Spider: an auto-trader for spiderforex's VQ system

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. This ea requires frequent manual intervention.
6. At best, a trading robot is only 90% as good as the manual strategy it trades. At best. At worst, it can be much less effective. If the strategy is rubbish, so is the robot.
7. To trade this robot, you have to understand:
   1. spiderforex's system at http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...67#post4883867
   2. hanover's Recent Strength indi at http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=163158

PLEASE NOTE. THERE WILL BE NO FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THIS EA HERE. DEVELOPMENT CONTINUES IN MY OWN FORUM.

Welcome to Spider.



I am trading this EA on a live account.


Visit spiderforex's thread at http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...67#post4883867 for an explanation of the trading system. He asked me to code a robot for it, so I have.


You need the attached indi in your Indicator's folder; load it onto your chart if you want visual confirmation of the signals the bot trades.


There is a Martingale option and a lot multiplier. There are the standard mptm features. TP and SL defaults are pure guesswork. The bot does not close a trade on the appearance of an opposite-direction signal; the code to do this is present and can be resurrected in seconds if this is a feature of the trading that I have missed.

Length, take profit and stop loss
spiderforex wrote this in post 12:
"IMHO, The best settings for the EA for EURUSD is 30M with 30 SL and NO TP with Jumping Stop Loss and Break Even. Length would 8

With Length 8 , 30M time frame is the best for almost all famous pairs."

The attached version of the indi has the length of 8 set by default. Spider also has these defaults except for the take profit, which is also 30 and there is no jumping stop set etc; that is a matter of experimentation.

spiderforex has written some more useful advice in this post: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...95#post4945795

Take profit and trade management in light of subsequent experience
This section is an add-in to the original post, in light of what we have been learning.

It is now possible to have two levels of take profit:

 

1. FirstTradeTakeProfit applies to the first trade in the sequence, or all trades if Martingale is disabled. It should be multiples of the stop loss, or even no tp if you want to allow Spider to manage the trade.
2. SubsequentTakeProfit applies to Martingale trades and should be the same as the stop loss for M to work properly.
3. AlsoManageMartingaleTrades tells Spider to apply your chosen management functions to the initial trade in the sequence, and not subsequent Martingale trades should the initial trade fail.

Atr take profit and stop loss: some users requested this. Note that I have no intention of using it in live trading. The default AtrPeriod of 0 turns off Atr. If you do not understand the inputs, you probably cannot use Atr.

Filters to help avoid over-trading
You will find all the usual margin filters to avoid overtrading. They do not operate at pending trade-sending time; we need the pendings in place so that they can fill if the market reaches the appropriate price.

 

1. UseZeljko: this ensures that a second trade including one of the currencies already being traded is 'balanced. The easiest way to explain this is with an example:
   1. Buy GBPxxx open, so only sell GBPxxx. So, if the buy is GBPUSD, then only sell GBPJPY, GBPCHF etc. The rationale is that forex markets are highly sensitive to big movements caused by international events. If something drastic hits the GBP and you are in two sell positions, then both are heading horribly into drawdown. If one of the trades is a buy and the other a sell, then one is going down the tube but its balancing buy is heading for the stratosphere.

2. OnlyTradeCurrencyTwice: using the balanced pair example, the GBP is now involved in two balanced trades. Another trade involving the pound will unbalance the trades and leave the trader exposed to a horrible counter-movement. This filter prevents the GBP from being involved in any further trading of different pairs. It also operates at pending-trade sending time and will prevent the pending being sent if it would violate this filter.
3. I have included the swap filters for reasons that will become obvious if you trade the high-cost swap pairs in the wrong direction.
4. ScoobsMarginCheck: will stop trading if your account margin > your free margin divided by 100
5. ForexKiwi: will stop trading if your margin percent drops below your selected input in FkMinimumMarginPercent.

Hanover Recent Strength
Read about this at http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=319709. Spider includes this filter.

All Averages filter
I received this pm earlier today:
"Good Morning Steve - I never cease to be amazed by your continued output of EAs
I look at many of them to see what I can adapt to my own 1 min TF trading in the early European session and I'm currently running Spider with some good results.
However, I feel that it would benefit from a moving average filter to keep out some of its loosing entries.
Would it be possible to add into the inputs box the AllAverages indy - I can send it if you dont have a copy.
And entry would then be limited ..... Buy Price> AA MA; Sell Price < AA MA.......an additional filter of checking for a positive / negative slope of the AA MA would also be helpful.
Eitherway, should you go ahead, I would prefer to remain anonyous
Best regards"

I will say that the sender of this pm is one of the most respected traders and contributors here at FF; only an idiot would take no notice of him.

So, I have added All Averages as a filter, with an input to turn it on or off - defaulting to on. The indi is called All Averages because the MA_Method input allows you to specify the moving average method to use. I have copied the commented list from the head of the indi code, and added it right at the end of this post.

