4H Banker Buster

Trade Entry

the first 4H bar of the week close, add 50 pips to set the breakout box high, subtract 50 pips to set the breakout box low. If a trade closes, take the close of that bar, add 50 pips to set the new breakout box high, subtract 50 pips to set the new breakout box low. Continue until Friday.

Entry Conditions

Condition 1 Ruleset: Follow the MA’s; Set the stoploss according to the MA's

Buy order: If a buy order is triggered and the Red MA is below 20 pips from entry, Set the stoploss to the Red MA.

Sell Order: If a sell order is triggered, and the Red MA is above 20 pips from entry, set the stoploss to the Red MA.


Condition 2 Ruleset: Set a trailing Stop

Buy Order: If a buy order is triggered, and the Red MA is 20 pips or higher from entry, set a trailing stop to 50%-75% of the Breakout Zone. The % is your own personal risk preference, but never more than 75%, otherwise it’s pointless to reduce 100% stoploss.

Sell Order: If a sell order is triggered, and the Res MA is 20 pips or lower from entry, set a trailing stop to 50-75% (reasons for this found in buy order) Breakout Zone.

Rules When a trade is in play

Once a trade has been triggered, and you have determined what condition you must follow.


Condition 1:

Buy order: So your trade has triggered, and the Stoploss is set to the Red MA. Update the stoploss at the open of every new bar to match the position of the Red MA. Because this acts like a manual trailing stop, if the Red MA retraces, do not update until the Red MA retraces again, and passes the last highest position the stoploss was adjusted to.

Once the stoploss is equal to Break Even or greater, set the stoploss to Break Even.

Once the Black MA passes over the Break Even point, Adjust the stoploss to follow the Black MA. Because this acts like a manual trailing stop, if the Black MA retraces, do not update until the Black MA retraces again, and passes the last highest position the stoploss was adjusted to.


Sell order: So your trade has triggered, and the Stoploss is set to the Red MA. Update the stoploss at the open of every new bar to match the position of the Red MA. Because this acts like a manual trailing stop, if the Red MA retraces, do not update until the Red MA retraces again, and passes the last highest position the stoploss was adjusted to.

Once the stoploss is equal to Break Even or greater, set the stoploss to Break Even.

Once the Black MA passes over the Break Even point, Adjust the stoploss to follow the Black MA. Because this acts like a manual trailing stop, if the Black MA retraces, do not update until the Black MA retraces again, and passes the last highest position the stoploss was adjusted to.


Condition 2:

Buy order: So your trade has triggered, and the Stoploss is set to be a Trailing Stop. Keep track of where the Red MA is located while the trailing stop is inside the breakout box.

If the trailing stop crosses the Red MA before reaching Break Even, adjust the Stoploss to the Red MA and follow Condition 1 Buy rules from Red MA on.

If the trailing stop reaches Break Even before crossing the Red MA and after crossing the Black MA, set the Stoploss to Break Even, follow Condition 1 Buy Rules from Break Even on.

If the trailing Stop reaches Break Even before crossing the Red MA and before crossing the Black MA, Keep the trailing stop active, once it crosses the Black MA adjust stoploss to Black MA and follow Condition 1 Buy Rules from Black MA on.


Sell order: So your trade has triggered, and the Stoploss is set to be a Trailing Stop. Keep track of where the Red MA is located while the trailing stop is inside the breakout box.

If the trailing stop crosses the Red MA before reaching Break Even, adjust the Stoploss to the Red MA and follow Condition 1 Sell rules from Red MA on.

If the trailing stop reaches Break Even before crossing the Red MA and after crossing the Black MA, set the Stoploss to Break Even, follow Condition 1 Sell Rules from Break Even on.

If the trailing Stop reaches Break Even before crossing the Red MA and before crossing the Black MA, Keep the trailing stop active, once it crosses the Black MA adjust stoploss to Black MA and follow Condition 1 Sell Rules from Black MA on.

For all conditions!!!!

If your orders have not been stopped out by the end of the week, close all orders before market close.


Close 1/2 Position


I recommend closing half a position once it reaches a profit of 100% Breakout Box and letting the other half run it’s course.

Pharoah . . . good luck on the new thread . . . I'll be taking it out for a test drive.

Are you shutting down the old thread, or will it remain active as well?

I was just looking at the +50/-50 on the first 4hr candle for the EUR/JPY pair and I think with some of your moving average rules, it is becoming more complicated than it needs to be.

- Although moving up a stoploss to break even for ever 100 pips profit, AND closing all trades on friday of every week may actually cause of a loss of some pips that your system here could possibly be saving!

- I'll pay attention now . nice work... Some of the info I have found on these forums is really amazing...

The reason for the 100 pip takeprofit for half the order, is because usually the SL is 100 pips or less away, meaning it only have to hit 100 pips to make sure the entire trade doesn't go in the negative.

The only way you should close trades on friday is when you have a trade left open until friday (wasn't stopped out by the BlackMA) which means, my system already captured the most pips possible. The Market still lives, just because we can't access it, doesn't mean it's not doing anything. Leaving a trade open over the weekend could make it so your week was worthless.

