Generic Breakout Version 7 [TD]

Generic Breakout Version 6 brought one major upgrade, generic breakouts could now be optimized.

Generic Breakout Version 7 adds a few new features, namely in the graphics and trade management sections.

extern string Remark1 = "== Main Settings ==";
extern int MagicNumber = 0;

 

1. Identifier used by an EA to determine which trades the EA should manage. Make sure each EA in the terminal has a unique MagicNumber.

extern bool SignalsOnly = False;

 

1. If set to true, the EA will only give you signals using any combination of the signal methods below.

extern bool Alerts = False;

 

1. Enables/Disables the Pop-up notification.

extern bool SignalMail = False;

 

1. Enables/Disables the e-mail notification. Make sure e-mails are set up properly in Metatrader.

extern bool PlaySounds = False;

 

1. Enables/Disables the sound notification. The EA plays the file 'alert.wav' in the Sounds folder.

extern bool ECNBroker = False;

 

1. Some brokers require an EA to first place a trade, and then modify the trade with a SL/TP. If your broker requires this, set this value to true.

extern bool TickDatabase = True;

 

1. All of my EAs with the tag [TD] send data to a tick database. Every Saturday at 2AM EST, tick data for the past week is put into a .csv file and added to www.RonaldRaygunForex.com/TickDB/Archive. By setting this input to true, the EA will send tick data to my database. I'm only collecting the following pieces of information:
   1. GMT Time
   2. Terminal Time
   3. Bid
   4. Ask
   5. Broker

2. I am not and will never collect any personal information.

extern bool UseTradingTimes = False;

 

1. If set to true, the EA will only trade between the times set below.

extern int StartHour = 0;

 

1. Starting Hour.

extern int StartMinute = 0;

 

1. Starting Minute

extern int StopHour = 0;

 

1. Stopping Hour.

extern int StopMinute = 0;

 

1. Stopping Minute
2. Note: When I combine the previous 4 inputs together, I should get two times:
   1. "StartHour:StartMinute"
   2. "StopHour:StopMinute"

extern bool CloseOnOppositeSignal = True;

 

1. If set to true, the EA will close a long trade if there is a short signal and a short trade if there is a long signal.

extern bool AutoDetect5DigitBroker = False;

 

1. If set to true, the EA will automatically detect the broker's
   'digit-status' and the result will be displayed in the upper left corner. If the EA is wrong, you have to set this value to false, and adjust the necessary pip values.

extern bool EachTickMode = True;

 

1. If set to true, the EA will take a trade immediately when a trade signal presents itself. If set to false, the EA will take a trade if a trade signal is present at the close of a bar.

extern double Lots = 0;

 

1. The fixed lot size of the EA.

extern bool MoneyManagement = False;

 

1. Enables/Disables the money management function

extern int Risk = 0;

 

1. The percentage used (0-100) to determine a lot size. As a reference point, a Risk value of 10 in a $1,000 account with 200:1 leverage is 0.1 lots.

extern int Slippage = 5;

 

1. The maximum slippage in pips allowed for a given trade.

extern bool UseStopLoss = True;

 

1. Enables/Disables the initial stoploss.

extern int StopLoss = 100;

 

1. The fixed stoploss in pips. Set to 0 to disable.

extern double SLMultiplier = 0.0;

 

1. The fixed stoploss calculated as a multiple of the trading range. Set to 0.0 to disable.

extern int SLMultiplierBuffer = 0;

 

1. The number of pips added to the stoploss calculated by SLMultiplier. E.G. if SLMultiplier is set to 2.0 and SLMultiplierBuffer is set to 10, the EA will set the stoploss to twice the range + 10 pips.

extern bool UseTakeProfit = False;

 

1. Enables/Disables the initial TakeProfit

extern int TakeProfit = 60;

 

1. Fixed TakeProfit value in pips. Set to 0 to disable.

extern double TPMultiplier = 0.0;

 

1. Fixed TakeProfit value as a multiple of the range. Set to 0.0 to disable.

extern int TPMultiplierBuffer = 0;

 

1. The number of pips added to the takeprofit calculated by TPMultiplier. E.G. if TPMultiplier is set to 1.5 and TPMultiplierBuffer is set to 100, the EA will set the takeprofit to 1.5 times the range + 100 pips.

