factlover's paradox++ usage experience and new ideas

Happy Easter!! Love, peace and blessings to everyone!

Many thanks to Dove_alliance who had kindly shared his trading system Paradox on this site. Now the system is publicly available and you may find all the details about its recommended classic usage in the original thread here: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=574515

Some Paradox related topics and ideas are not appropriate to discuss in the original thread, for ex. because of a possible "non-classic" approach suggested, etc. That's why I believe we need a separate thread. I have some useful ideas to share and I'd like to learn from others too. I think a very important message from the Paradox creator is that such an interesting system may be created so you can try to use new insights to build or improve your own system. In the long run it would certainly be more reliable to have your own trading system variations in your arsenal. Just read about Murphy's laws and be prepared for the worse. Some day your powerful Paradox configuration may stop working and what will you do after investing so much of your time and efforts into this system? Without close relations with its creator you will be trapped. So my point is if you don't have a reliable support for any system, not just the Paradox, and you cannot recreate a similar system with your familiar tools don't rely on it.

I did inform Dove_alliance in email about my plans to create such a thread and there was no objection from him about this idea so we are good to go. Though if you want to expose your absolute loyalty in the official Paradox thread please create and use a separate nickname to post here

Paradox as it was shared is a complex system with extensive proprietary set of technical indicators implemented on MT4 platform. This set of indicators offers its own market model which may be used for a sophisticated market analysis.
This thread is intended for open discussions about Paradox usage experience, about interpretations of the original Paradox indicators for market analysis and about possible additions to the Paradox market analysis in such a way that any additional indicators or computer software modules will run independently from Paradox system but at the same time may be used for additional market analysis. We do not change any original Paradox software module in any way, on the contrary we strictly recommend do not change Paradox software and report to the Paradox system owner(s) about possible problems with this product usage for ex. in form of software bug reports or feature requests.

Please note that we do not infringe any copyright. We do not copy, sell or distribute in any way any copyright protected product here. We just exchange our opinions about possible usage options of publicly available freeware software product.

There was another thread already with a similar purpose which is now in the forum Recycle bin due to multiple inappropriate insults posted there. Please refrain from any insults and harsh words in this thread. We are talking here about technical aspects of Paradox usage to learn from each other.

No warranty of any kind is provided, you may try any recommendation which is found in this thread only at your own risk.

#Paradox wish list

I suggest we use some tags with key words so it would be easier to search for related posts.
Let's start with some notes about my own experience with Paradox. Of course these are not complaints of any kind but just a friendly feedback from a grateful user of the current Paradox-MT4 version.

...To whom it may concern with a hope that it would help to improve a possible future release of the Paradox system.

Problems with Paradox for the trading with this system which I see in the long term.

1. It's a black box system, no source code, no description of the technical aspects, no technical support or any info about future plans/versions. As we all know any software product without support becomes pretty much useless sooner or later.

2. No customization and tuning of the system parameters in case of market changes

3. The system cannot be analyzed and back tested in the history or even for previous days: such parameters as Fibo, Fibo colors, MA5 and MA20 lines exist only for the last day on the chart. That means not only trade in the moment, but also analyze and learn in the current moment.
It would be great to have an implementation of Paradox not only on MT4 but on another trading platform which provides functionality for data replay (Data Playback) so we can replay market data and learn in the process with dynamic Paradox charts. Most likely such platform will have H2 time frame naturally supported.

4. Reboot of the system at particular time is required daily so data for MA5 MA20 lines will be correct. It would be better to have a parameter for this particular recalculation time in the indicator

5. Restriction on the number of price bars on the screen, it should be 40 otherwise Fibo color and lines are not in sync. Again it would be good to have a parameter Number of active bars for Fibo as it's implemented in a similar auto-fibo indicator for ex. here: ExtDepth: how far back do we want to use to calculate for Fibonacci Retracement http://forexmt4ea.com/auto-fibonacci...indicator-mt4/ or another one with Band_period parameter here https://www.mql5.com/en/code/9383

6. Paradox is not a simple system as it was claimed. It's a complex system with multiple internal dependencies. It's a good tool for a specific Paradox-style market analysis and a very good practice in market analysis.

