Easy 5 minute Trading

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To be fair if i was trading a live account i would definetly come out of the trades before friday close, but when it comes to software testing i believe in pushing things to breaking limit so you can see if the software works as it should.

Will be interesting i was wondering what would happen, i’ll let you guys know sunday.

I think mine and Mitchell’s way of testing is different which is a good thing, im coming more from an IT background so im used to deploying custom software and weird setups, so this background has helped me here.

Thats good to hear, sounds like we are getting similar trading results which is nice. I think if by the end of next week we have good peformance and similar results then we need to do further testing but it would look like this EA could be good to run on a live account as it seems to be doing what it should be and the strategy works !

Mitchell maybe your experience you pointed out with this strategy not working well over the last few weeks was just the summer months? Maybe quiet periods like summer months and december and january should be traded more carefully with your enhanced rules? September is when everything gets back to normal so would make sense why today being a friday of all days was excellent but the last week has been ok?

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Yeah, It was mainly very late august to early September, probably a period of about 2 and a half weeks where the method did nothing at all. Apart from that, I do make about 8% per week consistently, which is nice :slight_smile:

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THat is a nice % to make, is that 8% with this strategy or combined with other trading methods you use if you don’t mind me asking ?

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haha, I ment solely this method :)! that is only usually on 6 pairs that i mentioned before, USDCHF or EURUSD (dont trade both at the same time for obvious reasons :P), GBPUSD, AUDUSD, USDCAD, AUDSUD and USDJPY, however personally I dont like the yen pairs that much. Hopefully this EA can clean them up :slight_smile:

This week I traded so many pairs, all the ones I just mentioned. Plus all the main yen pairs eur/gbp/usd, silver, gold and the gbpaud I added also :slight_smile:

Forgot to mention that that 8-9% this week was actually only the last 2 days, I dont know what the first few days of the week were like haha :smiley:

252

Hey Guys,

Re: Close trades on Friday —
Funny, SandyBeach, I already started working on an add on “CloseWinnersOnFriday = true;” I figured I would not close losers, and give them time to profit. But it could be both either/or. “CloseAllTradesOnFriday = true;”

I’m working on getting the GMT time automatically, because close time will be different for different platform/servers. In fact, I put it in my EA for closing my trades Friday, but it failed, because even though, my platform is trading GMT+3, it stopped trading at 23:59, which would be 20:59 (i.e. 21:00 GMT) but looking at the the ForexMarketHours website, trading is supposed to stop at 22:00 GMT. So it stopped an hour early and my trades were not closed. But my technical mind over rode my experiential mind, because I know the market closes at 2pm PST, which is 21:00 GMT.

Well, anyway, there’s code that can pull GMT from MT4 with some calculations, and I can use that for closing time or I could put a setting for “Local_Close_Time” and use computers LocalTime() function to close when you say it will.

re: opening new trades each day —
The EA will not open a new trade if one is already running in its current format. So if you have an open long trade and a new setup posts, a new trade will not open. Don’t confuse an open trade with a PENDING Trade. If the new day candle setup is a reversal, the EA will close the opposing PENDING trade and open a new one in the correct direction.

re: the stoploss adjustments based on the fibs, and if the fibs change, will the stop-loss settings –
Actually, I think this might be a problem. Because the EA will update the fib, even if a trade is open. So, as we speak, I just move the code that opens the fib and setting to only happen IF there is no OPEN trade. It SHOULD adjust itself, long or short, if only a pending trade is open.

It’s a little of Chicken and Egg thing. At present, if you’re currently in a trade, you’re in it until it closes properly, unless you manually close it.

re: multiple currency pairs on one chart –
First: It can be done for forward and live but NOT on backtesting. The backtesting engine can only see values of the CURRENT chart pair. That was the problem with the lot calculator getting “zero divide” error. It was trying to see value of other currency to determine the base currency value.
Second: it slows things down, and all your pairs trading depend on the new “tick” of the chart the EA is on. So if you have the EA on say, EURUSD, and for some reason, that chart is sitting silent, but the AUDCHF is kicking but ticking away, the EA will miss all those trades. Having the EA on each chart/pair is the best way not to miss any active pair’s trades.

It does not simplify anything having them all trade on one chart. If you want the number of open trades to be restricted, that’s no problem. Just adding in "MaxTrades = " setting can be done and calculated.

In fact, something I mentioned to Mitchell, re: RiskPercent… if you risk 2% and have 6 trades open, you are risking 12%, not 2%. So I already added the option to monitor number of open trades and divide the RiskPercentage by open trades, so as each new trade opens, the RiskPercent gets reduced. To do that, I had to calculate all open trades on different charts, based on MagicNumber and Comment. The same calculation can be used to limit total number of open trades.

