Rsmereka Trading Journal

[rsmereka]

Originally Posted by pipdetector

I followed the suit. I dropped FAP after I got another batch of sizable losses and a small series of hits. I still use MD on live account.

So far the only EA that is deliverying is GT-Shadow with EURCHF and AUDNZD. At this point the drawdown is getting smaller and the balance is 20% higher than initially (in 2 months).

I am tired of the FAP Turbo nonsense so I gave it up.

No MD trade yesterday.

I have been considering RoboMiner/GT-Shadow for some time. I just never got to the point of buying it. Tell me about your experience with these EA's. Also, why did you pick GT-Shadow over Robominer?

Rick

[pipdetector]

Shortly: Robominer is GT-Shadow with reduced number of settings and only two currency pairs AUD/NZD (best performer) and EUR/CHF.

GT-Shadow is a bit more expensive, but:
1. Can be used with all available currency pairs (not that it makes sense, but anyway)
2. Can be used to hedge 2 pairs of currencies
3. Can be used with dynamic grid settings

I liked the Robominer test results that I saw here and I find the assumptions that the author of Robominer/GT-Shadow takes convincing. As to the current results of GT-Shadow on the right -- they look not so good, but the reason is that Pipcop used 0,1 instead of 0,01 position sizes -- this completely distorts them. Pipcop decided to leave them to test the "robustness" of the ea, so at first glance they may look quite bad.

The general principle is that there are some currencies whose FX rate ranges in some quite limited range . They need to be currencies of countries/regions that are quite similar fundamentally -- eg. AUD/NZD (everybody's favorite), EUR/CHF, AUD/CAD, JPY/CHF etc. This needs to be checked against the history etc. Then you need to establish the boundaries and segment the whole range into small grid cells (this has been done by the author for AUD/NZD and EUR/CHF, if you want to use GT-Shadow for other currencies you need to do your own homework). If the price is above the range middle you always open short positions after specific number of pips (in case of A/N it's 40 pips, E/C - 50 pips), otherwise you always buy. In case of grid eas there is no S/L. Only target is defined -- so it is possible that there may be several open short positions if the price goes up for a while and some of them may stay open quite long before the price revisits their target price, but due to the fact that this pair is "naturally" ranging, you just need to wait for it.

In the case of this expert the key is position sizing. The author recommends 0,01 per each 2000 of your account balance (this is because in the second to the worst scenario you may start selling, but the FX rate may go up until the upper range limit). Then you need to accommodate for a drawdown caused by 33 short positions. [The worst scenario would be if the price skyrocketed thru the upper range limit. This actually happened with another limited version of GT-Shadow -- GridWeaver, which was used for EUR/GBP.].

Recently I was taking a bit more risk using 0,01 positions per each 1200 USD of my account balance, but the FX rate has been close to the upper boundary, so I felt quite safe. As the rate is starting to go lower, I will scale down a bit.

As far as I know GT-Shadow/Robominer license will not be sold for lifetime any more starting from June. The author is planning to change to monthly subscription. The price for the eas is much higher than for FAPT/MD and the backtests are not so "promising", but in my case so far only this EA has lived up to its "words".

If you need more info on GT-Shadow/Robominer, check their respective threads.

[jerrycollie]

Hi Pipdetector,
Thanks for the info on GT-Shadow. It sounds interesting.

[rsmereka]

Originally Posted by pipdetector

Shortly: Robominer is GT-Shadow with reduced number of settings and only two currency pairs AUD/NZD (best performer) and EUR/CHF.

GT-Shadow is a bit more expensive, but:
1. Can be used with all available currency pairs (not that it makes sense, but anyway)
2. Can be used to hedge 2 pairs of currencies
3. Can be used with dynamic grid settings

I liked the Robominer test results that I saw here and I find the assumptions that the author of Robominer/GT-Shadow takes convincing. As to the current results of GT-Shadow on the right -- they look not so good, but the reason is that Pipcop used 0,1 instead of 0,01 position sizes -- this completely distorts them. Pipcop decided to leave them to test the "robustness" of the ea, so at first glance they may look quite bad.

