4H Box Breakout

I back traded the system manually for 2007. Using tp3 and only taking max two trades the system returned 3518 pips. The problem with using the pip count as a measure of success is that since your sl is variable if you wanted to say trade 5% (I am not reccommending you do this) your have to adjust the number of lots to compensate. So a large pip winner is the same as a small pip winner if you are taking profit at tp3. So what I did was break each tp level down to a unit. Unit is equal to sl+spread+buffer. Using the tp3 there were 91 winning units and 45 losing units. Using a 5% risk model without using compounding and using 110 pips as an average unit trading 4 mini lots per trade a $10,000 account would net $20,040 at the end of the year. I am not a math wiz but I went over it a couple of times and I think its right. Taking the third trade was not a good idea during this time period. There were actually cases were you could have taken 5 trades all would have been losers on some weeks. Tp4 would not have worked as well as it has in 2009. Still got to look at 2008. Overall it did not seem that the system performed as well as compared to this year but still made a hefty return. Obviously 2009 had some very substantial weeks, but its also been in a sideways market for 8 weeks or so and did very well during that time period. I think that its imperative that you set and forget the system. If you start scaling out of a trade because you see some profits you will destroy the risk reward ratio and the system will start to suck. Also on moving the stop up, there were alot of times price moved above tp2 and then retraced into negative equity before pushing back up to tp3. The numbers above are results from basically setting and forgetting. Not saying there isn't room for discretion but I think the system needs to be traded as is before mods are made. Another thing I noticed was that a 10 pip buffer on the sl would have kept you in a couple of trades. Not sure how that would work out overall but its something to look at.

are there conditions that have to be met before reentering the third trade? I'm thinking about using ATR, which has been said before by Ace, to filter the third trade.. If the ATR is still showing us possibility to take the third trade, then maybe we can reenter... the risk is to be stopped out on third trade too..then it will make the week a really pain in the a$$..with 3 losses and maybe 6 losses if we're using 2 pairs...

And i agree with you about time of the week..trade that taken on thursday will have larger probability not to hit the desired TP by friday... the best trade is the one that is taken on monday, and closed at desired TP at about wed-thurs... this week can be classified into on of those..great week...

Maybe i take a little different approach here, instead of advising you to convert your timezone, i would like to recommend you to download FXDD MT4 station, open a demo account, and do the charting there, but putting the order on your original real account.. THis save a lot of time, and you can be precisely following ace's setup...

I didn't use any criteria for entering a third trade. I think that your gonna have to use some before entering for a third time. Like I said it was a very successful strategy for 2009 but the third trade performed poorly in 2007 so take it for what its worth. I would definitely not enter a fourth time, they were all losers and its so late in the week your better waiting for the next setup. Personally I am only going to take the first two trades for now. I am curious as to why you would trade on multiple pairs if they are so heavily correlated. Seems as if it would be easier to concentrate on gbpjpy. By the way all my back trading was done on ibfx using there 0 GMT candle close.

gillybabe - I've been looking at my test results in more detail to try to understand the pros and cons of what I did. I adapted some simple channel breakout code with the price channel length set to 1; what that means is that within the constraints of the time filter I set, if the entry occurs soon after the "reference" bar, it can NOT ONLY stop and reverse OR stop and reenter on the very next bar BUT ALSO at new "reference" levels (of the previous bar, which might by then be the one after the original reference). This introduces a whole new twist of complexity on Ace's much more simple ruleset. All I will say is that sometimes "my" variation is superior, but last week it was greatly inferior...

... so to finally answer your question, I am going to turn on my strat this evening before I go to bed as I am on CET (the timeframe, not a medication...). When I get up, if I have an entry I will make a decision. Either let the strat control the trade or turn it off and manually set the target levels, taking into account the daily / weekly trends and general PA (Razor Trader made an excellent post about this a couple of days back).

So I have complicated things .

My recommendation, as before, is to stick to Ace or G550's very KISS rulesets.

Pouring with rain here in the countryside outside Amsterdam (good for the lawn, I suppose)... can't wait to get to Tuscany for my hols...

Hello,
first of all all the best to Ace284 for sharing this system (and all the rest that are trying to make it better).

Since I live in Slovenia(CMT +2), does that mean, that I must wake up at 04:00, because the first candle is formed from 00:00 to 04:00...

Anyway, great work everyone!!


Regards;
Boris

i am also gmt+2 and was thinking about the same.
but if you check the last months, you can see that the big moves starts with the third candle (8 - 12 am; and of course with the london session).
therefor i decided to don't get up and to place my orders later.

but what if the move already started, do you go in late, or do you let that one go?

just use the close of the 4H 0GMT candle to place your trades. All you need to know is your brokers offset.

Ace uses the candle that starts at 1500 est. That is 1900 gmt not 0gmt.

everyone got your orders in???

close this 1H candle than make pending order

buy stop @top+10/20pips
sell stop @ bottom-10/20pips

good luck this week

let's get more pips from this market

Are we supposed to have plaeced orders in 24 mins ago. Or wait for this 1 hr candle to close?

Broker: FXDD
0GMT High is 129.87, Low is 128.82, Range is 105

Here is my setup:

Long: 129.97 (= 129.87 + 10) ,
Target 1: 131.02 (129.87 + 1.05),
Target 2: 132.07 (= 129.87 + 1.05 +1.05)
Both Stop is 128.82

Short: 128.72 (= 128.82- 10),
Target 1: 127.67 (= 128.72-1.05)
Target: 2: 126.62 (= 128.72-1.05-1.05)

Am I right?

maybe last candle closed...dont know is it for 0-3H candle...

u have done ur homework

That's the High and Low I have (well actually my low is showing 128.81)

u should place ur order on the clsing of the coming 4 hr candle. which is clsing in half an hour time

There is still confusion about which candle Zang the candle used by ace starts at 2100 gmt and closes at 0100 gmt.brokers start their candles at different times so you may have to get a quote from another service. I use ibfx and the candle starts at 1800 so I get a chart online from somewhere else. Please read the thread about which candle ace uses.

hello ace284,please show us today's picture?thanks

My GJ short treggered at 149.43 lets see how it goes.