The Old Beast, How MurphyMan made this a successful trading robot

SERIOUS WARNING

 

1. Most Forex traders lose all their money.
2. Using the robot posted here in trading Forex does not guarantee success.
3. Trading this robot could lead to serious financial loss.
4. Trading this robot without understanding its underlying trading strategies guarantees traders will lose their money.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. To trade this robot, you have to understand:
   1. How to use EA's.
   2. The Beast, and its variant found at http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=263253

Welcome to a description of one man's journey through the train wreck of Forex trading from disaster to profitability. Follow in his footsteps, and you might be able to do the same.

Just for the most important few seconds of your financial life, ignore this thread and read a post that I feature at the bottom of all my threads these days. You will find it at http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...11#post4923611 It is an inspiring story and is the genesis of this thread.

MurphyMan's name is Sam. He is not a superguy. He is a regular trader like you and me. Somehow, through the morass of information, misinformation and multiple trading robots that somehow seem to follow me around, he found a way to make one of them profitable. In a different thread, and via pm's with me, he has offered to make his story public. I hope you will draw inspiration from it.

Here is Sam's story:
"My story:

I have been trading TOB for the better part of the last 11 months. When I first started I would do great for a week or so, and then get hit hard. Dust myself off. Do well again, then - Pow! Deep down I thought I could benefit from this retracement scheme if it wasn't for the hits. I wasn't really sure what the problem was. After a while, I started noticing that TOB would suddenly close trades before I wished. Those are the drops that you see in the chart.
In April, the Japanese earthquake hit. I was in some JPY issues and they plummeted. Against the posted advice of experienced traders, I stayed in hoping they would recover and I tried adding some recovery trades which just made matters worse. The final straw was when the nuclear reactors failed and the currency dropped straight down. Margin calls kicked in and all my trades closed in big negative numbers, right before my eyes.
At this point, I was starting to have a glimmer of understanding, that in FOREX, what goes down, will probably come back up. So, right when JPY was at its low, I took what was left of my account and got in a couple of buy orders in. It was a desperation move, but unbelievably, the JPYs came back up in a short period of time enough to keep me in the game.
This lesson taught me:
Sudden spikes are followed by distinct reversals, though maybe not all the way back.
Being over leveraged sets you up for margin calls and subsequent failure.
I didn't understand TOB hedging.
So, on 17 April I changed the way I traded:
1. Only traded .01 lots per $1,500 cash. (Now that my cash is getting higher I am closer to .01/$2,000.
2. Turn off hedging
3. Tough out the negative trades with BOS.
4. Take little trades off the table before they reverse. (Sometimes)
One of the things I noticed, is TOB would retrace into a little profit, then return with the trend and I would be negative, so I started closing out trades when I was showing a little win. Five bucks, 10 bucks, etc. I run TOB on the one hour chart, but if I'm looking at a possible reversal I go to the M1 and try and get a feel for what the market is up to. What is the level of Fear & Greed? I think you can see it in the one minute charts.
So after that, I started doing better. When I had a series of successes I might add in more cash, which would help me increase the lot size, but still stay at .01/$1,500.

I also found having too many pairs open mucks up recovery. If you only have a couple of trades open, but for five different pairs, you will not have enough margin left for recovery trades. I currently limit to four pairs, but I am considering going to three. I keep my margin limit at 600%.
Plenty has gone wrong in those months since the JPY situation. I had two occasions where I was in losing trades, and took "Manual recovery" trades which only made things worse. I probably had two months where barely any trades were taken and DD reached toward $4,000. (Gasp). But, I hung in there and waited and traded it out.
One last thing, I spend a lot OF TIME staring at the screen. Practice, practice, practice. "


TOB = The Old Beast. Since Nanningbob first positied his sixths lines theory, and macman contacted me with his variant on this, we have had a number or Beasts. The Old Beast was once The Beast. There are all sorts of Beasts lying around - far too many for us all to test for more than a few days.


Attached is the version that Sam is using to slowly build his fortune. Also attached is his setfile. So:

 

1. Download The Old Beast to your MT4/Experts folder.
2. Download the .set.txt file to your MT4/Experts/Presets folder. When doing so, change its name slightly About the only annoying thing about posting attachments at FF is the ludicrous restriction on set files. When saving this file, remove the .txt extension.
3. Close down and restart your platform, set up a few charts, drag TOB onto them and load into them the set file.

Please note that there appears to be a bug in the code that detects the number of pairs being traded, and I am buggered if I can work out what the problem is. I suggest you set NoOfPairsTrading at one less than the number of pairs you want to trade, until one of the proper programmers here can work out what I have done wrong.

The primary function of this thread is to disseminate to everyone else how one particular trader has taken one particular EA and turned it into a profitable robot. When you have questions about this, I shall leave it to Sam to answer.

The secondary function is to facilitate exchange of ideas based on Sam's work.

Don't bother suggesting additional filters; Sam and I will ignore them if we are in a good mood. If you annoy either of us, I shall remove from you the ability to post here.

