FXCM/DailyFX Signals and Strategies

As a first look for those of you following this thread, there was an alerts preferences button added to the DailyFX+ Signals which allows you to create email and text alerts for the trading signals!!!! Feel free to test it out and let me know any feedback

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/787...201094832a.png

Hi Jason, this is a good improvement, to the webpage. There are few more coments, regarding this:

- if that buton from Alerts will select strategies one by one not just breakout, momentum and range, I believe it would be be very helpfull for the traders that trade from home.

-your new alerts Preferences is active just for USA, but what about UK or another states?

anyway there isn't too much time left until this is going on automatic mode.

David Rodriguez of DailyFX just posted on twitter the invite to beta test the DFX+ automated trading signals:

Soon we to have a public beta of the DFX+ Trading Signals on Strategy Trader. If you'd like to join, e-mail "Beta" to [email protected]
http://twitter.com/DRodriguezFX/stat...02362216579072

Send an email over to David with beta in the subject and he will add you to the list!

sorry for the late reply. Thanks Jason, that worked for me.

cheers

I am unable to set mt email address to receive alerts of brealout2 alerts , after filling all the details and submit , after refreshing the site the whole details erase. please help to set my email address.

Hi ashaab,

I imput my details there, and I close the website, and I receive just for couple hours.

It may be still a beta version Jason?

It's a beta version so there could be some things to fix. I came across the same problem when using Google Chrome web browser. Can you try using internet explorer if you're using a different browser.

The EUR/USD channel resistance Jamie Saettele previously pointed out in his Daily Technicals seems to be holding for now (screenshot below). Interesting that Fitch's downgrade of Ireland earlier today didn't have a larger impact on the Euro. John Kicklighter commented earlier that "Had Fitch's downgrade of Ireland come two weeks ago, the euro would've plunged. Thats the power of a bailout and speculators' attention spanhttp://bit.ly/fUOtpC " I completely agree with his point.

http://img602.imageshack.us/img602/8...1292010310.png

Looking at the calendar for the the rest of the week, there's relatively little high impact economic news until tomorrow (Friday) at 9:55am when U. of Michigan Confidence is released for the US. And the DailyFX+ trading signals are showing a bit of uncertainty. There are no signals open at the moment for EUR/USD.

hello Jason Rogers , thanks for your detail reply - one more question about this one, if i want to open only one trade (10k) instead of four trade so which one is the best trade to set stop and limit order so that we get more benefit from the signal (not exit too early or not too hold to loose my profit). I should take stop 1 and limit 1 order or i should select the fourth one in which there is a stoploss without limit order. please suggest me in detail , I am very thankful to you.

I can't recommend one over the other unfortunately since this could greatly impact the trading results. Stop1 and Limit1 tend to be the largest in terms of distance from the open price, so your potential for profit and loss will be larger. Whereas Stop4 and Limit4 for example may be the tightest which could mean your limit hits more often, but your stop could hit more often as well. Choosing one over the other will impact the results when the strategy is meant to be traded with all positions.

I would suggest trading it on a micro account instead of trading 1 lot of 10k. You can access Strategy Trader with a micro account and it would give you more flexibility.

Quiet trading in EUR/USD leading up to the weekend. The drop in market volatility could just be a sign of a normal decrease in volatility as we head into the holidays. The volatility readings on the DailyFX Technicals page are fairly low with the exception of EUR/CHF. Here's a screenshot:

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/6...tyreadings.png

One of the more interesting charts I ran across today is crude oil. Jamie Saettele posted the below chart pointing out oil has fallen below the short term trendline.

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/9487/usoil.jpg

Oil can be found on the FXCM UK demo account listed as USOil and UKOil in the dealing rates window. USOil tracks the WTI futures oil contract whereas UKOil tracks the Brent futures oil contract.

Breakout Indicator....Here's an interesting indicator developed by FXCodeBase for you to test on the Marketscope chart. A brief explanation from Nikolay on the FXCodeBase forum for how this indicator is setup:

One of trading methods supposes that in the beginning of the trading day the price sets the borders which will be broken only in one direction. For example, if the price goes above the first five hour highs it means that the price will go up today. FXCodeBase.COM: Forex Chart Indicators and Development • View topic - Breakout indicator

http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/3...tindicator.png

You can see from the image above of GBP/JPY that the indicator identifies the high/low from the first 5 hours of the trading day (which starts at 17:00 EST). It then draws the yellow high/low range lines based upon the high/low set during the first 5 hours of trading. I know traders often mention they notice the market usually takes off around the start of the London session, and it's also interesting to note the number of times the breakout on the indicator also tends to happen around that time.

The indicator is attached to this post and you can also find it on FXCodeBase http://www.fxcodebase.com/code/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=966

Jason, I am not a big fan of Marketscope, but I will give a try to this indicator, I'll see when I find some free time .

Thanks for bringing it up

Sunday morning... everybody sleeping in the house... free time

Jason please see a little test of september this year on EUR-USD

any other ideas around this breakout indicator?

As with any indicator, you'll need to experiment with different risk management settings to find any optimal setup. For example, do you enter into a trade when the candle crosses or closes above or below the lines; How many pips away is your limit and what signals a false breakout for a stop-out, etc. Changing these variables can affect the outcome so you should evaluate it the same as with any other indicator you're using.

