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  • #281
  • Mar 16, 2008 4:19am Mar 16, 2008 4:19am
Also, all my testing is with IBFX. The reason is they are my broker and my demo testing reflects my live testing. I have found out other companies demos do not work the same as IBFX. Many do not allow penny trades and after certain amounts of money they will put you into another type of account and the amount your trading will change. It also seems that the same EA will operate differently on different companies MT4. It was confusing to me to see the EA make a profit with one company's MT4 and then lose money on another. Companies seem to be allowed to make certain adjustments in the program to fit their philosophies. So you must understand all my results are with IBFX. The tests you do with other companies maybe different. Live demo testing and live penny testing is the only way to know for certain how an EA will really work.
  • #282
  • Mar 16, 2008 8:07am Mar 16, 2008 8:07am
Quoting nanningbob
It also seems that the same EA will operate differently on different companies MT4. It was confusing to me to see the EA make a profit with one company's MT4 and then lose money on another. Companies seem to be allowed to make certain adjustments in the program to fit their philosophies.
I could not agree more. I have tested/optimized another system extremely thoroughly and came to these conclusions as well. With backtesting, too many things are arbitrary in the end and passing on settings to someone else or even to "yourself" with the same environment will produce different results in forward testing. It's too bad though, I just LOVE testing/analysing results. But as you said, it can be used to "poke around" possibilities.

Best of luck in the future and just keep on doing what you're doing, you're on the right track!
  • #283
  • Mar 18, 2008 7:54pm Mar 18, 2008 7:54pm
As I have stated before, the real big news stories should be avoided and the last couple of days I have stayed out of the market with my live trades. I however found a pleasant surprise. The eur/gbp and the aud/nzd did great during these turbulent times. Even though the eur/gbp did a big move over the weekend, during regular trading hours it stayed within its range and did very well on my demos. So my conclusions still are, stay away from big news stories or trade the very slow currencies to be safe. Not making much money this week live but not losing any either.

Another conclusion I have come to is matching major currencies with minor ones leads to trouble often enough that I would not recommend it. For example the Aud/jpy nzd/jpy cad/usd aud/usd etc. The major currencies are simply too strong when they run for the minor currency to cause a retracement. I have seen this happen enough times in my 6 weeks of demo trading with enough pairs to not test anymore. I will only test majors with majors USD JPY GBP CHF and EUR or minor with minor aud/nzd. Happy trading.
  • #284
  • Mar 18, 2008 7:56pm Mar 18, 2008 7:56pm
When I said only trade slow currencies, I only meant during big news stories, they seem to survive well when others are doing 3,4,500 pip moves.
  • #285
  • Mar 20, 2008 9:06pm Mar 20, 2008 9:06pm
Just some notes for those who care. I moved my step from 1.5 to 1.6, even though this has caused some bigger profits, it has also caused more margin calls on my live account. I will go back to 1.5 on my live accounts because I am not willing at this time to have the extra funds committed. None of the trades were death trades but the larger entrances at levels 9,10,11 caused margin calls on the amount of funds I was using. If I had used 1.5 instead I would not have had any margin calls and would have made profits on on those trades instead. On the demo side with 3000 dollars the 1.6 has not caused margin calls but it has gotten close. If you want to be aggressive you can use the step 1.6 but you probably should use 5000 instead of 3000. Just some additional observations.
  • #286
  • Mar 21, 2008 7:40am Mar 21, 2008 7:40am
Quoting nanningbob
Just some notes for those who care. I moved my step from 1.5 to 1.6, even though this has caused some bigger profits, it has also caused more margin calls on my live account. I will go back to 1.5 on my live accounts because I am not willing at this time to have the extra funds committed. None of the trades were death trades but the larger entrances at levels 9,10,11 caused margin calls on the amount of funds I was using. If I had used 1.5 instead I would not have had any margin calls and would have made profits on on those trades instead. On the demo side with 3000 dollars the 1.6 has not caused margin calls but it has gotten close. If you want to be aggressive you can use the step 1.6 but you probably should use 5000 instead of 3000. Just some additional observations.
Martingale, has a lot of ways to minimize the risk, changing settings.
Using the factor 1.5, need a least 2.5/1 ratio of TP/Steps to make profit.
Using factor 1.6, u will need 2/1.

With 12 levels(steps) starting with 0.01 you go to 1,12 lots in 1.5x, and 2,29 in 1.6x .. with accounts starting with less than 1000, its a big difference in risk.