Thread rules. These are easy. Break them, and I will prevent you from contributing to any of my threads:

 

1. Be polite to other contributors.
2. Be constructive.
   1. You are allowed to say,
      1. "I do not think this will work because....."
      2. "I think this will work better if......."
      3. "How about this........"

   2. You are not allowed to say
      1. "This is rubbish and anybody who trades this way is an idiot" or its equivalent. Flamers will be banned - apart from me and Sam. Megalomaniac tendencies showing here.

Have fun guys. Learn. Make money. When you make money, share how. Even if all you did was use the defaults and made money, this information helps to confirm that we really are on the right lines here.



One extra note: I have prepared this thread whilst under the affluence of several shots of incohol. I shall clean up any incoherent bits tomorrow.

Matters of general interest



Read this post:
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...11#post4923611 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/showthre...79#post4977179



EA coding
I receive may requests to code EA's. Traders, if I code your EA for free, then I will share it here at FF. 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.forexfactory.com/showthre...94#post4431794, at the bottom of the post.



Useful utilities/EA's/scripts

 

1. MaryJane has posted a fabulous utility to allow us to resize EA input windows: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=299017
2. Multi purpose trade manager: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=89371
3. Account equity analyser: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...16#post4693716 Also at http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...98#post4709098, which includes a template for both USD and the Euro.
4. 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/showthre...10#post3830610
5. My shell EA – the code I use to produce EA's so quickly. http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...94#post4431794

Most promising trading EA's

 

1. Spider. I have traded this live. http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=313680
2. The Hanover EA and all its variants: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=319709

_________________________________________________________________________________
Posting restrictions
I have restricted the ability to post in this thread to: traders with at least 1 voucher; and traders on my 'buddy' list. I have done this because I do not want the thread cluttered with 'newbie' questions about the basics. New/inexperienced traders, this is not intended as a direct insult. What I want here is discussion with traders who fully understand what it is they are doing; when you newbs have been around a while, you will come to understand what a difference experience makes to the posts a member writes and shudder at the recollection of some of the questions you asked. I do. http://cdn.forexfactory.com/images/s..._the_floor.gif Go to your profile page; there is a link to the FF page that describes the voucher process.

Do not attempt to get around this by sending me pm's asking for help with your basic problems. Doing so will earn you an automatic ban from all of my threads.

I have set up a partner to my restricted threads at http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...66#post3948666
There, you can post the questions that you cannot post here, about anything you need to know. Someone with the knowledge and experience you need will answer.

Traders/coders with experience who have not yet been vouched for, can get around this restriction be being added to my 'buddy' list; all you have to do is pm me to ask me to do this.

IMHO Glenrothes refreshes the Brain cells other malts can not reach.
Many thanks for all your hard work

It sure does.

Hi Steve.

Do you know why i would get these errors ?

Scoobs

Nope. Sorry. I do not remember how the code works. I vaguely recall that the pending trade could often be so close to the market that the pending could not be sent, and that we turned off error reporting to stop us being driven mad by this, but am not sure.

Nor do I care. This thread is about how one trader made a robot I coded turn a profit. I have no interest in any error it reports en route. I suggest you resist from consulting the Experts tab; you are well aware of the need to hide information needed by the coder only from the punters. Ignorance is bliss etc

I have asked the guys who run FF if Sam can have joint ownership of this thread, with equal editing control over post 1.

I have no idea if this is technically possible, but if you could all add your weight to this by using the 'Contact FF' link at the bottom of each page (http://www.forexfactory.com/contact.php), it might help.

I thought I would post my latest performance chart which was created on September 2, 2011. Two months have passed. Compare this one with the link in Post 1. Also here: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...11#post4923611

The chart above doesn't tell the whole picture and might appear a little optimistic. After the JPY debacle and I changed my methods I stopped closing losing trades. When I thought I was getting better, I would add some cash. Another couple of months, a little more cash. That has worked and the slope steepens.

I'm not going to tell you how much, but the way I figured it, with more cash I could increase the lot size. The main thing is I have cut back on the losses. Some of the DD episodes have been fearful, but like i said above, I trade at 0.01 lots/$1,500 and have the FKMinimumMargin Percent set to 600%. I'm in the USA and hedging is limited to 50:1.

Some of the problems in the beginning was TOB closing out trades when in DD - then you're sunk. My combination seems to work.

As you may know, TOB led into The Beast, with the whilte line box. I could never get the box to work for me on demo, so I never tried it live. If someone would like to develop that method, that would be fine. I just ask that you think about creating a new thread, cause it really is a separate bot.

We also have the problem of opening too many pairs, and I know Steve is working on that.

I am using 1.1.2.4 recovery, but I should fool around with that. Maybe another might close out the trades a little sooner. I invite hearing other's experience.

I just hope I don't muck things up.

Cheers,

Murph

Murph,

Do you have any more details on the problem with opening too many pairs? Are the trades that go over the limit all opened at the same time? If the issue has already been discussed, just point me to the thread/posts and I can read what has already been said.

The only possibility I see from examining the code is that multiple EAs/pairs are evaluating whether it is OK to trade at the same time and coming up with the same answer.

If that is the issue, then the easiest solution I can see is to capture the OrdersTotal() value before running all the tests that check if it is ok to trade and then verifying the number hasn't changed right before sending a new trade. If the number of orders has changed, then the tests have to be re-run.

Even better would be to capture the actual state of the orders (perhaps a function that concatenates all the order id's into a long string) and then tests to make sure that hasn't changed before placing any new orders. Something like this:



George

Today was a good example. This is when they were purchased:

12:04 EJ
13:04 EU
13:23 GJ
14:12 EJ Level 1 recovery
14:19 GU
14:52 CJ
16:15 EU Level 1 recovery
17:04 GJ Level 1 recovery

Any chance you know what the screen message said regarding the number of pairs you were trading? After the GU trade was entered it should have said "Trading only allowed for Recovery and Hedging, if enabled. Pairs trading: 4". And again, what did it say after the CJ trade?

Can you be on the lookout today and see what it says as you approach and pass the threshold?

Also, does it ever go more than one over your MaxOpenPairsAllowed setting?

George

Right now, with 5 pairs open I have "Trading only allowed for Recovery and Hedging, if enabled. Pairs trading: 5" but MaxOpenPairsAllowed is set to 4.

I don't think I've ever seen it ever go more than one than the MaxOpenPairsAllowed setting.

Murph

That's my experience too Sam. I've had various versions of TB running since this concept was included, and it never opens any more than 1 extra pair.

Thanks for the thread, I'll follow with interest, sharing the logic behind your success with TB is appreciated.

I am looking at MOBO (momentum) bands as an indicator to help me stay in the trade. MOBO bands are Bollinger Bands with a twist. Use the "band" indicator and set BandsPeriod to 15 and BandsDeviations to 0.8.

Short thread here:http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...80#post5112880

For me the best way to prevent opening too many pairs is the following...

Example

1. Open a trade on GBPJPY
2. Dont open another trade on a new pair until GBPJPY has hit breakeven and so on....

This will stop you from having multiple pairs open that may all go into recovery and kill your leverage/account.

Yes, profits may get hit but this to me is the best solution. This would also allow you to use a higer lotsize to start the cycle with.

How difficult that would be to code, i dont know.

Scoobs.

Quite simple. All my recent EA's always contain this:
UseZeljko ensures that the sort of trade balance you describe is maintained. For example, there is already an GJ buy open, so do not buy another GBPxxx (UseZeljko).

Once there is, for example, a GJ buy and an GU sell in place, the bot will not take any further trades involving sterling (OnlyTradeCurrencyTwice).

All of this is available in my shell ea and came later than TOB. Sam has managed to make TOB profitable despite all the later enhancements to the code I issue. It might be possible to add these later enhancements to TOB, but this leaves the door open to LUC and his pals to throw a party, so I am not going to add them.

What people have here is what people are going to get. It is what Sam has been successful with. No reason why others should not add the extras to their own versions - the code is freely available in my generic ea.

In my heart, I know that is prudent advice. I guess I buffer the trades by only using the .01/$1,500.

Actually, I don't think coding is necessary, there is a workaround. A guy could use the "Ask Manual Confirmation" on the experts tab. Kind of cro-magnon, but it could work.

I know Steve says there is a workaround but you know what retail traders are like.

My suggestion means that you can only have one trade open until either it has hit breakeven or has recovered completely.

So,

1. Trade open on GBPJPY
2. Wait until it has hit BE or recovered
3. Only then open a new trade on another pair

if a trade hits BE then we dont need to worry about it going into recovery mode, so we can open a new pair.

Anyway, maybe i dont fully understand what Steve said is the work around.

For the coders out there that want to implement it themselves then before sending a new trade just makesure TradesNotAtBreakeven() == 0 using the following code.

//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
//| expert TradesNotAtBreakeven function |
//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
int TradesNotAtBreakeven()
{
int Number = 0;
if(OrdersTotal() != 0)
{
for(int count = 0; count < OrdersTotal(); count++)
{
if(!OrderSelect(count,SELECT_BY_POS)) continue;
if(OrderStopLoss() == 0)
{
Number++;
}
}
}
return(Number);
}

Scoobs

Despite what I said earlier, this is one filter I am happy to add. If there is a demand for a TradeOnlyOnePair filter, then I shall add it.

Sing out, guys. In the absence of song, I shall do nothing.

Maybe I am not explaining it very well as the Jack Daniels is starting to kick in........

What I was trying to say was we keep opening trades on new pairs only if the previous trades are still open but they all have hit BE or recovered. Meaning we are safe to open another new one. The worst case scenario with this is that we will only ever have 1 trade that could ever get into recovery mode.

Example.
GBJPY open but has hit BE
CADJPY open but has hit BE
CHFJPY open but has hit BE
USDCAD open but has hit BE
AUDCHF open but not hit BE or in recoverey
Stop undtil AUDCHF has hit BE or recovered.

Scoobs.