Hanover: an auto-trader using Recent Strength

Hi everybody,

First, apologies that I’ve been absent from a thread for a few days; and secondly, a big thanks to Steve for all of his hard work.

I've uploaded a new version of the Build Strength Preset File.mq4 script to post #1 in the Recent Strength (RS) indy thread (it’s a script, be sure to install into your ……/[MT4]/experts/scripts folder). I’m hoping that this will help fix some of the problems that some of you have been experiencing. I strongly recommend running this script, as it will set up the RS indy’s settings automatically and correctly for you. For example, it's especially important that the settings include only the currency pairs that are offered by your crim.

Re this build script, I have added one parameter at the end of the list, UseOutputFile. Please ensure that you set this to TRUE. This will ensure that the RS indy creates a file named Output---Recent Strength.CSV (in the ……/[MT4]/experts/files folder), which supplies all of the RS data to Steve’s Hanover EA. If this file is missing, the EA will have no data to work with, and hence it won’t be able to place any trades.

The script itself creates a file named Presets---Recent Strength.TXT (in the ……/[MT4]/experts/files folder). This file has the settings for the RS indy, and overrides all settings in the familiar MT4 parameter dialog (when you attach or edit the indy).

[Note for advanced users: if you want to be able to change some of the RS indy settings using the MT4 dialog, then load the Presets---Recent Strength.TXT file into a text editor like Notepad. Type two slashes (//) at the start of the line of a parameter whose settings you want to modify using the dialog. Supposing you want to be able to modify the number of data points. Then you would change
___NumPoints = "25";
to
// NumPoints = "25";
Then you can simply type in a value for NumPoints in the MT4 dialog, and this will override the value of 25 that’s been ‘commented out’ in the file.
Don’t forget to save your changes to the file.

Of course if you want to make a permanent change to a setting, simply change (for example)
___NumPoints = "25";
to
___NumPoints = "30";
Note: You’ll need to switch between TFs on the chart to which the RS indy’s been attached, to refresh the indy so that it picks up any changes made to the file.]

Note: you can re-run the build script, instead of using Notepad to edit the settings manually, at any time.

A note about the build script’s TimeFrames setting. It’s probably best to leave all of the TFs as they are, as this will allow Hanover EA to process data from any TFs that you specify (assuming Steve has coded it to do so). If you remove some of the TFs from this setting, then data from those TFs will not be available to Hanover. However, the more TFs that you enter here, the greater the risk of slowing your computer. Speed also depends on your crim (Alpari is apparently slow), and also what MT4 build you’re running (build 406 is a dog, and runs much slower than build 402, on many crims).

And a note about the PairSuffix setting. This should be left empty, if your crim offers pairs like EURUSD, or set it to m if pairs like EURUSDm, etc. For more info about the build script, please see the section 'AUTOMATED PARAMETER FILE BUILD' in this post.


After you have run the build script, then (if you haven’t already done so), attach the RS indy to any MT4 chart. Depending on your crim’s server/transfer speed, and your internet connection, it could take up anything between 10-30 minutes to plot all of the the lines (fortunately, it's a one-off process). Provided that you ran the build script correctly, then as soon as all lines are plotting, all of the necessary output will be generated to enable Hanover to run.

Please ensure that you attach the RS indy to ONE chart only. (That is all that's necessary, in any case).


Please read Steve’s PDF file (download it from post #1) for more information.

Thanks,
David

A gazillion thanks David. I have added a link to your post to post 1, to make sure everyone reads it (Essential post to read).

Your updated script should help clear up the problems some of us have been having connecting up all the dots.

Cheers.

In light of David's recent post, I shall be updating the Setup section of the user guide in time for next week. For now, just live with what we have.

Hi All

Some ideas for everybody to think about: -

-Instead of just trading the strongest/weakest pair, how about the strongest and any of the other pairs that are below a certain level. Could also do the reverse.

-Currently JPY is the strongest and NZD the weakest, but they are both moving back towards each other, therefore no trades.
--------NZD hit bottom on 17 Oct @ 11:00 on H4 and 18 Oct @ 04:00 on D1, so once the currency is below a certain level and H4 indicates it is starting to retrace then trade this retrace

Cheers

Paul

Thank you for this, both you and Steve are exemplary credits to this community

It is greatly appreciated by very many ....

Thank's to everybody for their encouragement.

Like I said I had no trouble with set up with another broker (Vantage FX ) only with Alpari !! It only took about 5 mins to set up with Vantage !!!

I downloaded the updated Hanover Script this morning and re set it all up again, in about 2 mins and all is still going well.

Picked a couple of Tf's that looked likely to place a trade and set 'slope direction to '0' and then ECN = True (to stop invalid stops error I was getting) and voila NZDCHF sell as hoped.

