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