Holy Graily Bob 'n Dotty 'n Super Slope 'n Flying Buddha

EA's inspired by nanningbob's work here, especially those based on his 240 Moving Average trend detection filter.
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Gertje
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Post by Gertje »

cozybooks » Thu Oct 05, 2017 9:59 pm wrote:Let's hope we all have plenty of opportunities to become more and more conservative... :)
The thing is, on a $500-$1.000 account there is not much room for more conservatism than trading 0.01 lots. It's basically the rock-bottom.

That's why I started trading a cent-account, where my $400 deposit shows and is tradable as $40.000
With a dollup of 0.01/$1.000 I can now trade up to 0.40 lots, which are 0.004 lots in the real world.
Of course this comes at a price, like slow performance, re-quotes and such but with PoS not being a tradingtart, I can live with that.
As soon as the balance allows, I'll transfer all to my GP account.

The additional benefit of a cent-account; I can get used of trading big numbers and bank thousands of $cents every day..... :mrgreen:
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cozybooks
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Post by cozybooks »

Yes, a cent account is great when you are first trying out something live to see how it goes. We used to have a few options for cent accounts in the U.S., but now I don't know of anyone doing them that takes U.S. clients. If anyone hears of someone, there are plenty of us in the U.S. that would like to send them some business and get in on some of the fun from Steve's other creations.

Oanda lets you trade as little as $1 manually, which is great for trying manual strategies, but doesn't help when you are trying to automate something on an EA. They have the same $1,000 minimum trades that most dealers have now.

I was only willing to risk the $1,000 investment on my Trading in the Middle experiment, but if I had been able to do it with a cent account and start with a lower amount, I would have started with only half the investment. Another limitation in the U.S. is margin limits of 33:1 or 50:1 depending on the pair. I've been bumping up close to the maximum margin on my accounts fairly often in recent weeks.

On the other hand, my maximum draw down on open trades during the ten weeks I've been live has been about $50.00, which is 5% and something I can live with on any size account (until I get to those Steve $500,000 numbers :) ). It will be interesting to see as the weeks go by if I see much higher draw downs. I was hoping to limit risk with this strategy, while still providing an opportunity to turn a profit. I think it's certainly done that so far, and I still think this has a very good chance of working out to be a viable long term EA.
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cozybooks
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Holy Graily Bob 'n Dotty 'n Super Slope 'n Flying Buddha

Post by cozybooks »

Hi Trading Gang,

Trading in the Middle took some punches the last couple of weeks, but I am still going forward and in spite of some losses, I'm actually gaining more confidence in the system because even in bad weeks I get some good trades to offset some of the losses. If I had paid more attention to setting up all of charts correctly, I actually would have broken even. There must be a lesson there. :?

For the last two weeks, I have $ 22.13 in losses. Combined with my previous winnings of $ 122.01, I am now up $ 99.88 for 12 weeks, just one week short of the three months live mark.

EURUSD chart shows the type of price movement that this system will struggle with. Net losses on EURUSD alone were about $12.00, or more than half of my total losses. Every time SS changed color, price would take off in the other direction by 100 pips or more. Lots of false breakouts on quite a few charts, but I had some good winners too, which kept the losses manageable.

The following is my live strategy I will be running through the end of the year:

Min. Distance btwn trades=20 pips (I wasn't careful enough in my chart setups and had this set to zero incorrectly on a few charts, which of course added to my losses instead of adding to my profits :arrrg: )
Max. # of trades per pair: 3
Sixths: Set to 240 periods (this is a big change from the default of 1680 - see below for how I now use these sixths lines for a SL).
Trading only in the middle=true
Breakeven: 40/5.
TP: 500 Pips / SL: 165 pips
No Jumping SL - I am reviewing the charts once or twice a day and moving SL manually.
Close on Opposite Signal if superslope agrees=true (I had this set incorrectly the last two weeks or I would have actually broken even during the two week period - would have made a big difference!)

