Balls to the Wall, a 1 minute 1 trade EA

[vivaldi]

Hi Steve,
I must be "doing things wrong" as well
OOTB we had the same problem as Sonny Jim & vivaldi.
Estimated Lotsize = 0.00
Estimated StopLoss = 12616.40 Estimated Loss = 0.00
Estimated TakeProfit = 37848.40 Estimated profit is 0.00

The Stoploss is simply Bid*factor and TakeProfit = Bid*factor*3

It is clearly not calculating the FracLow correctly,
as the fractal value is obviously Zero (0).

I completely replaced the GetFractals routine using the Yellow line value -

Code: Select all

void GetFractals()
{
      FracHigh =iHigh(NULL, PERIOD_H1, 1);
      FracLow = iLow(NULL, PERIOD_H1, 1);
}

and it works - seemingly correctly for now!!
I am going to change my copy to use the Yellow line value,
iLow(NULL, PERIOD_H1, 1)

Thanks for the fun.

Hallo Lifesys,

If you are going to use the yellow line formula as a reference in order to calculate the stoploss, like you propose here, you have 2 problems :

a) The yellow line is not necessarily the most recent LowFractal. The yellow line is the lowest low of the hour, preceding the London open. This may result in bigger stoploss sizes and hence in 3 times stoploss = very big target sizes. Perhaps not realistical anymore under the circumstances.

b) In case of a short, following your proposal, you have to use "iHigh(NULL, PERIOD_H1, 1)".
See also Garyfritz's comment :
quote
He doesn't say what to do if the yellow line slopes down. I assume it's the inverse -- short bias unless you break the HIGH of the 60 mins before the London open..
endquote

The high of the 1hourcandle, just before the London open, must then be used as yellow line.

By the way : What means "OOTB" ?

[vivaldi]

Ah ok - I haven't read Steve's PDF as I've only dropped into this thread partway through; I'm going off Paulus's rules as outlined here: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread. ... ost5640928
In particular, he says this:

Using your market open lines draw a line from EUR open to Euro close it hasn’t got to be super accurate it has to give the general bias of the market
In this example the bias is up so we then draw a horizontal line on the low of the Euro session

........................

He posted that 60% record on May 6, and in the 25 trades before that I get *40%* wins. Which is not terrible -- it made 75% profits in those 25 days -- but it used some really enormous position sizes to do it. 83.3 LOTS for a $10k account! And with those huge sizes it averaged $300 (3%) per trade -- before costs. In reality commissions & slippage would eat most or all of the profits.

Bottom line... this doesn't seem like a real practical system.

I want to remark 2 things here in reaction to your post :

a) the fractals in the software are calculated with a builtin subroutine of Empty4. So, the fractals must be made already, otherwise the EA cannot 'see' them. What I describe here, is the actual situation at the moment. Your proposal for using the most recent high would require a change in the software.

b) Paulus is using a spread betting company to do his trades. He uses Empty4 only for charting purposes. So he looks at the charts and at a certain moment places his bets at the SB company. But you may be very well right, that his acting could be very subjectively influenced. Also, it may be very difficult to copy all this towards Empty4, because, as you say, the spread and slippage will eat a lot of the profit.
I don't know in how far all this Spread Betting stuff affects your assumptions about the viability or profitability of this system.

[hansnl]

By the way : What means "OOTB" ?

try Out Of the Bin
or Ook Onzin Testen Bitte

[Lifesys]

Hi vivaldi
OOTB usually means 'Out Of The Box' - without modifications. Only set MarketHour to 17 (5pm here for London open). [The last 2 lines of my last post should have been deleted - I am using iLow & iHigh as shown.] GetFractals routine is clearly faulty -still exploring.
I don't really understand what

Code: Select all

   double StopLevel = MarketInfo(Symbol(), MODE_STOPLEVEL);

does but StopLevel is always = 1.00000 very different from Ask - Bid.
Interesting, when Estimated Stop Loss = 0.00 the Lot size of course is infinite and I have "Insufficient Money" to trade - How sad.

[coolncalm]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for automating this little beast. Its logic is simple and sweet.

Having read the notes and the original thread, I do wonder, however, if the logic used in the notes (and software) may have deviated a bit from the spirit of the originator's instructions. By that, I mean that Paulus said "draw a line from EUR open to Euro close ... In this example the bias is up so we then draw a horizontal line on the low of the Euro session". He gets the market bias and thus decides whether a low line (for a downward breakout from an upward bias) or a high line (for an upward breakout from a downward bias) should be drawn. In the software notes, you invariably ask that a low line be drawn always and Paulus' bias analysis be discarded completely.

