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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

Hannah -- really no need to apologize.  I know you didn't mean any disrespect and your responses are always interesting to read, even when I disagree. 

And my response was a bit harsh -- but that was because I was hoping to budge you to view things from a different perspective than where you currently are.  This has nothing to do with right or wrong and you can continue to use your current approach.  I was hoping to motivate you to temporarily put your current sun glasses off to the side and put on a different pair.

  • Registered: 2010-11-18
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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your kind understanding.  I'm glad we can put aside our personal difference and look at our common goal, that is working together to improve our trading results.

Yes, I'll try out Side Kick to see whether it can improve my trading results though I still yet figure out which is the most appropriate settings.  However, one of my trading motto is "No harm trying and who knows I'll be surprised by the results" and so likewise, it would be premature to cross out Side Kick in my portfolio management tools if I haven't even try it out and give myself a chance to learn from that experimentation.

Once again, thanks for always so forward in your EA development that we are get to "grow" with your progress.  There are so many here (in the forum) only aim to get whatever for their own benefits but only a handful are here for OUR benefits (to contribute to the community), thanks for making a big difference in FSB!

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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

hannahis wrote:

though I still yet figure out which is the most appropriate settings

I recommend the using "2 consecutive wins" for the policy.  It's simple and works.

29 Reply by hannahis (edited by hannahis 2018-04-04 08:56:56)

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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

Hi Steve,

Ok I'll give that a try cos since you have tested the Side Kick out yourself, you would have probably use different criteria and deem 2 consecutive win as the best options, so I can take advantage of your experience.

I think you have a very ingenious workflow and Side Kick is tailor made to suit your kind of workflow.

If I'm a data mining FSB user, I probably will revamp my workflow to take advantage of Side Kick's features.

There are mainly 4 market conditions, in my own limited observations

1) Side Way Trending, Low volatility (min price fluctuations)

2) Side Way Trending, High volatility (huge price fluctuations and price spikes)

3) Trending (steady price changes in either upward or downward trend)

4) Breakout (huge price Trending)


So If I were a data mining users, I would scan through the historical data to identify these 4 different market conditions and "select the date duration for the data and create as many such blocks of data for each of these 4 groups.

After I've identified and selected 10 different time periods for each of these 4 groups.  I'll save them under different symbols to be use as multi markets (under different symbols but there are actually belonging to same symbols such as EURUSD) so that I can train my EA via Generator/optimizer for each of these 10 data blocks and then run these EA in these 10 similar market conditions by running the Multi Market analysis features in FSB to see what's the overall results.

Eventually, I will have 4 groups of EA each to tackle the 4 main market conditions I've observed.

And then Side Kick will be the one to determine which group of EA are now in sync with the current market conditions.

I would probably use also 4 different MT4 terminals/Side Kicks for each different groups cos the "window" of opportunity for each of the group is very different and hence, need different criteria settings.

For example, for side way trending EA, the win/loss ratio tend to be low (with multiple loses and wins) and hence I need a different criteria as compared to Trending EA, whereby the Win/loss ratio will be high when it's in sync with the market.

In Conclusion...

Most people tend to use very long historical data to "train" their EA, in order for the EA to survive overall in different market conditions and stay robust.

However, now with Side Kick, I personally think that if I'm approaching it from a data miner perspective, I would rather use many different small blocks of similar market instead of using a long period that is filled with so many different market conditions that my EA ended up as "Jack of all trades/markets but master of none".

Nevertheless, kindly don't take my advice too seriously cos I'm not a data miner and as most users here would know by now, I'm approach FSB via a trader's perspective by input my own trading rules/conditions.  However, one day when I've wrap up my projects, I may venture into data mining approach with an added advantage as a trader.

How about you Steve, would you care to share with us how you would have done your workflow in order to maximise the use of Side Kick to it's fullest potential?

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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

hannahis wrote:

would you care to share with us how you would have done your workflow in order to maximise the use of Side Kick

I'm glad you asked.  I'm happy to share -- since it is very simple. 

