Some questions after reviewing the courses

[Anonymous]

Good day, Petko.

I have some questions after reviewing your courses:

a. Profit-based system

In monitoring the performance of trades using the profit-based system; with your more recent courses, I’ve noticed that you are using 5 count of trades and to have a profit factor of 1.2.  In your past courses (e.g. Forex Trading Course with 12 robots), you suggested to have 10 count of trades and minimum of 100 pips.  Does this mean you no longer follow the latter system?

b. Commission input prior to exporting of data

What is the reason for putting the one-way value of commissions when extracting data from the broker?  Why not use the roundturn value?

c. Fixed vs. Trailing Stop Loss

I noticed that you like using the fixed stop loss, instead of opting to choose fixed or trailing stop loss.  May I know why?

 

Cheers,

Jay-R

[Anonymous]

Hey Jay-R,

Excellent questions here!

A. Yes, recently, I use fewer trades because with the time I noticed that if we keep the EA longer on the Demo, and we wait to see the profits there, basically, we are leaving the profits in the Demo account. As I explain in most of the courses, every strategy has profitable phases and losing phases. So if you catch the profitable phase in the Demo account, the longer you keep the EA there, the closer you are getting to the losing period.

So if you keep it too long in the Demo account, you increase the risk to hit some losses when you move it to the live account.

B. Not sure which course you are talking about here? When you export the Historical data with the script, it exports the commission by itself.

Now, some brokers, for some of the assets they have commission only in one direction (when you buy). I show that in the last course, the Stock market course + 10 Dow Jones EAs market.

If you look at lecture 4, you will see that with AAPL, I have commission when opening the trade and when closing, while with Dow Jones, I have just when opening the trade.

I hope that makes it all more transparent, but do not follow me like in 100%, try to experiment, see how it all works best for you. This way, you will find your style in trading.

Kind regards,

Petko A

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the response Petko.

A. Yes, that makes a lot of sense.

So for the parameter of 5 count of trades with profit factor of 1.2, do you apply this for all timeframes?

Since the smaller the timeframe (e.g. M1 and M5) it would be more active, and the 5 count of trades could be met earlier; conversely, the higher the timeframe the more time it takes for the 5 count of trades to be met.

B. I believe I was referrig to the Forex Strategy Course where there was a discussion under the comments section regarding which value to use (one-way or roundturn) when exporting data from the chart by using the scripts.

Right. You did mention that in the stock market course. For currencies, however, do I need to put the one-way or two-way value when exporting data using the script?

C. Petko, I think you may have overlooked my question regarding the Stop Loss =)

Yes, and I love the transparency. This is actually what makes you very different (in a good way) as a mentor because you care about explaining the
rationale about what you do to your students, and not just how you do things. Don’t worry, I love experimenting. I’ll do lots of those later on after
understanding the principles behind why you are doing what you are doing. As much as I love experimenting, I also do my best to not reinvent the wheel.

Cheers,

Jay-R

[Anonymous]

Hello Jay-R,

Glad to hear from you. Sorry for being late with the answers, but I have been quite busy recently. However, I do my best to answer every single question in the forum. If I miss to answer any, ask me again :)

1. Yes, I recently I use it on all time frames,

2. The script exports the information about the commission, but if you ask what you write, year, enter the value for the opening and the closing.

3. Yes, regarding the SL, I prefer the fixed SL because I think it gives better stats for the strategy itself. When it is trailing, the outcome is different every time. And I do not say trailing SL is bad, I just do not use it.

Cheers,

[Anonymous]

No problem, Petko =)

1. Noted. Thanks

2. Yes, I’m asking on what I’m going to write in the inputs after the script is placed on the chart but prior to the time I click to export the data.
For example, suppose I’ll be using Pepperstone and I’m going to export the data of EURUSD (a currency pair), and suppose the commission of Pepperstone for ROUNDTURN is 8USD, should I write in the input 8USD? or simply 4USD? Based on what you’ve mentioned, it would be 8USD, isn’t it?

3. That makes sense though. I actually like the principle behind that practice.

Cheers,

[Anonymous]

Hello Jay-R,

yes, you got it right, you would want to enter the round-turn commission.

Do not hesitate to put a bit higher commission or spread, this way you will be creating the strategies on a bit higher cost but after that, you will trade them on lower. Much better than the opposite.

Kind regards,

 

[Anonymous]

Noted Petko.  I’ll do that.