7. Improvement suggestion to the Sessions indicator it would be good to be able to set actual times for sessions and indicator will draw line either for odd and even times on H2 chart. Now to see a session line for odd hour (17:00) we need to set parameter to the prev.even hour (16:00)

8. It would be good to have the official Paradox templates for Week, H4, M30, M15 time frames. We can use the non-classic time frames to monitor market movements to have additional statistics which might be useful for trading. For ex. in tight trading range such as the current one in eurjpy I found M15 chart with Paradox_H1 template is useful for more precise entries.

9. Indicator Paradox_Purple: it draws Purple and Ema lines. Ema line style and thickness are hard coded, so it's not possible to set it for ex. to orange solid thick line which is more visible as on MT4 reboot hard coded line style is restored.

10. Same for the indicator Paradox_Romar: line styles for Romar, White, Smooth are hard coded. Please make them customizable.

#Paradox trading plan

I see a very important point in the original Paradox thread. You won't become a trader if you just use Paradox or any other system. But you need to be a trader to use Paradox or any other working system with success. Discipline and a daily routine with your trading plan will certainly help you to become a successful trader.

Please check my trading plans at the link below, please provide your feedback.
My plan is more detailed in comparison with the plans published in the original thread. I think some key points are missing in those plans which I included in my plan.
In particular I think there should be a section with Trading results and analysis as it's one of the main purposes for the plan - to analyse your actions and learn from your own success and mistakes.
I also included the current key levels from Paradox D,H2,H1 and additional Paradox weekly charts as I believe it's very important to plan everything in context of current market range and Paradox S&R levels

In my plan I have a section named Bird View for the overall market observation - as I have it in my plan for another system. Usually I keep eyes on major trend lines from daily and weekly charts, to be Paradox-compatible here I tried to use MT4 Weekly chart with Paradox_Daily template and I think it might be useful especially for the key S&R levels, so I'm planning to monitor this chart at least once a week.

I see the original thread is overloaded with trading plans, it might be better to discuss plans in the thread but ask guys to publish only links to online trading plans. A good storage for public docs is Google Drive or Microsoft One Drive with all doc editing provided online in the browser. It's all free, all you need is to sign in with google or microsoft account. And all such docs are available for public sharing. To view the docs no sign in is required.
This way your teacher or adviser can see a list of your trading plans, how active and regular you are with your plans, is there a post-trade analysis etc.
Here is a link to shared folder with my plans, any comments, suggestions are welcome:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?...jg&usp=sharing

And here is a shared folder with Word doc plan template, available for downloading, then it maybe uploaded to your personal online storage to create online version of the template for ex. in Google docs.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?...UU&usp=sharing

#Addition: CCI

Disclaimer: the term Addition we use here means addition of some indicator to MT4 chart window for additional market analysis. We do not add anything to the original Paradox system and we do not change the original Paradox system in any way.

I found CCI indicator might be useful as an addition to MT4 charts with Paradox templates. You can drag this standard indicator from MT4 navigator pane and drop it into the lower chart pane with MACD indicator, this lower pane is called Indicator window 1 in MT4 Indicators list dialog, here is how this dialog looks with Paradox indicators and CCI.

Note that we don't add anything to the Paradox configuration and don't change Paradox in any way. All Paradox indicators run as software plug-ins in MT4 platform environment. A standard CCI indicator also runs in MT4 environment as a separate plug-in on the current chart. CCI indicator does not communicate or interfere with Paradox modules in any way, they just coexist on the same chart. CCI indicator runs independently from Paradox indicators and it calculates its values from the price data stream which is not a part of the Paradox system. Price data stream is provided by MT4 platform as one of its services. Here are 3 possible options to add CCI to your charts with or without Paradox indicators:
1. insert CCI in the same indicator window with Paradox MACD,
2. insert CCI in a separate indicator window on the same chart where you have your Paradox indicators
3. insert CCI in a separate chart window for the same instrument and time frame where you don't have Paradox indicators.

In all 3 cases CCI will run independently from Paradox indicators and you do not infringe any copyright. Sorry for the extra details, I have to clarify this as we saw some Paradox related complaints about possible copyright infringement.

To the point: usually CCI works good with MACD. CCI can provide a leading indication for the MACD trend change, CCI clearly shows divergences and CCI is especially useful when MACD is in shallow zone around 0 line.
Check how it may be useful for your trading.
Here is a recent sample with EURJPY H2 and H1 charts on Mar 24 around 8gmt (marked with yellow arrows). According to the classic Paradox rules we see that H2 and H1 are in sync for the uptrend, and open of H2 8gmt candle is a possible good long entry. Market was in a tight consolidation range for the last week so that may prevent us from such an entry but not the classic rules.
Check that CCI shows divergence in both H2 and H1 for that point and that's may be helpful to prevent you from wrong entry.



