What to do…

Got my refund approved for Forex Derivative 2.0 today. It really wasn’t working out. To its credit it did some (3-4) great trades, but 50 not so great ones also… With a few hundred hours of more development perhaps they can sort it out. I hope so, would like a non scalping EA that catches trends and breakouts.

So this means that I am only running FAP Turbo, MegaDroid and GridBot now. MegaDroid is still my favorite, it is so stable. FAPT is kind of a mix for me, it does kinda well, but I always feel that that big draw down is just around the corner… GridBot is the same, works nicely and then it explodes. Hopefully my hedging helper EA is stable enough soon to help GridBot out (the demo where I run it have gained 37% this week trading GBPJPY, EURJPY, USDJPY and EURUSD, but it still have a few things I have to sort out), or the developers release that long awaited version including hedge trades.

Been evaluating my EAs. The only one that I’m ahead with now is MegaDroid. FAP Turbo and GridBot lose some more yesterday. GridBot hit the safety net on GBPJPY. FAP Turbo did more damage in EURCHF.

It is clear to me now that I have been overlooking the performance and stability MegaDroid have been giving my account (although it didn’t trade yesterday). It only trades once in a while, but it is very profitable. I am forcing it to trade a little more by running it on three charts. I am also considering experimenting more with it in demo, trying it on M15 timeframe to start with. Read on DonnaForex forum about a guy doing this with nice results. The trading logic in MegaDroid seems very solid, so it would be nice to have it trading more, even though one of the strengths of MD is that it doesn’t necessarily trade every day, just under the right conditions. I’ll run it in demo for a while.

I’ve made the decision to increase the risk taking with MegaDroid a little, and at the same time reduce it with all the other EAs on my live account. I will stop trading GridBot entirely until they release the version with the hedging (expected sometime in July). They will release a new version tomorrow, but it is presumably only sporting a new automatic time zone function. Nothing that will help the actual performance of the EA. I am really looking forward to the hedging function, as it really is sad do deactivate this EA. I have enjoyed watching it trade, but the reality right now is that it is to risky. Others may make lots of money, but I am not. Will keep it running in demo of course, so if it does convincingly well I can always put it back, with small lot sizes (0.01).

For FAP Turbo I will follow DonnaForex settings, but I won’t use the high risk setting in EURCHF again. We’ll see in her news letter on Saturday if she will reduce it herself. If she doesn’t I will.

I am currently trading FD2 live with a fixed lot size of 0.02. It hasn’t made any remarkable trades, in either direction, so I will leave it like that for now.

So with this new setup of reduced risk I am hoping to make some of the losses back. But since I need 100% profit to get back I decided to fund the account with another €500. This hopefully gives me a better chance I think. I am still hopeful.

I put up another demo account yesterday trading FAP Turbo (all pairs), MegaDroid (three EURUSD charts with 1 hour offsets and small risks), GridBot (GBPJPY, USDJPY and EURJPY) and FD2 (all four pairs). This demo is at Alpari UK and I funded it with €1000. You can follow it here: http://jasonvoorhees.mt4stats.com/

This new demo is really trading like my live account at Alpari UK, so perhaps the trades there actually will be useful in finding optimal settings. FD2 is making some really nice trades, hopefully it continues and proves that the defects from last week is ironed out and I can put it on the live account.

Unfortunately AUDNZD and CHPJPY isn’t offered at the Demo account, I still trade these live with the GridBot thou. CHFJPY is strongly correlated with the other Yen pairs of course. AUDNZD is both “Comdolls” (Commodity trending dollars) and is therefor very nice to trade with the GridBot. They usually trade in a range over the day and GridBot can get multiple small trades in. I keep out during the Sydney session.

I will keep my old demo (at Alpari US) running for a while, but the account there really was trashed by RoboMiner. I would not run that bot on a live account…

Update: This setup has made 40% gains in just two days now. Let’s hope FD2 continues to convince me to run it live next week.

