Topic: Analytic Trade Management (ATM)
To discuss the advantages of combining trade analytic into automated trade management
Below is a software I envision that would help algo traders like us.
My wish is to have a program that can analyse my strategies performance and then use certain criteria to turn the strategies on and off. I call it Analytic Trade Management. Combining the function of Trade analytics into our trade management.
1. Run hundreds of our EA on a demo/nano account to collect trade performance statistics/metric. (eg using Fxblue to collect our EA trading performance)
2. Based on these trading performance, use certain criteria or metric such as net profit, profit factor, R-expectancy etc to select which EA qualify for live trading portfolio.
3. This software will constantly monitor the trade performance of all our testing EA in demo/nano accounts and when EA meet the criteria such as min Pf = 1.5, it will automatically "turn on" copy trading function from demo/nano to live account for all EA that meet this criteria.
Advantages
1. By constantly running these EA on a demo/nano account, we can start to accumulate trading statistics and monitor their trading performance over time. Such additional and detailed information and help us understand under what kind of situations, our EA did well or badly.
2. I can do weekly comparison and understand why my EA did badly on certain weeks and go to the corresponding MT4 time period/date and examine the MT4 charts to see what additional trading conditions I can add in or modify to improve my EA further.
3. By doing weekly comparison, I can spot "un-corelated" strateiges, i.e. I can identify ranging EA and Breakout EA and thus intermix my portfolio with EA from these different categories. Some weeks, a group of EA will do better than another (eg. Ranging EA will do well in ranging week while Breakout EA may suffer some loses etc).
4. Having the trading Statistics, I can therefore choose which EA to be added into my portfolio and produce better overall results.
5. If the software can automatically "turn on and off" which EA to copy trade from demo/nano to live accounts, it will spare us the trouble of having to keep monitoring and keep changing and setting up our MT4 charts to create our portfolio every now and then.
For Eg, If the software can copy trade my top 100 EA (collect the trade statistics from fxblue/excel file) that has minimum pf value of 1.5 and average trade win of certain amount, then if will keep those good EA constantly running on live account and if any EA started to deteriorate or decline in it's performance and "fall out" of the top 100 list, the software will turn off that particular EA but it will still keep running in the demo/nano account to continue to collect trading statistics so that when the EA starts to improve in it's performance (because it's formula fits the current market situation).
I'm suggesting 3 methods for portfolio selection criteria
1. Base on preset criteria (Net Profit, PF, MAE/MFE, Win loss, etc), i.e turn off strategies when PF fall below 1.5
2. Base on 2 criteria, select Top 30 (can be pre define by user) Strategies with PF equal and above 1.5 This method select strategies that are robust and versatile to fit into various market trends (based on monthly or weekly results). If strategy's results fall below top 30 position, turn strategy off. Using this method, the portfolio is constantly having the "best" fitting strategies for the current market trend. (edited)
3. Base on percentage growth. Select strategies that has the largest percentage growth (weekly or monthly comparison, again can be preset by users). This method is to turn on and off strategies that doesn't fit into current market trend. Often when we switch off strategies, we wonder when to switch it back again.
With the strategies constantly running all the time (switch on or off for live but still running in demo) and with the software doing ongoing performance analytics, no more guessing game as to when to turn back on, our decision will be made based on statistical results.
A dear friend of mine had created a java programme and it can accomplished what I have mentioned above, except it can't automatically collect the trade statistics and automatically "communicate" with Fxblue copier to turn strategies "on/off".
If anyone has the expertise and willing to further improve this project, it would be great.
So here is a Semi-auto version.
Go to this you tube watch the demo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52x40re … e=youtu.be
Step 1. Download the manage EA zip file.
Step 2. Attached the "Magic Number Fetcher" EA to the experts folder of your MT4 (nano/demo/live account whereby you are using to collect your trade analytic data). Then install this EA onto a mt4 time chart, like the way u install any EA.
Step 3. Copy the Link to Java runtime and go to website to download the window off line file
Step 4. Open the "Executable Jar File" inside the Manage EA folder.
Step 5. Go to your MT4 MQL and under the "files" folder, you will see a "Dump History file". The file contain all the magic numbers that are installed in that particular MT4 terminal. Open the file (via excel, note pad, word pad etc) and copy the list of magic numbers (ctrl c).
Step 6. Go to the Java programme and paste (ctrl v) this list of magic number under the csv MT4 section (the right hand column). NOTE: the mouse right click function is not working properly here. So to paste, press "ctrl v"
Step 7. Go to your trade analytic software or website, such as Fxblue, Myfxbook, which ever programme you use to collect your trade analytic data. Select your EA/strategies via whatever metric you prefer. Once you have done, highlight the list of EA's magic number, copy and paste this list unto the section in the Java programme, under the section "Fxblue".
Step 8. Now press "Get Magic" number and you will see a string of magic numbers. Each row of magic numbers is for each Fxblue Copier (available free for download). Copy and paste each string of magic number onto the Fxblue SENDER copier's "include magic number" section.
If you have more EA/strategies, you will have more rows of magic number and you need more Sender Copier per MT4. However, if you only have less than 25 or so EA/strateiges, you most likely only need 1 Sender Copier and 1 row of string of magic number to copy.
Please note that the mouse right click function isn't working properly, so you need to press ctrl c for copy and ctrl v for paste on your keyboard.
For setting up of the Fxblue Sender and Copier, kindly refer to Fxblue manual to read and understand it's function. Basically, each copier need to have it's own "channel" to differentiate one copier from another, even if you are going to send it to the same receiver account.
So now you can semi-automate your copy trade your strategies based on your trade analytic criteria for your selection of strategies and you don't have to manually set up these strategies, one by one onto your MT4 terminal.
You can update this top selection list of EA/strategies/magic number yourself according to your personal preference. Such as update your top strategies selection once a week or once a month. Based on Net profit, Pf or your favourite R/DD or whatever you deem fit.
NOTE:
The above java programme is useful only to those who have hundreds of EA running in several MT4 accounts.
This programme was meant to solve the problem I faced because I have many MT4 terminals running with a couple of hundreds of EA. And I have several portfolio and thus, it is very trouble when I have to keep pruning each portfolio every now and then.
So if you have less than 50 EA, then this method/programme is rather redundant for you.