The Chimp`s "Forex Trades"

[walterw 10]

Walter and Sundowner

Had a look at the code inside Complex_balance.mq4 and it is using a different approach from the rest of the family of indicators it came from.

It doesn't do currency analysis at all. It looks like it displays the difference between a slow ema line and a fast ema line (of the price).

So it may be some use for signaling exhaustion but it is no use for following "smart money" and it may be no use for predicting the direction a trend will emerge in. So learning what if anything it tells you will take time.

 

It looks like it can be used on AUDUSD after all since it doesnt need to call for prices from other pairs.

So, not what I had expected sorry, the websites are Russian so I don't know what the heck they are talking about.

It may be a waste of time compared to what vma already tells you.

I have been trying to find a simple version of a currency analyser but so far they are cumbersome.

This one is not a currency analyser, it may be more like a divergence indicator.

Bruce

 

 

yes some kind of macd... I agree vma already tells a lot... no needs to go bald uhuu ?

 

the currency analisis is a nice concept, so far I believe one of the best soft on that issue is leveragefx (topgunsoftware) , I will probably test them in a near future... but for now I am on vma`s... Bruce if you find some good formulas for mt4 it will certainly be interesting to look at... cheers Walter.

[PYenner 10]

Walter and Sundowner

Posted the wrong indicator, I have pulled ComplexBalance, don't know what that thing was.

Here is Complex_pairs1.mq4 which is the one I was talking about.

Runs in an oscillator window and works like a divergence indicator.

 

Running 3 versions of MT4 and getting confused about which is doing which.

Sorry again

Argh

Complex_pairs1.mq4

[sundowner 10]

Hi PYenner,

 

Thanks for the taking the time to present the banking information and new indicators. It's much appreciated. I'll try the new indicators this week.

 

When all was said and done, I managed 176 pips last week so all of what you and Walter have presented here has great potential.

 

Regards

[walterw 10]

Hi PYenner,

 

Thanks for the taking the time to present the banking information and new indicators. It's much appreciated. I'll try the new indicators this week.

 

When all was said and done, I managed 176 pips last week so all of what you and Walter have presented here has great potential.

 

Regards

 

Nice to hear that Sundowner... I asume it was using high timeframes... could we see some charts of that ? it would be inspiring to see it... thanks Walter.

[sundowner 10]

Hi Walter,

 

Here is a chart showing a couple of successful trades this week.

 

Cheers.

[sundowner 10]

Hi PYenner,

 

I have spent some time tweaking the use of your indicators this week...no luck with new ones. Please have a look at these charts and this indicator I have attached and see what you think. Here’s the thread for the indicator:

 

http://www.forex-tsd.com/suggestions-trading-systems/9227-oscillator-mba-thesis.html

 

I think the poster is looking for input/guidance.

 

Here’s my template if you want to spend some time scrolling back and forth to see what I have been looking at recently. I have been impressed with how well your indicators work with Walter’s trading strategy. I have been watching the returns to the blue vma (12) green (6) yellow (4) and the subsequent bounces on the 60 minute chart.

 

…still trading in the direction indicated by the 60 minute chart, taking trades from the 15 minute chart.

 

If you are still interested in working with mt4, I would really like to see the adxvma 7.

 

The other thing I’m wondering about is support and resistance. Hand drawing the lines is a pain but seems particularly good for the longer tfs. I have explored the use of numerous s/r indicators, but none really fit the bill. Any ideas?

 

No worries if you’re otherwise occupied.

 

Have a nice weekend.

 

Regards

MBA_Thesis_Indicator_ok.mq4

sundowner 15.tpl

sundowner 60 min.tpl

TLOMI NonLagMA_v4.mq4

[PYenner 10]

The other thing I’m wondering about is support and resistance. Hand drawing the lines is a pain but seems particularly good for the longer tfs. I have explored the use of numerous s/r indicators, but none really fit the bill. Any ideas?

Have not got into s/r yet.

One by Coders Guru http://www.xpworx.com/ZigZag_Channels.htm

Still looking at the rest...

My own approach is that bid and ask volumes can be monitored separately and can be added for average volume or compared for strength comparisons.

Differences in bid and ask volumes come thru as margin spread, something which I see happening most often in EURJPY but also in GBPUSD and in both cases that spread comes thru magnified in GBPJPY. That aspect is one of my current interests as it may signal which way the price will break.

