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Ziggy Bolly
https://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=2886		 Page 1 of 4
Author:  SteveHopwood [ Sun Aug 04, 2013 5:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Ziggy Bolly
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. Remember to set IsGlobalPrimeOrECNCriminal to 'true' if your crim insists on two-stage order sending.
    • ZigZag, Bollinger Bands and Stochastic indicators.
    • Retracement trading

I am not yet trading this EA on my live account

Intro
Dewey McG contacted me with a system he had back tested and found to be successful enough to warrant further investigation. His full pm is in post 2, along with pictures of trade setups. I coded Ziggy Bolly for him and he feels it is worth releasing to our wider membership.

Indicators
  • ZigZagN. This thread requires that a new top/bottom appears to be forming and so ZZ will draw a new line on your chart. The standard ZigZag will remove this line should the new top/bottom prove to be a false one, so we would be left wondering why the EA took the trade. ZigZagN leaves a symbol behind on the chart when it repaints, so we can see why ZB took the trade. Place this in your indi folder.
  • Bollinger Bands applied to the main chart.
  • Stochastic. Use the modified version attached here, not the usual one in the Indicators section of the Navigator window. The modified version will show up in the Custom Indicators section.
  • Bollinger Bands applied to the Stochastic indi window.
The attached template will set up your chart for you.

The trading system
As posited to me, this is a M15 EU retrace trading system, so:
  • 1. Stoch outside the band
    2. EMA1 outside the band
    3. ZZ top or bottom is formed
    4. Enter with market order
    5. TP is middle of BB band
    6. SL 10 pips
:

Inputs
All the usual stuff is here, apart from CSS. Find descriptions of the inputs in the attached Shell User Guide. I coded ZB before Paul showed me how to bring the code 'in house' and will add it back in soon.

BB, ZZ and Stoch is fully configurable, but play with these inputs only if you know what you are doing.

Note to coders
I Googled 'Bollinger Bands formula' to work out how to calculate the BB of Stochastic for BB. Read details in void GetBollingerBandsOfStochastic(). I am pretty proud of myself here. :lol:

Conclusion
Dewey wanted me to code ZB so he can involve the Brains Trust in developing this scalper into something profitable, so let the testing begin. He will be along later with some set files to get you guys started.

:D

Shell user guide
This describes the usual inputs in my EA's. Consult it for details not listed above.
Matters of general interest
Go here to download and run the script that will fill your platform's missing chart history: http://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3 ... f=15&t=254
Read this post:
http://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3 ... p?f=6&t=78 Newbie traders, read this for inspiration and warning. Those of you who have suffered losses, read it for inspiration.

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.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3 ... ?f=15&t=79, at the bottom of the post.

Useful utilities/EA's/scripts
Author:  SteveHopwood [ Sun Aug 04, 2013 5:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Ziggy Bolly
Here is Dewey's full pm with pictures of trades.

:D
Dewey McG wrote:Hello Steve,

Sorry if this is long but I think this has a lot of merit.

I am hoping you will be interested in taking this on, because I think this is a great idea but the coding skills needed are way beyond anything I could hope to do. The idea for this came from one of the fasted growing threads in forexfactory (similarity method) at http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=434603. Eurusdd discusses several strategies actually and there is a treasure trove of information there.

This is based on one of the ideas he presented:

I have attached a template with the following indicators:

Main Chart:

Moving Average – EMA 1
Bollinger Bands – settings: apply to close , 24/0/2
ZigZag – settings 24/5/3
ZigZagN – settings 24/5/3 (this is just for visual back testing since ZigZag repaints. It shows an arrow where Zigzag was before repainting)

Indicator Window 1:

Stochastic – settings: 300/1/1
Bollinger Bands (in same window as Stochastic!)– settings: apply to previous indicator , 24/0/2

If you put this on a 15 min chart for EURUSD you can see what I am pointing out in the picture.

If Stoch moves outside of the Bollinger band AND EMA1 moves outside the same side of its band AND a ZZ top is painted price almost always reverses. Here is an example of a trade I just took.

I did a visual back test using the ZigZagN indicator so I could see where the ZZ painted a top or bottom and in the last 2 weeks this produced almost all winning trades (12 out of 15) even using a tight stop loss with the following rules:

1. Stoch outside the band
2. EMA1 outside the band
3. ZZ top or bottom is formed
4. Enter with market order
5. TP is middle of BB band
6. SL 10 pips

You can do a visual yourself and see how impressive this looks.

