MANUAL TRADES (Fin Fx) Diskussion

Wayne I wish I could vouch for you twice. I'm absolutely convinced your honesty will pay off. And your EA works, that's a FACT.
I know it's hard to roll with those punches - but I know you will pick yourself up and get back in the race.
Take a rest, give it a little miss. Sometimes you have to break it down ...

Thanks for your kind words my friend, at least i can have one positive from this horrible day. The thing that makes me grit my teeth is knowing that all i had to do was nothing (no manual trades and leave my EA alone) and i would of woke to a nice profit present waiting for me and my investors. (i could of been out dancing lol) Hopefully, i will learn a real lesson here. I don't think anything is higher probability to trade off of then momentum and that is what my EA is built on.

Manual trading is too damn hard. We often try to trade off things other than momentum, like counter trades off of 'support' and 'resistance'. of we take the pullback that keeps pulling back like i did last night. I drew a fib of the move waited for the 50% 61.8, and 100% but it wasn't a pullback. It was a reversal of momentum and my EA had enough sense to say hey, this direction, stupid :)

Anyone who can do manual trading over the medium and long term i say hats off to them. Of course I'm just hard-headed enough to think i can manual trade if i just follow certain rules, etc. etc. I will continue to try but on a separate account and with lower risk.

Ok, i talk too much. Have to sleep now. Thanks again, but i couldn't play the song. That's what i needed was a good song.

Best

SunnyDays posted:
    December 28TH – The Day of the DrawDown

I feel I must document this event for future reference.

I am quite depressed today and feel like a total idiot. About 30% of the time I manually cancel pending orders issued by my EA or take profit or losses early. This is not particularly bad in itself, though based on my experience so far doing so has actually decreased my profits as seen on this account.

Last night, however, I crossed the line, and took out manual positions against the signals of my EA. After Euro Yen ran up last night and then “pulled back” I was sure another run up was coming and I was mad my EA missed the run up (price moved too far too fast). Since I am moving my manual trading money to a second managed account at FinFx (where I planned to do manual and EA trades together only on that account) I had no funds to manual trade with except my EA accounts. But, hey, it was a sure thing, right?

Not long after entering my long positions my EA actually issued sell orders which I immediately canceled (since I knew better). I then turned off the EA and let my positions ride with TP and SL. I woke up to devastation of my profits and to a lesser extent loss of my investor profits (as I was not risking as much there). It was a big sell off.

I hope this lesson has hit home that (for me) manual trading that does not follow technical indicators is too risky and should only be done on a separate account and with very limited exposure. This one act has ruined my chart, made my EA look like a failure, and lost profit for me and my investors on my managed account.

When I get my funds in my new manual trading account I will only do manual trades there, but I had already promised no to do any manual trades on my managed account, so I don’t expect I can be believed. Maybe my honesty of admitting what I have done will pay off a few months from now when I will hopefully have an account to demonstrate where I am doing my manual trading and 2 EA accounts to demonstrate where the EA is trading.

The only solution I see is to get my manual trading account funded and never do another manual trade on any account other than that one. I have a strong urge to manual trade when I think I see opportunities, but I have not proven that I can be successful over the long term from this. My EA has a much better track record.

Been there, done that, many times. It's just human nature and it's part of the big game. Don't worry Wayne, you'll go through it. Sometimes we do terrible things, sometimes - wonderful. Machines always do what they're expected to do. If we were like them life would be so boring. Many of the greatest inventions were created by mistake.

We've all done it Wayne. A 10% loss in this business is no big deal. What is the bigger deal is the lack of consistency in your strategy. You have posted on this board your intention to change your approach several times in just a week or so. It is hard to expect clients to have confidence in your strategy when it appears you do not. You'll get there. I'll be back.

MIXING STRATEGIES

Thanks to all of you for your encouraging words. And thanks Jprize for your constructive criticism as well. This issue of inconsistency to my strategy is one I need to address.

In short, my EA has done nearly all the work on my ATC account (as I said I do very occasionally cancel pending orders or take profit early if I don’t like the market’s behavior) but when I started this managed account the market became more volatile due to low liquidity and drifted sideways quite a bit. So I found myself interfering with some trades. And as my EA will sometimes not trade for days in a sideways market I got impatient (thinking I saw some opportunities) and took a couple manual trades -- the noticeable drawdown being the worst one.

This has been a lesson learned that I must keep manual trades separate from my EA trades and that is why I have created a second new account at finfx (not on fxbook yet) where I will mix manual and EA trades. That will be what this new account is for.

I simply need an outlet for manual trades and it will be an interesting experiment, to see what the two charts look like (my EA will be running same settings same broker, and then I will manual trade along with my EA on just that one account).

I will vow not to do any manual trades on the non-manual accounts. And this will be an explicit promise for my investors. No doubt the manual account will have more risk and assumedly more return, but let’s see.

