Turtle Trading System 2

[rsmereka]

This review is about the Turtle Trading System 2 EA. I have no affiliation
with anyone in conjunction with this review.

I got this EA as part of an ebook from Daniel Fernández Pinto who runs the blog site http://fxreviews.blogspot.com/. The eBook was $18.95 with the title Automated Trading in the Forex Market: A Trader's Guide to Success. This ebook is worthy of a discussion itself (but that is another story).

Along with the ebook came three EA's (source included ) and one of them was the Turtle Trading System 2.

Anyone who has read a decent amount of trading history knows about the Turtle Traders. If you don't or need a re-fresher, try:

Original Turtle Trading System Rules
Richard Dennis at Wikipedia (one of two men that started the whole thing off)
Turtle background information
Turtle Trading at Investopedia

Turtle Trading is a long-term strategy that uses the highest high of n days and the lowest low of n days (this is called a Donchian channel).
This strategy uses two of these Donchain channels. The original
strategy called for the slow channel at 55 bars and the fast channel at
20 bars.

I am using this stratey on a EURUSD daily chart so one bar is one day. I am using a modified version of the original strategy where the slow channel is 55 days and the fast channel is 10 days.

The strategy opens a trade when the slow channel is penetrated (long trade if the upper boundary is penetrated, short trade if the lower boundary is penetrated). The trade is held until the fast channel boundary is penetrated (lower boundary in the case of a long, upper boundary in the case of a short ).

The lot size calculation and the SL point uses the ATR (average true range).

Up to four orders can be open on one trade. The additional orders are opened as a result of pyramiding. Orders are added based on 1/2 ATR.

I have created a dedicated account on MyFXBook.com for this EA. This EA has to run alone as it is not coded to play nice with other EA's. The MyFXBook.com account is:
Link: http://www.myfxbook.com/members/rsmereka/turtle-trading-system-2-demo/38446


The EA has been added using 2% risk. See the backtest in the following
post (#2) for approximate performance based on the risk value.

The EA has a copyright of 2009, Metaquotes. I tried to hunt for the source
online to determine the license but could not find anything. I am going to
try and ask the ebook author about the license on this EA. I sent an email to
the author asking him about the EA copyright and the author responded by saying
that he holds the copright to this EA and the source code header containing
the copyright information is wrong. The author also asked me not to share
the EA as per his copyright.

Given the fact that the EA did not have a controllable magic number, only
create lot sizes with one decimal position (which for my broker is wrong) and
uses the MT4 global variables of the client terminal interface (which are different than EA global variables) even though it uses the interface improperly and it is not
necessary, I have modified the EA so that:

-it now has a controllable magic number
-the lot size is now calculated to two decimal positions
-the global variables of the client terminal are not reset every time the EA initializes

Turtle Trading is a long-term strategy on a EURUSD D1 chart which features:
-no scalping
-no exotic currency pairs
-no wacko risk/reward ratios
-no weirdo time-frames
-no margin -sucking grid trading
-no fixed TP (rides the trend )
-goes after the big fish
-average profit more than twice average loss
-not sensitive to spread
-strong correlation between backtest and forward testing
-strategy has been around forever and still works great
-proven long-term track record
-trade micro-nano account ($100 min)
-trade mini account ($1000 min)
-trade full-size account ($10K min)

It does have it's cons also:
-average of 1.5 trades a month
-very slow and gradual builder
-can spend years in DD or netural

Rick

[rsmereka]

Attached is a nine year backtest of the Turtle Trading System 2 (modified by me as per post #1) using the same settings I am using now (fast Donchian channel 55, slow Donchian channel 10, risk 2%). Result highlights:

- 1,585% over the nine years, 176.11% per year, 14.68% per month
- 51% maximum DD
- 168 total trades, 18.67 trades per year, 1.56 trades per month

Rick

[rsmereka]

Turtle Trading System 2 has finally opened it's first trade early in the morning of Tuesday July 27. As of right now, the trade is up just about 145 pips and if the bull trend in the EURUSD continues, I expect pyramiding to begin.

Rick

[1stSpike]

Greetings. I bought Original turtle trader robot about 2 months ago for $299. I'm trying to get my $ back. It made 1 losing trade about 3 wks after I got it. It just sits there, idle.
Can you tell me, does it need to be on all the time? I haven't kept it on 24/5. Be interested in knowing more about your experience.
Spike

[1stSpike]

Oh, it's version 3

[rsmereka]

Originally Posted by 1stSpike

Greetings. I bought Original turtle trader robot about 2 months ago for $299. I'm trying to get my $ back. It made 1 losing trade about 3 wks after I got it. It just sits there, idle.
Can you tell me, does it need to be on all the time? I haven't kept it on 24/5. Be interested in knowing more about your experience.
Spike

Welcome,

This EA is not the same as yours. You got yours from http://originalturtletrader.com/default.htm whereas the EA I am discussing comes from http://fxreviews.blogspot.com/. They are both supposedly based on the Turtle Trading System but they are implemented differently.

Pipcop posted a review of the Original Turtle Trader EA that you are using here back in March of this year.

Don't be discouraged. Turtle Trading (as the name implies) is a slow gradual trader. One trade in three weeks is about right. The EA I bought was put on a demo account on Jul 1st and just opened a trade on Jul 27.

Let me know if you have any success getting your money back. If all else fails, I may be willing to purchase the license from you (assuming it is not an EA that requires authentication or is tied to a particular account number).

Rick

[1stSpike]

Greeting. Unfortunately, it must have their license number in order for it to be used on a live acct. That's what I'm basing my refund request on; the fact I'm not the owner of the software, & that it doesn't work.
Spike

[pipdetector]

Rick,

Do you still have the Turtle EA active?

I guess it may need to be placed on more uncorrelated currency pairs to show its potential... The Turtles traded on several different markets and this was a part of they success story. It would be good idea to add xau/usd or commodity currencies etc.

[rsmereka]

Originally Posted by pipdetector

Rick,

Do you still have the Turtle EA active?

I guess it may need to be placed on more uncorrelated currency pairs to show its potential... The Turtles traded on several different markets and this was a part of they success story. It would be good idea to add xau/usd or commodity currencies etc.

It's funny that you asked that question now,

Alpari UK just disabled the account over the weekend. I don't know how I am going to demo test this EA without the brokers disabling the account.

I have deleted the MyFXBook account associated with this EA.

Rick

[pipdetector]

I guess may be you should set a nano live account for it. You would not have to worry about disabling the account and the amount at stake could be very small...