Trump

Here are some thoughts, from me, on this election.  I welcome all comments, but be respectful.

1. I am not surprised by Trump victory.  I am not surprised by the campaigning words of any of the politicians.  They say what they need to say to get votes - yes, it really is that simple.
2. Thanks to CNN, the young generation are scared.  A bad combination when you scare people with lots of energy.
3. I called the win at 9:30pm - Trump was winning from the word go - the New York times probability meter confirmed what I was thinking using mathematical algo's.  I also made some GREAT trades on election night trading NAS100 on MT4.  I also made GREAT trades today as the market tanked the day after.
4. I'm a white male, to special interest and minorities, please stop telling me that I will be OK forever and my life is easy.  You don't even know me.  The fact is that stupid or lazy or dangerous or illegal comes in all shapes, sizes and colours.
5. Hollywood support - don't care.  You are actors with lots of money.  I don't share you issues.  I typically vote the opposite of these people who are out of touch with the majority.  And when these very passionate people don't get their Hilary elected they want to abandon the country and move to Canada.  Label them greedy and selfish.  Katy Perry says "the revolution will come"?  Are you crazy, young people listen to you, professionals / adults shake their head.  
6. I have watched many specials (1 hour specials) that are directly related to my speciality field (that I will not share with you) and the media screws it up beyond recognition.  Reporters went to school to write for the most part.  They don't know anything about my profession and the topic they report on. The experts they had on the program were not experts, their expertise was somewhat related but not enough to make their knowledge meaningful.  To many apparent experts and reporters are guessing.  Are you guessing or do you know!!!!!  
7. What's up with this guy that says Trump victory is "White Lash"?  Huh?  Watching to much CNN buddy. 
8. First meeting of Trump and Obama - CNN seems surprised that they didn't call each other names, that they got along.  WTF!!!  They are professionals.  They are very smart, smarter than you and I.  Holy CNN crap.  Imagine if the starter swinging, what do you think the public would do.  Why did they meet 1 on 1?  So they could talk without judgement and surprise.  This is serious business.
9. Trump didn't let reporters on his plane on his way to the first meeting - Good job Donald.  Control the media.
10. How long until Trump gets grey hair?
11. Watch how trump changes his speeches now that he is elected.
12. And the last thing I will say, to finish off this post is - Donald Trump will, at some point in his tenure, have the highest ratings of any president ever.  I said it first.

Forex Forum

If your looking for the latest TT2P Tipster Trendlines demo or looking to join a really good forum look no further.  Bunker Forex Forum is where I spend my time now. I'm posting all my EA's and tools there from this point forward.

I still occasionally look over the Tipster Trendlines thread at Forex Factory.  I left SteveHopWoodForex forum (SHF) and asked that my posts be deleted.

If your smart you'll join Bunker Forum and enjoy it!  

Pipmasher PPoS, and other MT4 Expert Advisors, Indicators and really nice environment awaits you.  

The EA's I post are multi-pair, so you simply drop it on a single chart.  The chart will even set itself up for you and grab more history if required.

If you are interested in CrossFader I have taken my CrossFader Gold and Crossfader Olympic and turned into multi-pair, added some great features for protection, and adjusted the way it trades.  The EA isn't even close to the first version it was modelled after, CF7SR.  With all the additional features and methods it's now called Snatch.  After SHF deleted the entire Crossfader forum as a result of a knee jerk reaction to the thread started (and taken my sub-thread out as collateral damage by accident), I have not shared this EA since.  

To get all this and a bunch of well rounded trader friends, I hope to you will join me at

Bunker Forex Forum 

Market Calls

As the internet gets older, there is a growing history recorded for us to look back on.
For example, look at the market call on this web page

https://stockcharts.com/articles/chartwatchers/2012/11/a-bearish-bullish-percent-index.html

This guy couldn't have been any more wrong.  "The market is breaking down" - then it took off 3 years!! 

If these people lead a subscription based service, they should go back and delete pages when they are wrong, or stop posting market calls.  Some of these people are apparent market experts!  Hahaha!

Have you noticed any similar calls?  Post them below in the comments!

