Extracted Thread (per thread starter's request)

It sounds like you're planning on using it with alive acct. Not something I can condone, my friend. Better if you think of it as a video game to kill time with on demo, and leave your real acct as naked as possible.

Looking forward to trying this out. In part of my initial testing with the latest indi, managing the reversals is part of the profitability due to the lot doubling. You noted previously that the indi and the EA will have the same algos. Will that include the lot doubling? The indi has it hard coded to double now of course.

I ask because Sue mentioned her "gentleman martingale" (back at this post (http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?p=5891256#post5891256)). I'm not sure if others would benefit, but being able to modify the martingale similar to the way the fib series can be modified might be helpful.

For example, in a couple of posts you mentioned that you set G/U to 6 breakouts and now it makes sense why. As long as you have the stomach (and the account) to handle that rarity of going to 6, you're extremely likely to get that TP which recoups any losses, given high quality CZs to begin with of course. Without going to 6, if you stop at 5, the pip count can drop quite a bit. So going for that cleanup #6 on the G/U makes sense. But if I could change it from .1,.2,.4,.8,1.6,3.2 to .1,.2,.3,.5,.6,1.3,2.6 might be useful for finding the sweet spots. I might find that it's not worth it to reduce it that much; that the draw down is worth it for the tight ranges. In the mean time I'll learn ways of testing those options.

Still learning and processing though! Had I been home, it looks like many of the pairs I normally watch would either be in a trade, or close to being in a trade. Lots more to learn and really enjoying the processing.

Thanks again for sharing!

NO, the indi does NOT have Martingaling hard coded! It can be turned off by switching BoxMartingale to False. And yes, the EA will have the same option. But NEITHER will have it hard coded, and Martingaling is NOT a recommended full time element of SSBO. I don't know how I can make it any clearer.

Subs, you have yet to post any charts or talk about your SSBO experiences in general. Please do so before you spend any more time talking about the EA or Martingaling. That goes for anyone else in the same boat. I'm already pissed off at having two copycat threads going at the same time this week so I'm a bit thin skinned this week, so if you want to hit my ignore list keep rambling about Martingaling or the EA without proving that you have experience trading SSBO naked. Because SSBO is a naked trading system at heart, and participation in here means proving you have done so.

Sorry for the misquote. What I meant to say is that the martingale ratios are hard coded, not the functionality itself. I brought it up because it's common in the conversations. I am in the process of finding the sweet spots and I as do the due diligence, I see how it affects the net pips. That said, I'll turn it off and look for settings that suit my style without it. I have charts, but I haven't traded these yet because I am still early on in it.

Actually I just attached such a chart. (The RSI isn't for entries, but for exits.) I'll keep digging and come back with charts of trades. Thanks!

I totally agree with that, before this trade, my stats were telling me that with this configuration it never went trough the third trade (post5999456 (http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?p=5999456#post5999456) )....so in just one range sesion it went to the fifth (on more and my acc will be blown right now).

I have a nice fat demo a/c that it can play on, I never trust an EA on live until it is bullet proof working as per specification.

You should release it and let us find the bugs in it if any are left.

Larry

There is no way your acct should be blown by just one bad trade set if you are practising good MM. Sounds like some reevaluations are in order.

Those stats have got 2 problems, the spread and the fact that they are the past.

If you want to prove a system, you trade it small on live or any size on demo as long as it is sensible MM. You do that for at least 6 months, changing NOTHING, then if it is profitable you have a chance.

Larry

Hmmm.......I guess I need to rethink what I'm doing having read the previous posts today.....I wrongly believed that Martingaling was a standard method for you now FH?

Also I was absolutely intending on using the EA on a live account once the bugs had been ironed out......for me it seemed like the logical next step. Forgive me if this seemed very naive on my part but (and this is isn't me sounding off or meaning any disrespect whatsoever.....I am still an inexperienced dumb noob!) I don't see what the reason is to trade it on demo for fun?

Are EA's no matter how well programmed just not worth using?

I like the idea of an EA but i must admit, as a programmer, that it is very difficult to handle ALL the possible situations. For example the previous EA works in tester but in live account no trade is taken... Lost the good trade of this night... It needs a lot of testing. I will be happy to help for that when an almost stable EA will outcome.