Cheers,

[Anonymous]

Good day Petko,

You mentioned every now and then in the courses that once the initial 5 count of trades and profit factor of 1.2 has been reached, you start the counting of trades again and also the observation of the profit factor using FxBlue.

So my question is when you start the counting of trades again, do you refresh FxBlue so that the count of trades will start at 0 trades? Is this even possible to do?

Or you just let the succeeding count continue starting from trade number 5?

I’m asking this because I’m anticipating a situation wherein the first count might actually have very good results (e.g. 5 trades, and profit factor of 10), but the succeeding trades might not be so good but the profit factor might still reach 1.2 not because of the current performance of the trades but based on the “overall” performance over the last 10 trades, thereby making an inaccurate assessment of the most recent performance of the algos. 

Cheers,

[Anonymous]

Hello Jay-R,

I am not really sure if I understand your question in 100%. I do not start the account again after the 5th trade. I wait for 5 trades and a min profit factor of 1.2.

If you are asking about the win/loss ratio I use it sometimes counting the trade to 10, and then restart for the next 10.

I hope that makes it clearer. Let me know.

Cheers,

[Anonymous]

“I do not start the account again after the 5th trade. I wait for 5 trades and a min profit factor of 1.2.”

Oooh.. Thanks for that clarification Petko.

So suppose, initially, there were 5 trades with profit factor of 1.0…

Trades                  Profit Factor

1

2

3

4

5                              1.0

 

And then later on there comes the 6th trade with Profit Factor of 1.2, excluding the 1st trade from computation of the profit factor.

 

Trades                  Profit Factor

(1st trade EXCLUDED)

2

3

4

5

6                              1.2

 

At this stage, you will already consider the EA as ready to be traded live.

Did I get that right?

[Anonymous]

Hello Jay-R, how would you exclude the first trade?

[Anonymous]

Hey Bart,

By excluding the 1st trade would mean that the gross loss/gross profit of the 1st trade would not be included in the computation of the profit factor over a particular strategy AFTER the 6th trade has taken place.

Thus, in this case, even though there are a total of 6 executed trades over a particular strategy, the profit factor will be evaluated based on the most recent performance, albeit, the past 5 executed trades (with the 1st executed trade being excluded from the computation since it does not reflect the most recent performance).

Cheers,

[Anonymous]

My question was different. I understand what you mean, but how technically you will keep looking at the last 5 trades? In FXBlue you have time filter, which will not work for you. Even you exclude the first day or two for some of the strategies and see just the last 5 trades, this won’t work for the rest.

Simple words, what will you do with your statistics in order to see always the last 5 trades for each strategy?

[Anonymous]

Hey Bart,

This was essentially my question that I was trying to ask Petko as I mentioned above.

“… when you start the counting of trades again, do you refresh FxBlue so that the count of trades will start at 0 trades? Is this even possible to do?”

I also tried the time filter in FxBlue and found similar results as you.

Hopefully, Petko could help us out on this one.

Cheers,

[Anonymous]

Hey guys….  You guys might want to check out an App that a guy on the other site made.  He sells it for $50.  It is called MT4 Tracker.  Hope it is OK to mention it here.  I am not affiliated with him.  You DL your account data to it and you can sort the trades by the headers.  You can then open another window that will show you the last n trades….  I find it helpful….  Image attached…

It also gives a nice little graph of each strategy.

If you wish you can then select which strategies you want to keep and the app will automatically create the ea for you with the strategies you don’t want “paused” within the ea…..

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Richard,

That is quite interesting! I guess this will be a solution to what Jay-R is looking for.

Can you give some more information about it? I might be interested in it! Also, it would be great if Petko can include something like that in the Packages :)

 

[Anonymous]

If you google “Mt4 Tracker” you can go to the site to check it out…..

[Anonymous]

Hey guys,

yes, I am familiar with the program, but as far as I know, the guy does not support it anymore, no updates or anything. I am not sure if he still sells it.

From Forex Software they are working on something similar and better. The plan is to be released in 2020.

I will do my best all of our traders that have the Packages to get it for free. Someone has to test and give feedback, right? :)

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Richard,

Thanks for mentioning it.  Any suggestions are always helpful =)

I’ll check it out.

Cheers,

[Anonymous]

Hello Petko,

It would be great if that would be included in the packages.  That really helps a lot in monitoring over the performance of the EA’s.

In the meantime though, can you mention how you keep track over the performance of the EA’s as per the 5 trades—1.2 profit factor criteria?

