Interview with Achmad Hidayat (ATC 2012)

Interview on Automated Trading Championship 2012 from 03.10.2012.

Throughout the entire duration of the Automated Trading Championship 2012, we will be providing live coverage of the events - hot reports and interviews every week. As the first few days of the competition unfold and the TOP 10 is forming, some participants have already broken through with their Expert Advisors. Thus wlagor's equity increased to $20.000 the very first day.

This report spotlights Achmad Hidayat (achidayat), the participant from Indonesia. On the first day of the Championship his Expert Advisor secured its position in the third ten, which is a good start. Achmad has sparked our interest with his active participation in the MQL5 Market. He has already published over 20 products thus far.

Hello! Can you tell us a bit about yourself, where you are from and what you do?

Hello. I'm a Physics Lecturer at University of Brawijaya in Malang, Indonesia.

How did you know about financial markets and Forex trading? Did you start straight off with MetaTrader or do you have experience working with other systems?

I learned about Forex around four years ago from the Internet. I started with a Java-based platform but then switched to MetaTrader which I've been using ever since.

Please tell us about your trading experience. What was your first profit and loss?

I started with manual trading using technical indicators. But I could not cope with the emotional side and had quite a few losses. Then I got interested in trading robots. I managed to get some profit using them which however could not cover for losses. Now I hope to get some money through participation in the Championship. If all my profits are taken into account, they will not cover all the losses. But I am still optimistic about Forex trading, especially using Expert Advisors.

What do you think about MQL5? Does it provide all the required tools for creating a trading robot or do you need extra functions?

To be quite honest, I am much more familiar with MQL4, and I do not know all the advantages of MQL5 yet; I do not use classes, structures, etc. Therefore when programming Expert Advisors for MetaTrader 5, I now apply the logic of the fourth version of the language.

Tell us about your ATC 2012 Expert Advisor. What strategy and indicators do you use?

My Expert Advisor, Super-G, utilizes four technical indicators to open positions: MACD, Stochastic Oscillator, Parabolic SAR and Momentum. I also use trailing stop to protect the profit. My Expert Advisor is multicurrency and it can work on 10 currency pairs. It initially worked on all the 12 pairs available, but I had to remove two of them to comply with the 30 minute time limit during autotests. Why do I use multicurrency Expert Advisor? I believe in the power of synergy. The more currencies are involved, the higher is the result.

This is not the first time you participate in the Championship, isn't it? What do you think about it?

Yes, this is my third Automated Trading Championship experience. It is really useful. Creating a trading robot that would trade in a fully automatic mode is a real challenge for every trader. I personally like the Championships very much.

You were the 32nd in 2010 which is a quite decent result. But the ATC 2011 rolled you back to the 385th place. What do you think is the reason for such a poor performance?

I think the reason is in the too aggressive money management. I used about 90% of margin. And second, I used a trailing Take Profit, which never triggered.

And what is your money management this year?

I think it is pretty much the same aggressive; 10% of margin is used for each currency pair. However, this is not a problem for the Championship; here you either trade aggressively and win, or you lose. Real trading is a different story.

How would you estimate your chances to win? What total profit do you expect to get?

Based on the backtesting results and my optimistic forecasts, I will be a winner with a 90% probability and my profit will approximately total $500.000.

You have recently offered your ATC 2012 Expert Advisor for sale in the MQL5 Market. Wasn't it too early? Your Expert Advisor may prove to be really profitable and you may further want to use it solely. Or it may well lose which might negatively affect other traders' opinion regarding your developments. What do you think about this two-sided situation?

I did have these thoughts. But at that time my only intention was to introduce my Automated Trading Championship 2012 Expert Advisor to the public. The Expert Advisor can be fixed, if necessary. But I did really think of publishing it after the Championship ends.

It's been a long time since you started to actively participate in the MQL5 Market. Do you find it promising?

I'm sure that the MQL5 Market is an ideal place for both sellers and buyers of Expert Advisors. And I am 100% sure that it has a great potential.

If it is no secret, can you tell us how many products you have managed to sell by now? Do you have any suggestions on how to improve this service?

No, this is not a secret. I have managed to sell 6 Expert Advisors so far. The only suggestion for the MQL5 Market is to reconsider the rule which only allows two free re-downloads of a product after it has been purchased. I think people tend to simply change their equipment and it is not really fair to make them buy a product again. I understand that this measure is aimed at protecting sellers and I cannot figure out a solution to this problem yet.

Have you tried to use the MQL5 Wizard? What do you think about it?

Yes, I used it to participate in the Automated Trading Championship 2011. However, due to the low flexibility of money management settings and the indicators used, I prefer to follow the MQL4 development logic.

What would you do with the prize if you won?

I would give the major part of the prize money to my family and also keep a part as a trade capital. And there is another very important thing this money could be used for - I would create a small prize fund for the competition of trading robots that I am going to organize among my students. I think that would be a good incentive for the students to start learning Forex and create trading robots.

This is very interesting. Can you share more details about the competition?

There is econophysics (it is an interdisciplinary research field, applying theories and methods originally developed by physicists in order to solve problems in economics) on the one side, and there are students who every now and then do computer modeling. I have an idea to enhance their skills and let them apply the skills in a beneficial way, be it trading or selling Expert Advisors. This is also in line with my university motto.

Before the start of the competition I'm going to give my students sufficient information about Forex and trading robots. This will be followed by a competition held on campus. The Automated Trading Championship Rules will most likely be adjusted for this purpose. The winner will get the prize money to cover the development costs, and will be able to sell his Expert Advisor through the MQL5 Market.

Do you want to give your advice or wish something to the other participants of the Automated Trading Championship 2012?

My advice to the other participants is to use the Championship for learning and mastering their skills in developing trading robots. Do not get frustrated if you do not win, maybe you just needed a bit more luck. Never give up striving for the best.

Thank you for the interview, Achmad. Good luck in the Automated Trading Championship 2012!