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Joe. Swing-trade your way to a baby equity millipede
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Author:  SteveHopwood [ Sat Dec 10, 2011 5:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Joe. Swing-trade your way to a baby equity millipede
SERIOUS WARNING
  • Most Forex traders lose all their money.
    Using the robot posted here in trading Forex does not guarantee success.
    Trading this robot could lead to serious financial loss.
    Trading this robot without understanding its underlying trading strategies guarantees traders will lose their money.
    This is not a set-and-forget ea; there is no such thing and anyone who tries to claim there is, is either stupid or lying. This ea requires frequent manual intervention.
    At best, a trading robot is only 90% as good as the manual strategy it trades. At best. At worst, it can be much less effective. If the strategy is rubbish, so is the robot.
    To trade this robot, you have to understand:
    How to use EA's.
    The trading system in the attached pdf
Over at FF, Graeme (pipEasy) has one of the most successful threads running – 'Building an equity millipede' – find it at http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread. ... ost3863677 This is a fabulous thread and I imagine that anyone who reads it through will gain much.

Graeme has posted a trading system from this post onwards:
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread. ... ost3947683
Chong sent me the link this morning, along with links to the subsequent posts. I have copied the posts and joined them here to create the attached pdf. Our warmest appreciation to Chong.

SwingMan made an indi to give an instant visual realisation of flying buddhas; the indi is attached.

The EA is called Joe after the trader who shared this knowledge with Graeme, even though Joe is not his real name.

Trading rules for sell trades (opposite for buys)
  • 4 hour chart.
    Trade at the open of a new candle following a 'Flying Budda'.
    Sell when FB is above the 5 EMA.
    Stop loss is the high of the FB, plus some space.
    Stacking (describing sells as this is what the document concentrates on):
    • Occurs when >0 trades are already open.
      Trade at the half-way price of the FB – sell stop if the candle opens above this price, or sell-limit if opens below.
      Only stack when the stop of the previous trade has moved to breakeven.
      All trading rules apply to stacked trades.
    Scaling out:
    • If the candle closes above a previous down candle, close half of the positions
EA inputs
You will find descriptions of many of the inputs in the attached Shell User Guide. I wrote it for issue with bots I code in the future. Where you see inputs described that you do not see in the EA's inputs list, ignore them.

Overall trading direction
There is a panoply of trend-detection mechanisms for deciding on the direction of your trades. I have included Hanover and CBI - not sure that CBI has a part to play here but we shall see.

Chong and I cooked up an ea last week that uses a higher time frame FB to decide the direction to trade. The FB inputs allow you a trading time frame and a higher time frame that are entirely independent of the of the chart you are viewing; these default to the H4 and D1. This means you can change the chart tf at will, without compromising Joe's actions. I think. To turn off the htf FB, set it to the same time frame as that of the trading time frame.

Useful posts
Read this superb post: http://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3 ... 2527#p2527

Sharing with FF
Feel free to upload the EA to Graeme's thread at FF. I suggest someone does so just once - there is info regarding updates in the screen feedback, so people will know where to come. I do not recommend posting a link; TIT will probably regard this as an infringement of his precious rules and ban the poster. I would upload it, but of course I am a Filthy Commercial member and so cannot. :lol:

In conclusion
Have fun.

:D

Matters of general interest

Read this post:
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread. ... ost4923611 Newbie traders, read this for inspiration and warning. Those of you who have suffered losses, read it for inspiration. There is a thread devoted to Sam's trading method at http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...25#post5118825

Masterly summary of hedging: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread. ... ost4977179

EA coding
I receive may requests to code EA's. Traders, if I code your EA for free, then I will share it here. If you want me to code your EA without sharing, then my fee is $100 payable into my paypal account. I explain why at http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread. ... ost4431794, at the bottom of the post.