Thanks again Jprize for helping me to see that this issue of consistency is something that is critical to my integrity as a manager. If I would have had my manual account running I don’t think I would have traded on the EA accounts, but this lesson has hit home regardless. Please let me know if I have addressed your concerns.

Best Regards
HAPPY NEW YEAR FRIENDS !
P.S. Thanks for vouching for me, Speki
:)

SET CUSTOM START DATE – I set a custom date for this account beginning JAN 6, 2011 because (on both ATC and FIN accounts) I have changed the profit target strategy, a certain key entry single, and my programmer has re-worked one of the features of my EA that was responsible for too many missed trades as well as inconsistency between different brokers. This change has been a long time developing as I have been putting the pieces of the puzzle together. I see this as a time of new beginnings.

My final decision of this change of the profit target strategy has come as a result of several days of extensive backtesting, trying this new strategy out, and I am excited about the potential difference this new approach may bring.

I expect less losses but I don’t expect big profit gains. Rather this strategy will give me shorter holding time between trades and more trades with smaller profit targets. In short I have went from less frequent trades and a 35-45 pip profit target to slightly more frequent trades with a 20-25 pip target.

I’m always looking for new ways to improve my EA and will continue to do so. The biggest challenge of any EA, I think, is to know when to exit a trade. In relation to this issue I’m trying to build a very complex framework of reference and this is likely a life long project. It’s not that the EA is not ready to trade. I put my money on the line and trade with it every day. I just want to make it into something along the lines of a supercomputer by the time I’m done.

Cheers
Wayne

CONSISTENCY BETWEEN BROKERS?

I never knew consistency between brokers was an issue with my EA until I started running on two different brokers with the same settings. I say this is not a big issue, but rather an issue that needs to be understood.

I fully believe in the medium and long term (3-12 months) the charts between different brokers will be very similar (5-10% difference I think), so I am not worried about short term different results.

But allow me to highlight an example about these differences…

ON JANUARY 10, 2011, my FIN FX account entered a short on Euro Yen 1 candle (15 minutes) before the same short was entered on my ATC account.

As a result the FIN position got up 20 pips locked in a profit and ended up making 5 pips while the ATC position got in late -- did not lock in profit – and ended up losing 60 pips.

Next, both accounts lined up and caught the long a few hours later, so FIN made 3% account profit on this long trade and ATC got back 2.6% on this long trade, almost breaking even for the day.

Again, I believe in the medium and long term these short term differences are merely NOISE in the bigger picture.

I felt I should address this issue once and for all (hopefully).

Cheers my friends,
Wayne
 

Today will be a case study for my EA. These slow moving, grinding moves that finally pick up speed toward the end are not easily caught by my EA. Stochastic gets extended and rolls over canceling my orders. Twice my EA issued short orders early in the yen sell down but orders were canceled.

I will turn my focus to these type of moves in the near future. But right now I have more exciting things on the horizon.

I tried doing some scalping with a mini lot but not much luck tonight.

Trading sizes are reduced in this volatile market. We will get to the green in a couple of days I hope.

ATC account is off and on for a day or so while i test run a new feature.

GL everyone

Wayne,

I was told that this EA is Extremely broker specific, and I believe that you are not using the recommended broker!!
Has FinFx been approved by Al or are you testing at your own (and clients') risk?
Also, this was supposed to be a Totally hands-off EA, so I am curious as to why all the tampering with the settings.

Did it cost you any more to use it as a service EA - i.e., to trade multiple accounts (especially not your own) or are you using a Trade copy EA as well?

I have been following this EA's performance for over two years now, but several issues held me,
- the price,
- the Broke Specific requirement.

Lastly, when they opened a test account for me to follow Live trading on one of their own real accounts at their preferred broker, it did not do very well at all, and the EA developers shut down the account without any notification to me or any communication since!!

Look forward to your reply.

Hi Kasuko

Sorry, but there is some misunderstanding here. The EA I call “YenMasterX” is my own custom created EA that I have been developing for two years now. My naming of the EA is arbitrary, but I will have to see if there is some commercial EA or service with the same name.

If you have any links or further info about some EA you say you have been following for some time please provide links.

The range of change to my settings is small but I do continue to develop more features. The core of my EA is well established but I keep trying more complex operations to make the EA more intelligent and able to deal with a myriad of market events.

For example, my current development of a “new feature” is simply a modification for how my pullback position(s) are set. Instead of the current form of being set X pips from opening price from my main order, I developed a feature that looks at particular signals and may move the pullback order backwards given certain conditions.

I will likely never stop developing my EA as I love to try new and increasingly more complex approaches to managing the sometimes chaotic realm of forex.

So no, my EA is not broker specific.

Hope my response helps.

Wayne

Thank you for your prompt reply.

Please accept my apologies for my erroneous assumption.
The Yenmaster that I referred to is more than 2 years old.

Good luck with your system.

Rest assured friends, I know exactly why this present move up in EuroYen was not caught by my EA. I watched the move in real time with careful attention to all indicators. I tried to address the issue once already with a new controlling feature to the EA, but backtesting did not like my solution, so I did not pursue it. I have a couple more creative ideas in mind that I am optimistic about.

