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.
- Moving averages as in Bob's Dummy Lights.
- How to calculate your broker's GMT offset. Good luck with that one.
Introduction
Big Bob trades a combination of the information provided to as by boldtrader at http://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3 ... 339#p87339 and the two moving averages that Bob uses as trend-direction determinants in his 10.6 EDSEL system:
- Bob and 10.6 use the H4 60 and 240 lwma applied to the close:
- the market is trending up when it is above both MA's.
- the market is trending down when it is below both MA's.
- the market is ranging when it is between both MA's.
- the relationship of the MA's to one another is irrelevant.
- The whole of boldtrader's post is well worthwhile reading a couple of times - there is much invaluable information there that accords with that provided by CJ in his thread. The bit of bt's post that Bold Bob uses is:
- London opens at 08.00 GMT. At 08.15 GMT, draw horizontal lines at the high and low of the previous M15 candle. Whatever your trading system, only go long when the market is above the high, and short when below the low as represented by the lines you have drawn.
- Repeat this process when New York opens at 13.00 GMT, so draw the hilo of the 13.00 GMT candle when the new one opens at 13.15.
Big Bob is a box breakout trader. At the start of the session, the market will be within the box. BB will trade in the direction of the trend as indicated by 10.6 when it breaks out of the box in the direction of the trend. We have the choice to trade immediately the price exits the box (EveryTickMode = true) or wait for the market to close outside the box (EveryTickMode = false).
Take profit and stop loss can be set by the usual inputs, or dynamically using the size of the box. Details below.
GMT offset
There is a variable, GmtOffset. Brokers have different D1 candle start times, so BB needs to know the difference between that and GMT. For example, Global Prime is GM2 + 2, so my local (GMT) time might be 9.00, but GP's is 11.00. So:
- Leave the DrawLondonHour and DrawNewYorkHour at their defaults of 8 and 13 respectively (they are visible to you only so that inveterate tinkerers can do their thing).
- Calculate/find out the difference between you broker's time and GMT (good luck with that one).. Enter this into GmtOffset.
I shall also add a list of brokers and their GMT offsets as members provide them. Once you have calculated yours, please post it. I, or Tommaso, or anyone else with the authority to do so will add it to the list in post two, then delete your post to remove clutter.
Subsequent edit:
Radar has posted an indi that will help with all this. Read his post at http://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3 ... 529#p87529
Backtesting
Those of you who do not know me well, take this next bit seriously. Backtesting in CrapergyTester is a waste of time for anything other than checking code. You are not allowed to pollute this thread with discussion about it. I will delete any post that does attempt to discuss it. Continue to try to repost and I will remove your ability to post at all.
The usual stuff
All the usual stuff is included, so study the attached Shell User Guide for any inputs that you do not understand and which I have not described in the next section.
Inputs
- TradingTimeFrame and EveryTickMode are linked. You will need a recognised chart time frame (15, 30, 60, 240, 1440 etc) in TradingTimeFrame if EveryTickMode is false because this forces BB to wait until a candle closes outside the hilo box before looking for a trade. If EveryTickMode is 'true' then TradingTimeFrame is irrelevant.
- StopLossPips is a fixed stop loss. If this is zero:
- the height of the hilo box is multiplied by the RangeStopLossMultiplier input to create a dynamic SL.
- MinStopLossPips; BB turns the box to its 'used' colour immediately if the box height is less than this number of pips. This is to prevent trades being sent with a stop loss that is too close to the open price for the broker to allow.
- TakeProfitPips is a fixed take profit. If this is zero:
- the height of the hilo box is multiplied by the RangeTakeProfitMultiplier input to create a dynamic TP.
- GmtOffset: described above.
- DrawLondonHour: this is 8.00 GMT, so leave it alone unless you want to play around.
- LondonSessionLengthHours: the length of time you want the hilo box to remain on your screen. By default, the London open hilo will be deleted at 12.00 GMT.
- Then there is your choice of line colour for the box, and the list of inputs is repeated for the NY session. There are inputs that let you set the colour of the box lines once a trade has been taken, or we have moved outside our trading period (LondonFinishedLineColour and NewYorkFinishedLineColour). BB regards the box as no longer tradable once it changes colour. It does not remove the lines; this allows us to study what would have happened during the rest of the session when a trade has closed - BB is a once-a-session only trader. Note: the lines are trend lines and BB has code that locates the most recent ones, so do not draw your own trendlines - you will bugger up BB's working.
- UseMovingAverageFilter (Moving averages inputs section further down): allows you to disable the moving averages filter and just trade the breakout of the box.
Coders
Post 3 has a description of how to add your own fav indicators to the source so you can play around.
Conclusion
Play around, mess with the inputs, try enabling libcss etc. See if you can find a group of settings that work for you.
No doubt additions to the methodology will arise; we shall see what they bring.
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
- MaryJane has posted a fabulous utility to allow us to resize EA input windows: http://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3 ... f=5&t=3427
- Multi purpose trade manager: http://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3 ... ?f=21&t=64
- Account equity analyser: 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 ... ?f=15&t=79
Thanks Steve!!! 