As we have been discussing with Bart, FxBlue does not have a filter to exclude previous trades so that the computation of the profit factor would be quicker.  The time filter could be used though; however, it does not really provide consistent results since there are times that there are more trades that take place in some trading days.

Are you monitoring the performance of the trades manually after the 5th trade has already taken, like using excel for example? Just curious how you solved this problem.

Cheers,

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Jay-R,

I think I have answered to you that already. I do not keep looking always at the last 5 trades. This is the rule that I follow to move the EA from Demo to Live. After that I follow the profit factor to be above 1.2 looking at the whole performance from the beginning, switching over the last 1 month, and then switching over the last 2 weeks (from the filter in FX Blue) If those three show Profit Factor above 1,2 than I keep the EAs in my live. If any of the three shows below 1,2 (normally the last 2 weeks period, I would remove it.

If you keep looking just at the last 5 trades on the live, this is too short and you will remove some good EAs from your live account.

The idea of the 5 trades is to get on the train of the profitable phase and not to follow it on the live. At least that is my idea, but you can go for anything else that makes more sense for you….hope that makes sense.

Kind regards,

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks a lot, Petko.  It’s clearer now.

That turned some light bulbs on when I was reading your answer.  Very nice indeed.

Cheers,

[Anonymous]

Glad to hear that it is clearer now, Jay-R.

Kind regards,

[Anonymous]

Petko, you write, “As I explain in most of the courses, every strategy has profitable phases and losing phases.” So, if I use data back to 2012 what use is it? Shouldn’t I rather limit the data, or testing, to the past year?

[Anonymous]

If you use a small period to optimise or generate strategies, you will be over-optimizing it. This means that the software will find the parameters that work best just for this short period.

That is why we use at least 100k-200k bars of data, and we are looking for the EAs that pass the Monte Carlo.

[Anonymous]

Hi, Petko! :)

Hello, fellow traders!

My name is Ivelina and I’m a new member in the forum. I have recently found your website and I purchased three of your courses:

1. Algorithmic trading course: London, New York & Tokyo system
2. Automated Forex trading + 99 Expert Advisors Every Month
3. Top 5 Gold trading strategies in 2020 + 10 Robots included

The truth is that I was very interested in 4 more as well, I hope I’ll have the opportunity to get them in the near future.

I have a few questions:

1. I’m looking for good EAs for the three trading sessions and I was a bit confused that the course didn’t have them. I live in Varna, Bulgaria and the broker I’m using is JFD. May I ask you to send me the EAs for this course and also to send me their updates when you make any changes to them? I will really appreciate this.

2. If I follow your instructions to trade with the top performing EAs, to check their results every two days and replace them when needed, will this be enough to prevent periods of stagnation, or experiencing losses from several EAs at the same time? Are there other things I need to observe?

3. When I start using the EAs I don’t need to optimize them further, correct? I only need to test their performance on a demo and put them in a live account when I have confidence. Correct?

4. It was hard for me to decide which EAs would be the best choice for me. I’ll be using a live account of 450 euros and I will trade with 0.01 lot size. I would increase it very little when I see that the EAs make stable, consistent profits with the lowest risk/draw dawn possible. The aim is to make profits, but being calm, enjoy trading and securing the trading amount is a priority.

Based on your experience and the statistics on your EAs, according to the profitability, have I made the right choice or maybe I should have started with the EURUSD EAs or the GBPUSD EAs?

5. I found out that I need to have my laptop testing the EAs 24 h a day. It won’t be possible since I need to keep my laptop to last as long time as possible. I can’t buy another one.

– Is it ok to test the EAs for several hours a day only? The maximum I would do is 8-10 hours.

– Can the laptop be in a Sleep mode while the testing is running on the MT4?

– When I stop the testing should I disable the “Auto Trading” in MT4 and then enable it when the test starts again on the next day?

Thank you!

 

 

[Anonymous]

Hello Ivelina,

Welcome to the Forum. Sorry for taking some time to answer your questions, but during the weekend I have a bit more time for the Forum.

1. In this course, I did not include the EAs because of the different time zones in the world. Every student will have a different time zone with the broker he uses. Simply, the hours that are with us for the trading sessions will not match the hours in the US, UK or Australia.

The best thing you can do is to generate EAs with your broker, using the settings and the method I show in the course. This way, you ill practice the process.