Once I add a strategy to an account then the only thing that is important to me is whether it is currently winning or not.  I don't care why it is winning, only that it is winning.  I don't worry about market conditions -- the Demo Account serves as my barometer.  Perhaps an experienced trader could hypothesize why current market conditions are conducive to certain strategies and not others -- but that only makes for good conversation.  Either your strategy is currently winning or it's not, and the reason why is irrelevant.

From using MT4 Tracker I've noticed that many strategies trade in streaks.  MetaQuotes also has noticed this -- hence the metric 'Average Consecutive Wins'.  I think strategies win when they recognize patterns in the current data stream.

Using a policy of "2 consecutive wins" seems to work well.  It tells me that a strategy is currently trading well -- i.e. is currently winning.  Again -- I don't care why.   If the Demo Account (the barometer) tells me a strategy is winning then that, alone, is good enough.

31 Reply by GD (edited by GD 2018-04-04 11:10:19)

  • GD
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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

Hi Sleytus

So, what number of average consecutive wins and number of average consecutive losses  for FSB Pro made EAs are good for the "2 consecutive wins" rule to be used?
Can you give an example?
How can this relate to Z-code and Z-probability?

  • Blaiserboy
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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

When you mention how the market changes pattern, I see that in my trading almost daily. I have a few different manual strategies on MT4 and there are many days when a couple will work and the rest will not.

Last night I placed a couple pending orders before going to sleep and got clobbered....... the night before I made quite a bit doing the same thing. This morning the same orders look like they are performing well.

One day you will see moving averages move up a chart almost parallel and the next week they will be choppy. You need only look at the weekly Gold chart to see that.

Last night I watched price move down against a stochastic moving higher... That was no fun to watch as I often confirm entries watching a stoch.

So your theory regarding patterns shifting is not theory. it is a fact!

Indeed, the pattern that will execute an order today, may well be idle for a while and a slight modification will catch a trade situation.

I am so thankful that you have illustrated this aspect.

Blaiserboy's Website

  • Registered: 2010-11-18
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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

sleytus wrote:
hannahis wrote:

would you care to share with us how you would have done your workflow in order to maximise the use of Side Kick

I'm glad you asked.  I'm happy to share -- since it is very simple. 

Once I add a strategy to an account then the only thing that is important to me is whether it is currently winning or not.  I don't care why it is winning, only that it is winning.  I don't worry about market conditions -- the Demo Account serves as my barometer.  Perhaps an experienced trader could hypothesize why current market conditions are conducive to certain strategies and not others -- but that only makes for good conversation.  Either your strategy is currently winning or it's not, and the reason why is irrelevant.

From using MT4 Tracker I've noticed that many strategies trade in streaks.  MetaQuotes also has noticed this -- hence the metric 'Average Consecutive Wins'.  I think strategies win when they recognize patterns in the current data stream.

Using a policy of "2 consecutive wins" seems to work well.  It tells me that a strategy is currently trading well -- i.e. is currently winning.  Again -- I don't care why.   If the Demo Account (the barometer) tells me a strategy is winning then that, alone, is good enough.

Wow, Steve you do make it sound super easy that I'm tempted to jump ship over to your workflow smile

I'm curious to know the statistical "improvements/difference" comparing between Demo Account's returns with Live/customer account.

Also for eg if my original EA's PF is 1.5, with Side Kick how much improvement will it turn out etc. 

It would be nice is any users could show the statistical advantages for using Sick Kick, cos when I try out, this is definitely something I would like to know in order to measure weigh the pro and con of the usage.

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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

Hello Hannah,

I'll try again -- here are the steps for using Sidekick:

1. Install Sidekick on Demo and Real accounts.
2. Add portfolio EA (created by Portfolio Maker) to the Demo account.
3  Add the same portfolio EA to the Real account and set input parameters to enable Sidekick and use a policy of 2 consecutive wins.

The Demo account is used by the Real account as a barometer.  A barometer is an instrument that measures how things are changing or likely to develop.

