Donchian Channel Trading

Thanks my friend. But I do give credit to forexmike and Adrian for renewing my interest in DC. I hope they and those following get something from the process I go through. Hope to have the turtle strategy to add soon but I think I need to send the code in for people smarter than me to fine tune.

Can’t wait to see your work live. Hope that comes together soon for you.

Bob

Thanks BB. I can’t wait either. It needed to be done.

R there any good places I can lean how to back test on mt4. I want to do some back testing. Seeing what bob did has me inspired to learn.

Interesting strategy, looks pretty accurate. Will have to backtest it and forward test it.

hi bob,

looking forward to seeing how it works out in a forward test…

i was busy the last days, so i had no time to post…was also thinking about some other trading ideas…

new idea about DCs…

  • on close of candles look if there is a new high/low of DC 20, if yes, put pending order…also if there are already open positions…
  • for new open position place additional opposite order at DC 10 (that acts as SL, at least at Oanda using first-in first-out system)…no real SL used
  • position size is a fixed percentage of equity (Oanda calculates that automatically)…so it might close only parts of the open position (if in the meantime equity changed significantly) or it’s closed entirely and directly opened a position in the other direction…this could work like a portfolio-style where you only adjust position size depending on price development…

thoughts if that makes sense are appreciated…

Mike

Will have a think bro.

Well up n running. Monday had dramas. Forgot rule 1.0.1. Change the magic numbers but no harm done. Markets suffered from Mondayitize as normal and any trade triggered suffered a loss. Yesterday I hand a power outage during the Asian session. Thats never good but again don’t think it would have made a difference. Today everything running perfectly and I hope you caught the current moves on the GBPUSD n USDJPY. Profits are locked in and the account will be in the black. Hard thinking about the profits we will give up if the markets turn. Currently up 4.7%. Profits locked in at 2.4%. But then that’s the turtle way. Make your money on relatively few trades. Try n break even the rest of the time.

Going to bed now so we’ll see what happens tomorrow.

I think the results show that it is possible to profit from trading price ranges as short as one and four hours. But I can’t trade those types of ranges for lack of time. I guess if I had a robot do it for me I could do it. But the shortest I can trade manually is daily. And, if I did trade an intraday range, I would pick just one and trade other ranges longer than a day. I think the ranges between ten days and twenty weeks offer enough system diversification to overcome the problem of trading curve fitted systems. Because of that I will always trade a spectrum of systems ranging through that range.

-Adrian


Now closing the third week since that last post, USD/CHF has had three weeks with lower lows and lower highs. The stops have not moved and the trade sits largely unchanged.

-Adrian


GBP/JPY is on fire. It has moved up by about 9% since the dip below the 200 day moving average in April. It has posted higher highs and higher lows over the last three weeks. The four week channel has moved further into profitability. The ten week channel has just one more week before it will begin to move upward so long as prices stay up. This pair is at a level not seen since September/October 2008 when the financial crisis pushed it down 50% in just 5 months.

-Adrian


Yesterday, the GBP/USD broke out to a new four week high above the 200 day moving average for the first time since about a year ago. With that, my stop order was triggered and I went long GBP/USD on the 4 week channel on this trade. It also broke fresh ten week and twenty week highs to be traded as well.

-Adrian

I caught GBPJPY for real good amount of pips but I closed. GBPCAD still letting run.

G’day bro. Been into posting pictures tonight. heres one.

All seriousness, na that’s boring. Hope all been well. Don’t know if “possible” can be used right now. I think what we have demonstrated is that its probable. I still think that the only certainty lays on the daily or weekly charts. Until we gather some data forward testing to compare with our back tests I think it’s still to early to make a call. Remember the purpose of historical testing is to develop our manual systems.

Also I am having a tough time finding valid parameters on AUSUSD USDCAD and EURGBP. I’m starting to think volatility has a big part to play. It’s hard to spot on the back tests but a keen eye would notice that during periods of draw down the average lot size increased. This would be due solely because ATR is usded to determine SL and ATR is a measure of volatility. On my other bot for the 4 HR where I use a fixed SL n TP, XXXJPY pairs yields are a lot stronger. Work, work, work!

Well Mike, getting close to the end of the first week and it’s always nice to start off strong

Interesting to note how we have touched on MM. Yesterday just after New York open our equity was sitting at $11 450 compared to $10 900 of now. Would a trader smarter then me - and that’s not hard - have closed shop for the week. Adrian is an investor. He’s looking long term. We however are speculating and there is a big difference. We have to lock in profits. All that back testing means nothing if we can’t manage our basket.

Pyramiding is a successful strategy used by investors (and the turtles). IMO but there’s not much use for it speculating. It leaves us over-exposed. A new high on a candle on a higher time frame is nothing more than a DC break on a lower. And from what I understand this is what you do anyway trading multiple time frames. I don’t think there’s any advantage adding to a position on the current time frame being speculated on. With that said I do like your line of thought and am interested in results if you decide to take it further. We could differently try to add it into a bot.

Fixing of position size, I think is a personal choice. I like % balance over equity. Equity includes unrealized profits. Key word - unrealized. Also remember the turtles traded a notional balance reviewed yearly or against draw down. This in fact might be the best option for us. Back to MM again. More work ahead. Just as well we love it.

I agree. I think taking entries on different channels is a better way to add to a position than simply adding to a position on some other basis.

I have heard often that “entries don’t matter” or “entries don’t matter as much as exits”. I don’t buy it. I think the entry and the exit are connected and both matter just as much as one another. Pyramiding into a position can make a serious winner into a loser. We need to take entries that can be exited with a profit. I changed my mind about pyramiding a while back. I even heard Jerry Parker say the same thing: “Entries matter just as much as exits.” I think the purpose of additional entries for the Turtles was more that of system diversification than that of “adding to winners”.

-Adrian

I don’t know if it could be called “Hardcore”, but my weekend looked a bit like this:


I don’t always listen to hardcore, but when I do I listen to:

-Adrian

Bob you mentioned about closing out earlier rather than just keeping open, thats the 1 problem I am having with DC trading.
Thats one main reason i wanted to try back testing, I wanted to fool with different exits.

For me I love trading DC but the flaw I see or it may just be mine is exiting.

is it because the ATR-based SL is too wide or too tight?

already following your myfxbook every day :wink:

great start, indeed…

i totally agree with you…

yes, you are right…i am already trading multiple time frames, so one position per TF is enough…overexposure might become an account killer, so better be conservative with that…

well, i just started a new sub-account…

TFs: 3h, 8h and 1d
DCs: 20 for entries and 10 for stops

  • pending orders are placed for all 28 pairs i trade at DC 20, all orders (= all TFs) in same account
  • if orders of different TFs are at same level i place only one order
  • as soon as an order is hit i place an additional pending order in opposite direction at DC 10 (working as SL)
  • position size is 0.5 % of equity
  • i intend to place new orders at new DC levels after every candles close on each TF
  • pending orders have 3 months expiry date
  • order are hit or expire, i don’t delete them manually…might form kind of grid of past DC levels…and orders will have different position sizes (according to equity), that might result in a portfolio style when positions are only partially closed/opened…

open for discussion…

mike

I wanted to do a back test on this first but as much as I tried I couldn’t figure how to do. So I guess Ill forward test it.

What I want to do is trade doch 20 period on daily and weekly with entries on break of channel. Then have same doch settings but entry will be a % of ATR. I want to see how many less trades I would be in and how many would have been losers if just traded without ATR.

i havent used mt4 I been using Ctrader but im trying to get everythingI need to do back testing.
What dochian file r u guys using for mt4.

Sorry, but i can’t help here…i am just forward testing…