Here's the schedule of live events being hosted by DailyFX this week:


Live Trading Events

 

1. Mon (Dec 13th, 16:00 GMT) – Fundamental Trading with John Kicklighter
2. Tues (Dec 14th, 13:30 GMT) – US Retail Sales with John Rivera
3. Tues (Dec 14th, 23:50 GMT) – Japanese Tankan Manufacturing (4Q) with Ilya Spivak
4. Wed (Dec 15th, 09:30 GMT) – UK Jobless Claims Change (NOV) with Michael Wright
5. Wed (Dec 15th, 13:30 GMT) – US CPI (NOV) with David Song
6. Thur (Dec 16th, 18:00 GMT) – DailyFX Trading Room: Buy or Sell? with Tom Long

Webinars

 

1. Tues (Dec 14th, 23:00 GMT) – Fundamental Analysis of the Gold and Dollar Markets with Ilya Spivak
2. Thur (Dec 16th, 15:00 GMT) – Correlations Trading with Gold and the Dollar with David Rodriguez

All events are hosted on DailyFX here http://www.dailyfx.com/calendar/trade_the_news/

Here's a pre-FOMC look at the SSI data posted earlier this morning.

http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/4...01095657am.png

Traders are net long the USD versus all of the major currencies except for the NZD.

While the no changes are expected to be made from the FOMC in terms of interest rates, it will be important to look at the statement for any changes to the 2011 and 2012 forecasts and acknowledgements about possible improvement in the economy.

David Song of DailyFX will be hosting live news and trading analysis before, during, and after the FOMC release accessed here http://www.dailyfx.com/calendar/trade_the_news/

Hi Jason,
Let me clarify this short study strategy:
Add to this breakout indicator an EMA55.
take the trades with close bar under/over breakout lines with the TP same distance between the breakout lines, but just the trades that are not against the EMA55.
SL- under/over the breakout line, oposite the buy/sell direction.
RR 1:1. If you know to look after the support resistance, then RR will became variable as you place them.

trade it on demo for a while....

I thought it would be interesting to take look at the market reaction to previous 4 FOMC rate decisions. Attached a screenshot of EUR/USD 1 minute chart up until 30 minutes after the release and all 4 lined up in chronological order from June until November. You'll notice the dollar reacted bearishly to each statement with only the most recent statement causing a retracement within 30 minutes of the release. Make of it what you will, just something interesting to look at...

See Attached Picture

Optimizing your EA/Indicator (in Strategy Trader)

This post from yesterday has me thinking about optimizing strategies. With any indicator, you're left to decide what numbers to input for each variable as well as the risk management settings for taking profit and stopping losses. The default variables are simply default and it's up to you to decide which variables to choose. This can take time, so I would like to show you a useful tool in Strategy Trader for optimization. A word of caution before reading this post, backtested performance does not indicate the same will occur in future results.

I'm sure that many of you are familiar with CCI (Commodity Channel Index). For those unfamiliar, CCI is an oscillator much like RSI which many traders use to identify overbought and oversold levels. The programming services team recently created a basic CCI EA for Strategy Trader which will buy when CCI crosses above oversold (default -100) and the strategy will sell when CCI crosses below overbought. I have attached the strategy to this post if you would like to import it into Strategy Trader.


Starting with the default indicator/EA settings

Here’s what the default settings for this strategy are set to:

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/5...it12142010.png

So you can see the default -100/100 for oversold levels are used along with an 80 pip stop and 145 pip limit. Running a back-test of this strategies performance on the EUR/USD 1 hour chart gives the following results. Net profit of $290 on 47 total trades over a 27 day period. I highlighted this key data in the back-test. The reporting is much more expansive inside the platform. I have simply cut it down to give a quick overview of important points for this example.

http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/1...sis1214201.png

The system is profitable in the backtest, but the results are by no means spectacular. The next question I ask myself is “Can I do better than this?”. Maybe my limit and stop levels could be better placed. Am I getting stopped out too often before the system turns profitable, am I just missing my limit only to have the trade then stopped out, and so forth.

The Strategy Trader platform includes genetic optimization which can basically go through hundreds of scenarios to find the optimal inputs for the selected variables. Here’s how to optimize with advanced settings.


Optimizing the indicator/EA

When you add the EA to the chart, the format objects window will appear. This is where you can change the variables for your EA. You’ll also notice on the right hand side there is an optimize button. See image below:

http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/1...010121533p.png

After you click on optimize, the select optimization method window will appear where you can choose between exhaustive and genetic. Exhaustive takes longer but is more thorough. I go with genetic since it’s faster.

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/6384/genetic.png

And lastly, this will make the Genetic Algorithim Properties appear. This is where all the action happens. Notice the red box I have selected. This shows the input for the stop and limit. You are also able to select a start value and an end value. For the stop amount I have selected 10 as the start and 150 as the end. This means we’re going to test different backtest outcomes on stop amounts ranging from 10 pips to 150 pips trying to find the optimal stop amount in pips. To the right there is also a step field. This indicates how many steps from one stop amount to the next. For example, a step amount of 1 indicates it will try an 10 pip stop, then an 11 pip stop, then a 12 pip stop…trying to find the best one. Naturally the larger the range you enter and the smaller the step amount, the larger the number of simulations which will take place and the longer it will take for the optimization to occur. This optimization of 14,000+ simulations took about 6 seconds.

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST....