Weekly trading?

[SteveHopwood]

This could easily be utter bollocks. You guys could finish reading this and think, "You moronic muppet. If trading were this simple then we would all be doing this and owning wealth that Bill Gates would dream about."

So, if any of you have tried this and discovered it to be the work of a delusional, then please sing out and save the rest of us some time.

Here is the idea:

• At some point after the markets open post weekend, we look at the direction of travel of a market over the previous week.
• We take a trade in the direction of travel.
• Come some point on Friday, we close down all the trades and go to bed for the weekend.

We have won:

We have lost:

Just off the top of my head and given that I thought of this about 3 hours ago, here are a few thingies we could consider:

• Only the weekly? Why not experiment with other time frames?
• How about an individual tpsl? How to calculate it?
• How about a target profit for the week? MPTM can manage this, along with the other basket managers available here.
• What say we wait a day or two to see if the market is cooperating with the movement last week?
• How about we look at charts individually and use our 'gut feel' about trading?

So I throw this idea out for general ridicule. It is easy to automate should it prove to have paws on which to run.

Attached are two scripts. One will open the trades for you (it will check for already opened trades and so not duplicate should you need to rerun it) and the other to shut down the position.

Have a play and see if there is anything for you. The two attached scripts will do all the work for you. Take care with Nuclear Option; its title is not an exaggeration where open trades are concerned.

UPL hilo indicator: read about this at viewtopic.php?p=173269#p173269

Global variables deletion script: The UPL hilo indi does not delete the Global Variables when you close a position, so that you can go back to these should you want to. To start afresh, drag this script onto the chart to delete the GV's from your platform. The hilo indi will instantly replace them and show the defaults from which it calculates the new hilo as soon as you open your next position.




Some demo accounts for you to follow. All started with a $10,000 deposit and trading 0.1 lots over 23 pairs. The 'Investor' password allows you to view the demo without you worrying about interfering by accident:

1) Closing around teatime on Friday (UK)
Login: 2255897
Investor: cutn1ri
Balance: $9357

2) Using the 'Simplest basket manager ever' to close at a target of £500. I have attached the manager.
Login: 2255901
Investor: jtj4iaw
Balance: $9344

3) Using MPTM's Equity profit target closure function shooting for a 5% of balance gain. Find and read about MPTM at viewtopic.php?p=154049#p154049:
Login: 2255912
Investor: 7kqlmcs
Balance: $9357

4) Trading after a one bar retrace on the D1:
Login: 2259168
Investor: ud4zjfv

5) Trading after a two bar retrace on the D1:
Login: 2259169
Investor: xjm1hta

6) Trading after a one bar continuation on the D1, in the direction of the previous week:
Login: 2259180
Investor: m3mvwsn

7) Trading after a two bar continuation on the D1, in the direction of the previous week:
Login: 2259181
Investor: p8btmgk


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[SteveHopwood]

I want to experiment with timing the entry into and exit from, the basket and the easiest way is with an EA.

Drag the EA onto your charts and set up the inputs as desired. The EA works on a timer rather than quotes from the broker's server, so set the TimerIntervalSeconds to suit yourself. By default, the timer will trigger once every 10 minutes.

Most of the 'General Inputs' are familiar to you by now, as are the display controls. The other input groups are:

• Trading time inputs. Enter these as local times. I want trading to start at 8 AM on Mondays and stop at midnight on Thursday. I want all the orders closing at 6.00 PM on Friday so the defaults all reflect this.
• Retracement filter: I want to experiment with waiting for the market to retrace for a daily bar or two before entering the order. Imagine I want to wait for two candles to retrace so I would:
  • StartTradingDay: Wednesday.
  • WaitForRetrace: true.
  • RetraceTimeFrame: D1
  • NoOfCandlesToRetrace: 2
• Candle direction filter: this is the opposite to the retracement filter. This time the EA will examine x previous D1 candles and only allow the trade if they both went in the same direction as the previous W1 candle.

