TCO Trader EA

[TallCoolOne]

TCO TRADER EA

Hi Guys/Gals,

I have decided to start my own thread for my EA, I simplified the EA name - TCO Trader

It is based on a couple of 100PipsADay strategies and also Ichimoku and Turtle. Basically it determines the daily trend using 4 different methods (select 1-4) and then uses the Williams% or Stochastic to enter trades on the lower TF.

2 of the Trend Methods by 100PipsADay - He and others are doing very well with it on FF.

100PipsADay 20/50 EMA Method - http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=425041

100PipsADay Third Screen MACD Method - http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=382032

First I want to say I'm very thankful to 100PipsADay and everyone else on the D1 20 EMA & 50 EMA thread. This EA was designed from the strategies on 100PipsADay's thread - D1 20 EMA & 50 EMA. I'm very excited about these strategies and think they have long-term viability for us. I would like to give back to this community by making my EA available. My EA is available, for free, I just ask that no one try to sell it on EBAY. I hope we can work out any bugs and add more features as we go.

TCO Trader EA – Features.


The EA will let you select up to 4 different trend methods for a higher time frame - the default with be daily = 1440

Higher TF Trend Modes - can be set to whatever Higher TF you desire, the EA is now designed to work with 1-4 methods so if you can enter up to 4 different methods for the Trend Mode. All methods selected must be true to determine the overall trend.

- Ichimoku - Tenkan Sen/Kijun Sen cross, with a Kijun Sen trailing stop loss feature.
- 20/50 MA – 100PipsADay's basic strategy - Now can use other MA methods
- Adjustable MACD Trend above/below zero – based on Third Screen MACD strategy - now can use MACD Adjustable, MACD Hanover, MACD Traditional
- Turtle Channel

Lower TF Trade Entry - can be set to whatever TF you desire. You can select the Williams % method or Stochastic method for lower TF signals

Williams % entry - also can set true/false for confirmation, which means for a buy trade, the Williams % would go under -80 level and then have to go above

-80 level for a buy trade to be placed. If this is toggled off, the buy trade would be triggered as soon as it goes below the -80 level. For a sell trade, if the confirmation is set to true, the Williams % would go above -20 level and then below -20 level for the sell trade to be triggered. If the confirmation is set to false, it just has to be above the -20 level to trigger the sell trade

Stochastic entry - also can set true/false for confirmation, which means for a buy trade, the Stochastic would go under 20 level and then have to go above

20 level for a buy trade to be placed. If this is toggled off, the buy trade would be triggered as soon as it goes below the 20 level. For a sell trade, if the confirmation is set to true, the Stochastic would go above 80 level and then below 80 level for the sell trade to be triggered. If the confirmation is set to false, it just has to be above the 80 level to trigger the sell trade

Additional Trade Management Features

Close All Open Trades On Opposite Signal - can be turned on or off
Time Delay can be set - Lower TF bars delay between open orders (thanks to turtlefan) for this logic.
Time Delay from closed order can be set - Lower TF bars delay from closed orders.
MaxOrdersPerPair - limit your risk by setting max allowed trades that can be opened per pair.
Standard TP and SL
Trailing SL
Jumping SL
Breakeven SL
ATR based TP
ATR based SL
Fixed or dynamic lot sizes (based on Risk%)
Lot sizing based on lot size per $1000 of account equity.
Global Trade Profit Target based on percentage of account balance, will close all trades (the entire basket for all pairs) - thanks to turtlefan for this.
Global Trade Loss Target based on percentage of account balance, will close all trades (the entire basket for all pairs) - thanks to turtlefan for this.
Trader controlled trend determination. You will be able to override the higher TF trend determination and just tell the EA if you only want it to GoLong or GoShort and the EA will enter the trade when a signal is determined by the Williams% on the lower TF but only in the direction the trader specifies. Then the EA will manage the trades using the EA's trade management features.
EA can trade per last closed lower TF bar (bar mode), or on current lower TF bar (tick mode).
Spread limit check
Margin Safety check
Pip Step option

This EA will open the trade first and then modify the trade with the take profit and stop loss, so it should work with ECN brokers.

