TCO Trader EA

TCO TRADER EA


Hi Guys/Gals,


I have decided to start my own thread for my EA, I simplified the EA name - TCO Trader

It is based on a couple of 100PipsADay strategies and also Ichimoku and Turtle. Basically it determines the daily trend using 4 different methods (select 1-4) and then uses the Williams% or Stochastic to enter trades on the lower TF.

2 of the Trend Methods by 100PipsADay - He and others are doing very well with it on FF.

100PipsADay 20/50 EMA Method - http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=425041

100PipsADay Third Screen MACD Method - http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=382032

First I want to say I'm very thankful to 100PipsADay and everyone else on the D1 20 EMA & 50 EMA thread. This EA was designed from the strategies on 100PipsADay's thread - D1 20 EMA & 50 EMA. I'm very excited about these strategies and think they have long-term viability for us. I would like to give back to this community by making my EA available. My EA is available, for free, I just ask that no one try to sell it on EBAY. I hope we can work out any bugs and add more features as we go.

TCO Trader EA – Features


The EA will let you select up to 4 different trend methods for a higher time frame - the default with be daily = 1440


Higher TF Trend Modes - can be set to whatever Higher TF you desire, the EA is now designed to work with 1-4 methods so if you can enter up to 4 different methods for the Trend Mode. All methods selected must be true to determine the overall trend.

1. Ichimoku - Tenkan Sen/Kijun Sen cross, with a Kijun Sen trailing stop loss feature.
   
2. 20/50 MA – 100PipsADay's basic strategy - Now can use other MA methods
   
3. Adjustable MACD Trend above/below zero – based on Third Screen MACD strategy - now can use MACD Adjustable, MACD Hanover, MACD Traditional
4. Turtle Channel
   

Lower TF Trade Entry - can be set to whatever TF you desire. You can select the Williams % method or Stochastic method for lower TF signals

Williams % entry - also can set true/false for confirmation, which means for a buy trade, the Williams % would go under -80 level and then have to go above
-80 level for a buy trade to be placed. If this is toggled off, the buy trade would be triggered as soon as it goes below the -80 level. For a sell trade, if the confirmation is set to true, the Williams % would go above -20 level and then below -20 level for the sell trade to be triggered. If the confirmation is set to false, it just has to be above the -20 level to trigger the sell trade

Stochastic entry - also can set true/false for confirmation, which means for a buy trade, the Stochastic would go under 20 level and then have to go above
20 level for a buy trade to be placed. If this is toggled off, the buy trade would be triggered as soon as it goes below the 20 level. For a sell trade, if the confirmation is set to true, the Stochastic would go above 80 level and then below 80 level for the sell trade to be triggered. If the confirmation is set to false, it just has to be above the 80 level to trigger the sell trade

Additional Trade Management Features

1. Close All Open Trades On Opposite Signal - can be turned on or off
   
2. Time Delay can be set - Lower TF bars delay between open orders (thanks to turtlefan) for this logic.
3. Time Delay from closed order can be set - Lower TF bars delay from closed orders.
4. MaxOrdersPerPair - limit your risk by setting max allowed trades that can be opened per pair.
   
5. Standard TP and SL
   
6. Trailing SL
   
7. Jumping SL
   
8. Breakeven SL
   
9. ATR based TP
   
10. ATR based SL
    
11. Fixed or dynamic lot sizes (based on Risk%)
12. Lot sizing based on lot size per $1000 of account equity.
13. Global Trade Profit Target based on percentage of account balance, will close all trades (the entire basket for all pairs) - thanks to turtlefan for this.
14. Global Trade Loss Target based on percentage of account balance, will close all trades (the entire basket for all pairs) - thanks to turtlefan for this.
15. Trader controlled trend determination. You will be able to override the higher TF trend determination and just tell the EA if you only want it to GoLong or GoShort and the EA will enter the trade when a signal is determined by the Williams% on the lower TF but only in the direction the trader specifies. Then the EA will manage the trades using the EA's trade management features.
16. EA can trade per last closed lower TF bar (bar mode), or on current lower TF bar (tick mode).
17. Spread limit check
18. Margin Safety check
19. Pip Step option

This EA will open the trade first and then modify the trade with the take profit and stop loss, so it should work with ECN brokers.