MyFxBook Stats

The help section doesn't tell you too much about the stats given on the history tab of your trades, shown below.

Here's what I 'think' they mean...

Time Profitable:  This is in pips but equivalent to the account currency, not pips of the trade.
Drawdown: In account currency pips, converter from the pair you traded
Risk:Reward: 
Max:106.7 pips, This is the BEST watermark (high for buy, low for sell)
Min: -38.9 pips, This is the WORST watermark (worst DD in pips that the trade experienced)
Profit Missed: Closed price to high watermark
Entry Accuracy: 
Exit Accuracy: 

I look at the Min and Max numbers mostly to determine stop and target settings.

Tipster Trendlines Demo

The demo mentioned in the previous post has been updated with a new expiry date.

Click the date to get the demo.

January 1, 2016

Tipster Trendlines DEMO

You can get a demo copy of Tipster Trendlines to try out.

The only restrictions are;

• minimum lot size is used, you cannot change the lot size
• will work on demo accounts only (will not work on alive account)
• it will expire on date Aug 1 2015

It does not work on the weekend, you will need a tick generator to make the EA execute.

Demo is on this page

See this link for my forex signals.

HH LL and Trends

Here is a video that simplifies trends.  You might find it useful.

Forex Volume

I did this post some time ago, and while re-reading it I realised that I don't use volume on MT4.  Apart from it being inaccurate on the MT4 platform, it's not part of my strategy.  MT4 volume uses the aggregate volume from the broker you use.  So it tells you what retail traders are doing, not banks.  I use price action and Tipster Trendlines to place the trades at supply and demand.  Sam Seiden method of Trading Academy, I'm sure you've heard of him?

US OIL, CHF, and Russia

The 2014 Olympics closing ceremony was on February 23, 2014.

Ever since the end of the 2014 Winter Olympics when Russia made the move on Cremia, the big boys (world leaders) were not very happy.  

After a while Russia's economy took a hit because of steps the rest of the world was taking (I'm not going into detail here).  Trying to regulate money flow in/out of Russia, and other things.....

Then oil started to move.  Russia exports lots of oil, something like 68% is oil. "We can make Russia feel some pain, let's lower the price of crude!"

This is a monthly chart of US OIL, in my MT4 platform where I use Tipster Trendlines to chart trade.  You can see much of the same with the ETF UCO.

June 15 it started to decline, and Sept 28, 2014 it broke demand and went down hard to where we are today.  

I wonder how much Putin has in Swiss banks?  I wonder if the CHF currency jolt had anything to do with Russia or its leader?  I can't really see why there is any relation but once almost never know (until 50 years later).

Here's the RUB CHF chart

Compound your profits

Every year hundreds and thousands of new traders come into the forex arena looking for riches, trading 24 hours a day shooting for 50% a week and find their accounts blown within the month, most of which become too demoralised to ever even consider depositing more funds and pulling the trigger on another trade, their trading career is over before it had even begun.

Those that become successful long term traders understand the power of compounding gains for huge eventual profits, they start small, aim low and believe it will all pay off in the future, however most human beings are born with a natural greed, an emotion that runs so strong in most people's veins that the thought of 2 - 3% a week sends shivers down their spine and they become part of the above club, the 95% of unsuccessful traders.

As fun as it is to dream of doubling your money every fortnight it is important to be realistic of what to expect in terms of profit in both the short and the long term, the reality is a consistent weekly gain of 2 - 3% over the period of a year is no easy feat for even the best of traders however it is achievable for the few successful traders.

To most the idea of making a 2 - 3% weekly gain isn't all that exciting, especially when compared to claims of 20,30 and even 40% returns a week that are often thrown around on the internet but the moment we add compounding into the equation those small weekly figures can amass to some huge yet realistic sums of money.

For those that don't understand the concept of compounding gains or interest it is the exponential growth of a sum of money by continuously reinvesting all profits, so although the profit percentage remains the same the actual sum of money grows at a very rapid rate.

As a very basic example lets assume we have $1000 in our trading account.

If we were to make a 10% return every month for a year and not re-invest any of it we would have made a 120% return equating to $1200.

