You may have seen from a previous post I recently noticed the ea ( Scoobs ON ) had been placing a stop loss on AUDUSD pairs whenever it sent a pending order and closing out trades accordingly
This will be a glitch at my end, I am running so many ea demos I am maxing out the computer
Because of this, and because I think I have found the answer I was looking for, and the need to free up some cpu real estate I will end the test here
In these last results I have assumed the AUD USD trades that were closed by the glitch at a loss would have closed at BE and adjusted balance figures accordingly
Scoob’s ON v Scoob’s OFF current results
Test commenced Tuesday 4th January 2011
FXDD ( Malta ) platforms 1:100 leverage
Scoobs ON Trading 0.1 lots
Opening Balance $ 3,000
w/e 21st January 2011
Balance $ 3,379
Floating $ flat
Equity $ 3,379
Margin Level % flat
Scoobs OFF Trading 0.02 lots
Opening Balance $ 3,000
w/e 21st January 2011
Balance $ 3,156
Floating $ -152
Equity $ 3,003
Margin Level % 3,245
Accepting this is a very short test period what conclusions have I drawn from these results
From watching a previous demo I had running with FTLR ( Scoob ON ) I was convinced there was far more potential for profit if the bot could take all available trades ...... but could it do this on the same small account size I had been running the demo on and withstand the inevitable larger DD ?
So I set up this test initially with same lot sizes on both to get a direct comparison
I stated at the time this could be suicide for Scoobs OFF and I was right, very quickly receiving a margin call
So I reset the test with Scoobs OFF at a reduced lot size of one fifth relative to Scoobs ON ( nothing scientific, just a guess based on no of trades seen )
Over the test period the lot size relationship between the two looked about right in terms of DD at any point I observed
So has the ‘ liberated ‘ Scoobs OFF more potential for profit than the ‘ risk/trade filtered ‘ ( Scoob On ) ........ Not during this test and not with the reduced lot size seems to be the answer
Now IF, Scoobs OFF was running with the same lot size but different account starting balance in this test .... you would have to run it on a 15k account to maintain the same risk/reward/DD ratio as Scoob ON with the 3k account ...... then it would have ended this test with approx 3,780 balance and about -780 floating
So bigger account, bigger lots, bigger risk equals more profit ( always assuming the bot eventually closed all open positions at not less than BE before any margin call ) ..... no surprises there then, but not really the point of the test
Scoobs OFF - 5% closed profit in 14 days trading
Has been a big disappointment during the test
When I first turned the scoob filter off on a previous demo the ea closed 3% of profit in less than 1 full day’s trading ( with same settings as test ), and yet in this test lasting 14 trading days could only manage to close 5%
I can see no reason for this other than maybe just not ideal trading conditions for the ea
Scoobs ON - 12% closed profit in 14 days trading
Simply uses a money management calculation and prevents the bot from looking for and opening any new pairs to trade when the “ risk “ limit is reached, which at its current hard coded setting is very quickly, allowing only a small number of trades at any one time.
It still allows adding recovery trades on the open pairs
It is pure chance as to which pair ( pairs ) you finish up trading
This is good as it ensures you are not overtrading and have ample margin availability to continue recovery, but it does of course mean there are no other trades whilst recovery is in progress .... no trades equals no potential profit
If you are unlucky and get into an extended DD/recovery trade you could be at that point for days, weeks or even months in extreme cases without any positive trading only to finish with a breakeven position at the close
So it could be slow going at times ...... but seemingly relatively safe ( if there is such a thing in forex ) which is a more important consideration
The big surprise for me considering the above limitations is just how well Scoob ON has performed and the level of profit closed
I have now demo traded it for 6 weeks overall, all as per test settings, and it has closed approx 30% profit in that period with very little floating at any time
Maybe just a good period with no extended DD, or maybe typical if a longer test was done, only the long term test would show this
Don’t know if this helps any new subscribers here or just further muddies the waters
I am guessing more seasoned demo testers have already been through this and that was the reason for Scoobs filter being introduced
For what it is worth I like FTLR it is simple and straightforward, can be left to run basically without intervention and appears to generate very good results without massive DD from what I have seen so far
I intend to LIVE trade FTLR with Scoobs ON with 4 hour charts on all pairs available.
