Ibuks breakout reversal auto trading robot by Steve Hopwood

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. This is not a set-and-forget ea; there is no such thing and anyone who tries to claim there is, is either stupid or lying. It will need manual intervention.
   

Do not trade this ea live yet. It is for demo only. See http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...06#post4684906

Early last week. Ibuks contacted me asking for an ea to trade this system:

 

1. Take the high and low of the Asian system - here in the UK is 22.00 until c. 08.00 - and draw a box that encompasses these prices.
2. Measure the distance between the hi-lo of the box and draw two additional lines this distance above and below the box.
3. Sell at the touch/break of the highest line.
4. Buy at the touch/break of the lowest line.
5. There is no take profit or stop loss. All trades are closed at a pre-determined time, regardless of profit or loss. I close mine at 16.00 London time.
6. Ibuks loves to send two trades: close the first at +10 and move the stop to BE on the second and leave it to run. I know what a nightmare this causes to coders given the total crap represented by MT4, so I told him to use mptm to achieve this. I mention this only because it is part of Ibuks' system but is not coded into this robot.

So, this ea allows you to:

 

1. Identify a measurement range
2. Wait for a breakout of this range
3. Trade the reversal when the breakout loses strength

Ibuks is using the Asian market to identify his measurement range, because he lives in the UK and was trading this manually before asking for an ea; I am trading this range also. Users can adapt it to suit any measurement range they care to adopt.

I have shamelessly pinched squalou's code for measuring a range from his 3 tier London breakout ea (cheers again sq). This prints two boxes on the chart: the first shows the range that is being measured (very light blue in the attached pic) and the trading hours (beigy-sort-of colour). Look at the attached pic; this shows the two boxes. You can also see that the market almost reached the sell trade triggering level on Friday, but well after I had finished trading. Hopefully, I can post a better illustration next week.

Ibuks has been trading this manually and successfully for a while; the ea made pips on my demo account last week. It also taps into the body of knowledge and understanding we have been gaining through our development of The Beast, so I regard this as a promising ea.

Time inputs
These are going to cause you some difficulties. sq uses your criminal's server time as a basis for his time calculations, so deciding on your hi-lo measurement hours and trading hours is a 4 stage process. Imagine you want to use the Asian session to measure the hi-lo, then trade the London session using the Asian hi-lo to trigger your trades:

 

1. work out when the Asian market opens in your own local time
2. work out when the Asian market closes in your own local time. This will also be the start of your London trading session
3. work out when the London market closes
4. convert steps 1-3 to your criminal's server time

Good luck. You will have to experiment to arrive at the correct inputs. Please read rule no 2 of Trading Rules below.

Other inputs
Other inputs that might need some explanation:

 

1. StopTrading: this allows the bot to draw the boxes and lines but not to trade. This is set to 'true' by default to allow you to mess around and find your correct StartTime etc inputs without worrying about premature trades. Remember to turn this off when you are ready to trade.
2. TakeProfit: Ibuk's system as sent to me has no take profit. It may well be worthwhile experimenting with a 'hard' tp of 30 to 50 pips (enter these in 'proper' pips as the ea takes care of x digit criminals).
3. StopLoss: by default the ea does not send one as it automatically closes all trades at your chosen TradeClosureHour. If we ever get to the stage of trading this live, then an emergency just-in-case sl of several hundred pips is probably a good idea.
4. CriminalIsEcn: set this to true if your crim insists on you sending two-stage orders. Note that IBFX is Ecn even though they do their best to hide this, for reasons known only to their deepest, darkest and daftest inner psyches.
5. AutoTakeProfit tells the ea to set a tp at the top/bottom of the measurement box. This is not part of Ibuk's strategy, but I include it as it makes sense to my limited imagination.
6. TradeClosureHour: to add to the time measurement confusion, this is expressed in your own local time, not your crim's server time. It is the time at which the ea will close your open trade. Experiment to find a time that suits you.
7. UserSelectedBreakoutPips: this allows you to chose the distance from the hi-lo of the box to draw the trade lines. Alter this only if you have good reason to do so.
8. Trade management module: the functions that appear in this bot are a cut-down version of the full mptm management ea. Download the full version and/or the user guide that explains the inputs from http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=89371

Thread rules
There are only two of these; take them seriously if you wish to continue to contribute:

 

1. Be positive and helpful:
   1. if you have nothing useful to say, stay stum.
   2. you are allowed to say, "This will not work because......"
   3. you are not allowed to say, "This is rubbish. You are all idiots." Not twice, anyhow.

2. Do not post questions asking about time measurement and trading times/hours inputs. Doing so will earn you an instant ban from posting in all of my threads. There are no second chances.