And with my systems, the more complicated they are, the more you'll make from them... it's the lesser of 2 evils, make more? or make less?

I must add, in those images, the only indicators and lines you should be concerning yourself with are the green dotted MA, The Yellow dotted MA, and the Hard Yellow Lines. Everything else is non essential to this system. (tho the other dotted lines are TP points)

Very nice. I just did a very bare-bones backtest on GPBJPY back to 4-19 and didn't use any moving averages, and moved the S/L up 100 pips at each 100% breakout box profit mark. only had two good winners, 4-19, and 8-16. I'll be adding your additional indicators in now and try it again later.

(also, I only did ONE TRADE per weak on my test, so there was no re-entries until after the next sunday's candle)

Yeah, this system requires that when a trade closes in a profit, the box is moved to the close of the bar the closed the trade, this is where the multiple entries come into play.

And, as I said, I'm not sure if it's more beneficial to adjust the box location when a trade closes in a loss (price is still within the box) or if it's more beneficial to adjust the box to be exactly 50 pips above, and 50 pops below the price at the close of the candle. Also, it may be wise to set the Red MA to shift 1 instead of shift 2, this will draw the stoploss to BE faster. I will be doing extensive testing at a later date. Today is a family day

I would also like to add that yes, this system is more complicated that the original system in which it stemmed from. However, it is at least 3 times as profitable if not more. And has the profit potential to that all those "super systems that confuse rocket scientist" have. It's the best of both worlds, potentially the one of the highest profit factors, with potentially one of the least drawdowns, with a rather simple guideline. I dunno about anybody else, but I don't see a 25 page word document explaining anything...

can you explain more details about "the first 4H bar of the week close,.."

is it mean we trade on the first 4H bar of friday, right ?

Why you pick quiet day for entry ?

thanks for share trade


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MA explosions

No, I mean when the first 4H bar of the week is done forming (closes) to let a new bar begin.

I do not recommend trading on a friday, and never will, with any of my systems.

This system is becoming more and more complicated for no reason.

The actual strategy that most professional traders is a variation on the "First Strike" volatility breakout, take the Monday open price place OCO buy/sell stop 50 pip from the open with a 60 pip SL and let it run!

That is all you need for a week open volatility breakout. Which is all these systems are trying to replicate.

Go read First Strike. You will see it has a proper expectancy curve. This method, might or might not, but it is far too complicated for an ORB system.

or...

Maybe if you don't feel a system is worth it or to complicated you could always just... move along.

This system is getting better and better, so there is a reason for it's slightly increased complication.

And, I never said it was an ORB system, it's a breakout system, not all breakout systems NEED to be ORB. And if I'm not mistaken, NFA has removed OCO all together... so that's kinda out of the picture. FXCM claimed they had a new "OCO" system that complied with NFA rules, however, that was in july, the very next month, OCO orders were banned.

If this information is incorrect, please shed some light.

"As an educated trader you are most likely aware of the new NFA regulations that are continuing to strip away your trading edge. As we know since August 1st 2009 the NFA’s new FIFO ruling has taken away all U.S based brokers abilities to place essential orders that you must have as a trader. Trading is a tough enough game as it is, and to be profitable you need to grab hold absolutely every edge you can get. You may now experience the lack of some Metatrader advantage like: -No more OCO Orders (One cancel other for trader that like to straddle the market or use orders to bracket the market)
-No more Stop Loss Orders (To Limit Your Losses or Risk in a given Trade)
-No more Limit Orders (To Exit You Out Of Your Position When Your Target Is Hit)"

Hi pharoah,
In your example pics for the start of this week, a couple of questions.

a. is your black (blue) ma not the same settings as you indicated in the other thread? I have ma2 shift2 for red, ma2 shift5 for blue, but it does not match yours.
b. how did you handle the stoploss after the move to breakeven on the first trade of the week? Looks like a trailing stop of 50% (or 50 pips) would have been hit on the second half at somewhere around breakeven. If you using the 75% trailing (or 75 pips) looks like you'd have been in it longer. Since the red ma is so far above the entry and breakeven, when do you move it up after you've moved it to breakeven? This one seems confusing to me, as typically the ma's are under the price for longs, so how exactly did you follow the price in this one?

Thanks!

A. The only MA's, as I pointed out in a previous post, that you should concern yourself with in direct relation to this system, are the dotted MA's that are identical to one another (Green and yellow dotted), all of the solid MA's can be disregarded, I believe PiPsAddict has his own reasons for using them, but for this system they are not mandatory.

B. On the first trade of this week, I'm not sure what PiPsAddict set his stoploss to, this is one of the things that is currently in research to determine the most long term optimal setting. But I must note, that on that particular bar, the trailing stop wouldn't have been at BE (would have have at 50%). Because the candle is green, this suggests that the low was created before the high was. This suggests that a trailing stop of 65-75% would have been very manageable. Tho on the next bar, I suspect it would have closed out.