extern bool UseTrailingStop = False;

 

1. Enables/Disables a fixed-pip trailing stop.

extern int TrailingStop = 30;

 

1. Fixed trailing stop in pips.

extern bool UseMultipleTrailingStop = False;

 

1. Enables/Disables a trailing stop calculated based on a multiple of the range the trade was opened in.

extern int TSMultiple = 1.0;

 

1. The multiple of the range to calculate a trailing stop. The EA determines which range a trade was opened in.

extern int TSMultipleBuffer = 1.0;

 

1. The number of pips added to the Range-Multiple based trailing stop.

extern bool MoveStopOnce = False;

 

1. Enables/Disables the "Move-To-Breakeven" function.

extern int MoveStopWhenPrice = 50;

 

1. The trigger price which triggers the move-to-breakeven function.

extern int MoveStopTo = 1;

 

1. The number of pips relative to breakeven to move the stoploss to.

extern bool UseMultipleMoveStopOnce = False;

 

1. Enables/Disables the Range-Based "Move-To-Breakeven" function

extern double MoveStopWhenRangeMultiple = 1.0;

 

1. The multiple of the trade's range to set as the trigger price.

extern int MoveStopWhenRangeMultipleBuffer = 0;

 

1. The number of pips added to the multiple above.

extern double MoveStopToMultiple = 0.0;

 

1. The multiple of the trade's range to move the stoploss to.

extern int MoveStopToMultipleBuffer = 1;

 

1. The pips added to the range above.

Note: You can enable all stoplosses options. The EA will use smallest stoploss of the available choices. Keep in mind that there is a a possibility that the smallest stoploss is smaller than the minimum broker's stoploss. If that happens, the EA will return an error.

Note: You can enable all takeprofit options. The EA will use the largest takeprofit value of all the available choices.

extern string Remark2 = "";
extern string Remark3 = "== Breakout Settings ==";
extern int RangeStartHour = 0;

 

1. The hour to start calculating the range start.

extern int RangeStartMinute = 0;

 

1. The minute to start calculating the range start.

extern int RangeStopHour = 0;

 

1. The hour to start calculating the range stop.

extern int RangeStopMinute = 0;

 

1. The minute to start calculating the range stop.

Note: The range times will be displayed on the chart in yellow.

extern string TSDescription = "Trading Style: 1 - Breakout | 2 - Counter Trend";
extern int TradingStyle = 0;

 

1. There are certain times of the day when it is better to trade against a breakout. Instead of expecting the price to break outside the box's range, you expect the price to return to the center of the range.
2. 0
   1. Disables the EA.

3. 1
   1. Places the long trade at the high price, and the short trade at the low price.

4. 2
   1. Places the long trade at the low price and the short trade at the high price.

extern double EntryMultiplier = 0.0;

 

1. The multiple of the range added to the high price/low price. If you set this value to 1.0 and set the TradingStyle input to 2, it's the same as setting the value to 0.0 and setting TradingStyle to 1. Conversely, you could set TradingStyle to 1 and EntryMultipler to -1 to get the same as setting EntryMultiplier to 0.0 and TradingStyle to 2.

extern int EntryBuffer = 0;

 

1. The number of pips added to the entry multiplier.

extern int MaxRangePips = 0;

 

1. The Maximum number of pips allowed in a range. Set to 0 to disable.

extern int MinRangePips = 0;

 

1. The Minimum number of pips allowed in a range. Set to 0 to disable.

extern int MaxTrades = 0;

 

1. The maximum number of trades allowed in a given session.

extern int MaxLongTrades = 0;

 

1. The maximum number of long trades allowed in a given session.

extern int MaxShortTrades = 0;

 

1. The maximum number of short trades allowed in a given session.

extern int MaxProfitTrades = 0;

 

1. The maximum number of profit trades allowed in a given session.

extern bool CountOpenTrades = True;

 

1. Determines whether or not to count open trades' profit/loss.

extern int MaxLossTrades = 0;

 

1. The maximum number of loss trades allowed in a given session.

extern int MaxSimultaneousTrades = 1;

 

1. The maximum number of simultaneous trades allowed in a given session.

extern int MaxSimultaneousLongTrades = 0;

 

1. The maximum number of simultaneous long trades allowed in a given session.

extern int MaxSimultaneousShortTrades = 0;

 

1. The maximum number of simultaneous short trades allowed in a given session.

Trade counts are calculated from the end of the box drawn on the chart.