Closing Profitable Trades:
If price breaks the outside sixths line on profitable trades, I am using the Sixths trading line as my SL. If you look at the AUDUSD chart, I've circled an example of this. Buy trade entered on FB signal around .7988. Price climbs, breaking upper sixths line. The gold line on my chart is the Sixths trading line. Price only comes back to the trading line around .8082, nearly a 100 pip profit, which is pretty good on AUDUSD.

I am trying to automate this within the EA, but so far I've just managed to have the EA know when the outside line gets broken. The SL isn't changing for me, so I think I'm changing the code in the wrong place or just doing it backwards. :? If I have time in the next week or so, I'll play with it some more and I'll see if I can get that part automated.

Biggest lesson from the last two weeks: I was very busy with family tasks and work, and didn't take the few extra minutes I would have needed to really make sure every chart was set up correctly. This took what would have been breakeven at worse and turned it into a loss. Not as big a deal on a small investment like this (but still a blow to a profitable system), but it's the type of mistake you can't make if you start trading with more money.

Have a great trading week! :clap: :clap: :clap:
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SteveHopwood
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Post by SteveHopwood »

cozybooks » Sun Oct 22, 2017 2:57 pm wrote: I am trying to automate this within the EA, but so far I've just managed to have the EA know when the outside line gets broken. The SL isn't changing for me, so I think I'm changing the code in the wrong place or just doing it backwards. :? If I have time in the next week or so, I'll play with it some more and I'll see if I can get that part automated.
Let me know if you cannot sort this out - or if you think your time can be better spent experimenting with your system rather than battling code. It is great to see you going under the bonnet, but no need to drive yourself nuts.

:xm:
Read the effing manual, ok?

Afterprime is the official SHF broker. Read about them at https://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=175790#p175790.

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cozybooks
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Post by cozybooks »

Hi Steve,

Thanks, I may take you up on that. I will give it one more try to see if I can get it working. If that doesn't work, I'll let you know. Hard to believe that I'm just a week away from three months live. I really believe this has legs long term, and it can be used with a small account to start and with U.S. trading besides.

:D
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Post by andwen »

Hi Cozybooks

A brilliant contribution and thanks for sharing with us your persistence and ideas :clap: :clap: :clap:
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cozybooks
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Post by cozybooks »

Andwen,

Thanks for your kind words. That's my long term goal - have persistence mistaken for brilliance! :lol:

I will say that I think there are a lot of different ways to make money with this EA. I'm going in a direction that limits risk (which also limits the profit as a result), but it suits my goals, trading style, and the limitations of being in the U.S.

Best of times trading! :clap:
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cozybooks
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Post by cozybooks »

Example of the Sixths 240 settings I am using for a SL on profitable trades. Two buy trades open at once on EURJPY, so when I took at look at this chart a little while ago, I went ahead and set my SL even though the upper sixths line hadn't quite broken yet.

Solid gold line is the upper sixths band. Dotted gold line is the sixths trading line. Trading in the middle buy arrows need to be below that dotted gold line, which they were, and this wonderful EA opened two trades 20 pips apart like clockwork. SL is now set at 133.682, which locks in 52 pips profit as my worse case scenario. If price jumps up before then and breaks the solid upper gold line, I'll move the SL accordingly to match the dotted yellow line. If EURJPY wants to go on a sudden 500 pip roll upwards, I won't complain. :smile:

Family visiting this week, so I haven't had time to try to automate this part, but I have a sell trade on AUDUSD in the same pretty position.

Happy trading! :clap:
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cozybooks
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Post by cozybooks »

Trading in the Middle Live Update:
That $&%*^&%$&* Euro! I wanna go up :evil: I wanna go down :twisted: I wanna go up and down :evil: I wanna go in whatever direction Superslope doesn't wanna go because I'm a bully and don't like that nice gentle Superslope. :twisted: Blah, blah, blah - what a spoiled brat!

