Dumb or Genius strategy? you decide [MT4]
As a newbie you are falling for the same traps as all of us fell for when we were newbies. Trading is simple. But making consistent profit overall is extremely difficult. Don't be deluded!
Hedging on the same symbol (opposing orders) is a false hope and is just going to eat away at your capital with the trading costs. Grid strategies are equally just another fools errand. Martingale is also just another idiot's way to lose all your money.
Take your time to learn all the intricacies of trading over a long period of continuos learning and the gaining of experience. Don't get "greedy" and don't be fooled by anything "shiny".
Forum on trading, automated trading systems and testing trading strategies
Fernando Carreiro, 2022.06.07 14:40
Be it by fake agents, brokers, signals, or EAs, there is one weapon to beat them all — knowledge! Your knowledge is the key to prevent you from being scammed.
Invest and take time to improve your knowledge, to gain experience and improve your skills. Learn to do things for yourself and not to rely on others so much. You don’t have to be a master or even be very good at it, but the more you know and understand, the easier it will be for you to detect when something is not what it seems to be.
Learn how brokers work and how they are licensed and regulated. Learn about the different markets, trading conditions, types of accounts, leverage, and when you don’t understand something, ask first about it and get answers from different sources. Don’t just blindly accept things.
Learn to trade manually, even if you intend to use signals or EAs. You don’t have to be very good at it, but you need to understand all the different concepts of how orders are placed, how they are triggered, how to manage them, how to calculate and manage your risk, and all those pesky little details required to trade manually. Only then can you better evaluate the signals you wish to follow or the EAs you wish to use.
If you are going to hire someone to code your EA for you, then take some time to understand how coding works and some basic knowledge about it. Again, you don’t have to be good at it, but the more you understand, the easier it will be for you to communicate with the developer and provide valid, realistic requirement specifications and to understand how much work is involved as well as its value and how much to budget.
Also, learn to use the Strategy Tester properly and how to interpret the results. The better you understand it, and the more you use it, the easier it will be for you to evaluate the results from EAs you are considering.
So, in conclusion, don’t be a greedy idiot quick to jump onto anything “shiny”. Instead, be wise. Take your time. Invest in your knowledge and skills. Choose carefully.
hi my english is not good sorry :) if you want to trade with a robot, look carefully at what it does and how it tests. many people cannot test a robot normally because the test is full of errors. I suggest you learn manual trading or even the basics and the robot will follow you! Robot testing can take 5-6-7-8-9 years before the test shows that it is good! but if you take a closer look at the test result, you can see that there are many errors in the test. Good luck! and just smart!!! think small and try to grow gently. :)
Thank you all for your replies, don't worry, my english is not so good either ;)
I have a background in engineering so I'm not so new to data analysis/ system testing/ coding, I'm not a pro by any means and obviusly i lack experience in the markets so i will share what i got so far
@Enrique Dangeroux I decided to test this strategy of mine well aware it was a "market tuition" i was willing to pay, I essentialy gambled about 300EUR to learn how the markets/brokers work to optimize it down the line, this test went on for about 2 weeks, I was prepared to the amount of work i needed to put in but by the end of the second week i gave up because i was racking more "screen time" than i could afford: i needed to check every few minutes even at night to manually take profit and close orders, but i managed to rack a profit of about 1000EUR before a series of summed up "distractions" (i wasn't gonna lose any more sleep and i figured a bot could do the work far better than me) took the broker to close all the opened trade in an unexpected uptrend (resolved in about twenty minutes, but due to leverage it could not be salvaged). i am sharing the statement here.
@Fernando Carreiro I'm sorry if i sounded such a newbie, for what matters yes, it's kind of a grid system with "extra steps" , would you care to elaborate on why you think this kind of system don't work out in the end, I'm still looking to learn and i think i could really use the eye and hand of a professional.
It's called "maths", and your own "DetailedStatement" graph shows exactly the results I am warning about. Any Grid system will eventually suffer great losses when it becomes unbalanced. A grid system is just another way of doing the "martingale" thing. Both suffer from the same problem. They delay or hide the drawdown that is building up, while building up the deposit load until it reaches a point it cannot be sustained any further. They make many small profits that build up, but then when a loss occurs it is enormous and wipes out all the previous gains.