The general principle is that there are some currencies whose FX rate ranges in some quite limited range . They need to be currencies of countries/regions that are quite similar fundamentally -- eg. AUD/NZD (everybody's favorite), EUR/CHF, AUD/CAD, JPY/CHF etc. This needs to be checked against the history etc. Then you need to establish the boundaries and segment the whole range into small grid cells (this has been done by the author for AUD/NZD and EUR/CHF, if you want to use GT-Shadow for other currencies you need to do your own homework). If the price is above the range middle you always open short positions after specific number of pips (in case of A/N it's 40 pips, E/C - 50 pips), otherwise you always buy. In case of grid eas there is no S/L. Only target is defined -- so it is possible that there may be several open short positions if the price goes up for a while and some of them may stay open quite long before the price revisits their target price, but due to the fact that this pair is "naturally" ranging, you just need to wait for it.

In the case of this expert the key is position sizing. The author recommends 0,01 per each 2000 of your account balance (this is because in the second to the worst scenario you may start selling, but the FX rate may go up until the upper range limit). Then you need to accommodate for a drawdown caused by 33 short positions. [The worst scenario would be if the price skyrocketed thru the upper range limit. This actually happened with another limited version of GT-Shadow -- GridWeaver, which was used for EUR/GBP.].

Recently I was taking a bit more risk using 0,01 positions per each 1200 USD of my account balance, but the FX rate has been close to the upper boundary, so I felt quite safe. As the rate is starting to go lower, I will scale down a bit.

As far as I know GT-Shadow/Robominer license will not be sold for lifetime any more starting from June. The author is planning to change to monthly subscription. The price for the eas is much higher than for FAPT/MD and the backtests are not so "promising", but in my case so far only this EA has lived up to its "words".

If you need more info on GT-Shadow/Robominer, check their respective threads.

Like Jerry said,

Thanks for sharing.

I got an email for the Maestro EA today and I dismissed it based on the comments here that this EA is a copy of the free EA Firebird. It got me thinking about Firebird and I downloaded (Firebird v0.63G-TS) and set this EA up on it's own demo account. I went with one of the recommended settings on the EURUSD, EURJPY, GBPUSD, USDCAD, USDCHF and USDJPY pairs using the M1 chart. Attached is the 'set' file I am using. So far, it has really taken off.

Rick

[rsmereka]

Another quiet week for Ambush. Only one trade. I got in after the start of the downward move so I only got about 6 pips on the trade.

Week: $88.21, 1.7%, $17.64/day

Overall it was a good month. The best one I have had since January.

Month: $530.15, 11.37%, $26.51/day

Although over the last six months of trading, I have not seen fantastic results (with the exception of December 2008). I am making good solid returns over an extended period. The returns are much better than any bank or mutual fund and better than most EA's do.

6 months: 64.57%, 10.76%/month

Many thanks to the supporters here who are willing to share their insight and for Pipcop for having such a great resource

Rick

[jerrycollie]

Hi Pipdetector,
I bought GT-Shadow today from Pipcop, based on your very interesting explaination. I cannot wait to get started. Not that I hope to get rich quick, but I enjoy complicated things. I am also running live on IBFX, Fapturbo, Megadroid, Maestro and Magic Machine. Of the 4, I like Maestro the best. He is a very busy little robot!

[rsmereka]

Originally Posted by jerrycollie

Of the 4, I like Maestro the best. He is a very busy little robot!

Hi jerrycollie,

If you read the threads here and on ForexPeaceArmy, Maestro is a rip-off of the free EA called Firebird. I put Firebird on a demo on Friday and it really took off. I loaded it on a demo account with $5,000.00 and I think it made over $1,200.00 on Friday alone. I am waiting for the down-side. The default stop-loss is 300 pips, so I think it will be one of those 'when it's wrong, it's really wrong' robots.

How long have you been running Maestro? How is it working for you?

Rick

[jerrycollie]

