? for medisoft; I am interested in trying the 3Ducks on longer TFs ie W, D, & 4H. I will start with the same 60sma (not real sure that is the correct setting but good for a start) and on the Daily besides its 60 showing I would like for the Weekly 60sma to show also; would that setting be 420? Never too sure how that is figured. I don’t want all 3 sma’s showing, just 2 on the D and if I see price is above or below both then I would go to the 4H for fine tuning. I do the same on the Captain’s setup, 2 sma’s on the 1H then go to the 5M. thank you, dobro
Hi Dobro
Yes, the Weekly SMA(60) on the daily chart is SMA(420).
Thank you medisoft. d.
I was trying to trade a big basket of pairs, and I found myself trading with inverse trades. For example, I had short on gbpusd and gbpchf but long on gbpcad, so I was wrong on one side because the pound could be weak or strong but not both. That is burning my hands sometimes.
So I’m reducing the number of pairs to majors and crosses with yen.
Because the yen pairs are very correlated, I’m going to choose only one of them when trading, the clearest and nicest signal.
Also I’m thinking about eliminating the usdchf because it is basically the inverse of eurusd, but not sure yet.
So what is your current pair selection line up?
the majors and crosses with yen 
Investopedia quotes the majors as
EUR/USD: The euro and the U.S. dollar
USD/JPY: The U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen
GBP/USD: The British pound sterling and the U.S. dollar
USD/CHF: The U.S. dollar and the Swiss franc
Read more: Forex Currencies: The Four Major Pairs | Investopedia
Your thinking about dropping USD/CHF and USD/JPY is a yen cross.
which leaves
EUR/USD: The euro and the U.S. dollar
GBP/USD: The British pound sterling and the U.S. dollar
and
E/J, U/J, G/J
E/J and G/J are obviously highly correlated as are E/U and G/U.
so theoretically you could effectively only be trading E/U, E/J and U/J?
I’m using the school of pipscology for definitions:
Currencies Are Traded in Pairs | What is Forex? | Learn Forex Trading
I use the majors and yen crosses written there
I’m testing a new way to trade the ducks. Instead of the zigzag to check points of support/resistance, I’m looking at donchian channels.
Both techniques are trend following, and both looks for breakouts, so the 3 ducks filter bad breakouts while the channels define entry/exit points in a very objective way.
It is similar to the zigzag, but I think support/resistance levels it have more meaning than zigzag points.
Hey medisoft!
I was going through the 3 ducks thread, and decided to pull and study some charts. I simply put the EU pair and the 3 MAs and got to looking.
I really think an EA that simply follows one basic rule and fires market orders to adhere to it would be a winner.
All it has to do is open a trade in the appropriate direction, via market order whenever the price is below the 3 MAs and close it when the price touches one of the MAs. (I noticed the 720 can be below the 60 MA, and still when price goes above\below all of them, it keeps on going for good profit when it touches one of them again.
Have you thought about simplifying this strategy just a bit, and try this kind of idea using the one basic rule of price being all the way above\below the 3 MAs and basically assign the EA to have an open trade whenever it sees this rule being met? I think it would work well because it could manage the market orders extremely fast. Here’s a pic for a visual:
chart c.bmp (791 KB)
Of course there would be a lot of little trades, and BE and very few small losers, but the ability to command market orders upon price breaking out of the 3 MAs seems to look really good on the history.
I like fractals.
I tend to use fractals for this too!
fractals are good on higher timeframes, but on M5 you can see lots of fractals that are fake.
it is easy to get a false higher high with a fractal on M5.
do you use them on M5?
I already tested that, but don’t work very good. On some special selected charts it looks great, but on more general market, definitely not.
Just look on any pair longer time and you will see lots of small trades, that sums up to lose big money.
Maybe a modification that don’t close a trade with the stop, but when it closes crossing one of the SMAs could reduce losers. I need to test that.
But I think that Captain Currency says good, 3 ducks is to help you to decide your trades. You should have previous knowledge to trade, and guide yourself using the ducks.
