Straddle trading EA

Hi leor

That was a really quick move.

Can you upload the following 3 logfiles?

expertsfilesAmazingEA-USDCAD.log
expertslogs20130417.log
logs20130417.log

If not, I need to know the EA settings at the time and the prices and Stop levels.

just now the same thing happened with uk retail sales , and how do i upload the 3 log files

Hi leor

Add them to a zip file, choose post reply on here and there is an option below saying Attach files: Upload From Computer

If you can't zip them then rename the files to .txt and then upload them individually.

Alan

i went to expert log files and there was no files there :/

usd/cad 15.00 gmt +1

points away : 70 TP:1000
sl:60 nyear:00
nmonth:00 nday:00n hour:17 (my platform is 2hrs ahead of gmt+1) nmin:00
CTCBIN:00 SEC BPO:15 SecBMO=2 STWAN=120 OCO=FALSE BEOffset=10 TrailPoints= 40 TrailOffset=10 MM=false RiskPercent=1 Lots=8 CloseTrades=false MaxSpread=0 AddSpreadToSL= FALSE MaxSlippage=200 TradeLog = "AmazingEA"

the sell stop entry was 1.0255 and my stop was originally 1.0265
it fell from 1.0265 to 1.2042

but ended up only breaking even

on cable at 9.30 uk retail sales entry on sell stop was 1.5230 , stop was 1.5336 but when entered in trade eventhough it fell from 1.5237 to 1.5219 i only managed to gain a point and my trailing was 40 points on amazing ea = 4pips on my 5 digit broker . could you check your code and tell me if there is a bug somewhere or explain why. thanks alan

Hi leor

If the logs aren't there, you are using windows 7 and they are in a different place. It's something to do with win 7 doesn't like storing data files in the Programs area. The easiest way to find them is type %appdata% into the search or run boxes on the start menu, then in there find the Metatrader directory. The logs will be under there.

I really do need them to discover what is happening.

Actually after reviewing the price action, these price drops you describe happened in very short spaces of time. On CAD interest rate, at 6 secs past the news time price was at 1.02735 then at 10 seconds past it hit 1.02432. It was back at 1.02555 within another 3 seconds. Since trailing stops are managed by the EA and not by the server it is possible that the ea wasn't able to modify the SL on the trade within those 3-4 seconds. If you use a home computer on home internet from wherever you are located, there is a strong chance it won't be quick enough. Many news traders use a VPS colocated in the same data centre as their broker's servers. But if the brokers servers are overloaded, it doesn't matter how close your machine is, it may still be too slow to catch those kind of moves.

The GBP Retail Sales was also a fast move. It dropped exactly on 30 minutes past from 1.52436 to 1.52256 in 1 second and then down to 1.52115 in another 3 seconds but was back at 1.52300 within 8 seconds total.

So if you can find the logs, and zip them it will tell the story, I'm sure.

i am using windows 8 and on retail sales i put a manual tralling stop on the trades, for some reason the buy stop got triggered 20 secs b4 news event so then the ea system still cancelled the sell stop even tho the oco order= false then it put in 2 new buy and sell stops as it will still before the 9.30 release. why did it cancel the sell stop eventhough oco = false . and how would i locate the logs when my pc uses windows 8 OS , thanks alan.

Alan could you also explain the vps thing in more detail?

Hi
Alan, This week I found Spike many times.
Could you change for buy stop and sell stop to buy limit and sell limit?
If you can, we will have more options to trade.

You can't use Buy or Sell Limits. A Buy Limit Order implies buying below current price. How would that work?

CAD. Interest rate
There was a spike, I think if I buy limit at 100(5 digit) of BMO 5 and Tp 500
I will gain some.
But for sell stop, I lose SL.

this thread has some well experienced so could someone explain why straddle traders who have been news straddling for more than 3year+ multi millionaires as i started since january 2013 and have consistenly gained 25%+ per month risking 2%per trade ? as if you start with min 250usd by 4 years time you will have have made more than $11million most people start with $2,000+.

i created a post about this but all the guys their were anti news trading so i decided to post her and see the reponses im really confused

leor

In theory, what you have stated above should be possible. The problem is there are a few limiting factors.

1) Non-Linear Growth - You assume that you can always risk the same portion of your account and that growth is linear. In reality, within retail fx, the more lots you trade the harder it is to get filled at a decent price. Try trading more than 5 standard lots on one pair on MT4 and see what happens. One way round this is to use multiple brokers, but then you need to manage many trades at once. It all gets messy very quickly. Basically, I would struggle to name anybody who trades more than a few standard lots on any one trade.