The EA was designed to work on a nano account - 1 pip equals $ 0.01 cent. So those testing on micro, mini and standard accounts please verify your lot sizing is working correctly if you use dynamic lot sizing.


The EA is designed to work on the lower time frame chart. So if you use the daily time frame for your trend determination and the hourly time frame for the Williams% entry signal, the EA must be applied to the hourly chart. The indicators in the attached template were edited accordingly so the daily trend indicators display on the hourly chart correctly. If you use a different time frame for your lower time frame and you use the template, you will need to adjust the periods in the indicator. So be advised. The indicator parameters in the EA however, do not need to be adjusted, just the Trend_TF and the Lower_TF parameters.

We will track upgrades and the different versions here in post one.

I have decided to keep the version numbering of the EA internal So for now on the EA will always just be named TCO_Trader.mq4. This should make updating your platforms easier when you want to add a new version.

Just apply the EA to the lower time frame chart you wish to trade, make sure the Lower_TF parameter is set to same TF as the chart. You do not need the indicators on the chart, but just in the indicator folder.

Thanks! Please PM me or post a reply in the thread if you have any questions.

TCO_Trader v1.0 Initial Release


TCO_Trader v1.1
- Fixed MACD Trend Determination where it was only taking Buys and not Sells
- Also made the versioning internal and changed the external name to always be the same
to make updating easier.

TCO_Trader v1.2
- Close all orders after certain profit percentage reached - thanks to turtlefan for coding
- Manual Discretionary Trend Determination - where trader can select GoLong = true or GoShort = true, will still use Williams% on lower TF for trade entry.
- Trades can be triggered on close of last lower TF bar (bar mode) or now they can be triggered on current bar(ticks)
- Lot size .01 per $1000 option added
- Verify lot size for min and max size allowed by broker, lot size also normalized
- Screen Displayed when new trades are taken, to update screen fields

TCO Trader v1.3
- Activate EA external variable
- All three trend methods can be used for trade filter
- Close all orders after certain loss percentage reached
- PipStep Feature added
- Margin Check added
- Spread Check added
- Screen Display improved
- ATR Multiplier changed from int to double data format
- External parameters improved/simplified..hopefully
- Various bugs fixed
- Code cleaned up

TCO Trader v1.4
- Added Turtle Trend Method
- Allow 1-4 automated trend methods to be selected
- Added Stochastic Lower TF trade signal that can be selected instead of WPR
- Added Bar Countdown to Screen Display from last open order and closed order
- Added Activate EA status to Screen Display
- Added Order Send/Modify delay to avoid 141 errors - Thanks to darkgsg(ck) for the coding
- For Ichi and EMA previous day close used for PA
- Added weekly filter to MACD
- Added EMA cross option
- ** Commented out - Order Delay after closed trades added ** (this is not working correctly and has been commented out for now)
- Clear objects on screen when EA removed - Thanks to Rexio for the coding
- Alerts added for opening orders and closing orders(close all on opposite signal or close all on profit/loss %)

TCO Trader v1.5
- Added MA Method and Price Method to the MA Trend Method (no longer just EMA)
- Added MA Method and Price Method to Stochastic Signal Method
- Added 2 more MACD methods - Hanover (corrected adjustable) and Traditional
- Added off/on for alerts
- Lower TF Method selection changed from boolean to integer - to make optimization easier

TCO Trader v1.6
- Take Profit/Loss on Percentage based on Magic Number - Thanks to darkgsg(ck) for the coding
- Made the Lower TF Signal selection integer instead of bool, 1 = WPR and 2 = Stochastic

Hi TCO,

Great and thanks again,

Akira

PS: Am currently running with global profit target, as one of the tests using MPTM.

Very impressive work my friend! I'm sure we'll all be very thankful for your skilled development.

TCO,

Let me be the first to congratulate you both on the EA and the new thread - SIMPLY AWESOME - wishing all the success you deserve for your hard work.

