Visual Position Size Calculator

We say...Wow, that's the dog's bo**ocks.

Don't ask me where, or when, it developed, but take it as a compliment.

There is one mod I'd like, if possible, and that is for the settings to hold across time-frames. I like to look for S/R and/or Fib retracements on the Daily/Weekly and then move down to watch price action on the 4hr/1hr charts. As you change TFs it resets itself again to wherever it was when the chart was opened. Is this mod possible?

And I assume it's saying 'shit' in the alert box because it thinks my trading plan is cr*p.

Lol, sorry about that one dude, guess I forgot to take that debug message out. :-) Would you mind telling me what currency you were looking at at the time, and what is your account deposit currency? That would greatly help me out to discover the bug that led you to that nice message :-)

As for keeping the settings across timeframes, the problem is that whenever you switch timeframes, the EA unloads and reloads again on the new one, and it uses the default settings. I had contemplated this already, but maybe I'll go ahead and do it--it will require saving info to a file, but that won't be so hard.

Also, I've updated the version in the last post to print a message to the log instead of spewing profanity at the user :-)

New version 1.3 !!

Here ya go Peter, hopefully this will be even more the dogs bol... whatever. :-)

Ok, I've made the mod so that when you switch TFs, all settings are kept (including colors, external account info, and all). When you just do a plain ol' removal of the EA, and then add it back later, it should revert to default settings. A little bit o' magic ;-)

I'm also contemplating a small "config file" that will allow you to keep your external account info, default risk, and default line colors. Maybe I'll do this tomorrow.

As you can see, I'm turning this into a full-fledged program that does a lot, so if anyone finds any bugs, please let me know, as I want to get them taken care of!

Our messages must have crossed in the post. Thanks

Similar functionality, but with some different logic. Also, assumes if you use an external account, that the deposit currency of the MT4 account is also the same as that of your external account (why wouldn't it be, right?).

All seems to function OK now, thanks Josh.
Plus it now carries over when saved in a template, so I can add it to any chart without resetting properties.

NOTE: changed

Found bug with locked-in-profit code, fixed in this version. Verified that it works, so no need to check your open positions Peter :-)

So, let me explain this change and what my rationale for it is. This change came about from discussions between Peter and me.

So, let's say you have a $50,000 account (good for you!) If you risk 2% on a trade, normally that's $1000. Well, let's say you got in a really good short position a couple of weeks ago that's still open. You sold the yen at 118.00, and now the price is at 114.00. Well, you've obviously moved your stop down at this point to lock in profit, say, to 116.00. So you have 200 pips of profit locked in. Barring any gap opens above your stop (very possible), you have effectively "banked" 200 pips, or, we'll say, maybe something like $2000. Since this is as good as closed profit (for the sake of risk calculations, we assume it is, but not for making the mortgage payment or something like that, ok?), then it is logical for us to use this figure in calculating our risk%. So, we treat our account balance as $52000, and now 2% risk becomes $1040, and we use this figure for any risk calculations. Note that this is not the same as "open profit" ... open profit can be lost easily, but for our purposes, we assume that a stop loss does its job and gets us out of a trade where we want it. So, I can be up 400 pips in a trade, but if my stop is at breakeven, then I have locked nothing in. Your stop must be moved past entry to lock in profit.

Now, what about situations where we are in a losing trade, or maybe a profitible one, but have not yet locked in profits by moving our stop? If our stop has not been moved past breakeven, then we are still at risk of losing money on the trade. However, I have decided not to count this negative potential loss against our total balance when doing risk calculations. This is because in the above scenario, profit is as locked in as it can be, so we consider it a done deal. But, open loss can turn around and be made into profit. So just as we would not consider "open profit," we do not consider "open loss". If we did, then we would effectively be scaling out of potential winners. Consider the scenario where we enter six 5% risk trades in a row. On trade 1, we risk 5%. On trade 2, we can only risk 4.75% of our balance, as we can only risk 5% of the 95% of our risk-free balance. On trade 3, the actual risk drops to 4.51%, then 4.28%, then 4.07%, and finally on trade 6 to 3.87%.