Useful utilities/EA's/scripts
MaryJane has posted a fabulous utility to allow us to resize EA input windows: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=299017
Multi purpose trade manager: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=89371
Account equity analyser: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...16#post4693716 Also at http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread. ... ost4709098, which includes a template for both USD and the Euro.
Past-trades display indi by squalou; shows a graphical display of the success/failure of trades in your History tab. Breathtaking piece of work. http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread. ... ost3830610
My shell EA – the code I use to produce EA's so quickly. http://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3 ... p?f=5&t=15
Author:  Caal [ Sat Dec 10, 2011 6:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joe. Swing-trade your way to an equity millipede
Sounds interesting, although I usually have issues producing enough trades to do a viable statistical analysis on such high timeframes, but I'm looking forward to this new creation :)
Author:  lhDT [ Sat Dec 10, 2011 6:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joe. Swing-trade your way to an equity millipede
interesting indeed ... 8 to 10 lots whouhou, should be a huge account !!
Do you know what is exactly the "plus some space" for the SL ?
Author:  SteveHopwood [ Sat Dec 10, 2011 6:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joe. Swing-trade your way to an equity millipede
lhDT wrote:interesting indeed ... 8 to 10 lots whouhou, should be a huge account !!
Do you know what is exactly the "plus some space" for the SL ?
Nope. It is a user input, so people can take their best guess. When the EA is up and running, I shall invite Graeme here to see if he has anything to add.

:D
Author:  ananthhh [ Sat Dec 10, 2011 6:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joe. Swing-trade your way to an equity millipede
hi steve,

am following you for almost 5 months...
this is my first reply to your posts...
keep up your good work...

this method sounds interesting...
looking forward for an EA...

thanks and regards
ananth.
Author:  garyfritz [ Sat Dec 10, 2011 7:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joe. Swing-trade your way to an equity millipede
Looking at the indi, it's clear that the FBs (for shorts) happen on up-moves, and the FBs (for longs) happen on down-moves. (It only paints down-FBs when the fast EMA is above the slow EMA, and vice versa. There's no check for EMAfast>EMAslow in the code, but pretty much by definition a FB above the EMAs will force the fast EMA above the slow.) He's looking for reversals.

Most of the entries are premature and would be stopped out -- hence the 40% win rate Graeme mentions. As far as I can tell there is no magic to the FB signals themselves. Almost any decent entry signal would work. It's Joe's maximization of his gains, by stacking once he gets into a winning position, that makes this work.

A better reversal-detection signal might be able to improve the W:L stats.
Author:  SteveHopwood [ Sat Dec 10, 2011 7:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joe. Swing-trade your way to an equity millipede
What you guys do not know is that Chong had me code a 'private' EA last week, based on this indi. The EA depended on a slightly scary Martingale sequence that was brilliant until it blew the account. There were a few associated trading conditions, but not many.

Then Chong asked me to include a higher time frame FB consideration and only trade in the direction of that following a signal on the trading time frame, also restarting the M sequence on a change of trading direction or the closure of an x number of trades in the basket reaching breakeven.

This has been nothing short of brilliant on demo and is going onto one of my live charts on Monday.

Joe contains a host of extra possibilities - Hanover, CBI, a whole host of trend-detection mechanisms as well as manual trend definition.

Everyone, make sure you understand what is meant by 'building an equity millipede' or none of this will make any sense to you.

:D
Author:  DragosDanescu [ Sat Dec 10, 2011 7:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Joe. Swing-trade your way to an equity millipede
Just an ideea, maybe the Sixths can have a nice role to play here for filtering some losing Buddha's. No, no, I don't wanna clutter this already with more indi's! :lol:
Author:  ananthhh [ Sun Dec 11, 2011 7:35 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Joe. Swing-trade your way to an equity millipede
hi steve,
I have just gone through the code...
I like to share my thoughts regarding the code...
If am wrong or misunderstood anywhere, please forgive my innocence and correct me

1.I found that trade is taken when the flying buddha is formed on both higher and lower time frame. But according to the rules in the document, its enough to have flying buddha at higher time frame.

2.For stacking, it is mentioned in the document to use 50% fib levels, but i couldn't find any details for stacking in the code (sorry if it is there and please let me know where it is written).

3.Regarding closure and to detect weakening of trend, we can first test with the method as mentioned in the document (i.e.,) when any candle closes above previous high for sell trades and closes below previous high for buy trades.