Mitchell brought up one point about some jpy pair on backtest. I’m thinking it must have been due to a Monday Gap open that made for a massive StopLoss and TakeProfit. The only way to avoid that at the moment is to select False for Trade_Monday. Guess you can set the Trade_Monday = false by default, then based on each chart you look at, if there is no nasty Gap, you can turn the setting to Trade_Monday = True for that chart and the EA go to work.

re: 2012.09.07 1355 ZZ_Blizard_ZZ_V1.3 EURUSD,M5: ERROR: BUY OrderSend for EURUSD failed with error (130): invalid stops –
I’m not sure what happened. This usually if the stop is too close, which I though I protected against. Or the format is too many digits, also thougth I protected. Only thing I can think if would be a squshed fib, which if you’re using 30 pip minimum fibo size, it shouldn’t happen.
All I can say is watch for it again and see if you can reproduce it and/or determine a common condition causing it. Then we can fix it.

re: trading on 4 hr chart – except for the “Trade Max 1 per day” setting, this EA doesn’t know what timeframe it is on. So if you set that to False, it should tarde the 4hr chart as well. I haven’t tried testing it however. Throw it on a demo and let me know what explodes :wink:

Ok, so coming up, a version including:

  1. option to defray the risk over open trade number. Obviously, the first trade will do full risk calc. Second trade will cut it in half, third in thirds, etc. So, it won’t be a true RiskPercent over all open trades, but it will progressively reduce risk as each new trades opens. So, just as estimate, if you have 2% risk and open 4 trades, it will be 2%, then 1%, then 0.33% then 0.25%. Guess you’d haved to add those up for 3.58% over all risk, instead of 4x2%=8% you would have had otherwise.
  2. Option to Close_Winning_Trades_Friday and/or Close_All_Trades_Friday

I think its best at this time to let mid-week open trades run, and leave it to you to manually close trades at end-of-day or start-of-new-day, because you might be pretty unhappy if a trend was ripping unhindered to 400% profit, but the EA closed it mid-stride, and you could not get back in, because Pending Order entry level would already be passed, or you might just have to wait a day for a new setup anyway.
And, I still need to test, it, but I belielve I set up the fibs NOT to redraw if a actual trade is open.

hmmm… here is the chicken egg thing. If it will not redraw fibs, and you refresh your charts, the fib will disappear, and not redraw for your adjusting closing stops. If it does redraw, but to new values, it will change your closing stop numbers.

Ah ha, got it. On refreshing a chart with an open trade, I can just take the open price, and the 400% target price and reconstruct the fib base on that.

Will see how this works out.

Will let you know.
Jim

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I’m trading this strategy live and have noticed that Yen pairs tend to mess up the system. I tried both USDJPY and GBPJPY – The profits were selectively good but overall, the results were inconsistent.

The reason for Yen problem is not the EA but the nature of the currency. Specifically, BOJ (Bank of Japan) intervention.

Stick with the majors minus Yen pairs. They give better results, both on manual testing and the EA.

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NewNine,
Good to know. Yeah, the JPY pairs make it exciting sometimes.

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re: Monday trading Gap, I justed added to next version:

extern bool MondayGapProtection = true;
extern double MondayGap = 30;

so if you trade monday and the gap from friday is >30, no trades will be opened.

256

Sounds awesome!

Just backtested GBPUSD since 2005 (0 min fib size, 5 pip minimum wick, and 2%risk) it was up to about $20,000 by 2010 ahah!

I just love watching backtests, I would happily stick up the visual and just watch the candles moving all night

257

That’s a pretty impressive backtest.

I agree totally (as long as we’re watching profits). Its great to see time compressed, and our bank accounts grow exponentially, while we watch.

But, what a bummer when you go back to reality, where you actually have to WAIT.

Having to shift some things around to get the fibos to reconstruct once a trade is open. Looks like its about ready, though. Backtesting as we speak.
But strangely, this is GBPUSD starting from April 2011, and its losing instead of profiting. Hope I didn’t mess up the EA!! So many variables now.

258

After reading this thread, I remember you saying that you thought this system could be tweaked with an indicator or 2 to help results. Did you ever come up with anything?

259

Yes, we came up with RSI and stoch filters, though as we suspected, it totally ruined the method haha.

260

Having issues with new fibs each bar messing up trailing stop on open orders, but by not renewing the fibs, missing new setup’s on new candles.

Will work more on it later. V11 will be delayed.

261

Yes, I use stochs, price channels and MA along with this strategy which helps me spot trends and keep away from consolidation periods. I understand it’s a fashion to make assumptions about indicators and trash them but nevertheless, I’m trading profitably by understanding the overall trend in addition to price action.

This approach has also helped me avoid bad trades in August.

  • Price action (fibs, candlesticks) tell you the fundamental story.
  • Indicators (when used right) reveal the technical side of the story.

