Bob and Shelley Again

[spotdespot]

Just watched the football? Uncanny timing

Nope. When dealing with sell trades we have to take account of the possibility of a zero stop loss, hence the !CloseEnough(OrderStopLoss(), 0) otherwise whatever is intended to happen when a sell stop loss is < the order open price will happen, because the sl is < the order open price because it is zero.

Ok - makes sense. I couldn't see how this would be the problem but then again I couldn't quite work out the sense of it - now I know!

BASA's next incarnation will include the ability to stack trades at half the lot size of the main/reentry trade once BE is achieved and half the trade has been closed. What passes for my mind is already working on this.

Excellent - I suggested smaller stack trades previously but no-one seemed keen. I have actually forced my stack trades to be @ half initial lot size - nothing as elegant as an option

imo I think it is useful (to have the option anyway) to have smaller stack trades regardless of whether half close has been chosen or not. It automatically gives the trade more room to breath.

Cheers,
Dave.

[SteveHopwood]

Something else I have noticed guys is this: the basket trailing stop function is crap. On my accounts live and demo, the breakeven is always closer to the market than is the basket trailing stop, so the bts is irrelevant - this is using my ootb stack settings.

I have described how the function works in the UG. Can anyone suggest a better way - cannot be any worse than the one I have coded.

[spotdespot]

I don't think the problem is necessarily with your bts logic Steve - it all comes back to the stack trade size. If you have a 1 lot trade (ignoring half close for now) and stack at 50 pips with the same stack size, breakeven is at +25 from the first trade open. There is no way, imo anyway, you want to be trailing less than 25 pips from market price on an H4 strategy.

If you agree then the only viable variable to move BE further from market price, and therefore allow any kind of trailing, is the relative size of the stack position(s).

I'm struggling on my phone now with all computers put to bed. I hope this makes sense otherwise I will try again tomorrow morning when more awake having not touched a drop of red....

I think stacked trades should be a great bonus and addition to the main trade profit - not the golden Goose. I just don't think it works if you get too gready.

Cheers,
Dave

[spotdespot]

Ok - now that I can type properly.

My point above hopefully should be clear but I also wanted to make the point about the BE level. If you read the above post you might say that if 25 pips trailing is too close then setting breakeven @ 30 pips might also be too close. However I think the 2 are very, very different. In simple terms one secures the trade against hitting a SL (and will close half) and the other tries to maximize profits.

By securing the trade against loss you can accept that the remainder of the trade may get stopped out at breakeven a reasonable % of the time - no big deal you have made some profit - move on.

However, when you are looking to maximizing profits when there is an extended, sustained trend, the last thing you want to do is to have it stop out early, give back those profits gained and see potential further profits "lost" as the trend resumes.

I said above that to give the trade more room then the only viable variable to change is lot size. You could change the stack distance (making it further away) but then you need a much bigger sustained move for that to happen.

So what's the answer? I believe the way forward is to have flexibility over the stack trade size (% of the original or similar). What we can then do is actually look at the implications of reducing stack size AND potentially reducing stack pip distance until we get a happy balance. By doing this we may, for example, find that many trades get to 60 pips before a sustained pull back - so perhaps much smaller stack sizing at a 15 pip step, with a mechanism to secure those pips would be better than looking at proportionately bigger trade sizing at 50 pip steps. Currently, with fixed lot size matching the original trade size (or even fixed half trade size) this would not work as you couldn't even have a breakeven point with such a small stack pip distance.

I have the ankle biters biting and a wife getting impatient so I will leave this and get back to it later. I have an idea how the "basket" stop/securing profits could work in this scenario but I need to check that my idea makes sense and I am having trouble concentrating right now.

Cheers,
Dave.

[SteveHopwood]

V 2d is in post 1.

HalfCloseEnabled has morphed into PartCloseEnabled. From the UG:

• PartCloseEnabled: will close PartClosePercent of the trade when the market reaches your breakeven point. It is up to you to ensure that your lot size allows this.
• PartClosePercent: the percentage or the order to close. For example:
  • Lot = 0.02; PartClosePercent = 50; BASA will close 0.01 lots at BE.
  • Lot = 1; PartClosePercent = 75; BASA will close 0.75 lots at BE.

Once a trade has reached BE and part-closed, BASA uses the trade's remaining open lot size for the stack trades - 0.1 and 0.25 respectively in the examples.

I have simplified the basket trailing stop calculation. It works like a standard trailing stop and trails the market at StackTrailingStopPips behind.

All this wants testing, so perhaps don't rush to dump it on your live accounts just yet.

[erikskenne]

To all involved in this project, Thank you for this hard work,

[jorgel1234]

Hello everyone:

I'm new to the forum so please forgive me If Im posting in the wrong topic, but I just have a quick question. How do I go about if I have an idea for an EA that needs coding. Thanks you all so very much in advance.

[milanese]

Hello everyone:

I'm new to the forum so please forgive me If Im posting in the wrong topic, but I just have a quick question. How do I go about if I have an idea for an EA that needs coding. Thanks you all so very much in advance.

Hi and welcome, you are indeed here at wrong place do your request please in that subforum
http://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3 ... m.php?f=12

Cheers
Tommaso

[jorgel1234]

Hello everyone:

I'm new to the forum so please forgive me If Im posting in the wrong topic, but I just have a quick question. How do I go about if I have an idea for an EA that needs coding. Thanks you all so very much in advance.

Hi and welcome, you are indeed here at wrong place do your request please in that subforum
http://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3 ... m.php?f=12

Cheers
Tommaso

Thanks for the prompt reply, I greatly appreciate it Tommaso.

[fxozgirl]

Moving on.

Those of us who have experienced the power of a successful stack basket have been blown away.

Those of us who have followed Shelley's more rigorous system of trading filters allied with a half-close at +30 without stacking have benefited in the last couple of days. For sure, I have.

We have seen perfect examples of the general principal of both letting winners run and Shelley's rinse and repeat sizes with higher lot approach. Forget the cutting losers short stuff - BASA takes care of that.

I have been thinking about this and we can have the best of both worlds.

BASA's next incarnation will include the ability to stack trades at half the lot size of the main/reentry trade once BE is achieved and half the trade has been closed. What passes for my mind is already working on this.

The best of both worlds would be great Steve
...thanks for your ongoing efforts

Cheers
Shelley