If however we compound our gains every month we will end up with a much larger sum which i'll demonstrate below.

month 1 - 1,000 + 10% = 1,100

month 2 - 1,100 + 10% = 1,210

month 3 - 1,210 + 10% = 1,331

month 4 - 1,331 + 10% = 1,464

month 5 - 1,464 + 10% = 1,610

month 6 - 1,610 + 10% = 1,771

month 7 - 1,771 + 10% = 1,948

month 8 - 1,948 + 10% = 2,143

month 9 - 2,143 + 10% = 2,357

month 10 - 2,357 + 10% = 2,593

month 11 - 2,593 + 10% = 2,853

month 12 - 2,853 + 10% = 3,138

Total gain in percentage - 213.8%

Total monetary gain - $2,138

Now lets take it one step further by using our yearly return and compounding over a 7 year period with a starting balance of $1000

Year 1 - 1,000 + 213.8% = 3,138

year 2 - 3,138 + 213.8% = 9,847

year 3 - 9,847 + 213.8% = 30,900

year 4 - 30,900 + 213.8% = 96,964

year 5 - 96,964 + 213.8% = 304,273

year 6 - 304,273 + 213.8% = 954,811

year 7 - 954,811 + 213.8% = 2,996,198

Total gain in percentage - 299519.8%

Total monetary gain - $2,995,198

How is that for a retirement plan?  7 year plan.

Now I think I can safely say that would be extremely impressive to anybody!

With the power of compounding gains figures like that eventually become realistic in the long term if you can remain consistently profitable at even 2 - 3% a week!

So if you really want to be successful aim for 2% a week instead of 20%, compound your gains and begin building your future!

You can use this concept for your expert advisors as well.  Set a weekly balance limit that will cut off the EA from trading until the next week.  Also, set a profit target for your EA so it will close all positions or at least set stops to protect that profit.  This is one way of controlling your EA's in MT4 so that they will achieve your goals..  It will also aid to get you out of the market when things start to change.

OIL as in UCO ETF

Demand level identified.  Who is ready to go long on OCO?  Risk is defined here with a stop under the recent low.

The demand level is shown with the top horizontal line on this hourly chart.

Tipster Trendlines Chart Trader - Properties

This video goes over the properties of Tipster Trendlines.  This is the experts properties menu that you see when your drag it onto the chart.  Hope it helps.

An introductory video to Tipster Trendlines for MT4

What is it?

Tipster Trendlines (TT) is an Expert Advisor (EA) for MetaTrader 4 (MT4) trading software platform. Once you download and install the EA it will automate your manual trading for you. Tipster Trendlines is a TOOL, not a trading 'system' or robot. Use it if you place trades manually, it will do the grunt work for you. You can place every kind of order. You can select between 1 or 2 targets.

Where can I get it?

Where can I read more about it?

Tipster Trendlines for MT4 Update

Version 14.1 is now available at MQL website.

Take a look at the videos and read about it at 2 different forums. 

Here is the page that describes the MT4 chart trader expert advisor and give you the links and information you need.  

Remember this post? Here we go AGAIN!

A long time ago, I did a post up on "What the top looks like".

If you trade forex and follow USDCAD, you will want to read this and keep your eye on the ball this time. Watch the freight train hit the 1.3 wall and STOP.  Your guess is as good as mine if it continues or reverses, but 1.3 will stop price until all the order are sorted out.

What to look for in a Forex broker

First off, let me tell you who was on my list when it was compressed to 2.  Questrade and Forex.com.  FXCM came in close as well.  What do they have in common?  The most important part for my broker is regulation and protection.

So my main broker right now is Questrade.

There are 3 major steps to find a forex broker.

Use these suggestions to narrow it down to a few.  It shouldn't take long to do that.  The important thing to know is this – they are all out to take your money in fees of some sort. After you do some research you will see there is no perfect broker, they all have some way of getting the edge to take you money.

