Firstly great work by everyone involved.

What currency pairs did you use for these results? I've downloaded the required and read through everything I could get my hands on. I wish to begin testing.

Sorry, I use GBP/USD

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"A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind." Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

I was wandering if it is possible to have a TS that would decrease as the profit (pips) increases over the initial 42 TP ? Let me know if the idea is interesting or not...

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"A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind." Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Hi Daraknor,

Thanks for your response. I would like to do all my future optimization using Tester in tandem with the indicators on the chart. I have succeeded in putting Envelopes on the chart, and this helps a great deal in understanding the way signal 1 operates. A Signal 2 indicator is also on the chart, but I'm having a problem understanding how the signal operates, as the "Ultimate Guide" is confusing on this point. (See below) I wonder if you would mind clarifying exactly how Signal 2 comes into action.

From the Guide (unclear):

Signal 2 - Moving Average Comparison 1 - Counter Trend Signal

"Two moving averages are calculated using the same time period P_SMAPeriod. The first is for the present timeframe, and the second is for a point in the past, which is a certain number of bars previous.

If the older MA is greater than the present one that indicates a downtrend price trend. but Phoenix produces a Buy Signal
If the older MA is greater than the present one that indicates a downtrend price trend. but Phoenix produces a Buy Signal"

PContour, I didn't see any changes listed. I thought I was facing a simple operating system issue, but it appears that my file system is turning to mush. I used to do data recovery techniques and I should be able to salvage most of my data, but I need a new HD :/ So for a little while, I'm going to be writing code blind, and answering questions semi-blind.

It sounds like the optimization is based on the trailing stop changes in 5.7.2? I saw the use of trailing stop P setting overriding the defaults. (Good quick code hack for doing tests without changing the settings file.) Since we have a countertrend system, this probably acts a filter for weak profits where the signal was good.

If I understand correctly (and I am doing this half blind) the system works like this:
If trade is 1 pip profitable, activate trailing stop
Use a 30-45 pip trailing stop so the initial SL=-29 to -44 profit.
As the profits increase, move the trailing stop up.
Have a 999 pip take profit, so the trailing stop is able to run the entire range.

I see a few problems with the system I just described (and I could be wrong on description).
#1 We have (by using backtesting) already removed some of the news based SL. When we profit using this trailing stop, we are really taking full advantage of news events in our favor and maybe a few minor trends. (Not bad, but please keep in mind that backtest looks much better than forward test.)
#2 In order to get a profit of 20 pips with a ts of 40, we need to have had a potential profit of 60 pips and we leave 2/3 of that on the table.

An ideal system of this type would:
A) Reduce losses when profit was reached, but in much smaller amounts than predicted.
B) Not leave so much profit on the table every trade.
C) Have enough cushion to allow Phoenix to operate and wait for larger trade reversals. (A tight trailing stop does A and B, but fails C)
D) Work well with all brokers (Brokers have a different valid 'smallest trailing stop' value and a separate different valid 'smallest stop loss' value.)
E) Not loose drastically when disconnected. (I'm solving E by staying connected all of the time personally with a hosted account, but it is still a criteria.)

I wrote a post about different exit strategies. Phoenix 5.7.2 can handle some variations, but it isn't really equipped to handle Exit Strategies well. A few months ago, I wrote some examples of different exit strategies, and I learned Pip Boxer implemented some of them. Phoenix 6 has almost 400 lines of code, not including any trading signals yet. Phoenix6 allows signals or simple math to be used for exit strategies, and to have several different exits turned off or on. I'm writing blind, but I'm writing every day.

I would explain Signal 2 as "A trading signal sensitive to changes in MA over time, similar to a derivative of the slope in price. Magnitude is ignored in Phoenix 5, only direction of change is used for trading."

Restating the previous description minus the error in double paste:
If the Period MA is greater than the current bar MA that indicates a downward price trend but Phoenix produces a Buy Signal
If the Period MA is less than the current bar MA that indicates an upward price trend but Phoenix produces a Sell Signal

It is interesting, and something I wrote about other places. Other people are welcome to write it as a hack on Phoenix 5, but I'm going to include a clear way of doing it in Phoenix6. I have trailing stops using different parameters, including a parabolic trailing stop now.

Great work again Daraknor !
I hope you get back all data on your hard drive so you can see again...

__________________
"A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind." Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Thank You

For doing some testing on this.

The issues

When you go with a lower TS you get kicked out more easily as waves happen in the down direction, so you may miss that killer score, if it dips 20 cuts you out and sours another 100 or more pips. The lower the TS is the more you can loose on the up side and the less you lose on the downside. We don't understand how much we leave on the table, unless you examine every single trade, we optimize instead and we learn if we are thinking straight from the results.

I don't want to introduce any new variables.

I could use a big hack and borrow a variable from Mode 2 or 3. (The only possibility I can think of if you want to optimize and I don't bring in a new variable.) But it can mess up other things.

So lets say I try something like what you say, as the pips in profit comes back down, I don't want to accidentally increase the TS.

I need to come up with some formula for tightening the stop. Here is my idea for every X pips above 0 profit I cut the TS by 1. I'm curious to see if the less you cut the TS the better you do.

I made the 999 configurable for my own tests, but just found the higher the better. Interesting but not relevant to the TS tightening idea.

I will give it a little thought to above.

Understanding the system,

I think you got it all right.

Problems

That is correct but so is the following. If the system was right and it goes up 150 pips you get 108 instead of 42 of the current system. We don't understand what is left on the table, but there is always something left on the table.

There is something I'm not clear about, When we modify the order, and use the trailing stop, do we really have a trailing stop or does Phoenix really move the SL up a little higher? If so then the worst we do is to hit the stop loss, when we lose our connection, and we have no chance to get a profit.

This makes me think, it is a good idea to keep the TP as many points ahead of where we are as the TL is behind us, so if the power goes off on our PC we have an equal chance of hitting the TP as the SL.

I want to make my point about apples vs oranges again. If we compare two back tests with identical data and different source code we would have an indication that the the one with the better result would be more likely to get us more profit, but, the profit is never as good as our back test.