NanningBob V1 Trend auto trading robot by Steve Hopwood

I am closing this thread because of exciting developments elsewhere. Development of this robot continues, but in a different form. Please visit http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...11#post4331411 to read about the latest developments.

If contributors want me to re-open the thread they only have to pm me and ask, but I shall not be developing this robot further. What follows is the original thread.


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SERIOUS WARNING

1. Most Forex traders lose all their money.
2. Using the robot posted here in trading Forex does not guarantee success.
3. Trading this robot could lead to serious financial loss.
4. Trading this robot without understanding its underlying trading strategies guarantees traders will lose their money.
5. To trade this robot, you have to understand NanningBob's V1 Trend trading system. To learn how to do this you need to learn NanningBob's V5 trading system, so go to http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=274194
   

Do not use this EA on live accounts yet.

The bot attempts to fulfil two functions:

 

1. to replace the 1.0 5x5 buy/sell waiting ea's in Bob's thread, along with the Close ea's. The intention is to provide the functionality of the auto-trader to the manual traders.
2. auto-trade Bob's V1 as I understand it. It is a simple system, so I should not have misunderstood anything, but we shall see.

Attached are two robots. They are identical. Their code is identical; their inputs are identical. The only difference between the two attached versions is that the manual trader is dragged onto your chart once you have identified a setup and looks for the trade trigger. The auto-trader attempts to identify the setup for you, then looks for the trade trigger.

You drag the manual trading version onto your chart once you have identified the setup. You do not have to worry about a buy or sell ea. If the trend is up, the bot will look for a buy trigger. If down, it will look for a sell trigger.

You can use either bot for both purposes but setting the appropriate input to true - as described further down. I am simply trying to make life easy for those who are either confirmed manual or robot traders.

Once a trade is sent, both versions of the bot manage it in the same way.

Once a trade is closed for whatever reason, the manual version should shut itself down. I have included the safety feature from the original buy/sell bots, so users should receive warnings that they are familiar with.

Once a trade is taken by either robots:

 

1. Take profit is the opposite TMA line (or a TakeProfit input)
2. Stop loss is either:
   1. the high/low of the previous swing (depending on trade direction) +- PipsAddToStopLoss. The bot uses Fractals to identify the hi-low. There is a minimum-stop check to ensure the stop is allowable by the criminal. MinStopLoss is the lowest stop you are prepared to accept - defaults to a wild guess of 50. I have added a multiplication factor for this input - HiddenSwingStopLossMultiplier. This allows you to adjust the swing sl to suit your own requirements, so play with it to see which setting suits yourself.
   2. the distance between the TMA outer and inner lines multiplied by HiddenTmaStopLossMultiplier

3. The bot draws green take profit and red stop loss lines. Selecting these and moving them will make the bot adjust the stop/tp to reflect the line; If you want to drag and drop the TP line manually, be sure to set the MoveTpLineWithTMA to false or you will just be happily moving your TP all night and not understanding why it jumps back to the original TMA line. You can change the colour of the lines to suit yourself. Note that these lines will not appear for 1 minute after the trade is sent. The bot goes to sleep for 1 minute after a trade-send to give the trade time to appear in the platform's order history. Without this restriction, trades can be sent multiple times (coders, there are other safety features in place as well - you can see them for yourselves).
4. The bot also draws a red, dashed line that represents the stop loss that we hide from the criminal. This hidden stop is also displayed in the screen feedback, next to the open trade message. Adjust the hidden stop line and the bot will adjust the hidden stop to reflect the new value.

Open trade management
The bot includes some of the more often used mptm management features. By default:

 

1. Breakeven is set to Bob's recommendation of +3 at +15. This might be too close for some pairs and may generate some errors.
2. Jumping stop is set to 30

Follow the link in my signature to download the mptm user guide if you are not familiar with it. All pip entries are made as 'proper' pips and the bot adjusts for x digit crims.

Platform re-starts (only applies to auto-trading)
The bot should restart where it left off in the event of a platform shutdown and restart. It does this by using Global Variables. Global variables are small files stored on your hard drive and can be viewed by pressing the F3 key. Globals set by this bot will have the prefix, "NV V1 trend " and the symbol as the suffix. Each one will hold the value 0, or 1:

 

1. 0 means the trend is up and the bot is waiting for a long trade trigger.
2. 1 means the trend is down and the bot is waiting for a short trade trigger.

Global variables can be deleted, edited or added.