What's wrong with this picture? Well, it's beyond the scope of the discussion here, but, while there is an overall probability in a trading system to win or lose, and while markets exhibit patterns that can be exploited for profit, probabilistically, each trade is a random event. In other words, if your W/L% is 70%, then that does not preclude 5 straight losers, or 15 straight winners. Thus, the overall probability still does not change the fact that each trade is its own random event in the market. So, if my 6 trades all have random probable outcomes, then why should trade #1 receive a higher risk (5%) of my equity than trade #6 (only 3.8%)? It shouldn't. Imagine a scenario where trades 1-3 lose, all for losses, and 4-6 win, all for 1R (4.2%, 4.1%, 3.8%). We would have an overall net loss of 2%, even though we had three identical winners and losers, whereas logically we should have a breakeven situation. Granted, it could go the other way and we could get fortunate and come out with a 2% gain. But hopefully our gains will come from good probabilistic trading, not from quirks like this.

This is a great Tool! I thank you very much JoshDance !!

I'm still using this Josh, and very good it is too.

But, as usual, I have a request. My eyesight isn't that bright (bit like my brain!) so when I apply the EA I struggle to see the numbers. Is it possible to have them print at the RH edge in a decent size font to make positioning easier.

Also, I've re-read the thread, and may have missed it, but I have left it on screen thinking that as it's an EA it would execute the trade. This doesn't happen does it, or have I just had a few instances where my Limit Orders weren't hit?

I use a light background so if I want to see the numbers easier I have to mod the Properties every time, and I notice that you can't access the properties after the EA is applied to the chart. I remove the EA after setting up my Orders, as it slows my machine down (I will invest in more memory, promise) and a larger font would speed things up for me.

Hey Josh,

Do you have an updated version? 1.4 Just expired on the first

Yeah josh! i would also love to see a new version without expiry ..! at least for demos..



Happy new year to you also!

You may want to PM the trader since your replying to a post that is several months old.

I Pm`ed Joshdance regarding a new version!

But what if because of special circumstances we will not get any answer anytime soon?

Is there a possibility somebody else could renew this tool?

I mean in no way to plaiarize on Josh`s work but this was an VERY VERY valuable tool for me and i would be to accept that it is lost for me and others as well!

I Look forward to hear from JoshDance!

Have a nice day!

Aidan

Hello everyone!

As i did not recieve an answer from JoshDance i assume he is not longer active in this forum and i couldnt find any other forums where he is still active..


So i throw out the question if somebody could ReProgram this Tool as it really is a great help for me for making quick calculations..

If somebody is able to do that (maybe even with some xtra functions) i would readily pay him an good price for it and if he allows redistribute it in this thread for others to use !

If anyone is interested please PM me ! And dont bother if u have very limited spare time for programming as i have time enuff to wait for it

Kind regards,
AIdan

Nobody can help me ? Hope some kind soul can

Hi AidanPryde,

you have any luck getting an EA ot Indicator? I've been trawling the web looking for something like this...it would be fantastic if you did...


Toriacht

hi!

i found some programmers which can program this indicator and add some specials for me! but it will probably another 6 weeks before i can order them

but if they agree ( and i favor this outcome) i will pay it and release it here for the community!

This is really a supertool!

Hi,

That's great news!! Very very very decent of you...6 weeks is worth the wait. Seeing as you are ordering a new do you know if it will work with a mini a/c with a low balance? I have found a few similar indicators (not visual like this one) that will specify lot size if i specify risk and stop loss. They work perfectly with my $50,000 demo account but do not give me a result at all for my live account which is a $500 mini account.

It would be super for me if it worked with my mini account.


Thaks for the reply and the work...

Best regards,
Toriacht

Great - look forward to trying out the new version.

Thanks Man.

Please find attached, no expiry.