A friend of mine said “Hey man, don’t worry about it. You can’t catch every move”. I say, why not? The point is I believe my system can be improved. It’s just a matter of study and creativity. Missing a surge up like this simply is not acceptable to me.

I don’t believe it will be much longer, however, before the true profit potential of this system begins to show itself. Wish me luck!

Good luck to us all

Today’s trade was a little frustrating. 3 pips cost us a missed gain of 3%. We made a half percent on the trade, but because price pulled back too far (3 pips too far to be exact) prior to EuroYen’s breakout candle the EA went into defensive mode and locked in a minimal 20 pip gain. We should of made 100 pips.

I will run some optimization tests to check my settings again, but it was just one of those unlucky events. I’m sure the same defensive feature of the EA will save us bigger losses in the future.

Better luck next time.
At least we are still moving up

Sometimes I am just too cautious. I saw the EA was going to put us in long on EuroYen shortly after London came in and because i could not be around to watch things i canceled the order. I am simply afraid to go into NFP holding open positions. I've seem what can happen here. Of course if I would of know we would be up 40 pips pre-nfp I would of left things alone.

I will create a special setting template for nfp that will use minimal trade size and a few altered settings so we can at least participate when the market sends such clear signals. I dropped the ball this time, but I often error on the side of caution.

Have a great weekend

Better to be cautious and alive than daring and dead - or as the famous rabbi said, 'it is better to be
on the outside looking in, than on the inside looking out.' 😁 Good to see your EA is doing fine.

Looking good Yenmaster......😎

Thanks for the complement Jprize, Thanks also Speki -- good to see you stopping by to say hello.

I believe you are only seeing a glimpse of how this EA will perform after a couple more months of development. I’m also unhappy with the way my intervention has cost some loss profits. For example, I only caught a piece of the short on EuroYen because I was too conflicted about the uncertainty of the Yen’s response to the earthquake in Japan.

I was awake and watching the market as the tragic events unfolded. The initial reaction of the Yen was to weaken from the earthquake event (this seemed to me to make sense), but then the Yen strengthened and when the EA put me in short right near a trendline of support the EA had created, I closed things out at the first sign of a pullback. I knew under such extreme conditions price was libel to rocket any direction. So we caught a few pips when we should have caught a lot.

Some time I hope to report how I have saved everyone a nasty loss by my intervention but so far the EA is out performing my reasoning.

I now have the risk level set at 6% for the Fin managed account (up from 5%). My own account at ATC is running at 8% risk. Once a couple more defensive features are completed and if things are looking nice I may up the risk to 7% on FIN. (I started off running at 10% risk to produce the 15% monthly return, but I backed off from this when the market turned too volatile).

May we all have continued success.
Cheers
Wayne

Friends, I'm going to cut trading off for tonight. There is just too much volatility.

As the wise Warren Buffet once said, 'the first rule of making money is to not lose money'.

If i see any obvious signals I will go from there. I think we just need another 12-24 hours for the market to work through the implications of the Japan situation. My bias is toward the Yen weakening but reversals are nasty right now.

Best Regards
Wayne

A Note on the Different Activity Between the ATC and FIN FX accounts:

Numbers are deceiving. My profit has been going up on the ATC account the last 2 days because I have been cashing in on a couple of hedges I was forced to take because I got stuck holding 1 mini-lot of a long on euro yen. I took a gamble on my personal account and before I knew it I had to hedge to save a big loss.

I have certainly disappointed my investors on the managed account at FIN Fx as we have made almost no profit off the sell off in the market. I have had the EA off the last two days because I was afraid the BOJ would intervene (around the 80 level) on dollar yen, and as I was caught on the wrong side of the BOJ intervention the last time, I know how quickly price can rocket against the short here. Once again my reasoning cost us profit which my EA would have cleaned up on. I am going to try to take some steps to keep this situation from repeating.

I realize that until my EA produces spectacular results on backtests (though it does produce good results) and can handle every possible situation I have reason to be conservative with my investors’ money and intervene when I think situations are dangerous. At the same time, I realize my EA continually outperforms my conservative actions so I cannot justify my over-riding things so often.

MY SOLUTION will be to run TWO instances of mt4 splitting up the account equity (this does not mean creating two separate accounts – still one account). On one platform I will use a small risk amount 2-3% of the account to let the EA run with no manual intervention (except in the most extreme and obvious case) and on the second platform I will use a larger risk size, 3-4%, which I will allow my conservative manual intervention in (such as cutting the EA off, taking profit early, canceling pending orders, etc.).

If I am not risking much of my client accounts by letting the EA run itself I can sleep better and we should produce higher overall profit.

At least we have been making profit, but 4-5% a month is certainly below what my EA can produce.

Any comments or PMs are of course always welcome. I will also send a private email about this next step soon.

Best Wishes
Wayne