Thursday 2 November 2017

Video on the Easy Order Entry Script for Forex Tester

This is a video on the "Easy Order Entry" script for ForexTester. It automates the entire position sizing calculation at the click of a button, making for much easier ForexTester back-tests! 



Monday 4 September 2017

Riskfree Pyramid Addon Strategy for ForexTester

For users of ForexTester (and if you don't then perhaps view our review here), this is a strategy that can be used within the ForexTester software for aggressively pyramiding trades in a risk-free way.

Basically it does three add-ons and at each one the stop-loss on the combined position is moved to break-even.

By doing this multiple times very aggressive returns can be achieved with no additional risk apart from that of the initial trade.

For more details please watch our video below


Risk-free Pyramid Addon for Forex Tester

Tuesday 29 August 2017

Forex Tester - Forex Back-testing Software

Over the years there have been any number of back-testing platforms but one which I've recently come across and which I really like is ForexTester. This has been designed very much to look like MetaTrader 4, which is my preferred FX platform anyway so I feel very much at home with it. What it enables you to do is to step through historic data on a bar by bar basis (or even tick by tick if you really want) and to place trades on the chart using a simple right-click just as you would for Mt4. It has drag-and-drop for it's stop losses and take profit levels and you can trade multiple positions, trade hedged positions in fact everything that you would expect to do on Mt4. It will keep track of all your fills, positions and account equity so it feels just like the real thing. In this way you can back-test your approach across years of historic data, thereby gaining a huge amount of market experience at a much faster pace than you would otherwise be able to if just forward testing in real time.

ForexTester in action
So, what are the pro's and con's? Well, if you're looking for a programmatic testing platform then this isn't really the ideal platform. For sure you can code up indicators, scripts and strategies on it but if you have fairly simple back-testing requirements then something like TradeStation or MultiCharts is going to be much better. The one exception to this would be if your strategy involved hedged positions (so both long and short positions simultaneously) in which case the two previous platforms can't easily accommodate it. In such situations I generally use ForexTester, coding my strategy up into a dll "EA" ForexTester Strategy in order to do all my testing.

So if this isn't a programmatic platform then what is it? Well, this is rather for more discretionary traders. If you trade using any method where there's an element of discretion or of "eyeballing the chart" then this is the perfect platform. Perhaps trend-line breaks, support or resistance or Fibonacci levels, all methods which are very hard to do programmatically, for all such approaches this would be the ideal platform. For those of you who are keen on indicators it has all the common ones at your disposal as well as various drawing tools such as Andrew's Pitchfork, wave counts, Fibonacci etc.

In fact I've become so enamoured with this platform that I've started to develop and sell some add-ons for it (see here for details) to make back-testing even easier and more hassle free. Think of it as the ForexTester equivalent of scripts and EA's. In addition I've also launched a simple historic data service whereby users can download historic data which can be imported into ForexTester.

I'll leave you with this fact: of all the successful professional traders that I know (and I know quite a few these days), the vast majority of them swear by ForexTeser and attribute their success to using it.

Stop Press!
I've now negotiated a special discount on the full price of ForexTester for Snapdragon Systems! Instead of the usual price of $299 it's now $269, so $30 off! To take advantage of this offer visit 
this page here.

Tuesday 22 August 2017

FXStrategies Web-site

FXStrategies is a great little web-site that I've just recently come across through my association with the trader behind it, Frank Walbaum. Originally from Germany, Frank now lives and trades from his adopted home in Singapore. I got to know Frank at a recent FX conference where we were both speakers and we've kept in touch ever since. Frank is a professional trader who started off working in a family office for three years before moving to managing other people's funds in 2014. He has a refreshingly simple "naked trading" approach with no indicators or bells or whistles: instead it's about candle patterns and support and resistance lines for him. Each morning (9 a.m. UK time) Frank runs a "morning call" where he goes through his trades and discusses what he's presently looking at in the markets. It's also a chance to ask him questions and learn about his approach to trading.

For subscribers who pay his modest monthly fee, his web-site has loads of content including numerous webinar recordings (include some by myself on trading psychology), tutorials, podcasts, Metatrader code and all sorts of other stuff. You also get access to his trade call updates many times a week via Twitter. As a subscriber you can also ask Frank questions directly via Skype or e-mail. He is happy for others to learn how to trade his style and this offers a great opportunity to have direct access to a top professional trader.

So all in all it's a great little site and well worth looking into.

Just some of the tutorial content that's available on the site for subscribers

Friday 18 August 2017

Free Metatrader 4 Trailing Stop EA

Here's a nifty little trailing stop EA that you can use for free. In fact in our Mt4 programming lessons we're going to be building it ourselves but for those who can't wait here's the finished article.

The Legal Bit
Please note that this EA is supplied "as is" and no warranty is made, either expressly or implicitly as to its behavior. Please do your own due diligence on a demo account before using it on a live account and you use it at your own risk.