Manual trading gives more confidence. You can adjust the box and take care of the news.

And that doesn't change all the very good stuf found here.

I started with a live account now to better feel what the spread can do for or against you.

- EURUSD
- M15
- 15 pips x 20 bars
- Buffer = 3 pips

Fixed lot size, no martingale.

And for people doing money management as a percentage of the remaining equity, i don't agree with that because it is a loosing MM when the strategy is neutral (50% win / lose). See Excel spreadsheet (example with 50% of risk to push the problem). Maybe wrong but it seems correct.

Anyway every MM is good as soon as you MASTER it. If you don't know, use fixed risk size and convert it into lots.


Thanks.

Martingale can be a handy tool, but caution is needed. I'm testing different pairs on a demo account. In attached picture you can see CHF/JPY, it was optimized in such way that the 5th attempt had a 100% succes rate.
At the moment i am writing this still not a winner and we are at the 7th attempt.
Martingale is in my opinion not the way to go, at least not for the moment and not to be used always ...

I think however that the EA will be capable of handling this kind of situations and that martingale can than again be usefull

You should be done now
Well done

1st attempt 39 wins 51 %
5th attempt 2 wins at 50 % (as per your image)

Even if the 5th attempt was 200% you less likely to get it than a 1st attempt at optimizing it to 60%.
If you would put the indie in the strategy tester in visual mode running some trailing stop ea just to make it run you would soon realize that the 1st attempt stays withing 50 to 70 % constantly for the time period you test but the second attempt can be 100 and soon 30 when the 3rd attempt goes to 100 and then drops to 40, the 100% you trying to optimize your 4th or 5th attempt to is is just the current situation at the the last closed deal, not the actual say 50 to 70 % in the first break out in the long run.

Edit:
With 2 hits to back it up (4th and 100) its more risky than the USD JPY 92% with under 20 trades.

Done, tho i walked it down on the 1 m time frame and exited a little early.

And just for the joy of getting it on the previous settings, a new tweak, less risk on fall back, 0 to open and 3 on the buffer.

Hope i don't have to trade it for a week.

Winners again on the GU and AU, my two preferred pairs. I'm having so much success at the moment but I know I need to sort this martingaling situation as it can't last forever can it.

I spent ages fiddling with the gentle martingaling that Sue uses but whilst it reduces the amount risked, reducing the stops, the chances of getting stopped out increase obviously and we all know how price fluctuates. Also aiming for higher pips reduces the "window" further as your asking more from the market......as I always say though, it works for Sue and with more analysis I'm sure I could make something to work for me.

My settings are nice and tight on all 4 pairs (GU, AU, EU, UCAD)....the latter 2 being ones I sometimes jump on if there have been some "false breakouts" previously.

Prime example today is just as I was done with the GU, I got the signal from the EU, but chose not to take it as I was happy enough with what I had got for the day......for me it would have been trade 1 on EU when for most it would have been trade 4 and trade 4....at the moment.....hasn't failed to achieve TP (as i write this PA has reached my TP).

I'm also utilizing LFR-ATR projections which gives a fairly accurate, not always but a lot of the time, projection of where PA will get to for the day.

Bit of a ramble from here, but perhaps something for people to sink their teeth into.

Hi A.W.O.L. I have been thinking on this quite a bit as well and I certainly appreciate the discussion. To use Martingale or not of course has a big impact on the chosen risk amount.

With or without Martingale, the main change in my thinking with SSBO is looking at it in terms of trade sets instead of individual trades. With the stats it's clear how many times it is *likely* to reverse. My risk calculation then isn't based on the individual stop loss per trade but rather the worst case scenario: the sum total possible of a trade set loss. With any CZ setup, this is the actual value at risk, not the stop loss per trade. If this is all automated I can't really know for sure as the stop loss can vary from CZ to CZ. For that reason it's useful to have some other mechanism, alert, what have you, to shut it all down if the trade set is going to far against me. Manual trading I can adjust based on the size of the CZ. I am usually getting a bit of sleep or working during trade times and it's hard to trade manually. I'll have to find a way to automate this.

