Trade Planning and Testing

[THT]

The % stops and targets i mention above are for DAILY charts - you need to reduce them accordingly for the time-frame you trade - I also just use a 10SMA and 21EMA for the trade and it works perfectly fine

Here's JC's rules:

 

[Caseynotes]

The MT4 Strategy Tester can be used to manually test indicator based strategies in fast forward, it can also test trading algos (EAs) that produce an end of test report.

Click on the Strategy Tester icon in the Tool bar. Select Indicator or EA test. Choose the indicator you want to test from your Navigator list, choose the market and the time frame to test on and then press Start. A new chart is created with the chosen indicator installed.

[dmedin]

Looks complicated, does it work with stupid people😑

[Caseynotes]

4 minutes ago, dmedin said:

Looks complicated, does it work with stupid people😑

The basic fast forward run is just a matter of making the selections described above to test if an indicator might actually be profitable or not.

[dmedin]

Another big disaster for me.  Don't know what left to try.  Will need to use 4 hour charts and buy when the MACD crosses from well below.  Don't see anything else that will work at this stage.

[dmedin]

If you take TradingRush's approach (going for a 2:1 or 1.5:1 win/loss ratio) then you will be out of the market for extended periods of time.  In the diagram below you got one good signal in the space of several weeks, and you should have ridden it as long as you could (with a trailing stop perhaps) once again proving to yourself that 'buy and hold' (or sell and hold) is better than trying to be a clever ****, going in and out on short time frames and losing all your money.

[dmedin]

Also notice how there's no room for 'technical analysis', drawing lines all over the place and being a c&nt with retracements and all the other sh!te, in the above approach.  It's purely mechanical.

Edited June 24, 2020 by dmedin

[dmedin]

On 27/05/2020 at 09:29, THT said:

The % stops and targets i mention above are for DAILY charts - you need to reduce them accordingly for the time-frame you trade - I also just use a 10SMA and 21EMA for the trade and it works perfectly fine

Here's JC's rules:

 

 

Number 8 is b0llocks, the 'quickest' way to deal with all of that sh!t is to put it into an algorithm - sit back and let it do its thing.  Don't be a c&nt.

[Caseynotes]

2 hours ago, dmedin said:

Another big disaster for me.  Don't know what left to try.  Will need to use 4 hour charts and buy when the MACD crosses from well below.  Don't see anything else that will work at this stage.

great, do it, but try doing it properly for a change, don't rely on 1 sign, use a combo of 2 or 3 signs to give a signal and then test it on lots of charts, let us know when you have the results stats.

 

[dmedin]

2 minutes ago, Caseynotes said:

try doing it properly for a change, don't rely on 1 sign

 

[dmedin]

Gooooooooooo Tom Bombadil 🐮

[dmedin]

So what's the advantage in slapping all the extra lines, indicators and oscillators on there?

The TradingRush guy didn't do it?

[dmedin]

So there's one actionable signal on Monday 15th June (8 days ago, and even in this case it might not have given a 2:1 trade), are signals on lower time frames as reliable as this?  

[dmedin]

Same thing on 30 mins time frame.  Not a single solid signal given by all the indicators in agreement.  However ... if you look at the daily chart, price does appear to be going sideways so it does kind of agree with the picture painted by the daily chart.

 

Edited June 24, 2020 by dmedin

[dmedin]

Until today at least, when it clearly seems to be making new lows.   But I'm sure tomorrow it will reverse and go in completely the other direction again

[Caseynotes]

4 minutes ago, dmedin said:

Not a single solid signal given by all the indicators in agreement. 

what system, you don't have a system, you're just picking out random signs and think they must mean something, they don't, you are wasting your time.

in the picture I posted, 4 hour chart and macd crossing (your spec), crossing up with rsi crossing up over the 50 for long or macd crossing down with rsi crossing down below the 50 for short. 4 executable trades and I just made that up on the spot. write down some rules, stick to the rules and test the rules on lots of charts.

It's all in this thread but If you won't read the thread then start your own thread and post on that.

[dmedin]

2 minutes ago, Caseynotes said:

It's all in this thread but If you won't read the thread then start your own thread and post on that.