Step 1: Do some research
Before you compare brokers you need to list the criteria that you will compare. Add more to the list as you discover details. I used an excel spreadsheet to help me.  List the brokers as you find them, filling in the details.
Regulation

There’s regulation, then there’s protection. Do not confuse the two. I want both. Is the broker regulated, and registered with the regulator listed on their site? If they are, also go to the regulators web site and cross check to make sure they are actually registered and in good standing. For US resident, good luck, the NFA and CFTC are pretty useless for forex, and in comparison the rest of the world, totally useless as there is no protection (refer to my post of CIPF which offers solid protection).  I recommend a Canadian broker, if they let you open an account you have some real solid protection for your funds.  Also, ask “is the money deposited separated from operational capital, in other words, is it segregated”?  You want segregated.

Dealing Desk, Non-Dealing Desk ECN

I like ECN, it’s a straight through process with less screwing with your orders.

Spreads or commissions

Does the broker offer fixed or non-fixed spreads?  Depends on how much you trade.  Most MT4 brokers make money on the spread.  There are many tools on the net to check this.  How wide are the spreads?  Check the tools and get a demo to confirm when you narrow down to a few brokers. Spread is more important if you trade short term.
Leverage and margin

Demo accounts

Do they offer demo accounts?  You need this to get familiar with the software and it will prompt LOTS of question if you actually place trades and follow through.  How long until the demo account expires?

Account lot size (mini, micro, standard). A smaller lot size allows you to trade with less money.

Swap or rollover

Does this broker credit or debit daily rollover interest? Some brokers either do both, deduct interest, or neither.  This information is important to traders who hold positions overnight.Some even have negative swap both ways, meaning you have to pay them, how is this possible?  If you want to do carry trades this will impact you.

Trade rules

distance of stops, orders inside bid/ask, order types (brackets orders?), is hedging allowed?

Currency pairs offered

What types of customer service is  offered, and what methods can I contact them through? 

What times are they available?

What trading platforms are offered? Is there a mobile application as well?

What is the deposit/withdraw process / methods?

Step 2: Compare brokers now that you have a completed spread sheet

Step 3: Open demo accounts and ask questions.

Pick at least two brokers that fits most of your criteria and open up demo accounts. Trade in different market environments. Learn all the different features of each trading platform. If you have questions, don't be afraid to ask. Many brokers have excellent customer service support and would be happy to answer your questions.
Demo accounts are great for selecting a broker. make sure you call them to ensure your demo account would be set up exactly as your real account. Same deposit currency, same rules (hedging, leverage, etc.)
Most demo trading platforms are very similar to their live counterparts, but not exactly the same. There may be a difference in speed of execution, slippage, and platform reliability (most of the time live accounts are more reliable than demo accounts). When you do have your strategy down and you are ready to move to a live account, start off small, test the waters, and see if this particular broker will suit your trading needs.

Media Monkey - Announce the next song title

I wrote a script to announce the next song in MediaMonkey.  It uses a text to speech conversion process and the text to speech engine is not on your PC.  It works for both local music and streaming radio stations.  The voice is very natural and nice to listen too.  At the top of the hour it will announce the time with the new song, same for half past the hour.

Here is a sample of the transition and the song announcement.


It is absolutely fabulous!!

Do you want the script?  All it takes is a small $15 donation to help me out.

The MediaMonkey website is here.

Remembrance

Thank you, Soldier.

Play MP3 and have text to speech in MT4

In a few days the following packages will be released.

• Talker - Text to Speech
• PlayMP3 - Play MP3 files in MT4
• TalkMP3 - Plays MP3 files and does text to speech in MT4

Each one of these is a library file (ex4).  You place it in your experts/library directory.

To learn more about these, visit the MT4 Talker and PlayMP3 page (link also appears at the top of the blog.

Demo is available.

Tipster Trendlines for Amibroker - new price!

The price for Tipster Trendlines for Amibroker has been reduced!!
It's now ON SALE

Now $30 - grab it while it's on sale!

What is Tipster Trendlines for Amibroker?  Read all about it here.

Here is the FAQ

Crossfader EA - Gold - Safety Lines

There have been many ideas tabled on saving the mighty trading account from CF when she turns against you. 

I have been using two charts with one set for buys and one set for sells.  The idea was that the sell trades could start even if the buys trades were active.  I was hoping to see the drawdown controlled.  Not sure why it doesn't work so well, I haven't spent much time examining that though.  Most likely because CF holds losers and take profits quick (no runners).