Best Regards for all,
  • #287
  • Mar 30, 2008 9:47pm Mar 30, 2008 9:47pm
If anyone is interested I will be putting this EA with my modifications in the monthly InterbankFX contest for April. If you want to follow how it is doing you can go to Interbankfx.com and check the results under contest. I will be Wisconsinbob. I will be taking a conservative approach since I cant take my profits out until the end of the contest.
  • #288
  • Apr 5, 2008 11:59am Apr 5, 2008 11:59am
Well my first week of the contest went well. I am just outside the top 10 probably someplace in the top 20 of almost 500 contestants. I played real conservative and did not trade Friday because of the big news event. I also didnt start trading until after 12 noon on the first because the day before was the last day of the quarter and I wanted the market to settle before I started the EA. I will be a little more aggressive this next week and see if I can make the top 10 by the end of the week. Catch ya all later.
  • #289
  • Apr 6, 2008 9:11am Apr 6, 2008 9:11am
Nanningbob,
What settings would you recommend if the starting balance was only $100? Obviously I'll demo first, but I do have $100 to blow so I can tinker with this EA. Or does the starting balance need to be a lot higher? Like you, I'd withdraw profits on a weekly basis, due to the nature of the beast.


Also, forgive my ignorance, but is there a good place to go to find out when news times are so I can shut this EA off prior to the announcements?

Just trying to be smart and emulate the success of others by doing what they do. Your thoughts would be much appreciated. Thanks.
  • #290
  • Apr 7, 2008 10:34pm Apr 7, 2008 10:34pm
Quoting jdn74
Nanningbob,
What settings would you recommend if the starting balance was only $100? Obviously I'll demo first, but I do have $100 to blow so I can tinker with this EA. Or does the starting balance need to be a lot higher? Like you, I'd withdraw profits on a weekly basis, due to the nature of the beast.


Also, forgive my ignorance, but is there a good place to go to find out when news times are so I can shut this EA off prior to the announcements?

Just trying to be smart and emulate the success of others by doing what they do. Your thoughts would be much appreciated. Thanks.
I use the news times here at forexfactory. They are pretty good and easy to understand and show which news stories may cause the biggest moves.

For the IBFX contest you need $250 which is about right for pairs that move a minimal amount. I am using the Chf/jpy and eur/chf for the contest because they have the lowest high and low of the day of the major pairs. Monday the eur/chf pushed my EA to its full limit of 11 levels and it used up 135 dollars of my margin. Which means it is at its limit. It eventually won and is going on but it hit the full limit I have set for it. I do not think you could trade martingale with only 100 dollars. You dont have enough to cover 11 levels which is the normal limit I use for trading it. With a 100 dollars you could cover about 5 levels at the most that would be it. Not enough to use a martingale with.
  • #291
  • Apr 9, 2008 7:00am Apr 9, 2008 7:00am
You said you would like to use 100 dollars. I said in my last post that it is not possible. However, if you use the sto like Azam uses it, you probably could do that. I am using MA averages off the 4H or 1Day charts now and as soon as I take profit it reenters again in the trends direction. Azams uses the sto and it only enters in the 97 or 3 range so it only trades several times a week. You can test with those and see. I quit using the sto testing not because it doesnt work but I am getting more trades and making more money on the MA versions. I am almost done with my MA testing and then I might go back to the sto and using the information from currencies ranges to see if I can find a range that works with the sto. My guess is they will work with the sto but I have not tested them yet. Good luck.
  • #292
  • Apr 10, 2008 5:00am Apr 10, 2008 5:00am
At 6 am Thursday morning I have increased my account about 26.5%. I need to get above 50% to get in the top 10. I am using the eur/chf and chf/jpy with a 25 take profit and entering every 10 points trading .01 lots at 1.5 multiplication. I am following the trend on a 1 day chart using a 1MA median crossing the 1MA median shift 1. This is a very conservative approach but because the market is so volatile I feel this is the best way to approach this contest this month. Attached is my live account for April 1 to 10.
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  • #293
  • Apr 10, 2008 6:04am Apr 10, 2008 6:04am
This is my live demo test of the eur/chf and chf/jpy. It was started on 3-19 updated until today. You can see where the profits took a jump up, that is when I changed from .01 cent a trade to .05 cents a trade. I also changed it from following the 4h trend to the 1 day trend. I feel this gave it more consistency. I am using the same parameters as the contest in my previous post. The smallest amount I can use in a live demo is 3000 to start so that is what I am using. I also close all trades on Fridays and reopen the EA on Monday after the Japan session, this avoids the weekend gaps that often occur and is also the reason why backtesting is not reliable testing for the Martingale system. Many of the death trades that show up on backtesting are caused by the weekend gaping. What I mean by that is price may close at 120 on Friday and then open on Sunday night at 170 or a 50 point gap. This messes up a martingale system since we need that even entrance point every 25 pips (or whatever numbers you use) to make it work. So I have come to the conclusion that backtesting is unreliable for martingale results unless you do it week by week.
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  • #294
  • Apr 12, 2008 8:47am Apr 12, 2008 8:47am
Thurs. night became a scary night for me as the Eur/chf did a 176 point rise without a retrace and held until the US session when it did a 100 point drop. That was 18 hours of patient waiting but it worked. I am still not in the top 10 yet but a 32% increase in 2 weeks is nothing to sneeze about. I still estimate that I am someplace between 10-20 place out of 458 traders so that is good. Starting Monday I am going to go with a more aggressive plan since I am now well over 300 dollars in my account. With this much margin I can go with currencies that move more and give me a chance to win and also lose. In normal trading I would be very happy with these results but to win or place in the money I will have to increase my aggressiveness. Anyway here is a pic of my results so far.
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  • #295
  • Apr 12, 2008 3:33pm Apr 12, 2008 3:33pm
Looks good, Bob!