Okay, now that I've gotten that out of my system, if you want to trade any EA, you need to know your enemy. The EURUSD chart is a perfect illustration of the chart that will defeat this strategy. I have a whole slew of these EUR charts. Superslope was still blue on most of those EUR charts when all sorts of buy trades kicked in. Yikes! This chart is the sworn enemy of Trading in the Middle because after placing its trades, it goes straight in the other direction without stopping or kicking out any opposite FB signals until it eventually hits its SL. In the past I would have looked for ways to change the EA to get out of these trades earlier, but I've learned the hard way that this only serves to stop out plenty of trades that would have eventually recovered. Sometimes you have to just take your losses, be cranky for a while, and then have a slice of chocolate cake and enjoy the good things in life.

On the plus side, my new manual strategy of using the Sixths 240 trading line as a SL on profitable trades was a roaring success whenever I was around to make use of it. It managed to offset some of those %$*&^ Euro trades and a couple of $*%&&% GBP trades.

On Closed trades I am up $ 2.73 for the week. It sounds better than it is, because I have a whole carload of open trades in trouble, but that's for next week to take care of and offset.

Closing three months of this live experiment, taking my sparse little $ 2.73 profit and adding it to my $ 99.88 previous winnings, I am up $ 102.61 on my $1,000 investment. I consider this a resounding success. :)

I'm hoping I have figured out how to automate using the Sixths trading lines as a SL. If I get a tested version ready, I'll post it. If Steve gets bored and posts his own version, use that instead since if I get a version running it might use all of your CPU power. I thought I had it all set and was patting myself on the back when it dutifully closed a sell trade on a demo when it hit the trading line, but then when it closed every new sell trade that opened as well.... oops.

The best in trading to everyone here that is doing such great work! Have a wonderful weekend!
:clap: :clap: :clap: :party: :clap:
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Post by SteveHopwood »

cozybooks » Fri Oct 27, 2017 4:54 pm wrote: I'm hoping I have figured out how to automate using the Sixths trading lines as a SL. If I get a tested version ready, I'll post it. If Steve gets bored and posts his own version, use that instead since if I get a version running it might use all of your CPU power. I thought I had it all set and was patting myself on the back when it dutifully closed a sell trade on a demo when it hit the trading line, but then when it closed every new sell trade that opened as well.... oops.
This is a classic example of LUC inviting his buddies around for morning coffee.

For those of you unfamiliar with our antics in the early years of SHF, LUC stands for the Law of Unintended Consequences. A change here necessitates a change there, which results in the need for a change there, then there, then there...... Chaos results when all the theres (is that even a word?) are not changed.

LUC was a constant companion until the Proper Coders kicked my sorry arse into life and taught me the most basic of structured programming concepts. Back before, LUC would not just invite his buddies around for morning coffee. He would invite them around for: lunch; tea; dinner; overnight stays; weekend benders; the party of the month/year/decade. It was often easier to scrap the entire project and start again than try to fix it.

Said PC's will still squirm when they try to read my code, but they did at least get LUC to go and play elsewhere, mostly.

My code is still 100,000,000 miles away from being perfect, but I have used it a lot of times. Apart from the intractable 130 error, I usually know where to look for a fault.

Up to you where you go from here Coz. You can continue to adopt the Steve Early Principle of Battering a Coding Problem Over The Head With a Mallet until it gets sick of the headache and slinks away. You will learn much from this approach.

Or you can send me a PM saying what you want to happen and I can solve it for you in 60 seconds. The "A-Ha" moment when you see what you were doing wrong will also help you develop as a coder. I promise that your, "Why the %$£*& didn't I think of that?" reaction is one that I still feel whenever I miss something simple. I feel your pain. :lol:

ON a general note folks, Coz is discovering the advantages to a trader of also being a coder. I say again; all traders should be coders. You will understand why once you become one.

:xm:
Read the effing manual, ok?

Afterprime is the official SHF broker. Read about them at https://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=175790#p175790.

I still suffer from OCCD. Good thing, really.

Anyone here feeling generous? My paypal account is always in the market for a tiny donation. [email protected] is the account.

To see The Weekly Roundup of stuff you guys might have missed Click here

My special thanks to Thomas (tomele) for all the incredible work he does here.
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