Now I am able to relax a bit, because I know it's all working and I can start to play with it a bit.

Thanks again to everyone especially you guys that PM'ed me. You know who you are.

Folks,

I apologize, as this section is apparently in conflict with Steve's PDF, with which I am currently familiarizing myself.

You can set the TimeFrames setting to "M5, H1, D1" as Steve suggests (see Setup, point 6), although keep in mind that this will limit Hanover EA to using strength data in only these TFs.

Question for Steve:

I note in line 128 of Hanover EA:

extern string TimeFrames = "M1,D1";

Obviously (being extern) these settings can be modified at will by the user, but is Hanover EA expecting to find data on both M1 and D1 by default? If so, then setting TimeFrames in the build script to "M5, H1, D1" means that no M1 data will be output for Hanover to gather.

Sorry if this is a silly question, but I haven't completely deciphered the Hanover EA code yet.

David

I am just updating the UG at the mo. I will answer your question in a few minutes.

Re the Hanover code, if you spot anything that can be tidied up then please say so; I learn this way. You are a programmer; I am a pianist; there is a huge gulf in our understanding of coding. My code often resembles spaghetti.

I have uploaded the updated user guide to post 1. The setup section should answer your question. From the updated guide:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Setup Take a lot of care with this. Get it wrong and H will sit quietly on your chart for ever without trading:

 

1. Download David's Recent Strength indi into you Indicators folder.
2. Download David's Build Strength Preset File.mq4 into your Scripts folder.
3. Download my Hanover EA into your Experts folder.
4. Close down then restart your platform, assuming it was open whilst you downloaded the files.
5. There are some inputs common to script, indi and EA that are the same, or have the same purpose even if named differently. These must all have the same input value:

1. NumPoints. I suggest you go with the defaults of 25.
2. OutputFile. Don't confuse this with OutputFileName at the head of the list of inputs in the Build script. Mine is the default that comes with the Build script I.e. Output---Recent Strength.CSV.

1. Using David's Build script

1. Drag the Build script onto the charts. Unless you really know what you are doing, then leave the defaults alone, apart from these two inputs:
   1. PairSuffix: insert any pair suffix used by your criminal. For example, IBFX mini accounts end with 'm' I.e. GBPUSDm. You need to place m in this input. Forget to do this and the indi will sulk forever without displaying any values. Guess how I know?
   2. UseOutputFile: this must be set to 'true'. There will be a reason why the default is 'false' but I have not read David's thread and do not know what it is. Leave this input set to 'false' and Recent Strength will do nothing.

2. Even better than entering these inputs manually, go into the source code, change the defaults in the code and re-compile. This means you will never forget to make the changes. Go to my mptm thread if you cannot do this. There is a pdf there that tells you how to edit external variables; learning to do so will save you hours in the future.

1. Setting up Recent Strength:

1. Start a new chart and make it as large as you can. Chart and time frame are irrelevant. Blot out the candles by pressing the F8 key and changing all the candle colours to that of your chart background.
2. Drag the indi onto a chart
   1. Check your NumPoints input to make it match that of the Build script. I do not actually know if this matters, but it makes sense to have them set to the same value.
   2. OutputFile must be the same as you have in your Build script. Copy/paste Output---Recent Strength.CSV into this input.

3. Click OK to run the indi. I change time-frames to make sure it initialises properly; this probably is not necessary. You will have to experiment with scrunching up the chart to see all the time-frames. Leave RS to go through its initial calculations for 30 minutes or so. When first run, RS takes a while to calculate all the data points but it only has to do so once.
4. Remember these two points: they are really important:
   1. You have done something wrong if the RS is displaying all zero values, and probably need to start again.
   2. You only need 1 instance of RS per criminal account running on your entire machine. Once up and running, you can refer to this single chart every time you want to consult the indi (remember that many criminals - the naïve call them 'brokers' - have different data-feeds for live and demo accounts, so you may need a separate one on a live account for your live trading). Eventually, all of my auto-traders will have a Hanover module; they will all refer to the same RS output file I.e. Output---Recent Strength.CSV if you go with this default file name.

5. You have to leave the indi running on a chart in order to generate output. This goes to the output file – you can view this in Excel if you want (Experts/Files).

1. Set up a separate chart for Hanover and blank out the candles again. Drag him onto the chart, make sure the relevant inputs are the same as those of the script and the indi. Also look at:

1. 1. TimeFrames: always use upper case letters and separate the inputs with a comma. Spaces in between are irrelevant, as is a trailing comma right at the end. The inputs you can use are: M1, M5, M15, M30, H1, H4, D1, W1, MN. Especially, remember to use 'H1' for the hourly, not 'M60'.