Inputs
Other inputs that might need explanation:

 

1. EA use inputs:
   1. AutoTrader: makes the bot act as an auto-trader - it looks for the setup and then the trade trigger
   2. NB_V1_Trend_Waiting_EA: makes the bot act as a 'waiting' ea in the style of the 1.0 5x5 buy/sell waiting ea's in Bob's thread.

2. VisualStopLoss is the 'hard' stop loss sent with the trade, to hide our true stop from the criminal. You might want to make this much larger than the wild-guess default of 100.
3. TouchBufferPips: only applies to auto-trading. The distance from the outer TMA lines to consider the market to have made a touch and prepare to send a trade.
4. The 'true' stop loss is hidden from the criminal. The bot will attepmt to close losing trades at a hidden stop loss that the crim cannot see. Stop loss inputs are:
   1. Previous swing inputs:
      1. UseSwing: make the bot take the high/low of the previous swing (depending on trade direction) +- PipsAddToStopLoss. The bot uses Fractals to identify the hi-low.
      2. MinStopLoss is the lowest stop you are prepared to accept - defaults to a wild guess of 50. There is a minimum-stop check to ensure the stop is allowable by the criminal.

   2. TMA
      1. UseTma nakes the bot use the TMA to calculate the stop. It uses the distance between the TMA outer and inner lines.
      2. HiddenStopLossMultiplier multiplies TMA pip calculation by this figure. The default leaves the calculation alone. 0.75 would make the stop three quarters of the calculation; 1.25 would be one and a quarter etc

5. Trading hours: it can be crucial to trading success to send trades during periods when the pair's market is most active. The defaults allow 24 hour trading, so you may want to alter these. They work in your own computer's local time. For example, if you only want to trade the London session but live in Tokyo, then you have to enter start_hourm etc at the hours that London is open from your point of view in Tokyo. Don't even think about asking questions about this; sort it out for yourself.
6. UseConvergenceFilter: only applies to auto-trading. This allows the bot to use the rudimentary convergence filter. If the TMA middle and 240 MA are moving towards one another, the bot will not trade. Leave this set to false for now, as it is far too basic a filter to have any value.
7. The "Trading Allowed" inputs afford you control over whether or not to trade at all, or in which direction. Trading when the 240/TMA are converging might not be a good idea - the trend might be about to change. You might not want to trade in one direction if the criminal's swap rates will crucify trades in that direction.
8. TakeProfit: a tp in pips if you want to try to trade this bot as a true trend trader, rather than a daily scalper in the direction of the trend. Turn off MoveTpLineWithTMA if you wish to do this.
9. MoveTpLineWithTMA: set this to true and the bot will move the tp line when the TMA lines move, then adjust the tp accordingly. The bot needs 'ticks' to make this work, so events will take a few seconds in a slow-moving market. If you want to drag and drop the TP line manually, be sure to set the MoveTpLineWithTMA to false or you will just be happily moving your TP all night and not understanding why it jumps back to the original TMA line.
10. CriminalIsECN: set this to 'true' if your crim is a 2 stage crim. If you do not even know what this is, then your crim is probably not a 2 stager. IBFX are, even though they do not say so.
11. Moving averages and Fractals inputs. I am not going to explain these because: those who know how to use them do not need explanation; if you do not know how to use them, you will non understand the explanation so leave them alone. They offer inveterate tinkerers the freedom to experiment at will.

Convergence
There is an input that stops trading when the TMA middle and 240MA are converging: UseConvergenceFilter. It works like this, when set to 'true':

 

1. Uptrend: looks at the TMA middle line 1 candle ago, and disables long trading it this is higher than the current middle line, indicating that it is falling, and so converging on the 240MA.
2. Downtrend: looks at the TMA middle line 1 candle ago, and disables long trading it this is lower than the current middle line, indicating that it is rising, and so converging on the 240MA.

By default, this is set to 'false'. There is no point in disabling trading when the lines are converging but still gazillions of points apart. It is up to users to decide when to turn on this filter.

Coders: the code for this is in the bool GetConvergence() and returns a true/false decision based on whether convergence is occurring or not (called from ReadIndicatorValues() ). This makes it easy to play around with the code and add your own little tweaks.

Indicators
The bot does not need the indicators to be on the screen in order to work; you can use Bob's template with the bot added to show the figures it is working with.

There is no such animal as a set-and-forget trading EA
Describing this robot as an 'auto-trader' is true only to a certain extent. It is still up to users to monitor the charts regularly (i.e. obsessively) to decide whether to continue to allow trading on the pair. Checking that stops and tp's have been set/moved correctly is your responsibility. The more effective, knowledgeable and experienced a trader you are, the better this EA will trade for you. Do Not expect it to do your thinking for you.