I really think this has some promise, but I would like to be able to use an EA to tweak this a but more for best settings.
I asked a few people but no one seems to know how to code how to do the BB of the stochastic, so that might be the hardest part.
today's trade.jpg
bb-stoch-zz template.jpg
bb-stoch-zz method.jpg
bb-stoch-zz method 2.jpg
Author:  Dewey McG [ Sun Aug 04, 2013 7:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Ziggy Bolly
Like many strategies which look good on visual back testing which only show what happens at the end of each bar they behave a little differently when live. I started the back testing and came up with a set file that looks promising as you can see from the strategy tester results. However, it does need a larger SL than I thought. I tested with 50 pips.

As you can see from the strategy tester results using a 2% risk, it was mildly profitable with a low draw down. However, two of the three SL's were at major news events when I would hope most people would turn off their EA's. So if you take those out, it would have been quite a bit better ($390 better) .

I am not done with the testing, so please don't use this on a live account yet. For those of you who don't have much experience back testing here is my plan (and I would suggest doing this with any EA before going live):

1. Do an initial few back tests just to see if the strategy can be profitable.

2. Do an optimization to see if you can make it worthwhile.

3. Do a walk forward analysis. If you stop with step 2 you could be in trouble. All you have done is shown how well it can do with perfect 20/20 hindsight. You now know it can be profitable but have no idea whether it will be profitable. Let's say your strategy looks good after steps one and two. OK, now try doing an optimization for years 2011-2012 and then a back test using those settings for the year 2013. That is more realistic. Now how did you do? Looking good? OK, how about going further back, doing your optimization for years 2007- 2010, then trying those settings for 2011? Then add 2011 and back test 2012. If the strategy works for all these then you just might have something worth testing on a live account with very low risk settings.

If this continues to look good we can add strategy 2 and also look at other pairs.

All the testing is painstakingly slow with MT-4. Making it worse is my computer got a virus which took me several hours Thursday night so I was not able to do as much testing as I hoped.
Author:  Dewey McG [ Sun Aug 04, 2013 9:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Ziggy Bolly
Please remember to change the set file for your local time. Trading hours should be from 8 AM London to 4 PM. Also change to true if you use Global Prime or an ECN broker where asked
Author:  SteveHopwood [ Sun Aug 04, 2013 9:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Ziggy Bolly
Sorry to be off-topic, but a quick update re my old market open heads up. Following our forced migration to a new server, my usual post-weekend market opening message to you all has proven impossible to send. There is nothing I can do about this.

Instead, I am posting my message at http://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3 ... 747#p71747

Those of you interested in catching up an anything you have missed that has been drawn to my attention need to subscribe to the thread ('Subscribe' button at the bottom of the page). It will also carry my 'New toy' messages when I have coded a bot that might be of interest - there is one tonight. There is also an extremely sad message; it breaks my heart that I cannot send a board-wide pm with its contents.

:D
Author:  jmatheny81 [ Sun Aug 04, 2013 10:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Ziggy Bolly
Thanks for the toy, Steve :)
I've been following the thread on forex factory with great interest too. Unfortunately, stupid people annoyed EURUSDD and he limited who could post on the thread. After you read through the main thread, move to this one: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=439539
Most of the new discussion on the topic is taking place here and anyone can post.
Author:  mobthehop [ Mon Aug 05, 2013 1:48 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Ziggy Bolly
Dewey, thanks for sharing the idea and Steve for coding it....

Could you please re-post the screenshots of post #2 as attachment so that we can see them properly....

Cheers / Mop
Author:  Dewey McG [ Mon Aug 05, 2013 4:40 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Ziggy Bolly
OK, here are the PICs.
Author:  Ezzy [ Tue Aug 06, 2013 9:51 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Ziggy Bolly
Trying it now Dewey

Cheers mate.
Author:  mobthehop [ Thu Aug 08, 2013 8:54 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Ziggy Bolly
1. Went thru this thread over at FF - http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=439539 which left me with more questions than answers - guess I have to read the main thread... sigh....

2. Dewey - is Stoch period 300 the standard? Saw some people using 75?

3. Not sure w/r this is a template issue, my issue or something else.... EA reading of Stoch and BB on Stoch is not right - see screenie - all read zero

4. I have no idea where the Daily Stats in screenshot come from - not mine....!

4. Post 1 probably needs the zigzag (not "N") indicator used for template and when applying template, Stoch is not showing in sub-window, just BB - just for info

Cheers / Mop
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