[PYenner 10]

Sundowner

Thesis is an interesting thread and my impression is that the critical observations have obvious truth to them, macd and rsi do not have a compatible basis in their forex forms for combining as Thesis did. This is likely to be a translation defect not a defect in the original thesis. Also agree that the ranges of the two are incompatible and may only be compatible when used on a pair where they happen to be almost compatible. So the bias favouring long does not surprise me. These problems are probably fixable.

What also worries me is the dogs breakfast in the formula (Stochastic*(MACD+RSI)/Momentum). If this really was an MBA thesis then the maths behind that should be sound... but from memory (only) Macd may be one of those "big swingers" that makes no attempt to calibrate itself to the pair in use, ADX also makes this most basic mistake, no attempt made to ensure they work in one pip units on any pair.

So along the lines that others have said, before macd and rsi can be combined, they must both calibrate themselves to 1 pip steps on any pair (non standard versions of both may be needed), they both have to be in forms that swing about a zero line (non-standard for at least one of them) and they have to have compatible swing ranges.... otherwise it is all total cr*p and a waste of time. The short way of saying the same thing in my own way of saying it... all four variables may need to be normalized to a +1 to -1 range before combining them is mathematically sound, so I expect MBA used them in a normalized form in his original version, mathematical types think in normalized terms, its an essential basic to their thinking, the alternative is just not an option.

The formula looks less suspicious to me if it is rearranged as (MACD+RSI)*(Stochastic/Momentum) but everything then depends on the "periods" that are used particularly in Stochastic/Momentum which is the seriously interesting concept because it may be attempting to get an early warning signal out of an ordinary stochastic signal. Really need to hunt down an online version of the guys thesis which most likely does not exist online. Without that you are shooting in the dark.

The observation that it works on 1hr charts but not on 1min charts bothers me, it may be because of the "big swing" problem that comes from the instruments not being calibrated to work in pip units.

So there is not just one issue here but many, dogs breakfast, not a pretty sight. That Stoch/Momentum step is interesting and I would like to understand that part. But there are so many things that would need to be fixed first, its a big project, unfortunately the lack of a common systematic scientific approach to the design of "standard" instruments like adx macd and rsi turns it into a witches brew not sound chemistry.

 

Thanks for the interesting thread but the instruments need to be redesigned on a common systematic basis before they have a chance of being used in the Plug'nPlay way being attempted. That is the first step to turning indicators into science but I won't be making that step, I must get on with more pressing things unfortunately.

Regards

Bruce

[sundowner 10]

Hi PYenner,

 

Thanks very much for spending the time to look at the indicator and supplying such a detailed explanation of it's inner workings.

 

Sorry to have wasted your time with it though.

 

Regards

[PYenner 10]

Sundowner

Enjoyed the change of pace and subject.

They have some good lively minds at tsd but I have avoided the temptation of working thru the threads, too many distracting thoughts.

See they are looking at fisher transform, don't know if they also play with fft (fast fourier transform) but those transform things are powerful if only indicators had a more scientific basis. In electronics there are books written on the use of a single transform (there are many) and they are fundamentally useful for turning a complicated problem into a simple problem with a simple answer. What Walter is doing, using volume as one axis on a chart in place of the time axis, that is a dimensional transform, it gives a different view of the same setup, a cleaner view is a better view. The fisher transform can do a similar thing, but it needs to be approached in a systematic way and you need first to do transforms of each of the common tools like emas, design the indicator using those transformed versions, then do the reverse transform of the components to get back to the real world indicator design. I no longer have the brains or the time to into it but it tempts me, it nags at me like midas does with the volume transform thing. The more I look at it the less likely it seems that forex volume will properly support the midas thing, but I still feel forex volume has something positive to offer, even if it isn't the thing we most want.

Sorry for rambling on.

Cheers PY

[walterw 10]

Interesting Posts Sundowner and Bruce...

 

I did look the mba thesis thread some time ago, looked very nice, even got contacted by jjk2 to look into aplications, now what I see is that what I looked was the first "crap version"... now he posted a new version wich really follows the swings much smoother and has an interesting leading effect... but dont see any edge other than the 0 line area...