Setting up the EA
Close down your MT4 platform.

 

1. download 'NanningBob V1 Trend auto trading robot by Steve Hopwood.mq4' to your platform's Expert's folder.

Restart your platform.

 

1. if on demo, start as many charts as you want (don't trade live until you understand the behavior of the bot).
2. Use H1 charts
3. load the ea onto each chart.

If this is a newly downloaded demo, you need to make sure Expert Addvisors are enabled. MT4 defaults to a neat little trick; ea's are disabled and you can stare at one for days wondering why it is refusing to works. So:

 

1. click Tools|Options and select the Expert Advisors tab.
2. put ticks in the boxes next to:
   1. Allow Expert Advisors
   2. Allow live trading
   3. Allow DLL imports
   4. Allow external experts imports

3. remove ticks from all other boxes
4. click the OK button
5. if EA's are now enabled, yours will be showing a smiley face in the top right corner of your chart. Previously, it would have been wearing a frown.

Changing inputs
Changes to inputs do not always work immediately, so always follow this procedure:

 

1. make your changes
2. save them
3. reload the robot, using the set file you just saved

Have fun guys


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Traders familiar with my work need read no further.

Posting restrictions
I have restricted the ability to post in this thread to: traders with at least 1 voucher; and traders on my 'buddy' list. I have done this because I do not want the thread cluttered with 'newbie' questions about the basics. New/inexperienced traders, this is not intended as a direct insult. What I want here is discussion with traders who fully understand what it is they are doing; when you newbs have been around a while, you will come to understand what a difference experience makes to the posts a member writes and shudder at the recollection of some of the questions you asked. I do. http://cdn.forexfactory.com/images/s..._the_floor.gif Go to your profile page; there is a link to the FF page that describes the voucher process.

Do not attempt to get around this by sending me pm's asking for help with your basic problems. Doing so will earn you an automatic ban from all of my threads.

I have set up a partner thread to this one and Nanningbob's at http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...66#post3948666
There, you can post the questions that you cannot post here, about anything you need to know. Someone with the knowledge and experience you need will answer. I opened it for Nanningbob traders, but feel free to ask about this robot as well.

Traders/coders with experience who have not yet been vouched for, can get around this restriction be being added to my 'buddy' list; all you have to do is pm me to ask me to do this.

Steve

Immediately opened a couple of trades at the correct level
TP set correctly at TMA opposite line

But SL sets at approx 10 pips away on both orders ( I have left default min 50 with pips add at 20)

Anyone else having this ?

Woo hoo.

Nice work. Will be testing tonight!

That looks like a glitch in the sl code. Use the red line to adjust it for now and I will sort it out later - I am off out now.

In the meantime, if any coder can see the obvious problem (look in void LookForTradeTrigger()) then do feel free to post an immediate fix.

I have:
for USDCAD sell at 0.99873 and SL to 1.00373;
for NZDUSD buy at 0.76535 and SL to 0.76035.

I am using default set, except lot size (demo, obviously!)

Thank to all and best regards!

Frankalde

Steve,

Well done, Sir!
That was quick.

Here is my usual "cpu-load" contribution... :

The GetTMA() function invokes the "TMA" indicator using iCustom(), 3 times in a row (to get the midlle, low, and high TMA lines).
As you know, iCustom() is very time consuming when running the backtester -- it can put a x100 on the backtest duration...
And you know how much i hate this...

Soooo....

I am going to develop just a little bit about what TMA really is.
I had been fighting with TMA long ago, back to NNB's V5 contertrend system, TMA looks "too good to be true" on a chart, and the reality is much ugglier...
zzbrnm will agree on this point i'm sure.

After analysing the TMA code, i ended up with strictly the same formulae as the LWMA.

The reality is this:

TMA "true" = LWMA

And

TMA "true" Bands = LWMA +/- 2*ATR

It actually uses ATR(period=100,shift=10) by default in TMA.

A drawing is better than 100 demonstrations, so here is the visual proof:

The following chart has Bob's template TMA(56) in Blue,
and i added LWMA(56) in dashed Red;
As you can clearly see when zooming in real hard (!!) : both overlap perfectly.
You can experiment by yourself with the attached template.