I had another brain fart the other day.  How can I manually control DD, and not sit and ‘hope’ price returns.  As I was looking through the sub-forums at SHF to decide where to post I ran across varso using a 45 pip stop (MPTM).  It seems to work for him.  My idea is almost the same!  We all know that trading with the trend is the way to go, but there are problems with that.  Which time frame is the trend you should be following?  The trend for CF should probably be the 240 or max the daily for a couple of reasons, first, CF uses a 240 stochastic, and second, when a basket starts, and depending on how many maxorder you are allowing, a price reversal could last a long long time.

Picture this - Price has been ranging on the daily for weeks and CF is happy to make Buys and Sells inside this daily range.  Now you enter a few trades, I've notice 4 to 6 in a ranging market on the 1 hour TF or 4 hour TF then price snaps against you.  CF enters more trades, price keeps ranging and snapping against you.  "Snapping" is the term I use when price surges in the direction of the trend.  In a downtrend, if you look at the chart you see price slowly drifting up, then all of a sudden it hits a level that everyone wants and BOOM, you have a lopsided market and price moves fast.So what I'm going to try is to limit drawdown by turning off Buys or Sells once price passes a certain spot or level. 
Here is the research I did to arrive at the solution.  I'm going to use AUDUSD charts as I have trades shown on it.  Now remember,  none of these trades had any drawdowns I couldn't deal with.  The trade starts are marked with lines
Here is the daily, notice the daily trend is strong down - didn't matter, CF made coin.  We'll zoom in after this chart.

Below is the hourly of the same pair

Both directions made money - look where the buys are made in this downtrend, pullbacks and consolidation.  If the pullback is weak or the consolidation not strong what happens?  You get hammered.
Here is a picture of what getting hammered looks like.
EURUSD Buys in a down trending market.  This is the hourly - clearly headed lower. Everything looks good until the recent buy, notice the pullback was weak and we get smashed.

 
In this case - you could have drawn a line at the top of the range and call it "SellBelow", CF will only enter sell trade when price is under this line.  In my version, I will also add to the logic, once price goes over this line all sell orders will be closed.  Then get back to trading with a profit.
I don't know if this will work.  I've looked at the trades CF makes (myfxbook charts the trades) and this approach should work.  You could even follow the pivot points on the chart if you wanted too. 

How would I prevent this?  here is the idea.
Draw a line on the chart, a line in the sand.  Actually, draw 2 lines.  A green line and a red line.
Buys are only allowed ABOVE the green line, so you can trail it up if you want too.
Sells are only allowed BELOW the red line, you could trail this down if you wanted too.

One more thing - if there are open Buy orders and price drops below the green line, I close the basket.
So now I don’t have to worry about having two charts open, or having stupid large drawdowns.  You could even use SAR as your trend switch here instead of lines, SAR is more automatic.

Back to the first chart - where to put the lines?
On the downtrend, I plan to use the red line and the green line on a 1 hour chart to start.  The safe way to go in a downtrend, just turn off the Buy trades, chances are on your side that you wont get killed.  You wouldn't even need these lines.  

These are my Safety Lines.
So go ahead and draw the lines on the chart, the problem is if you change the timeframe CF needs to reload, I'm not sure if this is an issue or not.  Go to a 1 hour TF, put the red line above the high that price would have to get to and make the strong downtrend weak.
Here's an example (yes, hindsight is 20/20)
The red lines I show, the bottom right of each line is "when" I would move the line
The green lines - as soon as the Buy (long) trades are started, I would move the green line.  If you wanted “rules” – then as soon as the first trade is entered, draw a line.  You have lots of time to do it before you get smacked.
The yellow box below shows you the current Buy trades that are getting hammered, and where this system would have exited.


If you are familiar with supply and demand you shouldn't have a problem with this.  I'm going to try this and I'll keep you posted.  I won't be near a computer for a few days, so don;'t expect quick replies!!!  The code is NOT finished yet, maybe by the end of the weekend.  I would like your thoughts on this method.

Play MP3 sound files in MT4

Play MP3 files in MT4

Have you ever wanted to play a MP3 file in MT4?  