In conclusion
So, here we go. Ibuks will be along soon to correct any misunderstanding on my part of his trading ideas.

By the by, trust Ibuks. He is a highly imaginative and intelligent trader. I have coded a number of ea's for him in recent months and am not trading them only because their trading systems do not suit my trading style.

Have fun everybody.


http://cdn.forexfactory.com/images/s...m/big_grin.gif

Useful utilities/EA's/scripts

 

1. MaryJane has posted a fabulous utility to allow us to resize EA input windows: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=299017
2. Multi purpose trade manager: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=89371
3. Account equity analyser: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...16#post4693716

___________________________________ ____________________________

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 to my restricted threads 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; just don't expect that someone to be me.

Thanks for this new bot, Steve. Sounds like a lot of fun potential!

An idea which I personally use in my set up that would make the time thing easier for users getting this bot set up right is that I run EAs on a VPS, and I have set the time zone on the VPS to be the same as my Crim's time setting.

This just takes one more factor out of the potential confusion for me as Crim time and "my" time are then the same.

I know you don't like time stuff mentioned, Steve, but perhaps this simple trick might help someone, so I hope you don't mind me posting this here.

Will be testing this and the Jammy Dodger EA next week. Cheers!

Invisible

Found this one Steve.....Man you have been busy!!! I'll have this one going in the AM...

whip

Mine took 2 trades today.
(still got to double check if I get the times right...)

Let's see what this one does on demo

Hi Jules....
Mine hasn't taken a trade yet but everything is doing what it is supposed to do.....Good luck with it

whip

I received an interesting pm from alifari earlier tonight; here is part of it:

"...................I have been trading forex for about 2 years and done some manual backtesting on similar strategy as mentioned in your Ibuks thread.

If it is possible for you, could you please add following features to your EA.

TWO HORIZONTAL LINES (ABOVE AND BELOW) THE SESSIONRANGE

Suggestion (1):
Option to enter Pip numbers instead of horizontal lines drawn based on preset range. Lets say session range is 40 pips, but as per manual back testing, I noticed that once price breakout of a particular session range it travel an average 60 pips before retracing back. As per current EA my entry would be 40 pips above and below respectively, instead I want my order 60 pips above and below range................"

I have acted in part on this, and added the facility to chose your own distance from the hi-lo of the boxes: UserSelectedBreakoutPips is the relevant input.

alifari also wants an input to limit the number of trades per day. I shall add this if it proves necessary. As ibuks did not want it, my guess is it will not, but we shall see.

Time, time and time again where is it when you need it.
Maybe here???

http://www.worldtimebuddy.com/?lid=5...7896&h=5368361

Hi Steve,

Thank you very much for adding “UserSelectedBreakoutPips” feature to Ibuks breakout reversal EA.

As regards to limit the number of trades per day, here is further explanation. (See attached chart).

Following are EA Parameters used for back testing:

Take Profit: 25 Pips

Stop Loss: 50 Pips

Auto Take Profit: False

Start Time: 7:00 am London Time

End Time: 8:00 am London Time

Session End Time: 12:00 pm London Time

Trade Closure Hour: 4:00 pm London Time

UserSelectedBreakoutPips: 40 Pips

On May 23, 2011 EA opened a Buy order (#13) as price penetrated 40 Pips buffer and that trade reached its PROFIT target of 25 pips. However, after first trade was closed price penetrated 40 Pips buffer once again and Second Buy Order (#14) triggered which resulted in a loss as price never reached its take profit target and trade was closed at 4:00 pm London time (as per trade closure hour parameter) for a LOSS of 24 pips.

It would be very helpful for back testing and forward testing purpose, if EA contains a feature such as “limit number of trades per day”. As some traders are conservative and may want to take just one trade a day, whether they win or lose. On the other hand an aggressive trader may want to grab every retracement in same direction or opposite direction etc.

Here are my suggestions for additional parameters:

# of trades per day: 2 (input any number)

2nd trade (or Additional trades) in direction of first trade: True or False (If True all additional trades will be in same direction as first trade. If False all additional trades will be in opposite direction)

These are just my suggestions to further enhance your EA, so that it could be utilized and helpful for all kinds of traders.

Thanks,


Alifari

Good Morning Steve,
This bot IMHO needs a pair specific UserSelectedBreakoutPips number based on ATR with multiplier and diviser inputs.....After doing a bunch of juggling of numbers I can't find a happy middle ground........Is this worth doing?
The bot is just barely in profit but looks to be missing a lot of trades......Moving the number back to 25 or 30 means no reversal, alot of DD or a need to hedge....

Thanks for looking..

whip

Hi Steve,

I have been testing the EA as laid out in my specification and it is doing exactly what its suppose to do. Thanks so much.

