that was actually the day the Nasdaq took a big dump. Money came flowing back into currencies, I was on the right side of it and took profit on alot of my early direction trades.
The a couple of days later money started flowing the other way back into Equities, and I was on the wrong side of some.
I’ll be honest, I’ve no idea how my new risk management will smooth out a couple of days like those, but I’m interested to find out.
I’ve decided I’m going to run my Position size/Risk management concept into a fully backtestable method, and tunable so I can really push the bounds in showing when a particular Algo is right.
I’ve decided to not only create and refine some code for it, I’m going to name it, and give it an opensource github as it’s own module.
It will be known from this point as “Best Foot Forward”
The core concept is that “Best Foot Forward” calculates at full position size if your strategy is currently profitable, but warns you to reduce or increase risk inline with your Algos “Synchronization” with the current market conditions.
Backtest results will also reflect the reduced position sizing to allow tuning of Algos and for the DD and ROI.
DD being the most critical factor for Prop trading, and ROI being the core factor for private account trading.
Fascinating, as usual. Keep up the good work. 
OH!!!
I forgot to add something.
I’ve actually ditched something from my rules.
I can’t backtest news avoidence, unless I go back in 10 years of history for every currency pair, and and block dates etc etc.
So if I can’t backtest it, I don’t trade it.
So I don’t check it. It doesn’t get taken into account anymore.
Hi Chris. You’re certainly one for hard work, which I respect. Only way to become consistently profitable, IMO. Keep it up, you’ll be a multi millionaire at this rate.
One back test - if you have time, I’d be eternally grateful if you could carry out, if you can - one that causes me endless frustration - is testing the efficacy of various PSAR settings. I know it won’t be the same for all pairs, which is a bummer.
However, my current setting is 0.10 - 0.40 or 0.09 - 0.50 (on two live accounts). The aim is to get this lagging indicator as close as possible to a trend change with the most accurate signals. Probably works better in a trending market, IMO.
I would attempt it, but I’m a dinosaur when it comes to anything technical. IMO, Wilder ( the creator) found his setting as being best, but in today’s volatile environment, it just lags too much - and if you manage to find a better solution, it could be ground breaking.
BTW - you could use your EA to experiment with trading indices. High volumes, many opportunities.
best wishes and continuous good luck.
I think there’s a fear from the mortgage crisis that a house isn’t the safest investment. And combine higher down payment requirements and most first time homebuyers being strapped with an insane tuition loan, you can maybe see why many are renting.
Why not get the best of both worlds? Use credit cards for everything, set them to pay off EVERY month, so you spend only what you know you have, and you get the rewards, whether that’s to fuel your car or get cash back rewards or a trip to a sunny beach somewhere to relax and reset from the crazy world? I very rarely pay using cash, and rotate between 4-5 credit cards, all have specific uses for monthly expenses I know I have to make - groceries, fuel, insurance payments, pet food, etc.
Having done this for nearly 20 years, I’ve got probably close to $100K in revolving available credit IF I ever needed to use it. The interest rates on the cards don’t matter because I never carry debt into the next payment cycle. And your credit history gets a boost, so if ever you need a loan for a house, car, home improvement, whatever, creditors see your excellent credit history and basically throw credit at you.
I’ve had a look at PSAR on TV just now and there are a few preprogrammed strategies.
If none of them do what you need, shoot me a PM and I can look at banging something together for you when I get a chance.
Had a variety of Trailing Stops and Take Profits trigger through the day today.
Overall account equity did not change, but we are 1% down on the closed PnL.
A little clear out of positions that were running against me, and leaving me with a basket of growing positions (he says 
).
One position opened tonight, 3 has signals BUT “Best foot forward” told me that 2 were no go.
Looking at the equity curve on the back test of those two, trading them wouldn’t have returned me anything this year so far.
I have a couple of positions still open from before implementing “BFF” but now majority of my positions are post launch.
It’ll be interesting to see how it effects things over the next few weeks.
My Slow algo is backtesting nicely now, so still doing a few tweaks and adjusts slowly pre launch.
So things still evolving nicely.
Journal wise, I’m beginning to wonder how much value my paper journal is giving me.
a post by @dushimes about journaling had me touting the benefits of myfxbook, but also made me realise I’d barely scratched the surface of it.