Well, clearly FD2:s results this Monday was too good to be true. Yesterday it really crashed and burned a lot of my account in the process. It took positions against the Rallying USD and lost, several times. Just as it seemed that it had understood that the USD was in a rally it bought USD against the GBP (a 0.36 lot, huge for my account), only to close the position in minutes for a €4 win. Had it kept that position for just an hour more I would have been netting zero for the day, and had it kept it as long as its EURUSD positions (that closed this morning) it would have made lots and lots. Well it is a machine…

Also, there are some rumours on DonnaForex about the bot being optimised for backtests. Some Indonesians have apparently decompiled the ex4 and dll and found that it calls procedures in the dll with different parameters if you run a backtest than live trading (live or demo that is). If this is true of course this EA is a scam. Until this is proven I have put it on probation, can’t risk more of my hard earned €:s.

Update: I kept it running in Demo, this is one of the trades it did today. Excellent timing, except it is a selling order!

They just released a updated version that I’m going to try in demo for at least two weeks even if it performs amazingly.

After installing Forex Derevative 2.0 (FD2) on my live micro account at Alpari UK yesterday it was really raking in some nice trades straight of the bat, closing trades for a profit of €72. Now it seems to have woken up on the wrong side thou with a closed GBPUSD trade with a loss of €46, and three EURUSD positions in the red (total -€60 behind right now). Hopefully it’ll close them if the markets keep going the wrong way (like the GBPUSD position) or keeps them till they’re in for break even or profit. Update: They we’re just closed at small profits. FD2 seems to have excellent Money Managment strategies.

This is a screenshot of the MT4 chart for GBPUSD from yesterday. Sure the bot could have taken positions at even better times, but still it’s rather impressive I think.

Basically I think this bot got potential and I will keep running it. My current settings on all four pairs are default except that I’ve enabled hedging.

So, I’m currently using four different Expert Advisers (EAs) that are trading 15 (!) different currency pairs. They are FAP Turbo, Forex MegaDroid, Forex GridBot and Forex Derivative 2.0. The last one is the latest (and greatest?) addition to the line-up. As of this writing it hasn’t done any actual trading yet, but it does very very well in backtests so I am hopeful. FAP Turbo is still the only one that have been profitable over my 5 days of trade, but I will keep MegaDroid and GridBot for a while to see how things turn out. FAP Turbo uses DonnaForex settings for the pairs she trade, and my own for USDCAD.

As for GridBot I’ve analyzed last weeks trades and made some changes to virtually every currency pair. I was considering dropping a few, but resorted to constrict their trading hours instead. This way I can still get more data on them, if last week perhaps just run bad for some pairs. So what settings will I be running this week? Here’s the Line-up:

GBPJPY and USDJPY:  LotSize 0.1, SafetyNet -50, trading between 18 and 3 GMT (Alpari UK offset)

USDCHF: LotSize 0.01, SafetyNet -13, trading between 9 and 18 GMT

GBPUSD: LotSize 0.05, SafetyNet -50, trading between 9 and 3 GMT

EURUSD: LotSize 0.01, SafetyNet -14, trading betweeen 9 and 15 GMT

USDCAD: LotSize 0.01, SafetyNet -20, trading between 11 and 19 GMT

EURGBP: LotSize 0.01, SafetyNet -20, trading between 9 and 14 GMT

EURCHF: LotSize 0.01, SafetyNet -20, trading between 9 and 3 GMT

EURCAD: LotSize 0.05, SafetyNet -80, trading between 9 and 3 GMT

CHFJPY: LotSize 0.01, SafetyNet -20, trading between 12 and 3 GMT

AUDUSD: LotSize 0.01, SafetyNet -14, trading between 10 and 18 GMT

AUDNZD: LotSize 0.1, SafetyNet -60, trading between 9 and 3 GMT

NZDUSD: LotSize 0.01, SafetyNet -14, trading between 11 and 19 GMT

EURJPY: LotSize 0.01, SafetyNet -15, trading between 18 and 3 GMT

GBPCHF: LotSize 0.01, SafetyNet -20, trading between 9 and 15 GMT

So, hopefully it will work out with these settings, and I get more good trades than bad. I’ve tried to stop lingering trades by settings a little tighter working hours and lower safety net on some pairs as you can see. Some I’ve also started trading at bigger lotsizes since they’ve been performing very well. AUDNZD has hit rate of 100% as of now for example, so I’m trading it at 0.1 lotsize. This pair is characterized by often trading in a range, perfect for grid trading. Unfortunately the spreads are somewhat unfavorable, but as long as GridBot keeps getting winners here I’m satisfied.