If a strategy in the Real account receives a signal it checks the shared database (created by the Demo account) to see if the policy of 2 consecutive wins has been satisfied.  If 'yes', then a new position is opened.  Otherwise the signal is ignored.

Once a portfolio EA gets added to an account then forget about statistics -- all that matters is whether or not it is currently winning.  I don't know how else to say it.

There are two underlying assumptions:
1. You have confidence your Demo account mirrors your Real account.
2. Your strategies perform in streaks.

You can test Sidekick without using a Real account -- instead, substitute a second, different Demo account for the Real account.

  • Registered: 2017-03-14
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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

Hannah -- I just thought of another way to explain it.

As I mentioned, one of the assumptions is strategies frequently exhibit win streaks.  Sidekick uses the Demo account to determine when a win streak begins and ends.

Strategies in the Demo account are always trading -- both during win streaks and losing streaks.  However, strategies in the Real account trade only during win streaks.

36 Reply by hannahis (edited by hannahis 2018-04-04 23:10:48)

  • Registered: 2010-11-18
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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

Hi Steve,

I know how to use Side Kick, I think you misunderstood my questions.

What I'm trying to ask is to compare the profit returns for Demo (Signal sender account) and the LIve (Signal receiver account).

For eg, Imagine if I were to use 30 EA for the Demo account and without Side Kick as my filter, this account may have a 10% returns to it's capital outlay, however, if I were to use Side Kick to filter out bad trades, the Live/Receiver account may ended up with 20% growth (because it eliminate those bad trades).

That's what I'm asking, I'm curious to see when I do the Side Kick experiment, how much "value added" it would be to use Side Kick. 

I once tested out using Copy Trade to copy only profitable trades and I noticed it improved my account's performance by reducing greatly the max DD (especially during a side way trending), hence with this idea in mind, I curious to how much % DD will Side Kick reduce by eliminating those bad trades (for my case, of cos different users will have different %).

  • Registered: 2017-03-14
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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

Hi Hannah,

It is not a trade-copier.  The Demo account does not send signals.  The Real account does not receive signals.

Sidekick helps strategies in the Real account determine the begin and end of a winning streak.

When you talk about %return, %DD I see you are still stuck on stats.

I can not quantify the value added -- that will depend on each strategy and the nature of its winning streaks.  Some strategies have long win and losing streaks, some have short, some have a mix.

Using MT4 Tracker, choose a particular strategy that has a few dozen trades and take a closer look.  Do you see how it trades in streaks?  The purpose of Sidekick is to figure out when a streak begins and when it ends.  Using a policy of 2 consecutive wins seems to work well in determining when a streak begins.  A single loss indicates a win streak has ended.  This is done by the Demo account and it updates a shared database.  The Real account checks the database when its strategies receive signals.

There is no signalling between Demo and Real accounts.  I sounds like you are still trying to fit Sidekick into your work flow -- it won't fit.

38 Reply by hannahis (edited by hannahis 2018-04-05 02:50:31)

  • Registered: 2010-11-18
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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

Hi Steve, ignore my comments cos I think you are missing my point and I don't want to keep explaining and you will then keep thinking I'm trying to insist my "method" of doing Side Kick, which I have already accepted and understand what Side Kick is about. 

Yes, I know you won't know how much improvement it will be cos each users have their own "quality" of EA that will affect each individual's results

I'm talk about %DD as a possible measure to see the effectiveness of using Side Kick.  Cos at a certain point, an end user like me will want to find out, the difference between using Side Kick or not using and hence, one of the deciding factor would be to use %DD or % returns, how much more returns.

Like 2 scenario between 1 account with Side Kick (intervention) and another account without Side Kick (intervention).  It's for me to find out and determine for myself to what extend Side Kick will benefit my portfolio or should I leave my EA alone to trade solely based on it's rule/conditions to "decide when to trade in the right market conditions".  Or do I need another extra filter to improve my EA's entry rules (such as 2 consecutive win), etc.

