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Before I start my holydays Wednesday next week I will try to finish version 1.2 of Phoenix. It’s my intention to remove the Surf function completely as I’m not satisfied with the performance of it. Apart from that I think it’s after all not a good idea to try to make an EA that’s suitable for a ranging as well as a trending market. I think it’s better to focus on the fact that Phoenix is a counter-trend EA that’s doing very well in a ranging market. We better try to improve Phoenix insofar that it avoids the trending markets and gets the most out of a ranging market.
How to improve Phoenix?
Avoid a trending/volatile market: I think SafePipsDistance and SafeArea are doing quit well. We maybe need a little tweaking.
Avoid trading during certain parts of the day: The TradeFrom/TradeUntil will do.
Money management is another issue. How to deal with loosing trades? There are 3 different approaches:
Phoenix is using a money management function were the number of lots is based on the free margin of your account. If the free margin decreases so will the number of lots and vice versa.
After a loosing trade you open a new trade for the same pair and you increase your lots with the intention to level out the first loosing trade. If the second is a loser too you increase your lots again. So with a TP=25 and SL=50 and Lots=1 you get the following summary:
First trade 1 lot looser -50
Second trade 2 lots looser -100
Third trade 4 lots looser -200
Fourth trade 8 lots looser -400
Fifth trade 16 lots and so on.
The idea behind this is that after a couple of losers for the same pair it becomes more and more unlikely that the following trade is a loser too. I’ve never tried this approach, but I like the idea.
The third approach is to decrease the number of lots after a couple of losers in a row (for different pairs). The idea behind this is that the EA apparently arrived in a less suitable period and have to wait for better times. Only after a couple of winning trades the number of lots will increase. I think we have sufficient options for Phoenix to avoid these less suitable periods so we leave this approach for what it is.
I think I will add the second option (increase the number of lots after a loosing trade) to the next version of Phoenix for those who want to user this.
At the end of every week I study all the trades that were made by Phoenix. This is very useful and I’ve noticed that all the JPY-pairs need a different approach. I will tell you more in my next post.
This weekend I will make a new version of Phoenix, test it on Monday and post it Tuesday. Stay tuned!
I've seen several EA's like this and not one of them was able to make money over the long haul. Blowing an account is inevitable with martingale style money management.
But I like the idea of increasing/decreasing lot sizes based on the number of winners/losers in a row. Say 3 winners in a row, increase lot size; 3 losers in a row, decrease lot sizes.
Also, maybe a better entry method would make this system more profitable. There is an indicator called a squat bar that uses volume and range to show likely reversal points. It's very accurate about 70-80% of the time, but you have to pay a monthly fee for the software. I won't mention the name of the software here as I don't want to advertise it, but it's something to look into.
1) all calculations made are based on the servers time and not the local time
2) all time-setups in the EA should be made in GMT
3) introduction of a new variable called ServerOffset
this variable reflects an offset from GMT timezone to the servers timezone
my local time is not relevant. today i am here at GMT-7, tomorrow i could be GMT-4, next week at GMT+2
but my trading server is always at the same place. and this should be the basis for all calculations.
just my 2cents - hendrick you're the man, what do you think?
AZBOfin
I was thinking of something along those same lines...keep it simple for the time shift challenged like me...I second the motion for a ServerOffset variable..I wish I knew how to do it myself. I'm not that far yet coding...the only thing better would be to have the code detect what it needs to and adjust automatically so the user doesn't have to mess it up.
I need some help. The BUY and SELL signals of Phoenix are generated by the following piece of code:
MA =iMA(NULL,MA_Timeframe,MA_Length,0,MODE_SMA,PRICE_ OPEN,0);
RVI=iRVI(NULL,0,10,MODE_MAIN,0)-iRVI(NULL,0,10,MODE_MAIN,1);
The MA is the heart of Phoenix and the RVI (Relative Vigor Index) is an additional signal. For a BUY, RVI needs to be > 0 and for a sell <0. I’m not happy with this because it’s far to simple. What I want is an additional signal that takes account of the trend. So no SELL if the trend is up and no BUY if the trend is down. I think this can be a major improvement.