Is it possible that Paulus' use of an example of a market with an upward bias may have caused some confusion in how his strategy has been interpreted?

Today, for example, a low line at the London open gave a buy signal within 8minutes. However, an analysis of the minute candles between the EURO and London open times showed consistent lower highs after the first hour and thus a downward bias. If the bias is read as downward instead, and thus a high line placed at the London open (to indicate an upward breakout), the software correctly takes a short trade and hits TP (I placed a high line given the downward market bias).

Please take another look at the strategy's logic and see if the notes need to be updated. Cheers.

[erickva]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for automating this little beast. Its logic is simple and sweet.

Having read the notes and the original thread, I do wonder, however, if the logic used in the notes (and software) may have deviated a bit from the spirit of the originator's instructions. By that, I mean that Paulus said "draw a line from EUR open to Euro close ... In this example the bias is up so we then draw a horizontal line on the low of the Euro session". He gets the market bias and thus decides whether a low line (for a downward breakout from an upward bias) or a high line (for an upward breakout from a downward bias) should be drawn. In the software notes, you invariably ask that a low line be drawn always and Paulus' bias analysis be discarded completely.

Is it possible that Paulus' use of an example of a market with an upward bias may have caused some confusion in how his strategy has been interpreted?

Today, for example, a low line at the London open gave a buy signal within 8minutes. However, an analysis of the minute candles between the EURO and London open times showed consistent lower highs after the first hour and thus a downward bias. If the bias is read as downward instead, and thus a high line placed at the London open (to indicate an upward breakout), the software correctly takes a short trade and hits TP (I placed a high line given the downward market bias).

Please take another look at the strategy's logic and see if the notes need to be updated. Cheers.

Very good observation!
I tried to point that out earlier, but I did not bother to check the details on the original thread, so I was not sure if my comment made sense.
Cudos for picking that up!
Cheers

[erickva]

I think it would depend on how big your SL is.
With this EA SL can be as small as 7 pips, this will skyrocket the position size, even though you have a fixed/controlled risk.

The position size is calculated to produce the desired risk given your SL, 2.5% in my case. I don't care if that 2.5% risk is produced by a 0.01 lotsize or a 10.00 lotsize, it's still 2.5% risk. (Assuming you don't get bad slippage, etc.)

Hi garyfritz, I just mentioned this because you said you had more margin taken for the trades, margin does not care about percentage, but size only. Or maybe I am missed something.

3. It makes a profit, but only if you don't count costs. I'm only hitting 30% wins and averaging $1.21 per mini per trade. I must be doing something wrong but it seems to be doing the right thing when I look at the trades. I sure don't see how the guy Erick quoted got 60% wins with this! Does anybody have a trade listing for the last month, that shows that 60% win rate, that they could share?

60% wins that I posted earlier was from the original thread at FF. It was in Paulus' main post, at item number 5. It was his statement, I just pasted here. Unfortunately he did not post the trades list. Someone asked, but he said he was trading from another platform and could not use MyFXBook.

I think coolncalm picked up a error in the EA, having that fixed will certainly give different results.

Cheers,
Erick

[garyfritz]

Yes, I agree with coolncalm's analysis. That's what I was saying when I said "if the Frankie open-to-London open line slopes down, you have a short bias unless you break the HIGH of the hour before London open."

[SteveHopwood]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for automating this little beast. Its logic is simple and sweet.

Having read the notes and the original thread, I do wonder, however, if the logic used in the notes (and software) may have deviated a bit from the spirit of the originator's instructions. By that, I mean that Paulus said "draw a line from EUR open to Euro close ... In this example the bias is up so we then draw a horizontal line on the low of the Euro session". He gets the market bias and thus decides whether a low line (for a downward breakout from an upward bias) or a high line (for an upward breakout from a downward bias) should be drawn. In the software notes, you invariably ask that a low line be drawn always and Paulus' bias analysis be discarded completely.

I either did not see, or misunderstood P's analysis of how he arrives at his bias. I coded what I understood.

So, just to make sure:

• - if the market rose from Frankie open to London open, the bias is up and the line should be drawn at the low?
  - if the market fell from Frankie open to London open, the bias is down and the line should be drawn at the high?

[vivaldi]

This should be the idea for today (this morning) of how to decide the bias.
I drew a line btween the Frankie Open and the London Open. Of course very subjective: today was UP.
So the bias is long for the day.
The yellow line then shows the "European low line" for today. As long as price is above this line, we should look for Longs. When this line breaks and we do not yet have an order, we start looking for shorts.
See also the original thread : http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=360197 (post #6), read STEP2 and look at thumbnail Chart A.