For illustration purpose here is M15 chart with Paradox_H1 template and CCI.


I do not recommend to trade with M15 chart, you should trade with H2 chart as it was recommended by Paradox rules, but what I see M15 chart may help you to not open a position when M15 signals are not in sync with H2 and H1 signals. Same is true with CCI readings on all 3 charts.
Please note I'm not suggesting new rules here, I'm still learning the Paradox system and I'm trying to monitor my favorite indicators to see how they may work with Paradox. So I invite other Paradox enthusiasts to do the same and then we can compare our approaches with some proven statistics.

I'm playing with the following CCI parameters on my charts:
CCI Apply to: Typical Price (HLC/3) - on all charts as it provides more smooth CCI line which allows to use lower period settings
CCI Period: Daily: 6, H2: 8, H1: 12, M15: 14
My color and CCI line style settings are shown on the pictures below

#Visual improvement

1. Try to make MACD histogram lines thicker - MACD will be more visible, you can see it on my pictures in the prev.post


2. Try to use MT4 charts in candle mode. Paradox charts are overloaded with lines and price bars are lines too so candles with nice pastel colors in background may be more visible - please see examples in my prev.post.
Here are color options for the candles and bars which work good for me in both bar and candle chart modes

This could get interesting very fast. Good luck...

#Visual improvement

As Paradox charts are kind of overloaded with indicators you may try to divide indicators in 2 groups and have each indicator group on a separate chart of the same time frame. To create a simplified chart open a new chart with a standard Paradox template and then delete indicators which you don't want to see on this chart.
For ex. to work on daily trading plan I found useful to have a chart with just Paradox curves and another one with Paradox lines. Here are my examples:

#P-Weekly chart

Here is my weekly chart with Paradox Daily template. We can clear see eurjpy is in downtrend from summer of 2015 and P-weekly PSAR worked as strong resistance every time when price touched it during this downtrend. I use this chart for the big picture (bird view) in my trading plan

Thanks for your support!

Hey factlover

How are you...l can say you are a man of your word...
Interesting my friend...will certainly get a closer look on it...
If you increase your succes rate...only that matter
Keep you posted
Good luck

Edit: saw your thread before your pm

To begin with, I'm a bit surprised that your thread has been 'Allowed', since freedom of speech can be somewhat stifled, at times, on FF.

I did find equivalents to some of the P thread indicators. What exactly to do with them, is not yet written in stone according to my limited knowledge.
Here's what I have so far:
Romar : Approx 71 ema
Nothing I've found matches the White or Smooth. They seem to be a variation of HMA, with possibly a shift. PSAR Dots, I have not worked with.
Purple : Approx 16 HMA. In a wild market the 16 moves a bit faster than Purple.
EMA : Approx 7 SMMA (Smoothed) *imho, the cornerstone of the system.
Bollinger Bands are standard. The only difference is the deviation is set to 3.0, with center line omitted.

FYI, there was also a Skype room for exchanging ideas on this method. It was shut down on the request of Dana.
Cheers, and good luck with your research.
Darryl

That is interesting. But in my understanding it makes sense to look for a good approximation of Paradox curves if you want to build a similar system on another platform as on MT4 we already have the perfect match for them in form of Paradox indicators.
I believe 100% matching is not required if you want to build another similar profitable system as we saw Paradox curves are not always may be used for a clear decision. You will just need to find your own working rules for your set of lines...
I can recommend to try Tillson T3 MA with a damping parameter as a fast smooth MA which may simulate almost any price related curve

factover, let me express my disagreement.

there are thousands of strategies here on ff, not counting the rest of the world. i am sure that everybody's eyes get wet when they read the statement that you can make 80% per week. then, the guy claims that he discovered the set of variables to describe the 'price reality' but gives no explanations of what they are, coding them to his liking, hiding them and claiming they are protected by a US patent. What a bs! If he is the owner of the patent he has the right to relieve it if he so choose.

i'd say this is ridiculous and you would see it this way if you look openly at it. you are free to invest your time in this, just again, be aware that all you are doing is trying to mimic the claims of someone who said he beat the market with 6 curves or 8 curves, i don't care how many. and now you will spend the rest of your live trying to find these 6 or 8 magical lines. just imagine the number of combinations you can have if you plug in all available mas, ccis, all the other available stuff . i believe this is a road to nowhere.