 

combining momentum oscillators and making a salad of them finally gives a new hybrid momentum oscillator... I agree with Bruce that there is a lot of mathematical incompatible things there... now the interesting thing on this one is his presence on the 0 line previous to a posible long signal, where the author so far finds more clean signals from there to the long than from above to the down side... that 0 line and then take off looks interesting... wonder if it doesnt repaint...

 

I tested on 1 min and works ok to me... anyway he is not excempt from the same drawdowns any momentum oscillator has... cheers Walter.

[PYenner 10]

Walter

Someone suggested the path I would take with it..

 

Drop the macd part, subtract 50 from the RSI signal to make it symmetrical about the zero line...

It depends on how the Stochastic bit was done and I didn't look that closely.

 

That might get rid of the long bias...

 

But no-one seemed to act on the fix that had been suggested??

 

The only thought I had about repainting was when I saw a piece of code with two imaonarray()'s in the same loop, I had the impression each had to be in its own separate loop because thats the way the internal functions seem to use it, but as usual there is no documentation to explain the tricky doubts. I kept my mouth shut because guesses are all I have to go on and those guys know MT4 a lot better than I do.

 

An alternatve would be to use (Stochastic(RSI-50) + Stochastic(Macd))/mom since the stochastic tends to normalize each signal..??

Cheers B

[walterw 10]

Walter

Someone suggested the path I would take with it..

 

Drop the macd part, subtract 50 from the RSI signal to make it symmetrical about the zero line...

It depends on how the Stochastic bit was done and I didn't look that closely.

 

That might get rid of the long bias...

 

But no-one seemed to act on the fix that had been suggested??

 

The only thought I had about repainting was when I saw a piece of code with two imaonarray()'s in the same loop, I had the impression each had to be in its own separate loop because thats the way the internal functions seem to use it, but as usual there is no documentation to explain the tricky doubts. I kept my mouth shut because guesses are all I have to go on and those guys know MT4 a lot better than I do.

 

An alternatve would be to use (Stochastic(RSI-50) + Stochastic(Macd))/mom since the stochastic tends to normalize each signal..??

Cheers B

 

NO needs to loose time on this stuff... there is no real super edge there...

 

what sounded interesting to me is what you mentioned about bid and ask volumes... interesting... could this generate some synthetic delta ?

 

I know my next thread on forex (my pro-live aproach) will be a little upseting for some people, as I came all the way back to the vma basics and found it much more competitive than any fancy new research we did... still I like the idea of keep researching new things, happens that for live trading I like to be as much conservative and simplified as posible...

 

No needs to go more bald, we got all we need to succeed in the markets... maybe its time to get consistent on old good clasic vmar setups, so far Bruce thats where I am headed... Thanks for ALL YOUR GREAT CONTRIBUTIONS ¡¡ cheers Walter.

[sundowner 10]

Hi PYenner and Walter,

 

If you wouldn't mind, indulge me one more time and have a quick look at these charts... then I'll let things go. The basic concept here is classic support and resistance. My information comes from Martin Pring.

 

PYenner, what I have tried to do here is to illustrate some pretty classic analysis working with your indicators on the 60 minute chart. My inexperience makes precise definition of s/r, let's say uncomfortable, yet I have seen prices respect these (past) levels time and time again.

 

My opinion is that fundamentally the market is driven by psychology as even the shakers and movers in this market are human beings and respond to defined markers.

 

What I am looking for is indicators that will define the turning points, and yours do quite well...the other thing I have difficulty with is the draw down.

 

Profitable or not, correct direction or not, it's hard to watch the market move against you as far as it can and still hold on if you're using real money.

 

At any rate, I appreciate you taking the time.

 

Regards gentlemen

[unicorn 10]

this is a way to relax and enjoy the ride... no need to be permanently overthinking the concepts behind the setups, just a simple view of the setups its good enough to be looking for the right trades...

 

Trading MUST be an enjoyable experience.. and simplification is one way to get there... cheers The Chimp.

 

Hello Walter;

 

I understand that the vma research has come to a conclusion regarding the trade setups.

 

A lot of versions have been developed: adxvma_12 bars, adxvma_16_bars, adxvma_6bars, adxvmatest3, you name it... and it is not clear which one is regarded as the best for this task.

 

I would very much appreciate your clarification regarding which is the final version of the vma indicator used for the setup and the timing,

AND the exact parameters used (because the charts posted do not show any parameters).