So I took a look in and have realised that everything I write in my journal I can capture, possibly easier and with more depth on there. And also be able to sort it etc.
When I launch my second algo, and then my 3,4 and 5th algos eventually I will be able to track them with tags and allsorts.
With the ability to add screen shots if needed, and unlimited space for comments etc.
So I do think what I did with my paper journal got me a start, got my head in the game and gave me my first real insight into my stats… But I think I can now retire it.
Also I can retire my Exposure sheet, as the open trades with my tags will show me at a glance my % expose while I trade.
The reason i went paper was as I travel and use different computers, but myfxbook is available just as simply as TradingView. If i can’t get on one, I can’t get on the other.
So I think I’ll use my paper book simply to close out the exiting trades.
I do need to go through 186 closed trades and add the appropriate tags for my records.
But I feel it’s time to move on in this respect and level up again!!!
PLAYER HAS LEVELLED UP
Isn’t that an amazing feeling? Two weeks ago I took a decision to close our first year of trading that included Cryptos two months early (to align with our UK tax reporting year) and had to review what I call my “business plan and operating record” Excel workbook started in May 2020. It underwent “scope creep” to end up with 13 tabs of up to 200 lines per tab. Having reviewed all the tab contents it is overdue for a clean up and simplification.
When I started collating the information last May it was absolutely a case of “you don’t know what you don’t know”, so I laid down some “boundary conditions” as a scientist would do in an attempt to curtail the scope of research. That gave me a list of actions to take to investigate what I didn’t know. I have moved from (as Donald Rumsfeld would say), the “unknown unknowns” to the “known unknowns”.
Along the way, I did come across the Discord server associated with the NNFX method, and it now features as an entire “book” on my MS “One Note” portfolio, with only about 10% learning completed and another 90% to go - which incidentally includes a desire to “be able to program a simple EA” to automate setup analysis just as you have chosen to do, and share outputs with members of this forum (I thank you dearly for that).
I did see you going down some ratholes like establishing a colour legend or regime to represent different aspects of your EA, and thought “uh oh - Chris is going somewhere I have been countless times before and should not have” but it’s probably related to a leaning towards perfectionism which is no bad trait.
Wonderful to see you progressing in leaps and bounds, and taking the time to stand back and look at the overall achievement to know how to approach the next part of your world domination plan. Well done and keep up the great journal.
I’m taking a look now…I’m reluctant, but I have to keep an open mind.
Some very good advice here, pretty much what I’m trying to achieve.
The concept is called “Rotational Trading”, having multiple Algos that you can use depending on their performance on that asset, at that time!
Distractions
So today I messed up.
Not a big mess up, but a mess up just the same.
Trading time came, I’m on night shift so at work, but to be honest it’s quiet.
So I opened up myfxbook and my Green Algo (the only one I am trading until next month).
Just as I was doing it, the phone rang. It was IT support on land following up a ticket my collegue had been working with them on through the day.
So I carried on doing my trading while chatting, turned out the guy was ex military like myself, got a good chat…
And I took a trade, totally not remembering to check my “BFF”.
Not all is lost, it was a “Caution” or “half risk” trade, so it’s still made 3% in the last 12 months, but more recently it’s had alot of break even and a couple of losses. So seems that the Algo might not be “Syncronised” with the market structure.
I should have taken 2x 0.5% positions, but took full1% positions.
So I need to switch on and avoid distractions!!!
Best Foot Forward
There were 2 other trades with an entry, both were “DO NOT TRADE” on BFF so I sat them out.
A quick look back at some of my previous losses “BFF” would have kept me out of them quite nicely.
I’m really hopeful over the next few weeks I’ll start seeing some results.
What I can say is I’m in much less trades. This should equate to smaller interest fees and cheaper to run the actual account, then with less trades fighting in opposition I should see an uptick in the returns.
With my “red” algo launching at the end of the month I should be able to deploy the same rules and protection, while increasing trading opportunities.
back to work
So, after a few days or relaxation, celebrating my promotion and generally chatting and doing nothing, I need to get on with backtesting “Red” and getting it ready for launch!!!
Cheers, Chris
Have fun!!
I know this pain. Haha
Do you always check it?
“BFF” is new, so it’s not muscle memory yet!!!