2. Keeping an eye on the accounts is a must. However, in the courses, I share how I do it. This does not necessarily mean that it will work for you. You can change the EAs every weekend, but the more often you do it, the faster you will catch the EAs that are getting into the stagnation period.

3. I personally check all the EAs at the end of the month. If I see that optimization is needed, I do it. It is a fact that the market changes all the time. And the EAs are created on past Historical data. Every month we get new data. And if the EAs start to lose, we can optimize it, or remove it from the account and generate new EAs which will be generated using the new one-month data.

Trading with the EAs is an ongoing process. The illusion that we put EA on the account and it will make us money constantly, is more for the people who sell EAs… Unfortunately, many people catch on that.

4. Your strategy sounds exactly what you should be doing. However, do not hurry with the live account. Open a second Demo and practice with it. Use 2 Demo accounts (1 imitating a live account) until you are confident in managing the EAs.

5. You have EURUSD EAs from the 99 course. The voice is great.

If you want to do accurate testing, you need to have the MetaTrader opened all the time.

If you close or disable the auto trading the EAs will not work and your statistic won’t be accurate.

You can trade only during the London session, but in this case, you will need to use the System from the first course, and create EAs just for this trading session. If the laptop is off during the rest of the day, it won’t matter.

Cheers,

Petko A

 

[Anonymous]

No problem, I understand, Petko. Thank you for your reply!

I will add some notes to the questions and I will keep their original numbers:

1. I see what you mean about the EAs for the three trading sessions. I could create EAs once using the free trial of EA studio. The problem is that I won’t be able to update them. I don’t have the opportunity to buy a licence.

If you create EAs for the three trading sessions can I ask you to send them to me since I use the same time zone? I’m in Bulgaria and I use the JFD broker.

2. I understood, thank you!

3. My question is related to the EAs in the courses which you update each month or every few months (when it’s needed). In case I don’t have a licence for the EA studio, it will be ok just to use the EAs you provide, correct? I don’t need to do anything additional on them with the EA studio because you’ve taken care of this?

4. Thank you! This is exactly the way I will proceed.

5. Since this is the first time I will ever test EAs, I need to make sure I understand the technical side:

5.1 When I test any EAs I know that I shouldn’t switch to any other time frame, but to stay on the 15 min. charts, correct?

5.2 In case the laptop is running 8-10 hours a day is it ok just to check the statistics based on this time period and use the EAs that performed best in a separate demo account?

I know it’s not the best solution, but I have no choice for now.

5.3 In these 8-10 hours I will not shut down the laptop. Will MT4 continue working if I put it in a “Sleep Mode”?

I was also thinking to change the trading hours of the EAs I have purchased and make them work only in the London and the NY sessions, or just to create new EAs for these sessions, but then I realized that I can do it only once. The reason is the same – I won’t be able to use the EA studio after the trial period and optimize the created EAs.

Thank you very much!

Have a great weekend! :)

 

 

 

 

[Anonymous]

Hello Ivelina,

Glad to hear from you again.

1. You can create the EAs during the trial period and use the MT optimizer after that to update them. I can’t promise to send personally EAs. We have over 20k students now, and if I start doing that, 24h won’t be enough for me to do just that.

3. Yes, I update the courses where it is said that I do. Tomorrow I will upload the new updates.

5.1 Yes, the EAs work on the opened Time Frame

5.2 You will mess it up. When you close the laptop, the trades will remain open. The exit conditions won’t work.

5.3 I don’t think the MT will work in a sleeping mode

What you can do is just generate EAs for the hours you want to use for trading, and after that, you can optimize the EAs with the MT optimizer.

Cheers,

Petko A

[Anonymous]

Hi, Petko!

Thank you for your reply!

I will watch some videos about how to optimize EAs with MT4 so that I can start testing them in a few days.

Thank you for your help!

I wish you a great week!  :)

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Petko,

I am new to your course. I really like the concept of the Expert Advisors, but I am confused. I am in my 15 day trial period. I watched all the videos, but it does not direct me as to what my next step is. Where do I go to start building my EAs? Please send me the link.

Also, my EA for USDJPY, M15 is running on my demo, but I have no results and there is now graph and I have 65909 bars. Why do I not have any results and a graph?

As I mentioned before, I am new to the EA concept but I think it has the potential to be profitable but I will need some assistance and I will have questions. Is there customer service or someone I can contact for help when I need it? You can send me a reply here and my email.

Thank you

[Author]

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