 

Perhaps a chart in Ninja Trader would help to clarify the final settings.

 

As always, your charts and presentations are appreciated.

 

Regards;

Unicorn.

[PYenner 10]

My inexperience makes precise definition of s/r, let's say uncomfortable, yet I have seen prices respect these (past) levels time and time again.

 

My opinion is that fundamentally the market is driven by psychology as even the shakers and movers in this market are human beings and respond to defined markers.

Ditto, I have see GBPJPY come back to a human number like 235.00 like a fly on shit, can't keep away from it. So yes you see historic prices respected over and over. But those same human money movers who respect sr some days also have enough savvy to burn sr users often enough to keep them from getting rich. I have seen the market fly straight past a price it had previously clung to like a fly. I am a doubting thomas about every single establishment system, that is just me. I have also seen sr prices not get respected. Most of all the market seems downright devious to me, especially GBPJPY, as much as I love it I do so want to burn it back the same way it loves to burn me...

What I am looking for is indicators that will define the turning points, and yours do quite well...the other thing I have difficulty with is the draw down.

 

Profitable or not, correct direction or not, it's hard to watch the market move against you as far as it can and still hold on if you're using real money.

Sunny the best advice I can give you from months of just that problem, drawdown on entry or pullback during a longer term trade, is... treat drawdown as you would a fully realized loss because it is every bit as bad. If your entry timing gives you drawdown then look for an entry setup that has you stopping out before drawdown builds. Ditto for pullback during a trade, it is nuts to watch unrealized profit evaporate, particularly when you realize that you might have closed or reversed and be making money out of the pull back instead of losing money. Current price is the irreversible reality, mightbe's are for suckers (and I'm trying to stop being one), sure it might come back (and it might not), but if you are building drawdown the reality is you are going backwards because your thinking tells you (wrongly, may I suggest) that it serves a good purpose (like what exactly?). I now classify tolerating drawdown as denial (dat famous river) and the creek it takes you up dont smell so sweet.

Forgive what may seem like a tactless reply, but I am just finding my way back out from the path you seem to be starting down. Imo, stop out is better than getting that sick feeling as things go backwards. Watch it happen from outside the market where it gives you no pain. Wait for a good "Walter" entry with momentum behind it and you are back in without drawdown or much waiting. If the market is being a sod, sleep like a baby and come back the next day.

 

>>Profitable or not, correct direction or not, it's hard to watch the market move against you as far as it can and still hold on if you're using real money<<

Perfect description of what GBPJPY does to you, that is its speciality.

Yes you can do long term trades and take the heat that goes with them.

I used to do that but thanks to Walter I now wonder why I ever bothered.

 

If I do get back to trend trading I hope it will be more like a series of scalps aimed at minimum drawdown (seriously small) and no tolerance for pullback, take it while you got it and don't let the market get any back.

 

I once entered a long term trade a day early simply because the entry price came up. Next day the market bottomed just 5 pips below my entry price then went up for the next week (what a hero). If only I had scalped out there (what a sucker). For the next month it did ugly whipsaws (gbpjpy again) and I did eventually take a profit I could and should have taken much earlier. When it came time to re-enter for the second half of the pattern, boy did I get multiple burns. The price bottomed out, started up then pulled back 100 pips, ouch. Bottomed out started up, pullback 150 pips, ouch again. I lost count after 350 pips.

 

From my own bitter experience, please heed some words...

Do not get hardheaded about being able to call an entry price or direction, that has cost me so much money it is not funny, do the exercise, be aware of what it tells you, BUT DO NOT RELY ON IT OR EXPECT IT. The market is not that green or easy.

Any such rigid expectations are a ball and chain on your brain and as much a liability as an asset.

There are some very savvy money movers who seem to rely on making money from other peoples reliance on fixed thinking and sr prices are a classic example of something they know every bit as well as you.

 

On the psychology front they are well ahead on that game and gbpjpy is the right place to find that out the hard way.

 

Again forgive the lack of tact, but you gotta admit, its honest fwiw..

Regards

Bruce

[PYenner 10]

A lot of versions have been developed: adxvma_12 bars, adxvma_16_bars, adxvma_6bars, adxvmatest3, you name it... and it is not clear which one is regarded as the best for this task.