Here is an example of the retracement filter using the inputs I described in the previous section:

• We are waiting to buy as the market rose in the previous week.
• At trading time on Wednesday the EA would examine the previous two D1 candles and only allow the trade if they both fell.
• The EA will try again on Thursday if the trade was disallowed on Wednesday.
• There could easily be no trades on the pair when the x bar retracement filter disallows them.

The EA does not perform any other management so use the stuff from post 1 should you need these.



Edit 28th Nov 2021In the latest version I have:

• Added to the screen info display.
• Added code intended to prevent the EA immediately resending orders if they are closed early, either manually or by one of the basket managers.

[SteveHopwood]

I have put an indicator into post 1 - "UPL hilo indi".

I had seen the position reach as low as -224 and as high as about +250; pips or cash does not matter for now as my lot size of 0.1 is roughly equivalent to 1 pip of movement.

The indi keeps track of the highest and lowest cash upl and the date and time these extremes happened and displays the details on your chart - use a blank XAUUSD as usual. It saves these details in Global Variables and so will not be disturbed by platform restarts.

For those of you new to all this, a Global Variable is a tiny software file that Empty4 stores on the platform. The indi reads these files on being restarted. This means that you will still see the hilo after you have closed down all the trades. Press the F3 key to see a list of these files.

The indi will need to start afresh every time you take a new position, so you will need to delete the GV's. I will write a script that will do this for you, in time for the markets reopening after the weekend.

The indi can only start recording when you drag it onto a chart but you can manually edit the GV's if you know how.

For me, today:

• The lowest cash upl is $ -224 that I recall seeing earlier in the week.
• The highest cash upl is $ +474

The point of all this is to try to work out the optimal times for entry and exit should there be the possibility of profit. We shall see.

[SteveHopwood]

Some encouragement. This is shortly after the position hit a new high of $554.

554.png

I am letting this run until tomorrow (Friday) afternoon to see what happens.

[r1ch4rd]

Looks promising Steve,

I'm out of testing memory so I'll keep a keen eye on how you get on.

Well done

Richard

[SteveHopwood]

I have closed the position at just shy of +470 US profit.

Reason being, I was running the demo on my software development machine i.e. a laptop. A good lappy, but not a million dollar lappy. The fan has been protesting for over 24 hours and I do not want the thing to catch fire.

The high of the position was $597 i.e. 0.1 trades on the development demo of just shy of $9,000, or a 5.5% increase on balance over the week.

Words of caution to the noobs here. We have enjoyed this level of success in the past, only for this to prove temporary.

What I will do over the weekend is this:

• Set up a demo on my FX VPS (cheap and quick and the one I use viewtopic.php?p=156450#p156450) and put up the details so you can follow it.
• Examine the winners and losers to see if I can find a common pattern. There are not many losers but this could simply be beginners' luck. We shall see.

This was fun folks. Fingers crossed the fun continues.

Now I can give my poor lappy a break for a few hours.

[geojalencar]

[SteveHopwood]

I have added the global variables deletion script to post 1.

[SteveHopwood]

XAUUSDH4.png

I have looked through the losers to see if I could spot common factors; I could not. It turned out that I had closed EJ, UC, EN and GJ prematurely. The markets turned back in the trades' favour and they would have closed as winners had stuck to my original plan.

Losers when I closed the position on Thursday that remained losers at the end of the week:
AN, AChf, CadJ

These profitable pairs left pips on the table when I closed early:
GChf, CadJ, AJ, NU, EChf (c. 75 pips)

These profitable pairs would have sacrificed profits had I left everything open until late on Friday:
EG, AU, CC, AChf, NJ, UChf

These profitable pairs would have turned into losers had I left everything open until late on Friday:
EU, ECad, GU, UJ

This is hardly a detailed analysis and all I have gained from it is the knowledge that we have to experiment.

[SteveHopwood]

I have put three demo accounts at the bottom of post 1 for you folks to follow, with a different closure strategy for each of them. I will still close all open positions around teatime on Friday (UK).

This week was a loser. Hey ho.