This EA should sell too. Could increase profitability quite a bit. It could close out all buys when it gets a valid sell signal.

Hi Mushy999.

It might not be a bad idea to make the changes in stages. In other words, program it to short first with the current exit strategy and test that first. Then look to add ATR, trailing stop, etc. After all, the tests above do have some merit but who knows how much more they would have improved had the EA opened short positions as well. Hey, perhaps you might get to like it and not have to "go to work"

Regards,

Thanks mate.

__________________
Ash's Signals

Here's the EA modded to make short trades as well as long trades.

A couple of things to note... once the "breakout" condition has been met, the EA keeps on opening positions for every tick that the price remains above the 100 bar high (or below the 100 bar low for selling) until 20 positions are opened. This means all the positions are usually opened bunched up together at the same time and around the same price. Might it be more efficient to open just one larger position?

Second, once 20 positions are opened in one direction, no new trades will be opened in the opposite direction even if the trend reverses and breaks out in the opposite direction. It might be worth seeing if a breakout in the opposite direction is a good place to stop out the earlier trades and enter new positions in the new trend direction.

Backtesting on M30 with this EA enters bad positions on 20/2/2008 when there is a short lived "sell" breakout, which gets stopped out at -1000 pips on 13/3/2008. If those sell orders were closed when the next "buy" breakout occurs, the loss would only be about -100 pips on those trades.

Attached Files

EURUSD Negative Breakout v0[1].1.mq4 (4.1 KB, 32 views)

I've modded the EA again.

Now it only opens one position in the breakout direction. Position stays open until TP is hit, or until there is a breakout in the opposite direction. (Position won't be closed after specified period of time)

I've removed the MM for now, just trades fixed lots. Can add this later when it's more developed. I've also enabled trade on Friday, my feeling is that if there is a position already open from earlier in the week, it could miss a vital reversal signal if it happens on Friday, which might mean a bigger loss.

The results now have more losing trades, since the SL (opposite breakout) happens more often than fixed 1000 pip SL. Backtesting from Jan 2007 does not give encouraging results, I think more work needs to be done to find optimal parameters.

Also there's something weird around 18 Feb 2008 to 13 March 2008. It might just be my data, but it enters a sell on the 18th, and apparently there is no opposite breakout and the 1000 pip SL is still being hit on the 13th.

Attached Files

EURUSD Negative Breakout v0.2.mq4 (4.7 KB, 36 views)

Added trailing stop.

Trailing starts when profit hits "trail_margin" pips - the stop loss is moved to break even.

The stop loss is moved "trail_every" pips closer to the current price each time the current price moves"trail_every" pips further from the opening price.

If the price does not reach "tail_margin" profit pips after breaking out, the stop loss will be whatever the price is for breakout in the opposite direction.

I have to say the results are very disappointing for M30 with trail_margin = 20 and trail_every = 5.

Might have to play around with the parameters to find combinations that work better.

Attached Files

EURUSD Negative Breakout v0.3.mq4 (6.2 KB, 36 views)

Hi Sunrapt

Thanks for posting your modifications. Hopefully everybody else will find them worthy of testing. I am testing v2 currently and will let you know what I find.

Regards,

Hi, thanks for your work on this. Just a few points:

1.) I opened multi lots / trades as this performed better in the long run on backtests. Drawdown was less.
2.) The Money Mangement is VERY important to the success of this.

I do not believe that it is possible to Predict the future prices with any accuracy so therefore the system is more there to make the most of earning from random fluctuations.

I like the idea of a trailing stop. Do you think this is better than a fixed stop?

OK here's the last version I'm doing for now.

This fixes a bug I introduced in versions 0.2 and 0.3

Trailing Stop has now been made an option. If you don't use it, the TP and SL levels will be as you specify.

Money Management has been added. If you use it, the lot size will be the specified % of your free margin, with the lot size calculated appropriate to LotSize (if your broker can use microlots, set LotSize to 0.01. If you can use minilots, set it to 0.10. If you can only trade whole lots, set it to 1.0). If you do not use Money Management, all trades will be done with LotSize lots.

Attached Files

EURUSD Negative Breakout v0.4.mq4 (7.2 KB, 54 views)

SunRapt,

Many thanks. I'll give it a go in forward test.

Best Regards.