The built in function PlaySound() will only play wav files.

If you are interested in this, send me an email.  I can play mp3 files from MT4, it's easy!

Forex Trading Signal for MT4

If your interested in following forex trading signals, take a look at this link for the signal.  Good gains!

MetaQuotes (MT4) - What are the alternatives?

In a story I have been following closely, MetaQuotes has published on its broker support site that it is urging brokers to cease operation with third party developers that they believe to have ‘hacked’ their MT4 trading platform and are violating the firm’s license agreements. Mentioned in the letter to brokers are copy trading provider ZuluTrade, Tradency, Tradeo and Myfxbook. A similar announcement led to the banning of a popular third party user interface plugin from MT4i.  According to sources, MetaQuotes is presently in the process of trying to ban IPs being used by these four service providers.

The overriding opinion is that while there are in fact cases where plugins are detrimental, conference goers believed the marketplace was a ploy by MetaQuotes to increase revenues on the back of their platform.

Below is the entire message from MetaQuotes to brokers. Forex Magnates is currently reaching out to brokers and third party developers for their opinions and will be updating this story as we receive more information.

Unfortunately, some third-party developers have hacked MetaTrader 4 trading platform’s network protocols violating end user license agreements and terms of contracts with brokerage companies.

As a part of our active efforts to improve MetaTrader 4 system, we are starting to upgrade the network protocols and block all services based on the hacked versions.

We urge you to cease any cooperation with ZuluTrade, Tradency, Tradeo, Myfxbook and other companies that use the hacked protocols violating our rights.

Further to MetaQuotes issuance of a warning urging brokers and traders to desist from using third party copy trading platform providers this morning, Tradency has been the first of those mentioned to respond.

The company has announced that it has with immediate effect ceased operation with MetaQuotes systems, shifting its Mirror Trader brokers to various currently available proven solutions.  Tradency stated that its various integration solutions will be offered to those of its clients that have been previously using Mirror Trader with MetaQuotes services. The on-going transition process has been in motion for some time now, and is expected to accelerate in light of recent events.

Tradency sent a clear message in a corporate statement today that the company will continue to offer its growing client base with top-tier technological integration solutions away from MetaTrader, including Currenex, FXCM, ACT and additional proprietary solutions. These solutions are already in place with a series of brokers, therefore paving the way for what Tradency expects to be a straight-forward transition.

Support Growing For New Platforms

Tradency’s step, while seemingly bold, could also be viewed as being far from a step into the great unknown.

The early part of this year has seen some of the world’s large banks pledge their support for new platforms such as ParFX and cTrader, and discussion among some senior figures last week at the IFXEXPO in Cyprus favoring open platforms, this could be the dawn of a new era.

Dukascopy CEO Alain Broyon addressed delegates at the IFXEXPO conference last week in Cyprus in favor of open platforms. “The Jforex platform is built in with different interfaces that can be set by the broker. Every platform should have a detail that is different, to help it be global and allow the technology to be in line with regulation.”

Tim Haman, CEO of Fair Trading Tehcnology added that third party applications and tools are important to traders who want to use EAs and signals. He explained : “They may not be programmers therefore they need to be able to have a list of options to customize their platform to suit trading style.”

Gold-i CEO Tom Higgins considers the server-side as important as the user interface side: “We see a lot of server side integration, copy trading, multi-account managers. We are very big on the server side. There is a lot of demand for back office integration so that databases can be managed and reports to regulators can be easily pulled off the system.”

The general consensus among the panel was that the participants were very much pro open trading platforms. It was agreed that party providers which can link a broker to appstore and provide on-the-move open applications can really make a difference to the reach of a broker.

When asked if the future is open platforms, the answer was a resounding yes. It was the view of the panel that closed platforms are not offering enough solutions to brokers or traders, therefore it is down to programmers and developers to continue to engineer open platforms and third party solutions which integrate with such platforms.

Please comment on alternative platforms or sign up and discuss in the SteveHopwoodForum, links to relevant posts are below.

cTrader seems to be the leader, but there are many others.  

In an email I sent to Amibroker, Thomaz said he would release the code fo iBControler.  The email is below

Hi Amibroker guys;

 

I own version 5.4.