4.No. of positions to be closed can be given as user input or we can test with some random numbers like 1/4 positions from bottom and 1/4 positions from top.

regards
ananth
Author:  Pathumracled [ Sun Dec 11, 2011 8:07 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Joe. Swing-trade your way to an equity millipede
Good day Sir Hopwood (All),
All I can Say are these (1) Finally… with a Smile (2) thanks for the Notifications on important developments, Via PM works marvelously for me! & (3) Thanks for this particular initiative. :mrgreen:

Met upon that (Equity Millipede) thread some time now and from June 2011, it gave me the first practical implementation of the adage “Cutting your Losses and allowing your profits to Run” (Graeme/PipEasy, the originator of the thread had seemingly limitless resources so he could afford to see 500+ pips legs die off at break even +pips. That I could not stomach, so for me locking in reasonable profits up to 1.5 x the margined amount on the winning trade was preferred. And, that is one of the beauties of the concept, it can be applied to any Successful Entry method, initially the Flying Buddha(FB) was used on D1, but to my mind it (Equty millipede via Stacking of Winners) can as easily be applied to an MA Crosses, Candle Break-Out or whatever your successful entry method is, just as long as the Entry Quality is High (excellent track record of market agreeing with trade entry, buy or sell 50-60%) and the lot sizes are geared low. So we could in effect use any one of our successful methods here to build an equity Millipede, hence the thought, some time, for the Caterpillar concept to be incorporated in the MPTM (If and when that aspect is added, my thoughts here will be proven…. Patience is essential to Long term Fx Profitability, don’t have any? Buy Some ;) )

Of note, though Graeme/PipEasy was a proponent of the Flying Buddha method, where he stressed, High quality entries based of agreement the M1 & D1 T/F, executed on the H4 or M15, the Genius of the idea is to cut the losses ‘early’, and Maxmise any Medium to long term trend that emerges. There are even aspects there for Hedging where attempts are made to get in on Small retracements, which at times may turn to be actual reversals. (might I suggest here the addition of Daily Volatility as well as the PSAR, to help decide where to place Stops (some percentage of the average of last two PSAR Dots ??).

Once there is a Winner Stack ..on winners (now we see where my affinity for the Caterpillar concept came from :) ). Note here the method uses Low Gearing based on numerous Fixed lot, Low Size entries rather than increasing the individual Lot sizes proportionally as the Balance grows. One might choose to increase lots from 0.01 lots per $3K on the account or in instances each $6k or $9k, such that we would increase lot sizes each time the Balance moves up by $3k we increase the individual lot sizes by 0.01.

<See Post#4407, By Graeme; Page 294…. Good evening, Midknight > [http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread. ... 9&page=294 ]This allows the account to be able to with stand massive Beast/Beastie Type Draw_Downs without ever coming in danger of margin call or blowing the account. The “building and Equity Millipede” thread is Long but the First 50 Post My Graeme/Pip Easy makes For excellent reading.

<A personal Gem on the concept of Stacking taken from Post#4854: [ http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread. ... 9&page=324 ]Cameron1st- On Stacking (Of Winners) : I would say don't be greedy, add new positions only when the previous one is in profit and SL moved to BE. The whole point of stacking is to keep the risk constant, whilst the reward would grow exponentially, but you can't keep the risk constant unless you move SL to BE before opening a new position. {Steve Hopwood’s Caterpiller concept could be employed if needed [28Aug11@8:06am]}
Hope this makes sense. Kindest Regards, Cam


Sadly, Graeme has long since ceased posting and so we may not get his direct input here. I have found though that there are other faithful followers of that thread who have a more than decent Idea of the Equity millipede building which might be of assistance. They Include (FF Thread members) Emerald Eyes, Cameron1st, AlexandarSV, Runway, VeeFx, And Even Our Hanover (proponent of the Recent Strength Indi etc). Have sent them PM to join us and allow us to benefit from their understanding & Practice, in the absence of Graeme/PipEasy.

Spent Some 2 + weeks reading through the thread before getting some of the key concepts. I share the forgoing so that it may jumpstart someone. It is hoped that we will be able to implement the Concept of “Making Profits Run whilst cutting Losses”, in this automation process thereby having the immense benefits of Building Equity millipedes via trend trading.

Bless! >;<
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