Topic: Please steer me in the right direction.

Hello everyone,

I just bought EA advisor studio and really appreciate its speed and convenience. However I have no success when I put the  EA into demo account. Unfortunately, I decided to put some EA on a small live account as well, and got smashed, so turned it off. I also bought MT4 tracker, to try and cut out losing EA in a portfolio I made but that also lead to overall losses.

Maybe the settings I use are wrong. So I guess my question to experienced traders and people  having success with the software is its just me using incorrect settings right? If so can you please give me some advice such as the timeframe and amount of data and important values for settings that will lead me to finding some robust strategies? I would really like to recuperate my costs. Also how can one use MT4 tracker effectively to find robust strategies. I tried to always trade the profitable strategies in my portfolio, but it still led to overall losses.

Thanks in advance!!!!

Re: Please steer me in the right direction.

Did you export your broker's data to EA Advisor?
Did you use Metatrader's Strategy Tester after making your EA?
Make tests changing different parameters. Take notes of what you are doing. You will end with a lot of numbers!
Search Google for "metatrader backtesting".
You will need days, weeks, months of testing before having regular earnings

Re: Please steer me in the right direction.

No matter what powerful tools we add to EA Studio, it will never be able to analyze the strategies as good as an experienced trader.

I personally always check the logical rules of the strategies and if I don't like them I remove the strategy no matter the backtesting results. I always want the strategy to be meaningful. Her the difficult part is to explain what that exactly mean. I may make a video on the subject, however I doubt it will be very interesting. 

My advise is to be very careful before trading with real money. It takes time to master the automatic trading (if it is ever possible).

4 (edited by hannahis 2018-06-15 08:32:44)

Re: Please steer me in the right direction.

Hi Popov,

There are still some tools that can "dramatically" improve the EA results.

Most users would experience this in their trading experience...seeing their floating profit turned into losses.

The market is very dynamic and unpredictable these days and having "dynamic" closing options, that are more reactive and responsive to sudden market changes are very important and essential features for a winning strategy.  Without a good profit protection features added to an EA, it is very difficult to incorporate "highly reactive" opening/closing rules to an EA.

One of the basic and very essential profit protection features to have is the profit trailing stop loss added as an alternative closing/exit strategy (in addition to our own closing rules, both for EA Studio/FSB Pro).

I understand your reservation of not able to add profit trailing as a 2nd alternative because of some backtesting issue.

However, we need to learn to find a work around solution and not let software limitations, limit trading options/success.

If you can "mentally" separate your objectives and learn to see users' objective.  You could able to add these extra Profit Protection features to enhance your users' results.

1. Once we added in this "extra Profit protection features" when exporting the EA to MT4, it will change the performance outcome and thus the backtesting results is no longer "valid".  I understand you don't want to add features that cannot be "validated"/calculated by your backtesting engine and thus you will cross out these features.  By crossing out these features, you also cross out users' opportunity to find greater success in their search.  Honestly, all these years, I don't care about the backtesting results, I care more about the demo results.  Just because FSB backtester can't "measure" trailing (as an alternative closing option) didn't stop me from using an external Trailing EA to help me out in my success.  Which is more important to me? Real success in my EA vs limiting my success by what is do-able via FSB.  I'm not going to let FSB's limitation, limit my success, so I add in my own external trailing EA myself.  However, it would have been more "convenient" if FSB were to incorporate these features into the MT4 EA each time we export it out.

2.  I hope you reconsider and able to see that ultimately the primary goal of your users is to experience greater success rate.  Having a "validated" backtesting is secondary (though as a developer, you make this as your primary goal).

3.  It will be ideal, if you can "merge" your goal and your users' goal together and provide this "special" OPTIONAL Profit Protection function to be added into the EA when user EXPORT their EA to MT4.  Eg. in the export MT4, user have the option to choose true/false whether to have profit trailing turn on/off.  And able to modify the setting, how much trailing and the steps etc.

Cos ultimately, when your user experience greater/easier success, it also mean your software will get more satisfied customers.

4.  No one will "blame" the software's backtesting accuracy, if you were to keep your users informed that 1) after adding the extra profit protection features, the performance outcome is not "measurable by the backtester".  I would be happy rather than angry if you were to add these features. 

5.  Let users have the option to either use the "original" version or the extra version (with added profit protection features).  And generally users will likely test both version to see to what extent these added features can improve their results.

One of the key reasons I experience success in my EA development is that I ALWAYS use an external profit trailing stop for ALL my EA.

Similarly, when I use EA Studio, without profit trailing stop the EA failed miserable but with trailing stop, I have much better results (likewise for FSB Pro).

In conclusion, yes a software isn't able to do a better search than an experience trader.  But even an experience trader also can't do without good profit protection features/tools added into the EA in order to find success.  An experience trader also need power tools/features in order to find success.

Re: Please steer me in the right direction.

We have Trailing Stop in EA Studio separate from the closing conditions.

6 (edited by hannahis 2018-06-15 08:54:07)

Re: Please steer me in the right direction.

Popov wrote:

We have Trailing Stop in EA Studio separate from the closing conditions.

Sorry I'm not very familiar with EA Studio features, but do you mean to say that we can have both our own closing logic and alternative profit trailing features working together at the same time? 

How about other profit protection features such as Break Even in Studio?

I'm not referring to using just trailing as an closing option, I'm asking for Alternative closing, i.e. 2 set of closing rules, that is 1) close with our own logic and 2) close with Profit trailing (it's not just trailing but profit trailing sets in when position reached a certain floating profit).

The difference between Profit trailing and just trailing is great.

for eg I want to set trailing at 150 points but if I set just trailing at 150 points, my position will be quickly stopped out, i.e SL becomes 150 too.  Such tight trailing doesn't give the EA enough "room" for market fluctuation.  However, when my EA floating profit reached 150 points, I want my trailing to start.  Hence Profit trailing is a better trailing option.

Likewise, my SL is 50 pips but if I set trailing to "match" my SL, ie. trailing at 50 pips, it becomes"useless" because trailing loses it's trade advantage because trailing supposed to be "tighter" to be more reactive than SL.

Thus Profit trailing only activate when a position reached a certain level of profit and you want to start protecting these floating profit by moving the SL closer and follow the market movement. 

Ideally, it is to have many trailing steps, i.e use different trailing at different floating level.

Eg. 1. Set trailing at 500 when position open
     2. Change trailing to 350 when position reached 100 points floating profit (now the SL gap is smaller)
    3. Change trailing to 250 when position reached 150 points (now SL is -100)
    4. Change trailing to 150 points when position reached 800 floating profit. etc (now we have 650 floating profit being protected).

With different trailing setting, we change our trailing to match the market "mood" and protect our profit better.