Add the indi to your chart and you will see where it would have filtered out some of the bad trades; it looks like an invaluable addition. For current best-settings for the AA inputs, read this post and those around it - http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...25#post5013925 If downloaded here, the indi has a default MA_Period of 50 to match that of Spider.

And later on....................
I re-read this contributor's email when he sent me All Averages. Here is what he wrote:
"At present, I just let Spider open the trades after FO - off a 1 min chart, with VQ 5,1,1,5 with a 30 pipTP and a 15 pip SL. I then adjust both of these to suite the action / volatility that I'm seeing......so during this morning's Frankies Hour, the TP was 10 pips and SL went to 5 pips ASAP.....2 small losses and 5 winners :-).....then a buy 2 mins after LO ran up 61 pips, so my daily quota is banked"

In light of this, I have turned all the VQ variables into user inputs; you have complete control over the calls Spider makes to VQ.

Have fun





Testing Spider with Hanover
These traders are testing various aspects of Spider trading. I invite others to offer their tests and will attempt to post results as they come in. I suggest testers post results once a week, at the end of the week. Please post immediately with a, "This is what I am testing" post, so I can update here and help others avoid duplication.

 

1. Panamamike: no Martingale. No AllAverages.
   1. Hanover TimeFrames = H1. SlopeConfirmationCandles = 1.
   2. Hanover TimeFrames = D1. SlopeConfirmationCandles = 1.
   3. Results:

2. blazko: no Martingale. With AllAverages.
   1. Hanover TimeFrames = H1. SlopeConfirmationCandles = 1.
   2. Hanover TimeFrames = D1. SlopeConfirmationCandles = 1.
   3. Results:

Simple Spider
SS is Spider with everything not in spiderforex's original spec removed, apart from the margin filters. I removed all the extras after this post http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...91#post5104891 and my conclusions in the following one.

If you want to continue experimenting with any of the other features, then use Spider and simply turn off those that you do not need.

Matters of general interest

Read this post:
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...11#post4923611 Newbie traders, read this for inspiration and warning. Those of you who have suffered losses, read it for inspiration.

EA coding
If I code your EA for free, then I will share it here at FF. If you want me to code your EA without sharing, then my fee is $100 payable into my paypal account.

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 Also at http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...98#post4709098, which includes a template for both USD and the Euro.
4. Past-trades display indi by squalou; shows a graphical display of the success/failure of trades in your History tab. Breathtaking piece of work. http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...10#post3830610
5. My shell EA – the code I use to produce EA's so quickly. http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...94#post4431794

Most promising trading EA's

 

1. BigBob: an implementation of Nanningbob V10. http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=309980. The strategy is fantastic and I am having a ball trading it manually. The EA is the most promising I have coded so far.
2. Aurora, a PwR-based EU scalper at http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=312936
3. Trendy: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...82#post4840182, but should be left behind by BigBob.
4. Reversi: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=294255 – I have traded this live.
5. Rip: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...98#post4777998
6. The Beast: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...=1#post4135863

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 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.

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.


All Averages Ma_Method possibilities:
// List of MAs:
// MA_Method= 0: SMA - Simple Moving Average
// MA_Method= 1: EMA - Exponential Moving Average
// MA_Method= 2: Wilder - Wilder Exponential Moving Average
// MA_Method= 3: LWMA - Linear Weighted Moving Average
// MA_Method= 4: SineWMA - Sine Weighted Moving Average
// MA_Method= 5: TriMA - Triangular Moving Average
// MA_Method= 6: LSMA - Least Square Moving Average (or EPMA, Linear Regression Line)
// MA_Method= 7: SMMA - Smoothed Moving Average
// MA_Method= 8: HMA - Hull Moving Average by Alan Hull
// MA_Method= 9: ZeroLagEMA - Zero-Lag Exponential Moving Average
// MA_Method=10: DEMA - Double Exponential Moving Average by Patrick Mulloy
// MA_Method=11: T3 - T3 by T.Tillson
// MA_Method=12: ITrend - Instantaneous Trendline by J.Ehlers
// MA_Method=13: Median - Moving Median
// MA_Method=14: GeoMean - Geometric Mean
// MA_Method=15: REMA - Regularized EMA by Chris Satchwell
// MA_Method=16: ILRS - Integral of Linear Regression Slope
// MA_Method=17: IE/2 - Combination of LSMA and ILRS

AVE STEVE,
Thank you very much.This is 2nd EA and 2nd thread in less than 6 hours. I do not know what you are taking to be so creative and productive. Whatever it is I want some.
Kind Regards

Thank you Steve...I'm testing the EA right now and post the results. If anyone has any doubts on the system..happy to answer

Hi Steve,

There seems to be an error in EA regarding closing of the trade when signal changes without touching either SL or TP etc

The EA waits for either Take Profit, Stop Loss, Jumping Stop Loss, Trialling Stop Loss etc to hit, before closing the trade. The EA does not close the trade and open a new trade when signal changes, it waits for either TP, SL, JPL to hit before closing the trade.