So with or without a martingale, if I've got it set to 6 reversals, even if the stats only say 3 like Joancb's stats showed (http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?p=6001017#post6001017), the actual risk is still 6 trades because that's how far it will go to attempt to reach the TP.

Thinking this way, with Martingale on, for my test account the starting lot size would have to be the smallest it could be at 0.1 (a micro lot on MBTrading, 0.01 on other platforms). With the default straight lot doubling the actual risk for 6 max reversals with an average SL of 24 pips is about $150 (24p + 48p + 96p + 192p + 384p + 768p). This is for a $1000 account so that's actually risking 15% of the account per trade set. It's not likely to get there, but it can.

But now a bit of perspective in doing these trades without Martingale. If I am willing to use a Martingale approach, then I'm actually willing to risk $150 because that's what I am actually risking per trade set with the Martingale. I can risk the same total amount per trade trading at 1 mini lot (1 on MBTrading, .1 lot on others). If the total pips to be netted is *only* 250 pips which can be achieved based on settings HappyForex mentioned (http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?p=6001169#post6001169), then that is mitigated by the fact that I can actually trade a larger size than the micro lot when using the mart. I wouldn't go up to a full mini but maybe .5 knowing that even a catastrophic loss is only 7% instead of 15%, but then that 250 pips then becomes 1250 net pips effectively. With proper use of tight CZs it becomes very, very, very unlikely to get a string of lost trade sets. Of course anything is possible but if there were two trade set losses in a given period, and especially two in a row, you know something is wrong with the setup. But even then it's not a blown account. Without using martingale, recovering losses is also quicker since you don't have to wait for multiple reversals for good returns.

However there is a hint that Forexhard gave some time ago about how likely it is to get 10 pips off of a CZ. And he said it was a hint. And he said there is additional knowledge sprinkled throughout that may not be obvious. That's quite interesting. Since your 2nd reversal TP is going to be your SL, which is likely to be around 20p, if you lose your initial 10p TP, but make your 2nd 20p TP, you've recovered your initial entry, and given your self space to lose another entry. Stopping there with a max at 2 keeps you out of additional losses. You would get more trade set losses, but they'd be much less in impact. In fact these two charts attached are quite interesting in light of this.

So this is really good food for thought for me. More digging yet to be done.

[edit]

Going back over notes, time permitting.

A.W.O.L., I'm not sure why I got the notion that FxH uses Martingale but the idea of having 700 possible pips in a week with 8 pairs yielding just under 90p per pair per week would give a net pips of 1750 per pair over 100 days. I have only seen those kinds of numbers with martingale enabled. This is probably what made me think that. 700p over 8 pairs in a week over an average of 2.5 trades a week is 35p net per trade. Since FxH trades live he can go for different TPs given the live market conditions. Those gains are likely that. The (risky and inadvisable but so temptingly) easy way to do that is with the martingale enabled. Given what I just wrote though, I can see ways to get those gains sans martingale. I'm not good enough yet to net 35p per trade set on average! Gonna keep digging.

[edit 2 - going through notes still]

FxH mentioned mart early on as something he uses (http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?p=4804271#post4804271). That would be where I got the idea from. But as noted, it doesn't have to be done that way. Still digging but it seems the larger lot sizes, stopping early (like 1 or 2 trades, even eating those losses) without using mart can be better overall for my situation. Lots more to dig and sweet spots to find.

Trade 5 went to TP 12 hours after entry, as it was doing so well and I happened to be at my screen, I tightened my stop and added a bit to my TP for an eventual very satisfactory final result.

If I had passed on the Monday box because of the lack of news and traded the Tuesday box, I would have had a stress free TP at trade 1.

All's well that ends well

Larry

PS nice box on the way, any news due?

I won't quote the whole post in my reply as it was so detailed but many thanks for the reply. I've just woken up so will need a while to digest all you've said but great post nevertheless.

Incidentally...always a fantastic feeling to wake up 30 pips better off than you were when you went to bed!

I really wish you guys would stop lying about all those pips you say you're making! Don't you know how totally worthless and ineffective this system is?

Good morning


Edited: Target hit!