I do know others here ( hiredwhip in particular ) have also had very good results on daily timeframes with pre Scoobs filtered versions
To Steve, thanks for the ea ... FTLR with a multiplier type user parameter to adjust the Sccobs ON value could be interesting .... if you ever find yourself with nothing to code one day ( unlikely I know ! )
Good luck to all
This will be a glitch at my end, I am running so many ea demos I am maxing out the computer
Because of this, and because I think I have found the answer I was looking for, and the need to free up some cpu real estate I will end the test here
In these last results I have assumed the AUD USD trades that were closed by the glitch at a loss would have closed at BE and adjusted balance figures accordingly
Scoob’s ON v Scoob’s OFF current results
Test commenced Tuesday 4th January 2011
FXDD ( Malta ) platforms 1:100 leverage
Scoobs ON Trading 0.1 lots
Opening Balance $ 3,000
w/e 21st January 2011
Balance $ 3,379
Floating $ flat
Equity $ 3,379
Margin Level % flat
Scoobs OFF Trading 0.02 lots
Opening Balance $ 3,000
w/e 21st January 2011
Balance $ 3,156
Floating $ -152
Equity $ 3,003
Margin Level % 3,245
Accepting this is a very short test period what conclusions have I drawn from these results
From watching a previous demo I had running with FTLR ( Scoob ON ) I was convinced there was far more potential for profit if the bot could take all available trades ...... but could it do this on the same small account size I had been running the demo on and withstand the inevitable larger DD ?
So I set up this test initially with same lot sizes on both to get a direct comparison
I stated at the time this could be suicide for Scoobs OFF and I was right, very quickly receiving a margin call
So I reset the test with Scoobs OFF at a reduced lot size of one fifth relative to Scoobs ON ( nothing scientific, just a guess based on no of trades seen )
Over the test period the lot size relationship between the two looked about right in terms of DD at any point I observed
So has the ‘ liberated ‘ Scoobs OFF more potential for profit than the ‘ risk/trade filtered ‘ ( Scoob On ) ........ Not during this test and not with the reduced lot size seems to be the answer
Now IF, Scoobs OFF was running with the same lot size but different account starting balance in this test .... you would have to run it on a 15k account to maintain the same risk/reward/DD ratio as Scoob ON with the 3k account ...... then it would have ended this test with approx 3,780 balance and about -780 floating
So bigger account, bigger lots, bigger risk equals more profit ( always assuming the bot eventually closed all open positions at not less than BE before any margin call ) ..... no surprises there then, but not really the point of the test
Scoobs OFF - 5% closed profit in 14 days trading
Has been a big disappointment during the test
When I first turned the scoob filter off on a previous demo the ea closed 3% of profit in less than 1 full day’s trading ( with same settings as test ), and yet in this test lasting 14 trading days could only manage to close 5%
I can see no reason for this other than maybe just not ideal trading conditions for the ea
Scoobs ON - 12% closed profit in 14 days trading
Simply uses a money management calculation and prevents the bot from looking for and opening any new pairs to trade when the “ risk “ limit is reached, which at its current hard coded setting is very quickly, allowing only a small number of trades at any one time.
It still allows adding recovery trades on the open pairs
It is pure chance as to which pair ( pairs ) you finish up trading
This is good as it ensures you are not overtrading and have ample margin availability to continue recovery, but it does of course mean there are no other trades whilst recovery is in progress .... no trades equals no potential profit
If you are unlucky and get into an extended DD/recovery trade you could be at that point for days, weeks or even months in extreme cases without any positive trading only to finish with a breakeven position at the close
So it could be slow going at times ...... but seemingly relatively safe ( if there is such a thing in forex ) which is a more important consideration
The big surprise for me considering the above limitations is just how well Scoob ON has performed and the level of profit closed
I have now demo traded it for 6 weeks overall, all as per test settings, and it has closed approx 30% profit in that period with very little floating at any time
Maybe just a good period with no extended DD, or maybe typical if a longer test was done, only the long term test would show this
Don’t know if this helps any new subscribers here or just further muddies the waters
I am guessing more seasoned demo testers have already been through this and that was the reason for Scoobs filter being introduced
For what it is worth I like FTLR it is simple and straightforward, can be left to run basically without intervention and appears to generate very good results without massive DD from what I have seen so far
I intend to LIVE trade FTLR with Scoobs ON with 4 hour charts on all pairs available.
I do know others here ( hiredwhip in particular ) have also had very good results on daily timeframes with pre Scoobs filtered versions
To Steve, thanks for the ea ... FTLR with a multiplier type user parameter to adjust the Sccobs ON value could be interesting .... if you ever find yourself with nothing to code one day ( unlikely I know ! )
Good luck to all