why to stick to it? he is just a vampire looking for attention, covering his actions in semi-religious bs pretending being religious. possibly he found something 'guided by a holy spirit' but then, following the teaching he would have shared it with others following the teaching in a true way because it does not belong to him as it came from above. really if he would be willing to share he would share in a normal way but he is a freak hooking you on your greed by throwing 80% a week and not telling you how he is doing it. from the freak point of view this is 100% hook and he is right, look how many people are reading his thread. So, he got what he needed.

this is your choice to invest thousands of hours to get his, presumably very profitable system, decoded or try something else.

again, our ultimate capital is our time so you are responsible on how to invest it. your time is limited but the number of combinations to describe the reality of the price is not. you won't have enough time to try all of them even if you lived 10,000 years and you have much less.

You are also a very good liar. In fact - you was placed on my ignore list.

see - that's what i just said. so why do you believe his other claims? let the people on his thread by guided by their greed and try something else. there are some open profitable strategies here on ff without bs.

I see your point and of course I don't spend all my time learning Paradox. And I don't care about the style of teaching as i am not a paradox but a fact lover
I just see it's a powerful system as it offers its own "price model" and that's in line with some of my prev.experience.

Regarding the specific style of that thread I can see some useful points in that too. Think about that wider in philosophical sense. Discipline and daily routine which is suggested or even dictated will eventually form a strong group of survivors. And then such a survivor will be able to succeed with any good strategy not only with Paradox. The similar processes form warriors in the military world))

So my approach is let's fight the market - not each other

Below is an extract from my email. And there was no objection from The Dove on it. Who is a liar?

From: Bob
Sent: Monday, March 21, 2016 2:01 PM
To: The Dove
...
If you are gone it's sad but it's your decision. Anyway I don't understand why make things even more complicated for those who want to learn the system.
We'd like to discuss a petition to FF admins to remove the offensive thread, guys support the idea in private messages but asked me to initiate it and i cannot post anything to the thread.
If I don't have access to discuss and learn the system in your thread I'll have to create another one just for Paradox discussions but with blocking any insults.

not getting it. so why would you stuck with his claims, why would you believe him to begin with? there are other clear ways to make money. again, the guy claims he discovered the truth but not sharing it and you decided to crack it.
crack Soros, is not it better? if you even studied the theory of possibilities, how many of possible combinations you have here to do what paradox is doing? i think winning a lottery is easier. your choice again. good luck.

as nobody posting, i plugged in $1000 and did 3 years at 80% a week. After 3 years the result was 161, 090, 416. I am probably wrong, but do you think the guy would come back to you on a ff forum to say you said something wrong? if i had 161 millions, well.... and I did not use the compounding so he must be a billionaire by now having coffee with Soros as we speak.

Guys, try to think positive and look for opportunities even if you don't see any good points in this particular Paradox approach. You may consider it as a special exercise to keep you focused on your tasks. We are here not to please or criticize anybody but to learn from others how to build our own future. Much better response would be not to talk another talk here but to walk the walk to our goals. Let's concentrate on this.

Aa1, I didn't stick with anybody's claims. Why would I?
Don't look into claims look into the system structure. I had close analogs of Romar and Ema curves and even some kind of Purple on my charts before I found Paradox here. So that part of Paradox was very familiar and I can recommend it myself as a good set of trend indicators.
You may use just this part of Paradox to improve your trading with any other system.
I'm not advertising Paradox here but let's be objective and unbiased. This is certainly uncommon system and it is available for free for your test drive. Look into its structure, and as dude said "you might learn something". And we're not talking about years or months of learning or falling in love with it. - "don't fall in love with any trade" and with any trade system.

Oh My Gracious... y'all. You are all welcome here, and please observe the purpose of being here: Working toward better trading.

Those that claim to "Know" something as a "Fact", are no different than any other Fundamentalists, IMVeryHO. The moment you claim to Know you are Right, and someone else is wrong, you open the door to argumentative discussion. And just to remind everyone, in any type of conflict, whether it be War, Conflict, Fighting, Battles, or Arguments, there are NEVER any Winners, only Losers. Is it truly anyone's job to "Convert someone to your Opinion?"

Let Go and let live.
All statements here are only my opinions, and I PROMISE not to take the stand of a "USED CAR SALESMAN" (Think 'Glengarry, Glen Ross') and try to sell anyone Anything!