Hey, I found that book you recommended, you know about programming EA's.

Here is a little something I whipped up for myself but now I can share it here.

The settings on a 1 page document, easy to print out, each heading is highlighted for easy reference if anyone has a problem, might make communication easier.

All the best, E.

Maybe you'll win that 100k ?

"The hunt is on for the biggest, best, most stable earning long-term Forex robot ever conceived.

Do you have what it takes to reap the prize of 100,000 USD?"

http://www.forexsensation.com/


Best of Luck

TCO: Good evening!
I am so glad that you have opend this thred.
I am subcsribed!
Thank you again!
Regards,
rswamy

Nice one, I am all ears

Nice E, I like the PDF. Thanks for putting my instructions in PDF format. TCO

If your goal is to close all trades when your trades reach "X" amount of profit, you don't really need the complexity of all the MPTM settings, just use 1 the EA's attached.

They are all so simple, they do not even need instructions, someone may find them useful.

Cheers, E.

No problem too easy, did some minor cosmetic formatting to make it more readable.

Now, a question - you say to put the EA on a lower time frame, so I'm guessing here, if we change time frame to Daily and back to 1 Hour, the EA will stop functioning?

I am used to doing that with khaled's EA, check the 20EMA-50EMA on Daily chart, look back to the 1 Hour for the W%R, and the EA keep running OK.

Thanks, E.

I'm not sure what the outcome would be. The EA only looks for trade opportunities when a new bar is created. So if you leave it on the D1, it will only look for a new trade when a new daily bar is started.

Thanks Erebus for the EAs. I use % of balance as global profit target off MPTM like 0.5%, 1%, etc. I've quickly looked at the codes of the three EAs and see that the target is set at dollar amounts rather than % of balance. Please correct me if I am wrong. Thanks again,
Akira

I really like your EA my friend......very nice ......

No, I don't leave it on Daily, just been looking there and back to 1 Hour; anyway, set up new template with 960/1200 EMA's for 1 Hour chart and will leave it alone.

It made 6 trades yesterday, all open and in profit but has not open any since, possibly because there has been no retracements to activate the W%R - I like the confirmation option, I think that will give better entries, thanks for that option.

Also, the Stop Loss & Take Profit by ATR is a feature I will use - only thing, even though I set that plus the position size as percentage, the EA still displays the 0.10 Lot Size and 350 / 250 in top left - guess it doesn't update from the settings used?

See the chart about the comments I made - I will show best trade

Thanks, E.

Well, don't know about you, but it is easy for me to look at my account to see what it is, set the EA to 10% using a dollar amount, do that in my head.

I mean, say balance is $10, 530, so set the EA to close all trades at $1,000 or $1,053 or greedy $1,100 - up to you.

Maybe you use some exotic % of your account that need to use a calculator to work out?

And as your account balance goes up, the % goes up, so you will never reach that number, what to do then?

Subscribed. Hoped you would open this thread.

Yes, Erebus. You are right you can do that in your head. And you will need to increase your lot size as your account balance grows. All that moves not in smooth curve but in steps. The reason why I am comfortable with % set is you don't have to compute the amount each time the global target is reached, which sometimes is as frequent as a few times within a day (if set at 0.5% for instance), and across several test accounts going on, let alone you will eventually need to recompute the lot size, perhaps once a week. But as you say, the 3 EAs are very useful, and simple. Not to forget, I like to set the target very small as it helps to cope with the trend change better. But it's the matter of preference. Hope this clarifies. Akira

hello dear, i am subscribed too,thank you so much for your kindness and caring.
regards

An improvement to this type of EA's (TCO or 100pips) would be an option of a minimum distance that one position has to have from another, cause I see a lot of positions are opened sometimes in some pairs that range at a certain point....this way you do not have 3 positions that are 3-5 pips with each other.
Now I am not saying to make this grid trading, no...but every time the williams goes to the o/s or o/b the EA would have to check for a certain distance from the last position opened......but that is just my 2 cents.....

Hi Guys, there may be an issue with the MACD trades, I think it is only taking longs. I will have to take a look at it. So please hold off on the using the MACD trend determination. Thanks!