The 200day SMA knocks them our, I shall from here on in refer to it as the SnowBall Line 
I think the Snowball Line is going to be one of the hottest debated subjects coming out of this, I can see why FX snowball uses the line, but I suspect I am also proving just how many opportunities it removes. When the time comes I will be tuning this line, but at the moment Iām working on one thing at once.
You have my blessings to take out the 200d SMA. 
I make a conscious effort to keep with the overall trend. However, in reality, I did miss a huge portion of the snap-back in March- April, which sent me back to the drawing board. Bottom line, itās an additional rule I use that kept me on the right track for the past 12+ months, but itās not set in stone. Andyās rules about the 4hr and 1hr are!
Interestingly it doesnāt effect any of the sell orders at all, just block the buy orders. So it does make a pretty good safety net.
To be honest if you are going to try and back test the 3 duck system then dont add another sma to it which is irrelevant.
Further why would the 200 sma block buy orders when the price was above the 200 sma for most of the Apr-May period on the 4h chart?
Like I previously said it was added so that I was at a known starting point, I believe the reason that it blocks buys, is that with it in place, you donāt get all the SMAs on the same side very often.
Iām sorry if Iām stating the obvious but this is the 3 Ducks thread. There is no 200 sma.
Please start another thread for your back testing results as this thread has totally gone off course.
Quack quack!!!
Sorry you feel that way, if you canāt see the relevance of the 200 SMA and why I started with it in, even if it probably wonāt stay in, then Iād guess you donāt understand the process Iām going through, of starting from a known good point.
If the majority of people donāt wish for me to post the back testing results, and the journey of getting there, Iāll be happy to move on, and start another thread.
I donāt mean to discourage your testing but this thread isnāt the place for it. You are not testing the 3 Ducks system.
You have been given loads of advice about identifying trends and looking for pullbacks to help identify high probability candidates but you choose to include irrelevancies like the 200 sma and are coding things which are nothing to do with the 3 Ducks.
The system is simple - 3 time frames, one sma, some discretion. Itās not rocket science.
Please start a new thread for your 200ma and back-testing result.
IMO you are complicating and over thinking a straight forward easy to understand method that has been working very well since 2007. 
As bobcon said
thanks!
The 200d SMA is one of my personal additional filters, that I included as a start point, so I guess I should take the responsibility for this. It has been a positive addition to my trading and I consult it, along with some additional filters off the daily chart, in my decision making, to trade with the overall trend and fund flows.
Trying to quantify this system for automated trading, shows the power of its simplicity.
Drum, pls start a new thread and let us know the link. I will participate, it will be interesting to see where it takes us.
Back to regular programming.
Seems like the ducks are flyig in dissaray today on the majors. 4hr is bearish, 1hr is bullish after yesterdayās move. EURUSD is showing some strength and a potential setup, but I am reluctant to trade it on the long side due to news risk.
I think Iāll sit it out for the day.
Whatās everyone else doing today?
Not much follow-through in yesterdayās trade. I moved my stop to -10 when we approached +30 and got stopped out at -10. Managing losses in such types of trades that dont take off.
I got stopped out on GBP/USD and AUD/USD 
How did you manage your trailed stop. You said you moved to -10 when price went to +30. But on my charts, this movement didnāt reach +30.
I think your entry was at 1.52490, the lowest price since then was 1.52213 on my charts, which is a difference of around 28 pips. Do you have other prices or did you just think āclose enoughā?
A case of āclose enoughā.
US$ was not following, EUR, AUD and CAD were not breaking down to create overall momentum, so I was weary about the health of the move.
Iām in the AUD/CAD.
Broke through the pivot this morning.
Hourly looked good.
Could do with a win!
I think Eurjpy is worth keeping an eye on - nice uptrend, made a steady break yesterday but in pullback mode now. Eurcad and euraud exhibiting similar behaviour.
Most of the trenders seem to be wavering right now and showing little follow through. Probably a good sign to wait a while until some clearer charts come along. Thatās the difficult bit.
Hi all
Does anyone know what just happened, 06:05 GMT+2? The market has made a big move across all pairs! All my positions were stopped out!
Good morning everyone.
I thought Iād try to make some sense of the non-sense weāve been seeing in the past few days in the markets, using the 3-ducks but also looking one timeframe higher on the Daily chart to get a clearer view. I will use the GBPUSD as an example, however similar patterns appear in other majors.
Daily
> You can see that the recent multi-month trend was contained by the 60SMA, which was trending lower.
> We broke above the SMA in April and have been holding above it for the past 2 months.
> Most recently, we pulled back to the SMA and we are currently forming a higher low on the Daily chart, with the SMA starting to point upward.
Do we have a change of trend on the Daily? It seems we do, until proven otherwise.
4hr
>We had a bout of uptrend coming into mid-May, then a clear downtrend up to the beginning of June.
> Now we have NO trend, ie we are in the middle of a potential change of trend again.
This is no-manās land and not suitable for trading, in my opinion
1hr
> Coming down to the 1hr chart, we can clearly (or not!) see the junk we are in.
> No direction in the market, wild swings up and down with no follow-through, low liquidity.
Bottom line
> It seems that there is currently no catalyst to carry the market higher or lower, thus the market is in waiting mode.
> Without a clear direction, we should not be trading a trend-following system.
> Summer is coming. Typically ranges contract and we have many false breakouts. I would have expected this in July though.
> A change of trend is always messy for trend-following systems.
> The mess in the majors is affecting their cross-pairs, with erratic and unpredictable movements.
> Waiting for the right trade may be the most difficult part of trading, but itās well worth it.
My biggest challenge in trading this trend-following system is staying out of lethal consolidation ranges developed (1) in the middle of the trend and (2) during trend changes.
Thus, I am taking it easy yet again this week, until this situation clears out. No rush to take low probability trades.
How are you trading this mess?
What does your ideal setup on the 3-ducks look like?
Knowing when to push your trades and when to sit aside and wait for a good setup is important. Do you have a clear image on what your best trades on the 3-ducks look like?
Can you spot the difference between trades 1, 2, 3 & 4 and potential trade 5?
Trade 5 was yesterday (09 Jun 2015).
See below the chart for my thoughts.
My take on this:
Trades 1, 2, 3 & 4
> All were opportunities for shorts, with price below the 4hr SMA
> Price was already below the 1hr SMA at the start of the trading day, in a trending market (esp 1,2,3).
> They were pulling back into the SMA, setting up for shorts
> As long as they remained below the SMA, we had a valid setup
> After entering a trade, they all gave at least 30 pips appx, allowing the trader to at least move a stop to breakeven for a lower risk trade
Trade 5
> This was also an opportunity for a short, with price below the 4hr SMA (just slightly)
> However, price was above the 1hr SMA coming into the start of the trading day
> Price broke below the SMA during the day
> Price snapped back immediately to the upside, never giving the the opportunity to at least move stop loss to b/e
Bottom line:
I personally like to make a note of potential āgreat setupsā and contrast them with not so great setups.
I use Evernote and have a database of previous trades that worked well, with notes and the screenshots of what I was looking for at the time. I have a checklist of items I want to observe when these ideal setups are taking place. I review these on a timely basis to refresh my mind.
Thus, when observing a potential setup taking place, I know what to look for and when to step back.
Do you know what your ideal setup on the 3-ducks looks like?
Awesome bit of work Snowball.
After this mornings hitsā¦ I am struggling to spot any 3 Duck or 3 Piggy set ups. Looks like a day of regular hard factory work.
Just a question, how many pairs do you watch? With all the testing, what was the final result of the 3 duck system?