I'm sorry i did not make this point clear.

For example, if the Stop Loss is 10 and Take Profit is 10 and the signal is buy...After a while, the signal changes to Sell, at that moment the profit is 5.....during the whole trade period the price did not touch either SL or TP..the price was hovering in between SL and TP.Hence, in this scenario, the EA would close the trade as it is when a new signal is generated by the indicator and if the trade is closed with profit, the next trade would be with min lot and if the last trade has closed in loss without touching either SL or TP, it will use martingale for the next trade.

We have two scenarios. The first scenario was covered in the EA and is functioning well.

Scenario 1: When the price hits either SL or TP etc. The EA closes the trade and waits for the next signal to appear before making a trade..if the last trade was a loss, it uses martingale, if it was profit, it goes with minimum lot on the next trade >>no problem with this scenario in the EA

Scenario 2: The price neither touches SL or TP, however, the signal changes >> in this case, the trade would be closed and a new trade would be opened. If the closed trade was in loss, then martingale will be applied for the next trade, if the closed trade was in profit, then the next trade will be opened with min lot as usual. >> This scenario was to be implemented in the EA.

I'm sorry for the confusion.

Thanks.

I have attached an image for the above scenario 2 error in AUDUSD chart, as we can see, the EA is waiting for either SL or TP to hit, before closing the trade, even though the signal has already changed from sell to buy.

Fixed. Update in post 1.

Thanks a lot Steve.....I will check it out....regards....

Steve

Is it possible to restrict the number of levels the martingale goes to before resetting. On a backtest of EU second half of last year I started with 0.01 lot and reached 20.48

Paul

Hello everyone

Just finished reading the Spiderforex thread.

Even though it's not part of spiderforex's rules, someone suggested using the VQ7 indi on a higher TF for confirmation (not trading against it). For example, the H1 confirms M15 trades, the M15 confirms M1 trades, etc

Do you guys think this could be of any use?

I'll link my acct to myfxbook later today

thanks steveHopwood for the EA, I have been using VQ manually for some times, but the way I use it is different, I set the Time Frame of VQ to 15 min and put it on 1 min chart, that way I am able to trade the 1min TF with the trend of the 15min TF and that has accounted for the effectiveness.

though this is a deviation from the spiderforex way of doing it. My request now is that please make it possible for us to put in the TF for VQ as an extern variable. so that the EA will be watching the higher TF as it trades the lower TF

kos

Latest update in post 1.

I have been busy with Aurora today, and it only just dawned on me that Spider had taken no trades, despite umpteen signals from VQ7.

Under the hood, Spider has the same trade-generation engine as does jor - just a different indi. I needed to make the same order-of-events alterations here as jor needed. Also, there was a typo in the indi-consulatation code.

Spider has taken trades in the last few minutes and is on the second leg of its Martingale sequence.

Will do. In the meantime, I found this happened if Spider is allowed to close trades on an opposite-direction signal, which is why I removed it originally.

To try this in ST without this feature, go to void LookForTradeClosure() and make your very first command
return();
and recompile. Makes a heck of a difference in backtesting.

Thanks for the update Steve. The other version was also executing trades, i will try the new version also.

IMHO, The best settings for the EA for EURUSD is 30M with 30 SL and NO TP with Jumping Stop Loss and Break Even. Length would 8

With Length 8 , 30M time frame is the best for almost all famous pairs.

Yep, looks like in higher TF 30M its not taking the trades, yesterday during testing, 1m and 5m tf, the trade was going well...will check the updated EA

Latest update in post 1.

 

1. I have adapted spiderforex's inputs from post 12 as the defaults.
2. The reason for Spider not trading on my demo yesterday turned out to lie in the code that checks for balanced trading and has existed throughout my recent work.
3. I have removed that funny little alert that crops up from time to time. I use this in debugging to show that program execution has reached a certain point, and forgot to remove it.

Hi Steve,
New update on Spider is doing well........I have a question....The length on the indi is still set on 7 while the bot is now up to 8......As good as the bot is trading I have left things alone but thought I'd report it.....

Have a great weekend

whip

Cheers whip. I forgot to upload the modified default VQ7. Have done so now. Uploaded, I mean, not forgotten again.

Just so everyone knows, Spider's inputs are independent of the indi inputs; you need them to be the same so that what you see the EA doing equates to what you see on screen if you have the indi loaded onto a chart for confirmation that the Spider is doing what Spider should do.

hi spiderforex,
how is your result so far?

can you post your set. file of the ea you running?

and please share which pair and what time flame you using.

Thanks

Anyone interested in a more general use of VQ might care to visit
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...33#post4944733

Hi,

I started testing the EA since thu-Friday, to check everything works out, So i tried with various settings....However, I'm developing new settings now also....for the time being..for AUDUSD...These settings are doing well...

Check out the statement and set file in the zip file...it took only one trade but the EA is working well...Test it with 35 length also..good luck

great...looks good..will check it out..Thanks