Of cos for a data mining users, your perspective is let Side Kick "decide" for you which EA is in Sync, so it's not a copier, it's a market "searcher" which is an ingenious idea and changes the whole ball game in how a users generate their EA and reduce their "pain" in having to decide which EA to choose cos Side Kick will "choose" for you.

39 Reply by sleytus (edited by sleytus 2018-04-05 03:04:09)

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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

Hello Hannah,

In the Demo account your EA will trade exactly as before based on its rules / conditions.  In the Real account it will also receive signals exactly as before -- the only difference is that Sidekick attempts to filter-out losing streaks.  If you prefer to keep the losing streaks that's fine.

Also, Sidekick is not a "market searcher".  Your strategies generate signals exactly as before.  Sidekick is completely passive.  If you must use a familiar term to describe it, I would say it's a filter.  That is, Sidekick acts as a filter in the Real account.  It filters-out losing streaks.  It does this by ignoring signals that are generated by strategies that do not have 2 consecutive wins in the Demo account.

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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

An additional point I forgot to mention -- since the same strategies are trading in both the Demo and Real accounts, then it is easy to determine whether or not Sidekick helps or not.  Simply compare results between the Demo and Real accounts.

Here is an example -- I'm currently trading EURUSD / H1.  I have 7 portfolio EAs with approximately 60 strategies each -- i.e. around 420 strategies total.  Currently there are 101 open trades in the Demo account and 12 open trades in the Real accounts.  So, in the Real account, Sidekick filtered approximately 90% of the signals because those strategies did not currently meet the 2 consecutive wins policy. 

Over the past two weeks the WinRatio in the Demo account was 74% and in the Real account 93%. 

As an aside, all the strategies in my portfolio EAs have excellent statistics -- so, they trade well even when not using Sidekick.  In my case the net profit actually declines -- since there are fewer trades.  However, the profitably goes up.  Plus, I have peace of mind and don't have to worry about one or more strategies going south and losing many trades in a row, since as soon as there is one loss in the Demo account then that strategy lays dormant in the Real account until it again has 2 consecutive wins in the Demo account.

41 Reply by hannahis (edited by hannahis 2018-04-05 09:37:16)

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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

sleytus wrote:

An additional point I forgot to mention -- since the same strategies are trading in both the Demo and Real accounts, then it is easy to determine whether or not Sidekick helps or not.  Simply compare results between the Demo and Real accounts.

Here is an example -- I'm currently trading EURUSD / H1.  I have 7 portfolio EAs with approximately 60 strategies each -- i.e. around 420 strategies total.  Currently there are 101 open trades in the Demo account and 12 open trades in the Real accounts.  So, in the Real account, Sidekick filtered approximately 90% of the signals because those strategies did not currently meet the 2 consecutive wins policy. 

Over the past two weeks the WinRatio in the Demo account was 74% and in the Real account 93%. 

As an aside, all the strategies in my portfolio EAs have excellent statistics -- so, they trade well even when not using Sidekick.  In my case the net profit actually declines -- since there are fewer trades.  However, the profitably goes up.  Plus, I have peace of mind and don't have to worry about one or more strategies going south and losing many trades in a row, since as soon as there is one loss in the Demo account then that strategy lays dormant in the Real account until it again has 2 consecutive wins in the Demo account.

Wow win ratio is up from 74% to 93% that's lot of improvement.  This is what I'm trying to get at, using these "measurements" to see the effectiveness of Side Kick.  That's 25% improvement!!!

Yeah I agree with you about the possibility of having the Net Profit declines.

Ok, I'll be waiting for the new version of Side Kick or Portfolio Maker whereby I don't have to have Side Kick install in all my computers in order to run the PM EA.  cos I've over 30 MT4 terminals running and I don't want to install the dll in these testing terminals.  Also I'm still in the midst of portfolio selection and will need to shortlist thousands of my EA 1st in order to try out Side Kick.  Maybe now with side kick, I don't have to be too stringent with my selection process

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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

Hannahis wrote:

Maybe now with side kick, I don't have to be too stringent with my selection process

Yes -- you got it...