Inputs

The TrailTypeOptions selects which trail type to use.
1 is an N-bar hi/lo trail - so e.g. 5 bar trailing low for a long position or 10 bar trailing high for a short
2 is an SMA trail, so trailing at the price of a simple moving average
3 is an EMA trail so trailing at the price of an exponential moving average

The TrailLength is the trail length to use. For the N-bar hi/lo trail this is the number of bars back for your trail. For the other options it's the moving average length

The StopOffset is how far beyond the calculated point to put your stop. So if you're running a short 10 bar trailing high stop then you might want to place your stop a couple of pips above the 10 bar high to allow for the spread etc. NB this is specified in points - the minimum price movement so if you input 20 then this is 2 pips (for a market that is quoted in pipettes).

If StopOnClose is set to true then the position will only be closed out if the market closes beyond the stop level. NB use this carefully as you don't have a stop in the market at all in this case and if you should lose your internet connection then the EA won't be able to close your position.




For help on how to install it in Mt4 see this post here
For help on how to apply it to your chart see this post here

Friday 14 July 2017

Metatrader 101: How To Use Offline Charts

This is the one in a series of Metatrader 101 posts, partly so that I can have something to give to clients who are new to Mt4. It will cover the basics so people can get up and running quickly.


In Metatrader you only have a limited choice of charts: bar, candle or line and a limited choice of time-frames. But if you want to use different time-frames more exotic charts such as Renko, Point and Figure etc, is this possible? The answer is yes using what are called Offline Charts.

The basic principle is that you run a script on a "driver" chart which generates the necessary data for your new chart whether it's something like a 3 minute chart or a Renko chart. This generated data is stored in the historic data folder in real-time as the driver chart updates. Then to see this generated chart you go to the File | Open Offline chart menu which shows all the historic data files. Scroll down to find your generated chart and select it and voila!



Step By Step
Here are some step by step instructions. We'll use the PeriodConverter script to illustrate the process as this script comes with every Mt4 installation. We'll use this script to create a 3 minute chart.



1. The first thing you need to do is to make sure that you have Autotrading enabled otherwise you'll spend a lot of time scratching your head as to why it's not working. Look for the  Autotrading icon in your toolbar at the top and make sure that it shows a green triangle not a red square.







2. For this example your driver market should be an M1 chart for the market that you're interested in. We'll use EURUSD as an illustration. So first bring up an M1 EURUSD chart. It doesn't need any indicators etc. and it doesn't matter what it looks like. You just need it to be up. The important thing to remember is that you need to keep this driver chart up the whole time that you are using the offline chart, otherwise the offline chart will stop updating.



3. Next find the PerdiodConverter script in the scripts section and drop it in your M1 EURUSD driver chart. The input dialog box for this script will appear with one input variable on the "Inputs" tab which is the Period multiplier factor. In our case we want an M3 chart so we want a multiplier factor of 3. Enter that in the input field and click OK. 

3. At first glance nothing will appear to have happened. However if you look on the Experts tab of the Terminal window (Ctrl + T if it's not showing) then you'll see a message looking something like this:


4. Next we need to go to the File | Open Offline menu option which will bring up a dialog box showing all the history data files. Scroll down until your find the one which is labelled EURUSD,M3 . Highlight this and then click on the Open button. This will open up the chart. 

5. That's it! The new chart will update almost in real-time (it's programmed in the script to update every two seconds) and you can do all the usual stuff like add studies, EA's and trade off the chart etc.

The finished EURUSD M3 chart
Just remember, you need to keep the driver chart (EURUSD M1 in the example above) running for the Offline chart to update. 

Different Time Periods
If you wanted something like an H8 chart, instead of using EURUSD M1 as a driver you would use EURUSD H1 and then a multiplier factor of 8 etc. So just work out what driver time period makes the most sense for the chart period that you are after and then use the appropriate multiplier.




Sunday 29 January 2017

Metatrader Programming Lesson 4 a) - Student Question

I've been producing a series of Metatrader programming videos for a private forum which I thought that I would share here. They're designed to take people from scratch through to being able to program EA's, scripts and indicators. 

Here's a quick video in response to a question from someone doing the programming course.


Sunday 22 January 2017

Metatrader Programming Lesson 4

I've been producing a series of Metatrader programming videos for a private forum which I thought that I would share here. They're designed to take people from scratch through to being able to program EA's, scripts and indicators.

Lesson 4 - Homework Question


Sunday 15 January 2017

Metatrader Programming Lesson 3

I've been producing a series of Metatrader programming videos for a private forum which I thought that I would share here. They're designed to take people from scratch through to being able to program EA's, scripts and indicators. 

This lesson is on if statements and selecting orders.

Sunday 8 January 2017

MetaTrader Programming Lesson 2

I've been producing a series of Metatrader programming videos for a private forum which I thought that I would share here. They're designed to take people from scratch through to being able to program EA's, scripts and indicators. 

Lesson 2 of the programming series. This one is on variables and functions.




Sunday 1 January 2017

MetaTrading Programming Lesson 1

I've been producing a series of Metatrader programming videos for a private forum which I thought that I would share here. They're designed to take people from scratch through to being able to program EA's, scripts and indicators. 

Lesson 1
How to write your first script