So, now that we have this issue definitely resolved, here is the simpler and optimized code for getTMA():





Cheers
Sq

Strange why it has worked for you but not me when we have same settings

My USD/CAD sell trade closed out at the 10 pip SL it set before I got a chance to change it manually, so I reloaded the chart and bot and it has opened another sell trade at 0.9995 and set a SL at 1.0002

Also I have other opened trades with small/odd SL, so still a problem for me
eg CHF/JPY buy opened at 86.41 and SL set at 86.21
eg GBP/CAD sell opened at 1.5565 and SL set at 1.5594

I have BE set at 40/3, but when it set this on GBP/CAD it moved SL to +30 ( not +3 )

Steve a couple of other things I have noticed
The TP line does not appear to be adjusting to follow the TMA line, I assumed it would at each new bar
When a trade has closed the on screen user information continues to display " There is a trade open " .... user information not resetting or possibly bot not resetting ready to look for new order ... or both maybe

Cheers

Damn, the change that Sq made with the TMA makes Backtest go super fast, didn't realize iCustom was causing such a slowdown with my EA's, nice

Thanks for the EA Steve

I believe that was already pointed out in Bob's thread. I also believe that Bob uses TMA centered for his live trading. The breakdown to LWMA was pointed out during the squabble about the TMA centered repainting. But I am all for lowering CPU usage as I have all of my trading on a VPS. As long as the trades mirror the manual system, I am all for it.

Steve,

Once things get ironed out as to SL and CPU usage, would it be possible to incorporate the TMA angle indicator developed in Bob's thread as a filter? It would be great to compare the auto bot using two demos started at the same time: One as the original and 1 using the TMA angle filter. The indicator was created on a request in the thread that Bob would like to have a filter based on the angle of the TMA. I do not think he has incorporated it yet into his trading. Just my .02.

Steve,

Thank you for the EA, it looks good. I'll look at it more tonight.

Just from browsing, here are two observations not bug

1. Fractals are choppy a ZIGZAG(5,1,1) will be give better swing high/low levels
i.e., probably why some are seeing 10 pips SL

2. Agree with squalou, LWMA is better over iCustom and I verified his formula is correct, Thanks squalou, also Bob used TMA true while developing the system, so another reason for LWMA

Thanks,
Kumar

I am not a programmer, however in the past coding the indicator into the trading bot instead of using ICustom calls has saved greatly on resource usage. Would that not work here?

Yes, it would work here.
I like squalou's method better.

There's NO difference in value between TMA True, TMA Centered and LWMA+-2*ATR(100) at the current tick, that's all that matters in trading it. The system rules don't judge past TMA placement; I think Bob mentioned he does use the Centered because it gives a smoother overall picture about both trend and range of a pair, and so mentioned some other traders too. I don't think the robot will estimate market rhythm via TMA smoothness in the past, and if it won't, there is absolutely no reason not to use the LWMA instead; the only purpose of coding the Centered into the bot would be drawing the lines on screen by the bot.

Fantastic sq. You really are a total star.

I just returned home and will make the amendments after having something to eat.

Cheers

I agree, the difference is past representation which has no bearing on current trading. The ICustom function used to call the values of TMA True (or Centered I would imagine) is a resource hog. The discussion was about trying to reduce the resource usage. One way would be to code the custom indicator into the robot itself. The fix by sqalou is simpler and easier, granted. I do like the aspect of the lines being drawn on the screen though, as I believe there will always be circumstances or sentiment changing information that would necessitate closing some trades and waiting for fresh setups, especially if the recent swing high/low used for the SL is very far away due to a pick up in volatility. Again, just a personal preference. I can always just put the indicators on the chart or have them coded in once we get things running smoothly.

Hi Steve,

I had to change:

double MinStopLevel = MarketInfo(Symbol(), MODE_STOPLEVEL);

to


double MinStopLevel = MarketInfo(Symbol(), MODE_STOPLEVEL)*Point;

MinStopLevel on FXPRO shows up as 50... and this should be 5 for the check you do under it in LookForTradeTrigger().


Jag

Ehup guys

I have made the edits as provided my Sq; my processor is no longer taking the hammering it was. Fantastic.

I have also added the fix offered by sidjujag. Nice one, sidjujag. You found a blatant error in my logic.

The bot has taken taken trades in backtesting in strategy tester, thanks to all of the above.

Thanks guys. How has the stop loss thingy been doing? I cannot see anything wrong in the code, but I am tired and have drunk a couple of glasses of wine.

Fixes/edits in post 1.

Hi the fix I quoted was to fix the stoploss issue.

It is not coded to do so. It can be. Let us see if this proves to be necessary. As this is intended to be an automation of Bob's strategy, do say if tp's are supposed to move in tandem with the TMA line.

I think I have fixed this - I noticed the same on my demo when I returned home tonight. If not, it is only a simple logic thingy that will not be hard to track down.