Forex Software — Mis-definition of trading term in strategy generator

Re: Mis-definition of trading term in strategy generator

2012-05-19T23:22:10Z

Hi jgp, I hope it's ok, I'm going to copy and paste your questions to a new thread for the Trade Distribution chart, maybe other users have similar questions, they'll be able to find it from a search with keywords in the thread title.

http://forexsb.com/forum/post/14506/#p14506

Re: Mis-definition of trading term in strategy generator

2012-05-19T21:29:04Z

thank you, Krog, for your speedy reply about your Trade Distribution Charts. i'm still confused, though. As I understood it, on the number-of-trades chart each addition must somehow be counted as a trade [otherwise where do all those small profit/loss trades come from?]; doesn't the sums-chart present number of trades times resultant of each trade? And for some strategies, almost all the total profit/loss results from many virtually identical small profit/loss trades. So, I supposed that the FSB SL and TP strategy settings had to be set so as to allow for those sums, not just the value of those many small profit/loss trades. Doesn't the FST-AE take those FSB SL/TP settings that were optimized for the total [original plus additions] and apply the exact same SL/TP setting to each addition?? Still confused as to where all those small profit/loss trades [which sometimes account for nearly all the profit/loss] come from.

Re: Mis-definition of trading term in strategy generator

2012-05-19T19:19:18Z

Hi jgp,
the Trade Distribution chart only counts transactions that are Close, Reduce, or Reverse. So for your question, if it Adds a position to the winner, that previous existing winner is not counted as a winner at the time of Adding; it will be counted as a win or loss at the time of Close (or Reduce or Reverse).
Also if it adds several lots to the position then closes them all at once, that will be counted as 1 trade.

Hi dabbler, welcome to the forum, glad to hear you enjoy FSB a lot, I do too !! It's very helpful and very extensible

Re: Mis-definition of trading term in strategy generator

2012-05-19T09:49:51Z

jgp wrote:

thanks again for that revelation. Where have you been all these years?

I've been coding on MT4 for the last couple of years.

Only found out about FSB a few days ago when somebody mentioned it on the MT4 forum. It's a great boost to morale to see a winning strategy for a change!

Just exactly what FSB is doing with its statistics is a mystery to a newbie like me right now ... but it's early days yet.

Re: Mis-definition of trading term in strategy generator

2012-05-19T08:42:41Z

thanks again for that revelation. Where have you been all these years? And what I meant to ask is "with a 'winner' FSB strategy, does an original entry plus 4 additions count upon closure as 1 win/loss or 5 wins/losses?". Seems to jgp the answer is especially significant when it comes to interpreting the Trade Distribution charts or optimizing FSB strategy SL/TP settings. Presumably the FSB strategy StopLoss and TakeProfit settings treat it [as does the MT4 platform] as only one trade, so a 200 SL setting when there have been 4 additions translates into a 40 SL value for the original FSB strategy entry? So do the Trade Distribution charts show 5 trades at 40, or one trade at 200? And do the FSB strategy SL/TP settings apply to the aggregate position [original plus 4 additions]?? If the FSB-FST setting is 200, that SL/TP setting is set for a single MT4 composite transaction, even if the additions are made hours or days later.

Re: Mis-definition of trading term in strategy generator

2012-05-19T07:52:32Z

(I posted the original topic in the wrong forum. Sorry about that.) And now it has been moved. Thanks

Good question about the "Adds". I exported my current strategy as "Positions in Currency without transfers". Opened it in Excel and sorted by the Transaction column. Now the Add, Close and Open transactions are in blocks to make them easy to count.

The Account Statistics box shows 322 winning trades and 290 losing trades.
Add was from row 1 to 99 = 99 Adds
Close was from row 100 to 712 = 613 closes
Open was from row 713 to 1325 = 613 opens

322 + 290 = 612 trades total
Looks like the Adds are not being counted as separate trades.

Re: Mis-definition of trading term in strategy generator

2012-05-19T01:23:50Z

Many thanks for that revelation, especially by us who don't read or write source code. While we're at it, what constitutes a 'win' or a 'loss', in FSB in general? For example, suppose a "Winner" or an "Add" strategy is being generated and 4 additions to the original entry are made; when the total resultant position is closed, is that counted by FSB to be 4 wins or losses, or just one??? How about in the recently added Trade Distributrion charts???

Mis-definition of trading term in strategy generator

2012-05-18T20:26:11Z

http://forexsb.com/wiki/fsb/manual/generator

says ...
Win/Loss Ratio = Winning / (Winning + Losing) trades; [0 - 1]

That is not a correct definition for win/loss ratio.

If
number of winning trades is #wins
number of losing trades is #loses

the win/loss ratio is #wins/#loses

What has been defined is the per unit win rate
#wins/(#wins+#loses)