I just implement some more functionality and the new Normalizer managed to surprise me

I wanted it to remove a dumb Take Profit from a strategy and it did it successfully. However, it removed also one of the indicators !?.

That is actually great to see. So much of a strategy's design complexity is associated with a multi-variate design response particularly when it comes to curve fit solutions. Strategy variables are rarely independent of each other. To see the reduction of multi-variables with the normaliser is a great sign to suggest it will assist in reducing system complexity to improve overall robustness.

My motiv is that the Normalizer is nearer to the Optimizer by functionality. It will make the work of WF easier if succeed of removing some indicators.

This arrangement must be the same in the Reactor / Validator also. Please consider wich workflow is more meaningful.

Are there any plans to put the normalizer into FSB Pro?

FSB Pro has a basic form of Normalizer. It is included in the Generator.
You may switch it on or off from the Generator's Settings. The option is called "Normalize strategies"

You may find some more info in the FSB Pro User Guide: Strategy Generator

My current plans are to add new and experimental features in EA Studio only.

Are you able to put the Normalizer in the reactor/validator, please?

Yes, these are the plans. Let's test it for several days and if there are no major issues, we will integrate it into the Reactor / Validator.

I want to optimize and refactor the Normalizer's code first. Also, I have to figure out how to fix the Progress stats. Because the Normalizer is dynamic, we cannot know the total number of the calculations at the beginning. A difference comes when the Normalizer removes TP or an indicator. Another problem is that the parameters optimization passes several times through all indicators until it finds the best values.

Other improvements I want to consider are to make it visible how useful are the Reactor's tools. For example to have stats how many strategies are actually improved by Optimizer, Walk Forward Optimizer and Normalizer.

Something like that:

Are you able to put the normailizer in the reactor/validator please?

Further to the previous notes, it now optimizes the indicator values toward the defaults in both directions. It means it increases the lower values and decreases the higher values toward the default value. The option is renamed to "Normalize indicator parameters" to correspond better to the behaviour.

Please share your opinion and ideas for improvements!

Looks very promising, do you have any sort of timeframe as to when this will be available?

However, I'm a little bit worried regarding the overall effect of the tool. It appears rather powerful because I utilized the full Optimizer's capabilities. It makes several passes through the indicators in search of the best (lower) values.

Now I'm afraid of Overoptimization.

A possible solution is to have enabled by default only the options:
- Remove Take Profit
- Remove Needless Indicators

The other "optimization" options to be off by default:
- Reduce Stop loss
- Reduce Take Profit
- Reduce Indicators' Parameters

This problem doesn't exist in FSB Pro, because its Normalizer only can "remove".

In any case, the Normalizer will stay before Monte Carlo in the Reactor.

I wanted it to remove a dumb Take Profit from a strategy and it did it successfully. However, it removed also one of the indicators !?. Mhm. It appeared that the indicator is needed only if I use this particular TP. Without the TP, the strategy becomes better without that indicator.

..

Update on my progress:

- the Normalizer can remove indicators.
- it correctly updates the Backtest output panel on successful normalization (can be called optimization in that context).
- the Reset button works. It reset all Normalizer settings and also resets the strategy. (I'm planning to add such Reset buttons to the Monte Carlo, the Walk Forward, and the Optimizer tools.)
- the Edit button works. It becomes green when the Normalizer finds a better strategy. It advises to "accept" the change because most probably the normalized strategy is better.

Secondly with the TP could it be possible to have the Normaliser step down the TP rather than have the TP either on or off.

Yes, of course. This is a planned option. Please see the third option of the Settings screenshot.

Firstly this is something that I have thought would be such a good idea for Ea Studio so good work on the development I can see this being a huge advantage for users!
Secondly with the TP could it be possible to have the Normaliser step down the TP rather than have the TP either on or off. Reason I say this is that I generate a lot of strategies that have a huge TP and you may only get a few trades where the TP is reached. Going into the future the chances of it hitting are slim and we end up with strategies that find most of there profits over only a select few trades.

My idea would be to step the TP and SL towards zero to see if the strategy improves this way we can elimate those large losses as well large wins. Kind of like ‘what would the strategy look like if we eliminated the N number of largest wins/losses. This would allow us to have tighter SL and TP towards the mean of all trades.

I found out that I can use the very same Optimizer for a part of the job.

Great stuff Popov....very clever process. Can't wait to get my hands on the Normalizer module. :-)