That’s what I’m thinking is the ability to immedietely close a trade just touching one of the SMAs by market order would result in mostly BE -spread losses, and the winners would run really long. And using the original settings, so 5 minute chart, only EU and GU pairs, at least for testing, and 60, 720, and 2880 SMAs. May need a 2 pip buffer, maybe 1 pip above and 1 pip below the MAs to keep the EA from contradicting itself.
I setup some set&forget trades. I’m checking all the 3 ducks conditions, but I’m setting the trade on H1 channels to define high/lows for entry/stop points.
On AUDUSD
Short on GBPUSD
And long on AUDJPY and NZDJPY
all but AUDUSD trades were activated. The aussie became invalid as the price crossed the 4h sma.
I’m managing my trade using the 20 periods channel for my stop, so my current risk is smaller than the initial one.
I have an open trade from the past week on GBPAUD that is with profit locked and more than 140 pips in profit. I hope it will touch the target soon, but I’m trailing the stops and locking more profit using the channel.
The GBPUSD trade touched the target
The GBPAUD is growing with +115 pips. The audjpy is small at +11 while nzdjpy is at -11.
I moved the stops using the 20 bars channel, so my risk right now on all the trades is very small compared with the potential profit
all my trades were closed with profit (except nzdjpy that is still running)
That is about 1.5% of my account
As a journal. This is the method i used (take me about 15-30 minutes daily)
[ol]
[li]Look at the H4 TF to see general trend. Look for a nice angle on the daily SMA60, that is the 360 SMA on H4[/li][li]Change to H1 TF, and see if the price is in good position relative to the H4 SMA60 (that is 240 SMA on H1). If it is OK, then:[/li][li]Use donchian channels to set entry, target and stop. My entry is on the 55 hours channel, my stop is on the 20 hours channel, and my target is near the recent high/low on 55 hour channel[/li][/ol]
[ol]
[li][B]After I get my orders active[/B], I managed them moving the stop using the 20 hours channel. I don’t place the stop at the channel, but below it. Not fixed pips, but a visual small amount.[/li][li]I let the trade run until it hits my stop or my target.[/li][li]I manage my trade 4-6 times a day, if I have enough time. If not, only twice. This take me only 1-5 minutes, because is only moving the stops.[/li][/ol]
[B]What I shouldn’t do:[/B]
[ol]
[li]Viewing and reviewing and reviewing again my charts. It causes stress, and don’t add anything useful to my trading because I don’t move anything. I must force myself to use the set and forget technique for at least 8 hours, better 24 hours.[/li][/ol]
[B]What I should do:
[/B]
[ol]
[li]Start viewing the charts on 4h/1D to see main trend[/li][li]Check the main S/R on 4h/1D to see if my stop and targets are in good points[/li][li]I don’t require to zoom in to 5M, because I’m trading with set & forget approach. My script checks that all the ducks are aligned before activating an order, so I don’t need to do that task.[/li][li]Look for trades that give to me Risk:Reward of 1:2 or better. If it is 1:1 maybe it is best to choose another pair.[/li][li]Check that the price become from below (to buy, inverse to sell) the H4 sma, making HH and HL[/li][/ol]
[B]Which pairs:
[/B]
[ul]
[li]Majors (audusd, eurusd, gbpusd, nzdusd, usdcad, usdchf, usdjpy), and yen crosses (usdjpy, nzdjpy, gpbjpy, eurjpy, chfjpy, cadjpy, audjpy)[/li][li]Some times another crosses give nice trade signals, like gbpaud, gbpnzd, euraud, eurnzd.[/li][li]Pairs with CHF are not good, because CHF is very correlated to EUR, so GBPCHF is almost the inverse of EURCHF.[/li][/ul]
I’m long on new trades with eurjpy usdjpy and cadjpy.
The nzdjpy has about 80 pips and is near the target.
If the NFP result is positive the usd is going to reduce it’s value and all the majors are going to feel the impact.
I think gbpusd is going to be the less affected and eurusd the most.
The usdjpy is going to react a little and that should make the yen crosses a good buy.
Conversly if the report is bad the usd will appreciate causing all yen crosses to reduce the value.
I’m going to lock some profit in all my open trades today before the NFP but i expect a explosive move in my favour tomorrow.