Once again, once more specific finding are discovered, they will be released, and updated in the first post so you all don't have to wade through tons of posts to find the information you need to be kept up to date.

Mate, just go back and visually backtest this system and see which weeks it worked. Same weeks as ORB worked. The reason this works is because of ORB, just because you call it something else and use a slightly different method does not change why it is working.

I am not trying to put you down or anything. But Aces original method he just took and backtested without trying to figure out why it actually worked. I kept my mouth shut all this time because the first H4 bar of the week for most pairs will be the same as OR, but now I see people modifying the system heavily I have to say something.

And I will tell you now: you will not beat the expectancy of simple ORB by trying to filter with MAs or whatever.

And this is your opinion, and your welcome to it. Yes, it is based on ORB, and is why it has the potential that an ORB system has. But honestly, who are you to say "But Aces original method he just took and backtested without trying to figure out why it actually worked. I kept my mouth shut all this time because the first H4 bar of the week for most pairs will be the same as OR, but now I see people modifying the system heavily I have to say something."

Without knowing anything about me, or the MONTHS and MONTHS I spent researching my Smartstop system. Which suggests that maybe... just maybe I HAVE researched why Ace's system works the way it does. And maybe... just maybe through that research, I learned why it doesn't work sometimes...


And I hate to tell you bud.... you are not in ANY position of authority to say "I've kept my mouth shut until now"... Are you the "post police"? I research my data, very carefully, You read the post, and made an assumption.

Keep your mouth shut, please... it will save me from listening to your false accusations.

And yes, I did take offense to what you said, I'm sorry, but I don't need the months of hard work I put into helping everyone here (and I mean everyone, my smartstop system is so customizable it can be adjusted to anything) to have it stripped from me because you say "Just took a system without knowing how it works". And no, I'm not going to prevent you from posting in this thread. But out of respect, keep your personal opinions on my testing methods to yourself... anything constructive and productive is welcome.

And, just so you all know, currently, this system has this for results from this week.

+100
+265
-70
-70
+100

With a half position still open.

Pharoah,

Thank you for this week's trading results. How profitable has this approach been in the past?

Thanks

Well, to be honest, there isn't a massive amount of data on the back results of this system. But, taking into consideration the 5 weeks of range and this weeks massive box, and the suggestion of reducing the box to 50 pips+ close of the first 4H bar for the high, and 50 pips- close of the first 4H bar. Running this through backtesting (not noting actual trade prices and profits), only noting positions in which a trade would stop out in a profit, and noting the losses and how adjusting the box to that point allowed for a reversal of the entire trend that week, which would allow you to capture that entire move before the trade was closed out and the box adjusted, then another reversal occurs and and goes all the way back to the highest/lowest high/low of the week, capturing a great deal of that movement, While keeping the losses low like my SmartStop addition made to the original system. Visually this looks astounding and is why I shared it. There is still alot of research going on into this particular system that will determine the most profitable method.

Research such as

- Adjusting the box location to the close of the candle that closes a trade in a loss (while the price was still inside the original box, but more on the higher/lower side).

- Adjusting the box to TP points as they are reached (every 100 pips) This will not open a trade, but will keep the box moving along with the price action allowing for constant breakouts.

- Smartstop settings to determine the best possible MA settings to fine tune exit.

This system is deffinately a WIP, and should be traded only on demo accounts as there is going to be adjustments to the system. But the overall system such as "BoxTrail" and SmartStop, which I am labeling the entry and exit systems used for this strategy will remain, only settings and the exact particulars to "BoxTrail" will be adjusted.

I applaud your ingenuity...this will maintain my interest in the 4H weekly trading strategy.

Thanks, but gotta give credit to Yonnie, the one who suggested the 100 pip box size every week, I just ran with it. And what I believe this method will do is allow us to place boxes at the highest high of a ranged week, capturing the entire drop, and then again at the lowest low that same ranged week, allowing us to gain the move back up, it gives us more to work with.

This is very like a system I use. But it is being further amended to fine tune the "extending TP" - a bit like trailing SL, but extending by a variable amount.

By just adjusting to TP points every 100 pips, there is no "feel" in the system (other than in the pocket ).
By adjusting the box to 4H bars, there is a little bit of "feel" built in as 4H bars tend often to support & resistance levels. Even though not everybodies 4H bars start & finish on the same hours.
This tends to set the box at a better location for the next breath in the market.

cheers scalpz

This weeks results, Thanks to PiPsAddict.

So here are the final numbers for the week:

1/2 position closed at TP1 = +100 pips
1/2 position closed at SmartStop = +265 pips
1/2 position closed at SL = -70 pips
1/2 position closed at SL = -70 pips
1/2 positions closed at TP1 = +100 pips
1/2 position closed at modified SmartStop (due to NFP) = +24 pips

Total for the week = +349 pips

Trading should now be considered done for the week. have a good weekend all, and we'll see you next week (tho I'm sure also over the weekend)