Keep my fingers crossed!

Ciao!
Gnat
  • #296
  • Apr 16, 2008 5:30pm Apr 16, 2008 5:30pm
I don´t believe this will go good... sooner or later the account will be exhausted to make more trades...
no obstante... mucha suerte!!!
... All good things come to those who wait...
  • #297
  • Edited 2:42am Apr 20, 2008 2:40am | Edited 2:42am
Well, I am not going to win any contest this month but I did try. The Eur/jpy took off this week and never retraced. On Wednesday I had to make a decision to close the trade for about $100 loss or keep it on and try for the winner. If I wasnt in the contest I would have taken the loss and still would have been profitable for the month. I knew though if I took the loss I wouldn't place so I took the risk. Part of being in Forex contests is you take risks to win. Part of daily Forex trading is not taking risks so you dont wipe out your capital. Well it never did the retrace so I took a bigger loss. The key to this is to understand that a death trade just doesnt happen quickly. It happens over a period of days and gives you plenty of time to get out. I knew by Wed. it was possible I was in a death trade but I decided to take the risk based on my indicators showing price should come back down. by Friday it zoomed up and I got out. I have no chance now of winning this months contest. I will spend the rest of the week, trying to get back to 250 dollars that I started with. If I had stayed with my original program I still would be in profit but no chance of winning. I would have been around 35% for the month which actually is a great return. So lessons learned. My first week I used a tp25 step 10 following a daily chart, after the 2nd week I went to a tp 100 step 40 and played currencies that move more. It was just an unusual week for the E/J.
  • #298
  • Apr 23, 2008 4:20pm Apr 23, 2008 4:20pm
Shame to see that happen after u was doin so well. I just wondered on the EA can you make it so it stops trading after so many looses say after 6 trades or 7?
  • #299
  • Apr 25, 2008 9:32am Apr 25, 2008 9:32am
Quoting fry2010
Shame to see that happen after u was doin so well. I just wondered on the EA can you make it so it stops trading after so many looses say after 6 trades or 7?
I set my reenters for only 8 levels, that way I dont rack up big losses or wipe out the account. I stayed in a bad trade because I knew if I exited it I would lose enough money to keep from placing in the contest. Also all the indicators showed it should retrace, hitting resistance, divergance on MACD, Sto overbought for quite a while, spinning tops, etc. It just didnt happen. Under normal trading I would have exited the trade and not made any money for a couple of days. In 26 4H candles is went up in 23 candles and really did not have a significant retrace. That is very unusual for any currency, in fact, I have never seen a currency run that long without a retrace. Modified Martingale trading relies on a retrace somewhere along the way. I was using a take profit of 100 reenter every 40 so if I go 10 levels deep I can handle a move of over 400 points without a retracement. It went 658 pips over 4 days before it retrace 138 pips. That was not enough to recover so I had to get out. I will try again in May but I will not use the E/J currency this time.
  • #300
  • Apr 25, 2008 10:23am Apr 25, 2008 10:23am
Ah well, have to commend you for the effort at least.
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