1. SlopeConfirmationCandles: H will check your strongest and weakest currencies for their slope before allowing a trade, so that the strongest has to be rising and the weakest falling.
   1. Enter the number of candles you want to check back by inputting these into SlopeConfirmationCandles, separated by commas. There should be the same number of inputs as you have in your TimeFrames input.
   2. For example, suppose you want to trade off the D1 chart, using the H4 as your 'trigger', and using the slope of the last two D1 and three H4 candles:
      1. Input D1, H4 into TimeFrames input.
      2. Input 2,3 into the SlopeConfirmationCandles input. Leaving this input blank, or set all to zero, tells H not to check the slope, and merely to work on the latest Recent Strength values.

1. You only need one instance of Hanover running. It matters not a jot which chart or time-frame, but make it one of those that receives plenty of ticks from your crim.

A note about Hanover's screen feedback. Recent Strength is a resource-hog, so by default it calculates values once a minute. For the same reason, Hanover only reads the output file once a minute; these events will rarely coincide, so H's display is sometimes out of synch for a few seconds.
------------------------------------------------------------------------



Sing out if that does not answer. The numbering and indentation is lost in copying this here; the actual guide is clearer to read.

glad you got it sorted in the end.

Good day Sir Hopwood, All:
It has been my experience, that if a single input such as M30 is set in the Hanover EA's Time Frame (T/F)setting then within a minute, a trade is place, on the pair (provided there was no current trades on that pair), according to the strongest and weakest curiencies on that T/F.

Similarly, If two inputs M15,D1 is place then when both time frames have corresponding currencies as Strongest (say AUD) and Weakest (JPY) then the EA places a trade on the Mating Pair AUDJPY, as a Buy; if none is currently on pair (Sell if the strengths we swtched on the individual currencies).

Is it that: if we have more than two inputs say M1,M5,M15 or all T/F M1,M5,M15,M30,H1,D1,W1,MN; then all the T/F inputs must to have the same pairs matched in Strength and Wekness before a trade is placed (assuming here, that no slope check is enabled & no trades on the resulting Pair)?

Or will it still be able to place trades on the individual pairs, as the Strenghts changes, provided no trades ar open? So in the case of the three T/F Input above, a trade would be place on each of the T/F?

Coupled with the Slope detectionand candle look-back, this could be an awsome addition. Please say if the latter mode of operation (more than two T/F) is currently facilitated or is worth future considerations.

Indeed we are most appreciative of your selfless contributions

Bless!

Pathumracled,

Not answering for Steve but here's my observation. If you set up the EA with M15, H4 and D1 (as an example) and the indicator and output file are set up according to the instructions then the EA will fire off a trade when the same currency is the strongest in M15, H4 and D1 and another currency is the weakest in M15, H4 and D1. So for example EUR is the strongest in M15, H4 and D1 and USD is the weakest in M15, H4 and D1 then you'll see a long EUR/USD trade. The slope filter adds another constraint.

Sandy

Hi Guys,

Here are my live trades from today.

CHF was weak today.

3 Trades by H overall, all against the CHF.

USDCHF hit TP=50.
AUDCHF hit TP=50.
USDCHF closed at BE.

The last one i closed at BE because of my friday end hour. I rarely trade on friday after 16:00 GMT ( I am in Germany +2 GMT )

Have a nice weekend.

tex

Cheers Sandy. Thanks for answering - saved me a job.

That is a great start. Cheers.

Thanks Sir Hopwood/Nubchai,

now the options for use are more appreciated. Looks toward (makes 4) an interesting week ahead.

Bless!

FYI - After initial setup, RS has been chugging away for two and a half hours, and it is still not fully populated. It seems to be slowly but surely filling up, but at this rate it may take several more hours.

I have not yet added Steve's EA, figure it is best to wait.

My pleasure Steve

Hi all


I set up a 10k demo with Hanover (broker LiteForex)
- Indi looking all TFs
- H looking H1 & H4
- hard SL & TP but I will put MPTM for the next week

First trade triggered today : sell USDCHF

Will post there my results from next Monday.


Have a nice Week End
Regards
Alex

Note to everybody:

If the process of having the plots take shape is taking hours rather than minutes, then you might like to try the (albeit tedious) manual process of loading the data, as described here. Your fingers probably won't thank you but mercifully it's a once-only setup process.

If the manual process is likewise slow, i.e. taking several seconds to retrieve data between each press of the Page Up key, then I'm afraid your criminal's data transfer rate is the (unavoidable) problem. In which case all I can suggest is that you simply let the data load itself while you're out fishing or playing golf.

David