The EA was designed to work on a nano account - 1 pip equals $ 0.01 cent. So those testing on micro, mini and standard accounts please verify your lot sizing is working correctly if you use dynamic lot sizing.

The EA is designed to work on the lower time frame chart. So if you use the daily time frame for your trend determination and the hourly time frame for the Williams% entry signal, the EA must be applied to the hourly chart. The indicators in the attached template were edited accordingly so the daily trend indicators display on the hourly chart correctly. If you use a different time frame for your lower time frame and you use the template, you will need to adjust the periods in the indicator. So be advised. The indicator parameters in the EA however, do not need to be adjusted, just the Trend_TF and the Lower_TF parameters.

We will track upgrades and the different versions here in post one.

I have decided to keep the version numbering of the EA internal So for now on the EA will always just be named TCO_Trader.mq4. This should make updating your platforms easier when you want to add a new version.

Just apply the EA to the lower time frame chart you wish to trade, make sure the Lower_TF parameter is set to same TF as the chart. You do not need the indicators on the chart, but just in the indicator folder.

Thanks! Please PM me or post a reply in the thread if you have any questions.

TCO_Trader v1.0 Initial Release


TCO_Trader v1.1
- Fixed MACD Trend Determination where it was only taking Buys and not Sells
- Also made the versioning internal and changed the external name to always be the same
to make updating easier.

TCO_Trader v1.2
- Close all orders after certain profit percentage reached - thanks to turtlefan for coding
- Manual Discretionary Trend Determination - where trader can select GoLong = true or GoShort = true, will still use Williams% on lower TF for trade entry.
- Trades can be triggered on close of last lower TF bar (bar mode) or now they can be triggered on current bar(ticks)
- Lot size .01 per $1000 option added
- Verify lot size for min and max size allowed by broker, lot size also normalized
- Screen Displayed when new trades are taken, to update screen fields

TCO Trader v1.3
- Activate EA external variable
- All three trend methods can be used for trade filter
- Close all orders after certain loss percentage reached
- PipStep Feature added
- Margin Check added
- Spread Check added
- Screen Display improved
- ATR Multiplier changed from int to double data format
- External parameters improved/simplified..hopefully
- Various bugs fixed
- Code cleaned up

TCO Trader v1.4
- Added Turtle Trend Method
- Allow 1-4 automated trend methods to be selected
- Added Stochastic Lower TF trade signal that can be selected instead of WPR
- Added Bar Countdown to Screen Display from last open order and closed order
- Added Activate EA status to Screen Display
- Added Order Send/Modify delay to avoid 141 errors - Thanks to darkgsg(ck) for the coding
- For Ichi and EMA previous day close used for PA
- Added weekly filter to MACD
- Added EMA cross option
- ** Commented out - Order Delay after closed trades added ** (this is not working correctly and has been commented out for now)
- Clear objects on screen when EA removed - Thanks to Rexio for the coding
- Alerts added for opening orders and closing orders(close all on opposite signal or close all on profit/loss %)

TCO Trader v1.5
- Added MA Method and Price Method to the MA Trend Method (no longer just EMA)
- Added MA Method and Price Method to Stochastic Signal Method
- Added 2 more MACD methods - Hanover (corrected adjustable) and Traditional
- Added off/on for alerts
- Lower TF Method selection changed from boolean to integer - to make optimization easier

TCO Trader v1.6
- Take Profit/Loss on Percentage based on Magic Number - Thanks to darkgsg(ck) for the coding
- Made the Lower TF Signal selection integer instead of bool, 1 = WPR and 2 = Stochastic

[pt2004]

Thank you,

Will test

[SteveHopwood]

Thanks TCO. Fantastic to see a member here sharing like this.

It would help others if you could post a few screenshots showing where your EA took trades and why.

[ck0805]

thanks for sharing!
hope to test it next week!