 

I would very much appreciate your clarification regarding which is the final version of the vma indicator used for the setup and the timing,

AND the exact parameters used (because the charts posted do not show any parameters).

 

Perhaps a chart in Ninja Trader would help to clarify the final settings.

Yes I need to tidy the mess up and as you say, get the charts displaying the parameters. There is also a small bug in adxvma6 which is what they all are, except for the original fantailVMA1_1. Thanks to another poster who pointed me towards a handy site I can now start tidying things up into a final version which may be called adxvma7 but it is a tidy up that should only really affect mt4 users, there is no great new stuff to be ported. As such it is on the back burner, it works so the need to tidy it up is not urgent.

There might be a vma8 but for the moment I doubt if it will turn out to have anything significant to contribute, will have to try it to find out.

 

Forex volume is one way I am going at the moment, while Walter goes into futures volume where it can be done to its best. I am also giving top priority to my trading income which has been on the backburner for too long now.

Adxvma7 tidy up may be a month away, I expect to lose a few weeks to other business demands and then xmas gets busy anyway which halves the time for trading stuff. I might have to go AWOL for a while too, depends on what goes down next week, stuff is happening that might mean closing down one of the businesses 10 years earlier than planned <governments, don't ya love em sigh>.

Bruce

[sundowner 10]

Greetings PYenner,

 

I thought your recent reply was brilliant actually.

 

Thank you for taking the time to point out, as the elders of the Sechelt Native Band say, “the perils of my walkâ€Â. Better to hear it now than experience those sad truths live trading.

 

Far from being offended by the directness, PYenner, I appreciate the counsel and the gracious way you have treated these silly newbie posts of mine.

 

Chalk it up to inexperience, excitement and enthusiasm for new ideas and the great potential of these threads. I think if I were in your shoes, reading these inane posts of mine, I would have said STFU (I had to google that) and listen you damn fool.

 

In truth, I will do exactly that (STFU) and see what evolves.

 

Still like to see adxvma 7…. Sorry, just can’t help it.

 

Regards and thanks.

[PYenner 10]

what sounded interesting to me is what you mentioned about bid and ask volumes... interesting... could this generate some synthetic delta ?

I have some hopes but also trying not to have hopes because it is nowhere near as good as real volume. Bid and ask is only available from live feed, that data isn't stored in history charts, so any volume info that can be built from it can also not be stored easily. Bit of a pest, experiment and see what comes out yeah?

Cheers

Bruce

[PYenner 10]

Thank you for taking the time to point out, as the elders of the Sechelt Native Band say, “the perils of my walkâ€Â. Better to hear it now than experience those sad truths live trading.

 

Far from being offended by the directness, PYenner, I appreciate the counsel and the gracious way you have treated these silly newbie posts of mine.

 

Chalk it up to inexperience, excitement and enthusiasm for new ideas and the great potential of these threads. I think if I were in your shoes, reading these inane posts of mine, I would have said STFU (I had to google that) and listen you damn fool. In truth, I will do exactly that (STFU) and see what evolves.

Glad it was received ok.

You aint no fool, just human like the rest of us.

Each path brings both payoff and peril, big learning curve.

Walters path promises payoff with minimum peril and I love that.

Scalping came naturally to me, trend trading was a new opportunity that came to me later and the perils showed up in time.

So I am comfortable with scalping, it fits my fingerprint as Soultrader calls it.

If scalping is too fast for you, then maybe your fingerprint will be in longer trades. So don't shut up and don't stop trying. Do keep talking.

This forum is a great sanity saver for traders.

 

The entry drawdown thing has been called catching a falling knife.

It does not have an easy answer that I know of.

You are right to identify it as a major problem for longer trades.

They also have an obviously high payout per trade.

My losses came out of profit, they were not outright losses.

So it can work but the drawdown or outright losses are very testing, high psycho impact and that is why I look for alternatives now, less stress.

I did not find a good drawdown/stoploss rule for longer entries, things varied too much from week to week.

So you asked a damn good question but the best I can say is it remains a toughy, didn't find a good answer to it yet.

Tolerating drawdown was the only way I was able to trend trade gbpjpy, it did work overall but hell you can lose big too, the psycho stress was the killer, it was turning trading into a high stakes gamble and that was bad news.

What you are attempting is possible, its just damn hard on your insides.