Oh dear

But all of the examples in your videos show things that work, and when I try them I see that they do not work.  It's almost as if those videos are specifically set up for that purpose and don't show the reality.

Edited June 24, 2020 by dmedin

[dmedin]

In this example, all buy and sell signals given by stochastics and MACD are cancelled out by the price being above or below 100 and 200 MA lines.  Hence, you simply wouldn't trade this at all.

[dmedin]

4 minutes ago, Caseynotes said:

in the picture I posted

Which has no MA lines.

Who doesn't use MA lines?!!!!

[Caseynotes]

1 minute ago, dmedin said:

Which has no MA lines.

Who doesn't use MA lines?!!!!

can you really not tell if PA is sloping or not 🤔

[Caseynotes]

3 minutes ago, dmedin said:

In this example, all buy and sell signals given by stochastics and MACD are cancelled out by the price being above or below 100 and 200 MA lines.  Hence, you simply wouldn't trade this at all.

there are no signals on this chart, that is your problem, you see false signals everywhere. devise a system where 2 or 3 SIGNS are in alignment that your testing has lead you to understand is a SIGNAL 

[dmedin]

2 hours ago, Caseynotes said:

you see false signals everywhere

Yes, they are false 'signals'.  Definitely agree with you there  

[dmedin]

If I'd entered that trade on Friday 19th I would still be short (nearly getting stopped out) But TradingRush said don't sell when it's above 200 day SMA 🤢

[dmedin]

Conversely, if I had gone long on Tuesday 16th June (after the RSI divergence and bounce back up above 200 SMA) then I'd still be long to this day  

[dmedin]

10 minutes ago, dmedin said:

Conversely, if I had gone long on Tuesday 16th June (after the RSI divergence and bounce back up above 200 SMA) then I'd still be long to this day  

Nope it just hit 2:1 ha

[Caseynotes]

"A trading plan with explicit and unnegotiable rules will help remove a lot of the guessings, doubts, confusion, and by extension, a lot of the emotions."

"All your thinking must happen outside of market hours as you're preparing, researching, etc. During market hours, there is absolutely no place for overthinking. It's all just execution."

"The fear of losing is embedded within us. You can't really get rid of it. Over time, you just learn to manage it better so that it doesn't sway your trading decisions."

Trading Composure @TradingComposure

 

 

 

[dmedin]

The thing is, I find some indicator combinations work better on different time frames.  Daily stocks are probably the hardest to find a reasonably reliable setup for, since they gap and swing up and down so much.  Considering the time and effort required to keep up-to-date with individual company events (not all of them are included on IG's calendar) then it might not be worthwhile anyway.

Edited June 30, 2020 by dmedin

[Caseynotes]

 

1 hour ago, dmedin said:

The thing is, I find some indicator combinations work better on different time frames.

This is correct as everyone discovers, you need to develop a strategy for each market which is why people tend to stick to only 2 or 3 different markets say gold, oil and indices for example or maybe US big caps and indices. It is also why strategies can't really be swapped between people without at least some tinkering as everyone wants to use their own choice of time frame and trading periods.

So the actual system should have something to indicate the trend and the trigger and perhaps one other that is a combo that acts as confirmation. Remember that many indicators are derivatives of moving averages so try not to have 2 that are just repeating the same info. Think perhaps slow (MAs) and fast (RSI/Stoch) and something outside the box like volume, whatever - the proof is always in the testing.

[dmedin]

I was almost tempted to pay $14.95 for a monthly subscription to TradingView to use its backtesting and replay functions.  ProRealTime allows programmatic backtesting only, as far as I can tell.  $14.95 a month isn't much 😒

[Caseynotes]

9 minutes ago, dmedin said:

I was almost tempted to pay $14.95 for a monthly subscription to TradingView to use its backtesting and replay functions.  ProRealTime allows programmatic backtesting only, as far as I can tell.  $14.95 a month isn't much 😒

not much that's true, maybe someone who uses the PRT backtester can elaborate, if it was easy to use it would be free if trading enough. The alternative is to download the mt4 platform and use the free strategy tester or pay the one off $100 for the mt4 simulator. 

I did a thread on different free simulators available online but it appears to have been lost (like a lot of stuff) when the forum platform was upgraded back in 2018, there were quite a few though mostly for stocks, so maybe worth a google search.