Edit:

Squalou found a glaring bug in this EA, which would cause improper calculation of the high / low range of the box. I have added a fix.

[Another Edit]

RedBaron was so kind to post a PDF containing explanations on the inputs of this EA.

[A third edit]

xirtam has revealed a bug to me and it has since been fixed.

Hello RR.

First, congratulations on your outstanding work.

Second, apologize for my bad English.

Third, please ask for a file *.set to work, since I can not get any trade with my parameters,Please indicate the pair to work with.


Regards

Lordorly

Set lot size to non 0 and trading style to non 0

Hi, thanks for your reponse



Lot size = 0.10

Tradingstyle = 1


Non trades


Regards

EA requires three things generally:

1) Lot size non-zero
2) Trading style non-zero
3) Proper range times (not trading times, but range times) so a box is drawn on the chart. I don't see the box...

Three conditions OK, I looked at the code and do not know if I have the wininet.dll


Lordorly

If you have internet explorer, you have wininet.dll

I searched the version 6 I have tried and it works, however I have a problem with the TP gives me values that are never exaggerated achieved.

Thanks

Lordorly

What do you mean?

1 2010.01.04 00:00 buy 1 0.10 1.48385 1.47385 129.48385 0.00 10000.00



Price = 1.48385

SL = 1.47385

TP = 129.48385

5 digits broker

Another

3 2010.01.11 07:30 buy 2 0.10 1.47737 1.46737 294.47737 0.00 9913.63


TP = 294.47737


ufffffffff

jejejejeje.

Lordorly

Wow! Thank You Very Much For This EA! You are very generous Ronald

Great tool, thank you.

hey Ronald,

Thanks for this update.

I'm a great fan of your work throughout FF!

This work is very similar to the one Mer started a few months ago inhis "Simple London Breakout" thread here http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=230640
You have probably seen it.

I have contributed to improve the EA that Steve Hopwood (another Big Name in FF...) had kindly dropped in the thread.

We have added quite a few functionnalities in the EA along the way, which more or less are the same as yours here.
(The inputs are not as "natural" as setting SL/TP as you do it here, due to the underlying idea of the strategy -- but this is off topic here.
Setting SL and TP values is just more natural and makes so much less headaches... keep it simple!)

The only missing feature in our EA was the "counter trend" mode, which is something I and some other guys in the thread had in mind for some time...

And you did it here, that's great!
I'm buying it!

Any chance the EA would take care of 5-digits brokers ?...
So that all the inputs will actually be really "pips" and not "Points",
eg slippage=5 (pips) = 50 (Points) for me, same for all SL,TP values.

So we could share .set files that would work the same for everyone with no change.

Well, except time ranges, which depend on the broker time.
But here too, we could have a "GMT_offset" input that would apply a shift to all input times, and everyone could just set the "london session" to be 07..16 (GMT+x) for instance.
We argued so many times about those aspects in the LBO thread...


Another feature that i wanted to add to the LBO EA was to be able to setup MULTIPLE sessions and run them all within the same EA.
For instance: (gmt)
- London session:
RangeStartHour..RangeStopHour = 5..8,
Trading StartHour..StopHour = 8..14
followed by
- NY session:
RangeStartHour..RangeStopHour = 12..14,
Trading StartHour..StopHour = 14..22

I guess the solution to do that is to attach 2 instances of the EA to the chart, each with its own settings ? (and different MagicNumbers to prevent the mess...)
Now the issue i have is that i can see 2 EAs being loaded in the "terminal>Journal" window, but i can only change settings of the second one... mt4 won't show me the first instance in the F7 dialog...
if you have any clue...
When i remove the EA from the chart (the only one i can "see"), then the journal tells me it has removed both instances...


Thanks again Ronald

Squalou.

There are several london breakout type threads, I first wrote Generic Breakout for the 7-9AM gu strategy thread (or something like that).


Updated in 1st post. (AutoDetect5DigitBroker).