2 weeks ago I would have taken the trade and not given it a second though, so I need to make myself check at the moment.
Ok… So I jumped the gun…
I’ve been thinking about joining the 5%ers once I get a load more time and data under my belt, and have more than one algo running.
But, after watching some vids, gathering info etc. I realised that doing 5%ers might highlight things in my strategy that I need to change, or things in my routine etc.
I decided to sign up for the basic account, $255 which gets you a $6000 funded account with DD max of 4%, and 6% target with 6 months to complete.
I launched the MT5 platform, and was ready to make my first trade. This is where I discovered that I need to make changes. MT5 doesn’t allow trailing stops from the web.
The server doesn’t do it, only the Client on a PC.
As I need to do my trading while travelling this wont work with my strategy.
I need to change my strategies to FIXED STOPS!!!
So really it was a good idea, I can now make the changes and build my strategies around fixed stops.
So I quickly tested the one pair fixed stops, and the strategy still makes profit. I went ahead with my first trade.
Later tonight I plan to run a backtest of my exisitng strategy with fixed stops, and if it’s still good keep going with it.
Beyond that I’ll move to Trailing stops when I can have a VPS setup, or a reliable always on computer for this that I can login to. I don’t trust my home connection at this point.
All looking good though, fingers crossed still moving forward and reacting to change.
Personal
So not much new going on here, just playing out my last week of night shift, hopefully for ever.
Looking forward to the very brief time home before the promotion, 7 days at home before I travel.
Looking forward to time with my little boys and my girlfriend.
Mechanical Private trading
So yesterday was the first time in 7 weeks trading the live account that ALL my positions had closed out.
It was a strange sight for sure. It was also nice to see that the closed balance was positive!
I’m not taking that fact for granted at all!!!
BFF held me out of most trade opportunities, but I placed 1 trade yesterday.
Today I was presented LOTS of opportunities, however BFF told me to stay out of 4 or 5 of them.
I took 6 trades, so 12 positions.
Most of these are continuation trades from trend directions that were already established.
As happened in March (17th) there was an inflow of money from Equities, then back into equities the last couple of days, mainly surrounding Bidens comments on Capital gains taxes.
This seems to have subsided and the trends are continuing as they were… Back on them then!
Mechanical Prop Trading
I’m following exactly my Private trades, with the exception that instead of 2% risk per trade, or 1% per position I am trading 0.5% per position or 1% per trade.
Also there is a reduced list of available pairs, the Majors and Minors only, so no exotics.
Not a huge deal, just means I have one less trade open on there than on my own account.
I have to use MT5 web to make the trades, to calculate the lot sizes I have to use the position size calculator on Myfxbook, as I have to put it in as lot’s rather than the convenient % of equity or cash value you can use through TradingView.
I’m simply opening the trade on Oanda via TV, then using the Pip value in the calcualtor on MT5, and verifying my SL and TP positions against my now open trade on TV.
A nice and simple process, which so far seems to be working ok. No dramas.
I’ve also thrown away ALL my backtested Algo’s as they were all Trailing stops, and started backtesting new ones with fixed stops. My own algo backtests ok with fixed, only a few occasions there’s a little more DD with fixed. I’ve just got to keep the account DD level under a watchful eye.
Automated Trading
So I’ve still been testing the Beta EA that I’m part of, and it’s very interesting seeing the results, and simply learning the process of backtesting etc.
I’ve also been speaking closely with the developer of another system, one that’s already in general release, although the developer is now looking at expanding the risk management model.
After talking, he’s offered me free access for a period, on the condition I give him some feedback and also that I write a review on it.
He seems to think I’ve got enough knowledge now to be able to assist, and articulate what the system can do.
I’m very keen to try it, although I won’t have much chance until June. So time will tell, but it may be something I can play with and deploy to make money while I sleep. The work comes in backtesting and configuring, knowing how to test and how to interpret.
Hi Chris,
It took me about 400 trades one epoch ago to realize what you have realized probably much faster. It has totally changed my psychology around realistic reward/risk estimation. As an ex-boss once said to me (and hundreds since), work smarter, not harder. On the other hand, it’s easy to forget when you are up to your ass in alligators that the objective was to drain the swamp . Picked that one up in Louisiana waiting for a demo job offshore Venice (not Italy!) 