I think a simple fast and slow EMA will do. I have made an indicator (PhoenixAdditionalIndicator) that makes it visible what this signal will do. If it’s red, only SELL’s are valid, green for BUY’s and yellow for BUY’s and SELL’s.
The indicator has the following settings (with the defaults I think will perform best):
The indicator is hard-coded for TF=15M!
SlowMAPeriod = 54;
The slow Moving Average
FastMAPeriod = 14;
The fast Moving Average
PriceConstant = 4;
PRICE_CLOSE = 0
PRICE_OPEN = 1
PRICE_HIGH = 2
PRICE_LOW = 3
PRICE_MEDIAN = 4
PRICE_TYPICAL = 5
PRICE_WEIGTHED = 6
EmaMode = 3;
Simple moving average, = 0
Exponential moving average =1
Smoothed moving average = 2
Linear weighted moving average = 3
Switch = 1.0;
The Switch defines the area where SELL and BUY signals are valid. Above +Switch only BUYS and below –Switch only SELLS.
Please try this indicator and give me some feedback about the default settings.
int Safe2=0;
if ( myMA*(1+(PercentLimit/100))<=Bid || myMA*(1-(PercentLimit/100))>=Ask) Safe2=1;
Put "&& Safe2==1" in SELL and BUY triggers. You can attached a 2nd Firebird type Indicator set to PercentLimit to see active trading area.
I use one Firebird with all three filters and it averages ~50% less trades with ~90% win rate. The problem I have is the effect news has on the market. I've reported to this thread, that the last 4 Fridays had a big negative effect because of carry over open trades from Thursday. I am testing eliminating trading days and/or times to see if I can better manage the historic group loses.
Hendrick, this would be a further development of your trading time results chart and it would be a lot of work. But, I would like to have an EA that is 6/24 trading time programable and can survey its history, determine bad trading times & stop trading during these times, while maintaining a ghost trade history for these times. When historic ghost trades are again profitable, these times are re-established as good trading times. Wishful thinking, but I'm going to try to work on this or see if a coder can make this work. Right now, I use yor type of chart and try to do this manually.
Way too much typing. Well, this is what happens when you drink wine while on a thread. If all of this doesn't make sense, it's the wine's fault.
when preparing to trade, I always look to a higher TF to see the trend forming.
Perhaps adding an additonal signal to Phoenix on the same 15 minutes TF is to limited?
Please have a look at the Multi-Time-Frame indicator XO.
You can have it set to any TF you like, but for Phoenix working on the M15 I
would have it set to H4 or maybe even D1.
Maybe it's most flexible to have it's TF setting in the inputs panel of the EA so it can be optimized along the way.
See attched picture with the indicator loaded twice; one for M15 and the other one for H4.
Regards,
Herbert
PS, I did change Firebird's iRVI to iMACD like Holyguy7 reminded today, but although it increased Firebird's speed in backtesting as a side-effect , I was under the impression that it did not remove the false signals.
They claimed it gave less false signals. Does that help?
Hey Holyguy,
For Phoenix version 2 I'm now using a SMA 120 and SMA 12 on a 15M chart. The main purpose is to prevent that Phoenix is placing trades against the trend. So far it seems to work OK.
when preparing to trade, I always look to a higher TF to see the trend forming.
Perhaps adding an additonal signal to Phoenix on the same 15 minutes TF is to limited?
Please have a look at the Multi-Time-Frame indicator XO.
You can have it set to any TF you like, but for Phoenix working on the M15 I
would have it set to H4 or maybe even D1.
Maybe it's most flexible to have it's TF setting in the inputs panel of the EA so it can be optimized along the way.
See attched picture with the indicator loaded twice; one for M15 and the other one for H4.
Regards,
Herbert
PS, I did change Firebird's iRVI to iMACD like Holyguy7 reminded today, but although it increased Firebird's speed in backtesting as a side-effect , I was under the impression that it did not remove the false signals.