Cheers

[TallCoolOne]

Thanks Guys, just let me know if you have any questions when testing. I will try to get some screens shots setup showing trades for each trend method as Steve suggested. I just started 3 Cowboy IBFX demos - one for each trend method for D1H1, with close trades on opposite signal, 12 hour trade delay with a max of 8 trades. I also optimized the ATR TP and ATR SL for the the last 18 mos and i'm using those settings. We will see how it goes. I will also try to get a trade explorer setup also. I wanted to do more work on it this weekend, but we are traveling so it will be difficult. Thanks for your interest - TCO

[RxCape]

Since I am testing this EA and enjoying watch it churn out trades, attached is a screenshot of a few of my test trades. I have been running it on a 5M chart trading in the direction of the 1H trend as determined by price being above or below the 20 /50 EMAs. I run it with the SL and TP determined by ATR(14). I use 3 or 4 ATRs for SL and 6 or 8 ATRs for TP.

I have circled some of the trades and where the WPR comes out of the oversold zone for illustration.

In this particular screenshot, the EA was slaughtered by the tightly ranging conditions leading up to the NFP announcement on Friday morning. The SL and TP were set very tight as a result of the previous 14 bars being pretty small in range. The EA did what was intended, entered in an oversold condition while the price was above the EMAs. I should have shut it down in yesterday afternoon in anticipation of a ranging market leading upto NFP.

During the Thursday afternoon NY session, prior to the consolidation, the EA traded to +2% of account balance using 0.5% risk and maximum of 4 trades per pair. I was running it only on EU, GU, AU, UCAD, and UJ for this test.

The screen shot is using TCO's template which has the EMAs, MACD, and Ichimoku displayed. I have set the EMA and MACD indicators to display the 1H results on the 5M chart. I have yet to reach an understanding about Ichimoku, so I did not adjust it all. It is only for display purposes anyway. I have it set to false in the EA settings for my use. At least for this time period, it appears that the MACD would have been a better choice of trend detection.

edit: added a second screenshot of an AUD trade that just initiated.

[TallCoolOne]

Thank you for sharing this interesting bot.
I also tried to test it on Friday, but every time the bot tries to open a trade I get error 128 - trade timeout. So actually not a single trade was opened for me. There should be some bug in the SendOrder (or whatever it is called) function.
Besides I also noticed that the dynamic lot calculation is not working right. Lot size is not normalized, for example the bot tried to open a position with 0,011454 lot size which is definitely not good.
On the whole I'm sure that when the bot actually starts to trade, it will be very promising.

Hi Formatix, thanks for the bug report. I will look into it. I would use minimum fixed lots for now. This EA will take multiple positions, so the I would use that until you get used to what the EA does. I think all 3 trend methods are very promising. This system definitely has legs. Here are the FF threads describing both of 100PipsAday methods and my thread for the EA.

100PipsADay 20/50 EMA Method - http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=425041

100PipsADay Third Screen MACD Method - http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=382032

TCO Trader EA - http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=430840

[laharjaya]

thanks for sharing .... TCO .....

[TallCoolOne]

thanks for sharing .... TCO .....

You are welcome. Good Luck with it.

[TallCoolOne]

Hi Guys/Gals,

Update in post one. The EA has been updated along with the instructions.

TCO_Trader v1.2
- Close all orders after certain profit percentage reached - thanks to Scott (thehenryfam) for coding. That is all orders for all pairs. The entire basket.
- Manual Descretionary Trend Determination - where trader can select GoLong = true or GoShort = true, will still use Williams% on lower TF for trade entry.
- Trades can be triggered on close of last lower tf bar or now they can be triggered on current bar(ticks). Settings for tick mode - CheckOncePerBar = false and WPR_Confirmation = false
- LotSize .01 per $1000 option added
- Verify LotSize for min and max size allowed by broker, lotsize also normalized

You should be able to trade more like the 100Pips method, by opening trades as soon as the Williams% dips below the OS level or above the OB level

CheckOncePerBar = false and WPR_Confirmation = false

Hopefully the issues with lotsizing have been solved. Please test thoroughly.

Please update with the TCO Trader EA on post 1. Please verify your settings, because new settings have been added to the external parameters.

Please report any issues.

Thanks for all your help

TCO