I pieced together this system for a competition at my broker, starting on May, 4th until the end of the month. The system uses crossover between Tenkan and Kijun lines and other indicators for filters.
Pairs: XAU/USD
Timeframe: M15
Indicators:
Ichimoku (default settings, set the color of other lines to none)
CCI 10, apply to median price
Smoothed MA8, apply to high
Smoothed MA8, apply to low
MTF Gann Hilo Activator, lookback 11
Rules:
Enter a long position when the criteria below are met:
Tenkan line is above Kijun line.
The last candle close and lower wick are above the Smoothed MA8 high.
CCI value is not over 100 and not showing divergence.
Conversely, enter a short position when:
Tenkan line is below Kijun line.
The last candle close and upper wick are below the Smoothed MA8 low.
CCI value is not below -100 and not showing divergence.
SL and TP
The Stop Loss is set at the MTF Gann Hilo Activator line and is then trailed/moved to follow the price. No predefined Take Profit.
Very curious, there: you’re using the original settings from daily charts (and from the days when there was a 6-day week, too!) but actually trading from 15-minute charts? I’ve seen Ichimoku used a lot, but I certainly haven’t seen that tried, before.
You realise that a “smoothed MA of 8 periods” is another name for a 15-bar exponential MA?
And that your Tenkan/Kijun crossover, used without the other other Ichimoku indicators, is actually a Donchian midline crossover under another name?
Good luck with the trading and competition, anyway - looking forward to hearing more.
Yes, the default setting is used because the system previously used 26 Kijun period as moving SL before I found Gann Hilo indicator to replace it. Back then, I found that any value below 24 often got stopped out midtrend, and any value bigger than 26 wasn’t responsive enough to protect the profit. We can use different value, of course, but it will require backtesting.
Thanks, good to know! I’ve never heard about Donchian midline crossover before. Sounds interesting. When I hear the word Donchian, the only thing comes to mind is the breakout system.
Indeed. Trend-following with a slow SMA for bias determination, and the entries prompted by a Donchian midline crossover and an EMA-15 channel. The 6-day-week daily settings used on M15 charts are certainly mysterious, but might be interesting?
Good luck with it, @flows , and thanks for posting!
“Tenkan” and “Kijun” are the names used in Japanese for Donchian midlines, @flows .
They’re both lines connecting the midpoints between the highest high of the last x bars and the lowest low of the same number of bars. That’s what we call in the West a “Donchian channel midline”. It’s just another name for the same thing, really. In Japan, the “Tenkan sen” is the faster line and the “Kjun sen” is the slower one, but they both measure and display the same thing in the same way.
The numbers used for the classic settings are 9 (a week and a half of a daily chart with a 6-day week) and 26 (the number of trading days in a month, with a 6-day week).
Like most indicator settings, the original ones come from trading stocks on daily charts, of course, but you can use them on any charts you like, and for forex, too! I would suggest, though, that you might want to try different settings?.
12 for two weeks with a 6 day week, and 26 days for a month, just as with Ichimoku, but some people try - for reasons best known to themselves!! - to use those same MACD settings for trading forex from much faster charts!
Good luck on your competition! I’ve never participated in one before, but I’m curious how it all works out. Is there any particular reason you prefer using Ichimoku? I feel like I’ve been seeing more traders using it lately.
I’ve been playing with different settings, and the number 26 fits perfectly for the current trend.
Perhaps I should’ve mentioned that I made the system to be used in a competition that only lasts for a month, so I backtested it with only two months data. I understand that intensive testing is needed for a system before going live, but testing with years worth of data seems like an overkill for a system that will be used only for a month.
Thanks for your good wishes. Everyone’s support means a lot. If you’re interested, I’d love to see you join us. Everyone gets a demo account for the competition, and it’s completely free.
As for why I chose to use Ichimoku, it’s a bit of everything, really. Firstly, the crossover indicates trend shift to navigate the market. Secondly, the lines calculates the highs and the lows (which is good to have in a volatile market with them notoriously long wicks).
It’s good to know that more traders are using it lately. Here’s hoping that the more it’s used, the more it becomes self-fulfilling phropecy
I do see what you mean. Yes, competitions call for a different approach, of course. Very good point.
In fact, now you mention it, this system might be very sensible and conservative, if anything, for a competition? You might actually need something wilder and more dangerous, for a competition? Good luck anyway!
Hahaha, you just have to say it, don’t you? I totally agree.
I’ve been trying several scalping strategies, and I still don’t know how I managed to screw it while others make profits out of them. I’m more comfortable with day trading if anything else.
Compounding into positions comes to mind, but it will need longer trend, and new rules for adding positions. Perhaps I’ll think of something over the weekend.
I’m adding one new strategy alongside the Ichimoku Crossover (IC). In the last 2 months, the trend was so clear that IC could perform well. However, the trend seemed to change 2 weeks ago, so I might need a contrarian strategy to use during sideways.
The new system is a work in progress, so no clear rules yet.
Bollinger Bands 20, deviations 1.5, plotted to CCI
ATR 14, for SL
Basically, I will sell whenever CCI readings breaks from the bands and the level 100 (overbought), and vice versa. To get better probability, I also use channel and SR levels in conjunction with the CCI reading breakouts.
Identifying tops and bottoms before they happen is challenging and often speculative, so I won’t use this system in the competition outright until I have clear rules.
There were several setups like this later and were all skipped because they needed more than 500 pips SL. Price kept going up, but there was lack of momentum.
As expected, whenever trend following struggles, counter trend strategies perform better. A divergence was spotted when price went down to the center of 2 days regression channel, and price then shot up to break the channel. If there’s a rule to be made, trades should be closed when CCI readings reached the other extreme.
All requirements were met and I moved my SL as price went down. Price spiked upward later and hit my SL at BEP before continuing south. +0 pip.
Meanwhile, things are quite interesting with the new system. I noticed a pattern during backtest that could provide a hint as to where I should put my TP. However, since this is discretionary trading, I haven’t had the time to backtest with many data.
This is a screenshot from yesterday. Price went up to break the 2 days regression channel which is contained within the 3 days regression channel. I deliberately marked the area of the break because during my backtest, I found that price often returned to where the break was.
And below is screenshot from today. Price broke the lower 1 day regression channel and got rejected. The trading range then tightened before the price moving towards the lower 2 days regression channel and touched the yesterday’s area of the break. Also notice that the price suddenly spiked up to where the break at 1 day regression channel was.
This may be nothing new, price goes to area of support and resistance all the time. But it helps to decide which area of support and resistance that matters during my trading windows.
I had to work overtime, so I couldn’t trade yesterday. Looking back, there were 4 possible setups that the system could’ve triggered, with only one winner. On another note, price seemed to be going back and forth a lot at 2316.
I’ve never participated in one before, but I’m curious how it all works out. 
Is there any particular reason you prefer using Ichimoku? 
