1]

I believe, this EA belong to prototype or toy EA at moment. It is not fault-tolerated, critical-mission trading software. Re-coding or enhancement of the EA and the indicator may be needed for this EA to be used in live trading, which will be a huge task, or commercialization project, and the end of EA won't be free, I believe.

[Fx93]

That's a bit harsh Jack1 (EAs will always be free here), though I hope it does get some coding attention. I'll try to put together a list of things I would modify or make optionable in hope it does. I made 510 pips with it last week and 275 pips with it this week with a current -132 DD, so it does have promise.

Even with my 16 pip TP and 20 pip grid, it has the potential to get into some monster stuck trades I bet from just watching it. I wonder if reducing the grid to 15 or 10 pips would help (with the same logic behind one's TP as I have developed: about a 12 TP with a 15 grid and a 7 TP with a 10 on 2 pip spread currencies). This way when price did move decisively in one direction, the trade would work out faster. I might test this eventually.

[Fx93]

Here in the pic below is a definite error that could cause trouble. There was first a buy that hit its 15 pip TP immediately, but since it was night I didn't manually togglle trading on/off to remove the sell line. Price then went down and hit the sell line and opened a sell. The problem is the EA still assumes it is part of the last trade, and so doesn't open up a potential buy grid.

So basically after a trade hits the TP the opp line needs to disappear.

Screen shot 2012-07-09 at 7.46.13 AM.png

[Fx93]

My results for the past month is 1000 pips trading six pairs, with 50:1 leverage this was a 10% increase with .01 lot per $1k risk, and my DD is -850 pips. I’ve been watching and trading G+ for about two months now, and am hoping that two changes can be made to it before I go live with it, which are detailed below:

An Optimal Target Price
My most important discovery has been to theorize an optimal target price for this straddle type of grid strategy. One first chooses how big one wants the grid size to be. It should be able to be surmised what the best grid size and thus target price is for each pair with a quality backtest, keeping in mind the drawdown that comes along with various settings. If I had to guess I would say a 20 pip grid is near optimal, which is what I presently use and is the default of the present EA. The equation to figure out one’s target price is:

(grid size – the spread of the currency – slippage) = target price

In case of the Euro with a 2 pip spread and 1 pip slippage it is: 20-2-1 = 17 pips. With trades that work out immediately, this gets one out with profit just before the second grid opens.

Two Changes That Need Made to the Present EA
Once I adopted the above target price structure my profits rose and my drawdown decreased, but soon I found there were a couple of things wrong with the EA when trading like this.

1. After an immediately successful buy trade that hits its target price, the sell grid line does not close. This seems to be an error no one caught due to not implementing a target price that occurs before the second grid line is opened. I have illustrated this in the post above, which shows a buy trade that worked out immediately, but the sell grid line did not close. Price then retraces to the sell line and a sell is opened up. Here the EA does not open a potential corresponding buy grid line though, it is like it is still in the last trade that has already closed.
To manually deal with this for now, one should set buy limit orders where the grid would be. The EA does still obey the TP one has set for it.

2. One wants every trade to work out like the above, where no sell line is hit. Presently, once the first buy is opened the EA moves the first sell line to the midway point of the box. This is not a good idea, as it is too likely it will be hit by a minor retrace of price after the breakout. It should stay at the bottom of the box. Rather than a 17 pip move up, if price hits the sell line also, it will have to move ~50 pips and open two more buys to achieve one’s 17 pip TP.

Other Known Problems

MaxPairsAllowed
After opening a new account, I installed the EA on 9 pairs with the Max Pairs set to 6. However, conditions were right at the time to open them all, and the EA did so within a couple hours, so be careful about this. I also toggled stop trading to true/false on a pair that wasn’t trading due to the max pairs setting, and the boxes reappeared with a setup and it began trading soon after, so be careful about this as well. These problems all stemmed from the EA initially trading more pairs than I had the max set at, so when first loading the EA on a new platform it seems wise to only load it onto as many pairs as one has the max pairs set at.

MinBarsClosedOutsideBO
This does not seem to be working. I have it set to 2 but my trades open as soon as price goes outside the box. I actually prefer it this way for grid trading, and would recommend that stay as the default.

The Weekend Gap
A strong weekend gap that goes against one’s grid position may cause disruption. The present EA will lump the grid lines the gap surpassed together, and enter all the positions at that price. This is fine if price continues in the same direction, but since there is usually a retrace after a gap this may not be the best method.
Research will need done on the average weekly gap size, but if it is too much more than the optimum grid size (which I naively assume to be ~20), it may be best that the grid stays static after a weekend gap. On a big gap up as price retraces back down the buy grid lines should then get filled. This gets one in at a better price than simply buying multiple times at the gap open.
At present, I recommend turning trading off until one sees what the gap is. If it is large and some trades are in DD, I suggest one set grid limit orders where the grid was, rather than buying multiple times at the gap open. Also, one can begin to stop trading on Friday for pairs that are not in DD to prevent any weekend gap problems.

Weaknesses

The Breakout Box Indicator Itself
I don’t think we are using the best indicator and entry for this straddle grid strategy. It gets one in late during known times of low range, so where price is likely to retrace. Trades do not work out immediately more than 50% of the time, which is what we should be aiming for, since we do not want to resort to grid trading if we do not have to.

Strengths
The straddle grid strategy I believe is better than any martingale recovery method, because if one waits out the trade long enough it is highly likely that it will close at the TP. The true death trade occurs when there is a zig zag pattern from the entry price that grows bigger and bigger, which is quite rare.

I will offer new straddle grid strategies incorporating different indicators soon, but until then I am hoping a semi-auto trader can be made of the straddle grid strategy minus any indicators or entry rules so I can enter manually at my discretion, whereupon the grid will be formed at that time.

[Fx93]

There is a bug I've noticed when setting a 1.5x lot multiplier on GBPUSD. G+ is buying/selling again at the same grid line it has already bought/sold on. You can see this by noting 8 trades open when it only looks like 5 in the picture, and see a set of trades at the same price.

G+ Bug.png

I've been running a few pairs with a 2x lot multiplier and haven't noticed any bugs.

[ROBST3R]

I hope some coder will help you, because you got some good points mate!

Cheers