 

I wanted to let you know that there is considerable pushback from MT4 users now – Metaquotes have done some stupid things, one of which is forced upgrades resulting in some not being able to access there account.

You probably have heard of the rumblings since its your line of business, if not, here is a start....

 

http://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2267

 

http://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2291&start=10

 

What this email is about is just to give you some thoughts....

 

There could be a business opportunity for you, adjust Amibroker for the MT4 users who want to leave to another platform.. Some are considering cForex or jForex but those platforms aren’t quite right.

 

The reason I don’t use Ami any longer to trade is the trading interface.  I want data and a trading interface that is not clunky, it needs to be built in.  I want to trade, not program interfaces.  I traded with IB but found to much of the actual trade interface to be a pain in the ass.  I wrote TipsterTrendlines, I know you have heard of it.

 

You should give some consideration to connecting traders to brokers, the FXCM’s of the world.  I don’t like the order2go plug in, or importing/exporting data.  I like to turn on the software, the data comes in, the connection is made with the broker using programming from an expert (like you guys) and I do the trading.  You could write a back end or use another platforms, maybe jForex, its open source, but I don't know anything about it (just suggestions)

 

If you want to get more of a feel and some good feed back from some traders I suggest you sign up at SteveHopwoodForex.  Friendly bunch of people who were fed up with ForexFactory so they started their own forum.  I hope to see you there.

 

Brian (AnotherBrian)

 

Hello,

Thank you very much for your e-mail.

What I am planning is to release source codes for existing IBController with a free license to
create derivative works and some docs regarding
how to connect 3rd party solutions to GetTradingInterface function of AmiBroker.
This should provide enough ground for 3rd parties to add their own trading interfaces.

At the moment I can not promise that I will develop anything especially for MT4 users since
our resources are limited, and trading interfaces require lots of maintenance as brokers change their APIs.
But I think that opening sources for IBController may be good first step.

Best regards,
Tomasz Janeczko
amibroker.com

Hear the Market

A great way to study the market with the Market Pace indi.

This indicator was posted on FF and I've used it occasionally to "hear" the ticks. It's sort of like watching the level 2 screen but easier. Since SHF is where I usually go for forex related info, I thought I would post it there.
Set it up on a 1 minute chart and listen as price goes into supply and demand areas, or tests new highs and lows. It will sit there for a while then a big pop can be heard, the bigger the pop, the more points it just travelled.
As I don't tend to scalp very often I don't use this much but I do listen as I do other things sometimes. It sort of tells you when things are heating up....
If you scalp, you might want to try it out.
rooicol wrote this gem.  I you have issues installing there are a few posts on FF that might help. Some users have had difficulties getting the correct sounds to play. Read the instructions and the posts on FF if you have issues. Feel free to post questions here as there are many brains willing to help.
It's attached here so you don't have to go get it.

Drawing Levels on MT4

This is a new script I wrote and have been using.
TT2P_DrawLevels
Drag and drop the script to the top part of the level you want to identify and it will draw two horizontal lines from that point to the right of the chart. If you drop it above current price it's red, below is green. So post on page 18 for a picture. If you turn on "show object descriptions" in the chart properties, the level will also show the timeframe where you found the level.

TT2P

Just a reminder that Tipster Trendlines is available for MT4 totally FREE from this web site

Questrade and MT4

Canadian broker Questrade now offers MT4. I don't have any info or details on the "rule set" but there is a demo available. If you sign up, use this promo code pa1ink35, you get some free trades (50 bucks) but I'm not sure that applies to MT4, it might only be stocks.
They are regulated by IIROC and your account would be protected by CIPF, and that's killer protection!!

Money Management idea for MT4 EA’s

Lots of EA’s out there don’t place stops and the idea or risking a percentage of the balance isn’t really accurate.  So you leave yourself open to more risk.

Here’s an idea that might help assuming your EA is profitable.

When an account grows and the lot size is determined by the risk value, the lots can get too big. Then the account gets hammered.
I know when I would kick this in for a demo but for a real account, would you really let it trade 1 lot? Maybe, but this way you can adjust it to your own appetite. This also lets you not worry to much about making withdrawals on time to gain back your initial investment or monthly withdrawals.