2) Broker tricks
Brokers now have all sorts of tricks like:
- Spiking the price just before a trade
- Freezing their platform
- Widening the spread
- Something I just discovered this week is the yo-yo spread
where the broker widens the spread then reduces it to almost normal then widens it again all within a few seconds

3) Trader/Market sentiment
Sometimes when a currency goes down it should be going up and vice versa. A lot is dependent on market sentiment. For example, CNY GDP was only off by 0.1% but caused a 200 pip sell-off in the AUDUSD.

4) The banks control the market.
What I have noticed this year is that currency levels have been pushed down to support or against resistance before a news announcement. With the result that a lot of news trades that would have moved the market previously hardly register a blip, except for the odd genuine surprise. What this means is that we have to trade 10 releases before we get a really big trade. And if you miss the big trade because of other commitments........

Finally, most non-news traders keep out the market during news. Personally, I think there are still ways to make money news trading, but the days of just putting straddle trades on everything and watching the money roll in are long gone.

Nowadays we have to get much more clever about it. A checklist for upcoming trades might go like this:-

Pre-news trade? Is the market adjusting levels 1 day down to 1 hour before
Straddle or Spike or Retracement Trade? One of these three methods to trade the actual event or maybe a combination on multiple brokers or pairs
Post news trade? - Fade or Breakout As expected news is likely to fade whereas a surprise is likely to breakout.

So, basically, you have to have your wits about you and there is little substitute for experience. Bit like trading in general really.

well the argument based on lot sizes is that true as there was a guy who posted on this like 1-2 years ago who said he uses an institutional account which enables him to trade news so i reckon with those accounts you should be able to increase lot sizes . have you personally experienced the lotsize problem?
l

Well there you go.....You said it yourself "he uses an institutional account which enables him to trade news". Your average retail trader is plugged into a broker who in turn is plugged into a liquidity provider who in turn is plugged into a network of liquidity providers. Each one is passing on marked up prices. At news time, there is intense stress placed on the system. Everybody wants to buy and nobody wants to sell or vice-versa. On top of that, an interesting fact is that most large organizations avoid news times, leaving retail traders as possibly the only traders in the market. Liquidity drops right off further exacerbating the problem. Forex is a zero-sum game, (except for central banks printing money) so for everybody that wants to buy someone else has to sell. So, we are trying to do huge (for retail) trades during low liquidity at a time when nobody wants the other side of the trade.

So by using an institutional account you may be able to access deeper liquidity and better prices. But to access an institutional account probably requires a deposit of at least 500K USD if not more.

I think the only people who can make serious money with a retail account are those prepared to trade 50 standard lots without stops and either hedge or always trade with the trend and ride out the trend when the news goes against you. I don't advocate doing that as one would need balls of steel and very deep pockets for such a strategy.

I personally have been burnt trading higher lot sizes. I can't divulge too many details as the broker I was using made me sign a non-disclosure agreement. But I traded 10 lots of a JPY cross during NFP and my platform froze for nearly a minute. I also traded 5 lots of AUDUSD during the RBA Interest Rate decision and I was given a price 25 pips higher than the highest price on the chart (over 5 lots that is punishment of -$1250) but to trade my way out of that was quite difficult.

so why dont use just use a institutional account when you get to the point where you need to trade bigger lots sizes, and i know institutional accounts which ask for min £10,000 or £20,000 so that shouldnt be a problem at all tbh.

Hi all

I wrote an article on my blog http://amazingea.wordpress.com/2013/...-and-slippage/
about spreads and prices during the UK GDP last week. Please come and have a read and tell me what you think or ask questions.

Version 2.2.0 Released

This really really is the last update for a while. I took all my Stop Loss Reset Code and the MaxSlippage Code and packaged it up with a setting to enable it or disable it.

If you set SlipCheck to false it is all disabled and the EA will work like a newer version of 1.2.2. I did this because in certain situations that code isn't going to work anyway. In other words, if there is going to be a very fast spike, it may not have a chance to work. So now, you can switch it on or off, depending on your preference. I have switched it off by default.

A few other default settings changed. I changed the timing so trades are live for as short a time as possible, so seconds before pending is (SecBPO) 10 seconds instead of 20 and seconds before modification finishes is (SecBMO) 0 seconds instead of 2. I left STWAN as 5 seconds. The default for MaxSpread is 100 (10 pips) because you should all be using that feature. Default SL is back at 50 rather than 100 (5 pips instead of 10 pips). If you need it to be higher, you'll have to change it manually.

While you're downloading this, please download the "Spreads and Sessions Indicator". It is a very useful tool for Straddle Traders.

Good Luck and Happy Trading!

Thnx Alan111S for Hard Work i wish i could help in coding .

You should fix your CloseAll() function, your loop needs to count down, not up.

This explains why: Loops and Closing or Deleting Orders