The auto TP stuff is a great addition and I will continue to forward test with manual and this ea.

Today, NFP day, using the auto TP, it closed out
NZDUSD (Buy) - 54 pips
AUDUSD(buy) - 51 pips
GBPJPY(buy) - 99 pips
EURJPY(buy) - 50 pips
EURCHF(buy) - 47 pips.

Total today = 301 pips.

I will continue to forward test with the set up on only 12 currencies.

Cheers and have a lovely weekend.

Ibuks

Excellent.

Sorry for that uninformed post Steve.......Had a really Stupid math error.....Another bullet hole in the right foot......I'm starting over with this one.

Have a great week

whip

I know the feeling only too well. Cheers.

I ran this through the back tester (yes I know unreliable BS) with what I believe to be proper settings for my timezone/broker etc. What I saw was an amazing way to loose money. See pic.



Now, imagine being able to "reverse" those settings and suddenly you have an amazing way to MAKE money. (and yes I know that simply reversing EA settings doesn't work that way, but hey... why not give it a go?)

So what I'm suggesting is, if you get the time, add an option to trade the exact opposite direction it would normally, IE instead of sell at the top line, buy at the top line under the assumption a trend has formed and will continue for the next couple of hours before your close time is hit.

Backtest is may not really give you adequate answer to what u want. I only run backtest on an ea to chk for the right logic and be sure it is doing what it shld do. However, since the market is so dynamic, forward testing is the only way to go. However looking at your backtest, the modelling quality is so poor..maybe less than 0%/NA...lol. Try and get a better modelling quality and try again.

However, even in a very slow day like today and probably becos of sunday candles, the ea closed out for 74 pips.

GBPJPY (sell) - 12 pips
AUDUSD (Sell) - 21 pips
NZDUSD (Sell) - 9 pips
USDCAD (sell) - 25 pips
EURJPY (Sell) - 7 pips

Total = 74 pips

Yeah, I've never been able to get a decent modeling quality with MT4 and mostly use its back tests for the same thing you do, to check of the trading logic is sound. Still I'll have to forward test the EA on a demo account for a while, as if what your saying it true then it should be generally profitable.

Also, a couple of quick questions just in case I DONT have everything set up properly:

In the EA it references "SessionEndTime" is this meant to be the end of the london session? Your trading session? When I read the description in the EA it leads me to believe its when the daily sessions closes: (SessionEndTime= "16:00"; // end of daily session; tomorrow is another day).

Tradeclosurehour - Is this supposed to be same as session end time, but simply expressed in local time rather then server time? Or is it simply any old time I want it to be to close those trades?

Also, Steve mentioned your using MPTM in addition to this EA to handle setting the BE point of additional trades, if you could explain that I little more it would be helpful.

Ibuks at what time are you closing your trades? I just set up my demo today but I'm still outside trading hours. Could you please share your settings?

Why not use the default for a start and then watching how it works, you can start to amend it to suit what u want to do.

Don't expect to get the best settings by not trying....what works for u may not work for me though.

Manually, I close my trades at 10pm uk time, but am testing the ea to closing trades at 9pm uk time. But no new trades will be taken after 6pm uk time.

I am testing the default and my manual settings so I can know which will be more profitable.

So I advice u start with the default settings and gradually amend to suit your purpose

Cheers.

Well, the default settings are off by several hours for my brokers asia session, and since I'm based on the east coast the default close hour (if I recall correctly and its going by local time) is somewhere in near the middle of the asia trading session. So.. yeah, not exactly "optimal".

Once again I'm not looking for the "times" as those are easy to figure out, what I'm looking for is "Which" times should go where for those 2 instances:

sessionendtime and tradeclosehour.

IE "Which" session should be the end time? the london sessions end? or as the EA seems to imply the daily session end?

and Tradeclosehour is/should be the local time I want it to close all the trades regardless if there are winners or loosers correct?

I suppose I could hunt down Squaloos thread since steve pulled the code from his EA and see what those settings pertain to there, that is unless steve edited them greatly.

EDIT: Found it!!

SessionEndTime = End of daily session: no new trades will be open after this time;
However, the EA will continue to take care of trades that were opened before this time, and which are still open;
They will remain open until they either reach their TP or SL.
The EA will continue handling the jumping stop on these trades until they close.

So from reading that description I'm leaning towards it the time when your broker starts a new day, so if your broker is set to GMT time, it would be 00:00 and so on and so forth based on what time you broker draws the daily period seperator on your charts. . (unless I'm reading that completely wrong)

Well, it is all in post one:

Glad to help......

EDIT: Ok, see you found it yourself.
EDIT2: After the session end time the EA takes care of the trades UNTIL the closetradehour. It doesn't matter if you're in profit or loss, all trades are then closed.