Let me clarify that I use indicators only to decide whether to enter a trade or not. I exit positions more-or-less per the original rules of this system.

By the way, I’m forward testing this in a live account, and it works.

One last thing… Look at page 6 of this strategy thread over here:

http://forums.babypips.com/free-forex-trading-systems/39181-easy-5-minute-trading-6.html

A user who goes by the name of “melchsee” has also been using indicators to filter out entries in the Whicked Wicks system back in 2011. Though his charts look far more complex, that is where I got the idea to use indicators along with price action.

You can also notice his interaction with WindsorFTW, the original creator of this strategy.

I’ll leave you guys to your discussion.

262

Hmm, I think we should test it. This method is already low risk, and you miss out on a lot of pips, hoping that it goes higher. When you add lagging indicators into the mix, not sure. May I ask how you did do last week and with what pairs?

I ended up with 2.8%, playing aud/cad, aud/usd, usd/cad, and usd/chf

263

When I was trashing the indicators before, I the indicators working within the EA.

I tried to use indicators to filter out bad trades before, but I found like you said wigglez it filtered out too many good trades D:

264

Yes, this method is a good one as long as there is a visible trend – as in the case of last week.

There was buying action in EUR/USD, GBP/USD and AUD/USD. The first two felt a little unnatural so I was cautious in trading them. But I went all out on AUDUSD as it was recovering from having dropped 400 pips. So a buy trade on all these 3 pairs during the Thursday/Friday session that just concluded would have resulted in “great pips”.

The reason for that is that you just caught a trend.

Likewise, USD/CAD has been scraping the bottom for quite a while. Watch for the upside on this pair when it happens.

I usually don’t look at % gains (I know it’s unusual but that’s how I evaluate things). I look at the win:loss ratio over time, and since mid-August I’ve been having 1 loss for every 7-8 trades. (This used to be higher when I wasn’t aware of the bigger picture i.e., the trend.)

When I try a method or strategy, I consider the fact that I want to trade it not just this year but 3-4 years down the line with minimum modifications. That’s why I try to modify and tweak things in the beginning so that the system has both time and experience the weather unusual economic conditions.

You might hear of a great strategy that gave X number of pips with XX% gains for 2 years. And then, the market took it all back. That’s the long term trend kicking it in the small trader’s gut.

Let me emphasize again that I use indicators only for entries and NOT exits. The fib levels are good enough for exits.

As I said before, I try “not” to take a trade before I actually “take” a trade. Hope that makes sense.

265

Whatever works for you. That’s what trading is.

I know you said they were toying with those indicators, but if you look up the newer posts, he had filtered out the losing trades, with what we’re doing now, and stated that it works in any market condition.

Granted I am going off what he said, whether or not its true, who knows.

266

NewNine, the recent versions of the EA have settings for Stoch and RSI, if you want to try them for best results. For me the stoch seemed to eliminate many entries. Give it a try and let me know what settings work. I know you didn’t ask for RSI, but many people do, so thought I’d throw it in. Moving Averages and crosses can also be used.
If you’ve heard of Don Steinitz, he has made several EA’s that use every imaginable indicator (which he sells for big$$) including multiple timeframe trend indicators all on a single chart, and they make the chart look very impressive, yet still the trade will go against you when everyone of his indicators say it shouldn’t.

That being said, if you find a specific set of indicator(s) and specific settings that give you consistent results, they can be integrated into the EA, but the page you cited Melchsee was using a couple systems, and also jumping back and forth between the old and new Wicked Wicks system, and he threw in also using his “gut” for more decision making. This won’t work for making an EA. Not to say, it doesn’t work for trading.

The reason I was excited about making an EA for Windsor’s system was there was a set of simple, consistent rules. They must be specifically definable and the same rules for all trades. Then it can be made into an EA.

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Phew, im glad you said that only, as that means we are getting quite similar results which proves the strategy and EA works well !

This should help. Also what i have noticed is most of the additions you have added which are not mentioned in the original strategy like this one are perfect for the EA and should help us anyway !!

Hey take your time with the EA no rush, best to get it right than rush it :wink:

You guys have actually given me a good reason to do some work this weekend lol, for the last few weeks i’ve been meaning to re-image one of my pc’s and set it up soley for MT4 demo trading. So thats my job this weekend.

With Babypipsjbentz EA im going to stick the latest one (v10a) to run from monday on the daily and hourly charts with the six currency pairs mentioned before.

This will be a fresh demo account so only this EA on the one account, different magic numbers, im going on holiday from the 15th, but im planning to leave the PC running at a family members house while im off as i shut everything down when im hols, so hopefully we should have 3 weeks of forward testing without any interference.

Im not sure how trading the 4 hour charts will go, the daily charts are good enough for me, but will be interesting as an experiment.

I cant setup more scenario’s if need be ? The PC will be running 24/7.