Hi Rick,
I have only been running Maestro for 2 weeks now. The first week was not so good. It made many trades; but some went bad. Last week I set the trend button to match the long term trend for each pair I traded; that would be about 10 pairs. I selected carry trade basket pairs. My lot size was set low at 1 to 4 pips. Maestro made almost 100 trades with 4 small losses of 1 to 10 pips. I cleared about $70 last week. So far (1 day) this week Maestro is very busy and has not had a loss. Like I said, I trade several different pairs. On the common pairs with low spreads, I set up four charts with time frames 5 minutes, 15 min, 30 min and 1 hour. I drop a copy of Maestro on each time frame, changing the magic number each time. On each chart of the same pair I change the lot size from 1 to 4; so that I can see which time frame is trading. 5 minute is the busiest, then 15, then 30, then 1 hour. With all these pairs and time frames, I get a trade about every hour, 24/5.
However, like you said, with a stop loss at 300; I am afraid to raise my lot size very much; but with all the different pairs; maybe they won't all go south at once. I figure in the worst case I will lose about $300. This is live on IBFX.
I got GT-Shadow set up this weekend, based on PipDetector's comments. I did the standard AUD/NZD pair; then did a hedge with GBP/CHF vs EUR/CHF. However, I plan to change my hedge to GBP/CHF vs EUR/GBP; because GBP/CHF is below the center of its range , and EUR/GBP is above the center of its range . That way I will be buying GBP/CHF and selling EUR/GBP. Hopefully that will make money from both pairs.
Good luck with your trades, and keep us posted!

[rsmereka]

Originally Posted by jerrycollie

Hi Rick,
I have only been running Maestro for 2 weeks now. The first week was not so good. It made many trades; but some went bad. Last week I set the trend button to match the long term trend for each pair I traded; that would be about 10 pairs. I selected carry trade basket pairs. My lot size was set low at 1 to 4 pips. Maestro made almost 100 trades with 4 small losses of 1 to 10 pips. I cleared about $70 last week. So far (1 day) this week Maestro is very busy and has not had a loss. Like I said, I trade several different pairs. On the common pairs with low spreads, I set up four charts with time frames 5 minutes, 15 min, 30 min and 1 hour. I drop a copy of Maestro on each time frame, changing the magic number each time. On each chart of the same pair I change the lot size from 1 to 4; so that I can see which time frame is trading. 5 minute is the busiest, then 15, then 30, then 1 hour. With all these pairs and time frames, I get a trade about every hour, 24/5.
However, like you said, with a stop loss at 300; I am afraid to raise my lot size very much; but with all the different pairs; maybe they won't all go south at once. I figure in the worst case I will lose about $300. This is live on IBFX.
I got GT-Shadow set up this weekend, based on PipDetector's comments. I did the standard AUD/NZD pair; then did a hedge with GBP/CHF vs EUR/CHF. However, I plan to change my hedge to GBP/CHF vs EUR/GBP; because GBP/CHF is below the center of its range , and EUR/GBP is above the center of its range . That way I will be buying GBP/CHF and selling EUR/GBP. Hopefully that will make money from both pairs.
Good luck with your trades, and keep us posted!

Hi jerrycollie,

Maestro/Firebird is scary. The account my Firebird was on blew up last night. It ate through $5,000.00 in 2.5 trading days. I had it on the EURUSD M1 chart with settings from the board where I downloaded it.

I am still testing Vforce Like EA V2. So far it is barely holding its own. I am going to try and optimize the settings.

This Monday and Tuesday were great trading days for me. I made 10.6% in two days. Monday morning I got an Ambush signal on the EURJPY pair and when I placed my sell order, I was well above Ambush's entry point so I got almost double (38.5 pips instead of the normal 20). I have this rule that I set my TP to the same exit point as Ambush. Tuesday morning I got another Ambush signal. This time I was on the phone at the same time placing the sell order and I entered too low (I should have not placed the trade at all). Fortunately, in a matter of two minutes, I managed to scalp 9.7 pips in a very fast moving bear market . When the price moved in my favour, I got the hell out of there and considered myself lucky

I now have three LMT trades running on my demo account (EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDCHF). As of last night, things were looking terrific but I have noticed today that the downward spiral of the US dollar (in the last week or so) is in the process of retracing. I still have a huge number of pips but they are all floating.

In addition, I am currently running my modified MACD EA through strategy tester. The first run took almost 24 hours. I noticed that the chart dates were wrong and I had to re-run. It's been running almost four hours and it says that there are 191 and a half hours to go I hope that is not the case.

Mountains of pips to you,
Rick

[rsmereka]

I had a great week with my live account. There were two Forex Ambush signals this week along with four MegaDroid trades.

Week: $572.21, 11.02%, $114.44/day

I had three LMT trades going this week in my demo account. The GBPUSD trade exited (SL) at par, the USDCHF trade exited (SL) for a 124 pip loss and the EURUSD trade I manually closed today for a 335 pip gain (closing price below the MA).

I purchased the Forex Derivative EA today and put in on a demo account. No trades as of yet.

Rick