GBPUSD or EURJPY are probably safer than GBPJPY.

Sorry for the unconstructive nature of my 2 cents worth.

I have not finished my first year of trading yet so I am still a noob too.

Bruce

[unicorn 10]

Yes, I need to tidy the mess up and as you say, get the charts displaying the parameters.

 

Hello Bruce;

I thought that you have transferred to Ninja Trader.

 

There is also a small bug in adxvma6 which is what they all are, except for the original fantailVMA1_1.

... it works so the need to tidy it up is not urgent.

 

Bruce

 

I realize that cleaning up the code is not your priority, BUT please explain

1) why the _16, or _12 or _6 suffixes, I thought that they are minor fixes...

2) why the _test3 ? what are you testing? what is the outcome? better, worse?

3) what is the minor bug?

4) what are the input parameters and their corresponding values, as selected by Walter on his charts.

 

I have coded adxvma6 in Amibroker but the vma curves I get are not identical to what Walter has on the posted charts.

What I worry about is the following:

a) there might be a small bug that creates the difference ; small BUG - big disappointment!

b) I certainly do not want the good attributes of the adxvma6 to be due to a small bug; and I certainly hope that after the bug is fixed, the shape of the adxvma6(adxbars=6) will not be transformed and become less successful in indicating the horizontal effect and the laddering.

 

PLEASE paste on a message the few lines of code that have the bug and explain what the problem is; you can fix the bug at your convenience later.

 

Last BUT not least, if you are going to place trades using this, you need as much verification by others, programming the same idea and verifying that it always produces the same desirable result.

 

Take care.

Unicorn.

[unicorn 10]

 

Here is a chart showing a couple of successful trades this week.

 

 

Hello sundowner;

 

Nice trades.

 

Why did you not take the first cross of the white curve (I assume no_lag_ma) and the red curve (I assume adxvma6(adxperiods=2) ).

 

By the way please clarify:

which indicator is the white curve, what value is the parameter?

which indicator is the red curve, what value is the parameter?

which indicator is the green curve, what value is the parameter?

 

When did you exit the trades?

 

cheers.

Unicorn.

[walterw 10]

Hello Walter;

 

I understand that the vma research has come to a conclusion regarding the trade setups.

 

A lot of versions have been developed: adxvma_12 bars, adxvma_16_bars, adxvma_6bars, adxvmatest3, you name it... and it is not clear which one is regarded as the best for this task.

 

I would very much appreciate your clarification regarding which is the final version of the vma indicator used for the setup and the timing,

AND the exact parameters used (because the charts posted do not show any parameters).

 

Perhaps a chart in Ninja Trader would help to clarify the final settings.

 

As always, your charts and presentations are appreciated.

 

Regards;

Unicorn.

 

 

Hi Unicorn, thats precisely what I am working right now... taking some decisions into wich is the better combination of indicators, even I am still not convinced of using NT as it has data problems... so I am letting the sands settle down and once I get the most simple and optimized combo I will make it public on a new thread... my idea is going live with that defined combination and be consistent posting my live trades during a year at least...

 

So that thread will be diferent to the research threads as it will show something already defined and used on the live realm... it will be cool... cheers Walter.

[sundowner 10]

Hi Unicorn,

 

To answer your questions:

 

Green ADXVMA6 Bar (6)

 

Red ADXMA4 (4)

 

The white line is a DECEMA 12, virtually identical to the HMA 9.

 

I was not at my computer at the time of the first indicated trade, and it was well on its way so I waited for the retracement, hoping to see a continuation of the trend.

 

Exit when decema (white) turns to cross red (4). I struggle with exits.

 

Hope that answers your questions.

[walterw 10]

EXCELLENT Advices here Bruce ¡¡ I like your clear understanding in not getting married with any particular bias about the market but riding the waves and taking home the pips of each of this momentum driven waves... (call it scalping, etc ) certainly vma`s do a great job in creating a great amplified visual context to take this very simple trades and profit on a regular basis...

 

No needs to buy and hold or short and hold... if the trade its not going on the correct way you are out (tight), there will be lots of oportunities ahead ¡¡ thats the beauty of trading, it is a signed blanck check of oportunities, just need to focus on taking the ones that really have the best competitive potential output, and vma`s do a great job showing those ones...

 

Nice inputs here guys... cheers Walter.