43 Reply by GD

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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

Hi Sleytus

How many bars do you use for H1?

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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

Hi GD,

Around 4000 -- roughly 8 months.  However, the more I think about it, the number of executed orders is probably more important.  Using 4000 bars for EURUSD / H1 then FSBPro's Account Statistics reports around 100 executed orders -- plus or minus around 20%.

In other words, if I were to change symbols or time frames I would probably use just enough bars that would result in around 100 executed orders.

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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

I hate to admit this........ I can not figure out what the file is in the terminal so as to attach SideKick.

ie 'Select the data path of your Metatrader Installation'

Please share.

Thank you

Blaiserboy's Website

  • Registered: 2017-03-14
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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

MT4 Sidekick consists of two files: SidekickEA.ex4 and Sidekick.dll. Both are copied to your Demo Account’s MetaTrader 4 installation folder — SidekickEA.ex4 to the …\MQL4\Expert folder and Sidekick.dll to the …\MQL4\Libraries folder.  For the Real Account, only Sidekick.dll needs to be copied to the ..\MQL4\Libraries folder.

Just to be clear — Sidekick.dll is required by both your Demo and Live Accounts, whereas SidekickEA.ex4 is only run within the Demo Account and is attached to a chart just like any other EA (the symbol and time frame are not important).  It is okay if SidekickEA.ex4 is also copied to a Live Account — simply ignore it.

By "data path of your Metatrader installation" I mean you should use the path that MetaTrader displays when you select 'File / Open Data Folder' from the main menu.  Mine looks like this:
C:\Users\steve\AppData\Roaming\MetaQuotes\Terminal\3212703ED955F10C7534BE8497B221F4

Here is a link to additional online documentation:
http://mt4tracker.com/documentation/mt4-sidekick-documentation/


Installation differs from most MT4 software because of the DLL (Sidekick.dll).  The DLL is required because this is where the code lives that allows two different terminal sessions to access the same database.  The DLL is considered a library (i.e. "bag of functions") and most MT4 DLL's get installed to the ..\MQL4\Libraries folder.  That is where EA's look for them.

  • Blaiserboy
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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

Thank you Thank you!

I never have been the brightest bulb... LOL

You will be proud of me Steve, I actually got to see stats in MT4 hahaha

Blaiserboy's Website

48 Reply by hannahis (edited by hannahis 2018-04-09 10:45:03)

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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

Steve,

For some reason, I don't know why Side Kick can't be found in the Expert folder or Library folder even after installation.

To speed things up, can I just copy both the Side Kick EA and Library files and attach these 3 files in MT4 terminals in their respective folders?

  • Registered: 2017-03-14
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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

hannahis wrote:

can I just copy both the Side Kick EA and Library files and attach these 3 files in MT4 terminals in their respective folders?

Yes.  Copy SidekickEA.dll to the ..\MQL4\Libraries folder and SidekickEA.ex4 to the ..\MQL4\Experts folder.  I think that should do it.

50 Reply by hannahis (edited by hannahis 2018-04-09 13:37:59)

  • Registered: 2010-11-18
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Re: MT4 Sidekick - Demo Account Barometer

Thanks, yes it work as fine too.

I noticed that the trades for the live account still went ahead to open trade, without checking the Side Kick data (Example #1:
SidekickEA is not running and a database does not exist. This would occur if SidekickEA has never been run previously).

Is this observation correct or did I make any mistakes?

If this observation is correct (i.e. trades will be open according to PM EA without checking with Side Kick policy criteria), then would it be advisable not to trade live trade for a couple of days till Side Kick has obtain "enough" data to implement the trading criteria?  ie. wait till Side Kick has gathered enough historical transaction 1st and thereafter run the Slave/customer account (live)?

Secondly, I want to test out all the 4 different policy so do I have 4 different Demo accounts or do I have 1 Demo accounts but 4 different "customer/slave" acccounts and for each slave/customer/live account, attached the PM EA with different policy criteria?