Your equity curve in your attached image is a clear example. It shows a steady rise, followed by a massive quick drop. And please don't say "but that was just me loosing focus" or "my strategy has special safe guards". They all say that. There are hundreds of such signals here on the site of such equity curves that behave exactly the same as yours. Hundreds of of signals using grids or martingale that inevitable blow up and die.
You are not the first to claim you have found a "holy grail" in grid systems, nor will you be last. I too, went through that. But once it's "shine" disappears and you actually take the time to analyse the maths, you come to the conclusion that it was all a waste of time, money and effort (but at least you can then move on to learning to do it properly).
Forum on trading, automated trading systems and testing trading strategies
Any great idea about HEDGING positions welcome here
Fernando Carreiro, 2018.09.17 21:17
For those of you that want to learn to see the "light" and not fall into the trap of "hedging" and Grid strategies, here is the basic math:
:
Learn to do your research properly! Do not be blinded by false promises. Do the math!
Forum on trading, automated trading systems and testing trading strategies
calculate tp for a basket of positions
Fernando Carreiro, 2022.04.17 18:44
There is no exact MQL code to give you, because it varies depending on the strategy and what information needs to be calculated. That is why I gave you the math instead for you to implement depending on your requirements.
The math is self explanatory, but if you are having difficulty with it, then I doubt you will be able to implement it in code, but here are the variables anyway:
- vi = volume of individual position
- oi = open price of individual position
- ci = close price of individual position
- Vn = total volume for a basket of positions
- On = net mean open price for a basket of positions
- Cn = net mean close price for a basket of positions
- PLn = profit/loss for a basket of positions
The rest is in the math calculations.
Thank you all for your replies, don't worry, my english is not so good either ;)
I have a background in engineering so I'm not so new to data analysis/ system testing/ coding, I'm not a pro by any means and obviusly i lack experience in the markets so i will share what i got so far
@Enrique Dangeroux I decided to test this strategy of mine well aware it was a "market tuition" i was willing to pay, I essentialy gambled about 300EUR to learn how the markets/brokers work to optimize it down the line, this test went on for about 2 weeks, I was prepared to the amount of work i needed to put in but by the end of the second week i gave up because i was racking more "screen time" than i could afford: i needed to check every few minutes even at night to manually take profit and close orders, but i managed to rack a profit of about 1000EUR before a series of summed up "distractions" ... took the broker to close all the opened trade in an unexpected uptrend (resolved in about twenty minutes, but due to leverage it could not be salvaged). i am sharing the statement here.
@Fernando Carreiro I'm sorry if i sounded such a newbie, for what matters yes, it's kind of a grid system with "extra steps" , would you care to elaborate on why you think this kind of system don't work out in the end, I'm still looking to learn and i think i could really use the eye and hand of a professional.
The question to Fernando is answered by your answer to me.
Thank you @Fernando Carreiro, that was exactly the answer i was hoping for, especially the "mathematical" side of the operation, i think one often jumps straight to the conclusion without looking at the premises, myself included, as I said, i figured if that was so easy anyone would be doing it and i was prepared for it being the proverbial 'fools gold', one lives and learn i suppose, that said, what is or could be a good "strategy" or "starting point", in other words, on what ground one should base their trades? On "sentiment/news", on candle patterns, signals, indicator(s), median reversion, stop loss (yes/no/trail)? Thank you very much again for helping me shed some light on the matter
- Free trading apps
- Over 8,000 signals for copying
- Economic news for exploring financial markets
You agree to website policy and terms of use
So, I made some "tests" with a live account on a particular strategy i devised, and the results were pretty promising, i could post the specifics if nedeed, the strategy is pretty simple, here are only two problems:
-as said the strategy is very simple, this made me think "why isn't anyone using a similar stategy" or maybe it is a well known secret in the community, in any case i came here to submit this doubts to you, if you want to know more, i'm sorry if it results in a textwall, i'll try to put as simple and strict as possible.
Thank you for your attention and patience, please let me know if you think this is a good idea, if you want to have more details or if you think it's just smoke and mirrors and why.