If you want to see the system performance and not colour the results with MM, use a constant lot size. The equity curve should be a relatively straight line. Then you use MM to curve it upwards. BUT, don;'t use MT4 to do this, it's not of ANY use.
To test this, start a demo and use a low lot size that would be lower than if your set the risk to 10. I would do this but I don't have any space for more demos. I might, however, try this add on to one of my existing experiments....

Then add your max lot size code and do another test.

The Spread in Forex (MT4)

I’m testing an EA called Crossfader (CF), this post discussed the spread as it impacts that EA.

Spreads are more on the exotics, less on the majors.  This gets amplified in low liquidity  So, my thoughts on exotics and the spread.....

Firstly, the CF biotch works great with EURUSD, the most proven and reliable pair.  Hooking her up to an exotic?  Why would you do this (other than a demo as an experiment), are you looking for a hidden treasure, are you subconsciously trying to ruin your account?  That's purposely making your growth task much harder. 

Slapping this EA on exotics and trying to then fix it with filters is a waste of time and increases your risk, not to mention work load and stress level (if live, not sure anyone is doing this yet...)

If you're trading live or planning to trade live at some time,
I recommend slapping it on the 6 majors, on a demo account.  For analysing pairs.
Here's what I do, and consider I have a small nugget on a live test account with CF running;
Have 1 demo running 6 majors on all the time;

• Risk 10
• 100% DD
• check each week and month for each pairs performance.  This will tell you what pairs to run live.  [*]On MyFxBook you can analyse by pair.
  Even put some additional pairs on it as you wish
• The only purpose of this is to track pairs, not to see if the EA works or test DD or risk level, although you can glean some of this info from this demo

Spead Filters

• Let's say you are running biotch CF on EURUSD only. 
  Do you need a spread filter?
  What number should it be set for?
  Should it stop entries or entries AND exits?
  Should it stop trading when spread is over or under your number (strange question right?)

When price is moving fast, like after a news event, is spread big or small?  small, sometime there is no spread as there are so many trades going on.

When it's off hours and price is standing still, no bidders want to hit the ask, no sellers want to pay the bid, what happens?  Large spread, price doesn't move, stalemate. 

How about just before a news release?  Wide spread, nobody wants to trade, they are waiting for the news.  The market is open, lots of participants right?  Nobody wants to trade. 

wide spread = nobody wants to trade

What happens during market hours when price runs into daily support / resistance level?  I bet most of you never watched a chart real time to see this....  As price approaches the level, you see many ticks, it slows as you arrive at the level, then you see nothing.... you check your internet connection, wtf?  I lost my feed... then you see TICK....  the spread widens.  This is where you want to enter or exit, a turning point possibly, or a breakout. 
Don't believe me? 
Run a spread recorder, install the market pace indicator so you can "hear" the market, and watch price on a 1 minute chart.  Mark off area where price stalls. 

Market pace is a nice piece - when price is moving slowly you hear a low volume tick pop sound.  when price is at a level and stall, let's say price is rising, hits a level and stops.  After about 30 seconds price will go down by the value of the wide spread, this larger movement makes a louder sound POP!!!  It really is neat to watch this, it may help you understand the auction process.

Back to the questions above -

• Do you need a spread filter?  entries, probably not if you turn the EA on for liquid session and use one of the majors. 
  What number should it be set for?  use the spread recorder to find the right number.
  Should it stop entries or entries AND exits? Probably both - apart from off market hours increasing spread, there are S/R areas and news events that increase spreads and I don't want to trade at that time, BUT - to get out of a trade at  the profit level and worry about another pip, that doesn't concern me.
  Should it stop trading when spread is over or under your number (strange question right?)  This was the point of this post, now your thinking maybe I should enter when the spread is big during market hours?  You must figure this one out on your own. 

What am I doing?  I'm adding a spread filter that just takes out the really stupid spreads, for example, EURUSD would not allow entry or exit on a spread of more than 4 pips.  (that's actual pips, not fractional pips).  Exotics, not trading them, those pairs are there for companies that do business in other countries, not for traders.)