My feeling is if you cannot calculate properly the correct time(s), you should not be using this EA. I don't do this to be mean, or to make life difficult. I do it to filter out people who are trigger-happy with lawsuits. I've been sued three times since I first started distributing EAs--never successfully--but I don't want to tempt fate.

Quite doable actually, the problem is that for every instance of trading session, you need another set of inputs. That leads to a lot of time hunting for the specific input setting you're looking for.

The solution is to open one chart per EA you want to trade.






I should probably reiterate.

The main goal behind this version of Generic Breakout is to provide end-users with the ability to run large multi-million permutation optimizations. Those optimizations can be used to find patterns in this time-based range breakout trading. London breakout is of course one of the more obvious permutation, but then there is the EG Asian session, GJ's Tokyo/London breakout, and AJ US session breakout.

I'm currently writing a self-testing EA which will be capable of something I call 'social testing'. Basically, these EAs each are nodes in a mesh network of sorts and allows for several users to collaborate to find the most effective settings for their broker.

Thanks for that Ronald!

Interesting...
Each "contributor" EA would export its results to a centralized DB (just like your wonderful TickDB), and be processed there directly to converge the settings ?
Another fantastic framework you have there !!!


I'm thinking of coding a "self-optimizer" functions library so that EAs can sort-of "learn" (=adapt settings) more or less continously while trading, a bit like NN would do.
For instance, in Steve Hopwood's "Swing momentum trading - the robots are taking over" thread, i backtested the "Super Signal" EA, and i found out that the most consistent results (so far) are obtained using a 5-days optimized sliding window: i re-optimize every day over the past 5 days only.
It gives bad results when optimizing for "long periods" (3 months or more).
The idea is that the EA would optimize its own settings at regular intervals (every day in this example).
We can either (1) make the EA do it by itself, like auto-training NNs, or (2) we can use a second EA that would do it, and save the found settings into a file or mt4 GlobalVariables, that the trading EA would import regularly.
A self-optimizing EA make me happyer though... for the beauty of the solution
I have already explored option 2 in the LBO EA, which imports its settings from the LBO Indicator via GlobalVariables.

I'm looking forward to your opening a thread about this "social-testing" concept...

Sq.

I'm thinking more along the lines of P2P / BitTorrent. The amount of data that trade terminals would be passing back and forth would be too high for a central database to manage.

Problem I'm coming across with self-optimizing or self-testing EAs is they take a very long time to code because there are relatively few parallels.

I know trendchaser has developed a trade copier EA which seems to allow for mesh networking.

As for combining the tests, that would be very difficult because I highly doubt any two tests will be absolutely identical. It may be useful for getting an idea of what settings or range of settings tends to make money.

Ronald first of all thank you for your time to write this EA.

second on what kind of timeframes or pairs do you want us to have it tested?

i have it now set at 1 hour on EUr /USD chart with range filter not used and trade trigger none.

and i have chosen trading style breakout.

then i opened another 1 with same settings, except i use countertrading instead of breakout.

WOW. Thank you Ronald!
But before I found this thread (and Generic Breakout 6 thread) with this great piece of code, I modified your Generic Breakout 5.5 and I added probably all TP and SL calculation options like are in version 7 and some trade management features. It is pitty.

I added this features that are not present in version 7:
- setting SL value to box border
- close half of trade and move to BE at defined percent of TP reached
- close all trades at end of trading time OR close all trades with positive upl at end of trading time

Please could you look at it and if you find it usefull, could you add this to Generic Breakout?

I use this code to modify TP and SL if are too close to broker's stoplevel, instead of error message:
With the same logic EA should manage SL value in TS and BE.

And final remark - I found, that in Generic Break 5.5 when is BreakoutBuffer used, open price of current bar must be inside box and current price must be above BreakoutBuffer to trigger the trade. Now it seems to me, that is sufficient that price breaks (range + buffer), but if price was before it inside the box is not tested. Both behavior I mean are not exactly correct. I hope you understand what I mean and I hope I am correct

Hi Ronald, Greetings,
Can you make an EA based on key support and resistence when price cross either up or down. You will have to input the price manually with take profit/stop loss,bep,hide s/l, t/p etc.
Inputs with four long and four shorts separately.
Thank you for your continued hard work and willingness to assist others in FF.
Best regards
traderjane