BeatlemaniaSA wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 6:53 pm Hi Ethica,

I just thought I'd comment on your quote. You seem to be getting confused with regard to spread and swap fees. An asset's spread does NOT determine its swap fees. As you can see in the example below from my broker IC Markets, USDCHF only has a spread of between 0.6 and 1.4 but THE MOST IMPORTANT factor is in which direction I take the trade!

In MT4 you can check what the swap fees are for each asset and the direction i.e. Long or Short, Take the time to go and check out each asset that you plan to trade and note down the swap fees :-)

Also, do try and trade on the lower timeframes to build up your equity. I trade on the 30min and H1 timeframes. However, if you do like the daily then take 1 trade on the daily and let it run.

If you are time-constrained then possibly trade in whatever session you are able to.

Warmest regards,
BeatlemaniaSA

Thanks I will look into this feature

Started to back test seriously yesterday. Itrend averages from the top 10 list performed well on default settings. I must say Soft4x tester is quite good.

Rules:

Risk:
If indicators give a signal, place 2 trades each with .5% account balance risk.
On First Trade:
Use ALMA with ATR, 2 period, 8 sigma, 1.5 atr. For long trades, visually move TP to the top ATR band. Visually move SL to the bottom band. Ensure you have 1:1 risk to reward. Do the opposite for short trades.
On Second Trade:
Use same ALMA settings as first trade, but do not set a TP. Move the SL to the bottom band as mentioned before.
Entry:
Price must be within ALMA with ATR, 2 period, 8 sigma, 1 ATR.
Itrend averages changes from light blue to dark blue (long trades) and light red to dark red (short trades)
Exit:
Itrend averages changes from dark blue to light blue (long trades) and dark red to light red (short trades)
-or-
Trade 1 closes automatically by hitting TP. If this happens, move SL to breakeven on Trade 2. Then proceed with other exit rules.

Yesterday, I backtested for 6 hours and nothing yielded at least 4% return over 2 years. I must be doing something wrong.
It could be the choppiness that's built into itrend avgs was beneficial.
Or it was beginner's luck.
In any case, my approach to backtesting must be more disciplined.

First test of the day. 2022-2023 of EURUSD daily data. It used a recent version of SuperTrend and Precision Trend Histogram that I found yesterday.

ROI was slightly above breakeven, with a -2% account balance drawdown at the beginning which is not good.
On the positive, the system was very easy to follow and the indicators were easy to read.
I will stick with these same indicators and make some adjustments to the rules in an attempt to yield a better ROI.

Another backtest. Different exit rules allowed me to exit unfavorable trades in choppy periods.

ROI wasn't good. Breakeven again.

I like these indicators and risk management rules, however I need to make further changes to yield a better ROI. May add TDFI to filter out the choppy periods, or adjust risk per trade.

Third solid backtest of the day with TDFI DSEMA smoothed, SuperTrend Adaptive Avg, and Precision Trend Histogram.
Ended the test with +.89% ROI. Not bad considering there weren't any nasty drawdowns as with the 1st test of the day.
System was easy to read, indicators worked well.

However I must change the currency pair/data to avoid overfitting.
On the next test I may exit according to TDFI and Precision Trend signals. And I may change the currency pair and increase the length of data to 3 years.

EDIT: in the rules.txt, the 3rd indicator is incorrectly named. The correct TDFI is attached correctly. I swapped TDFI in the middle of my backtest and restarted.
EDIT2: reuploaded package to show correct rules.txt

This back-test used data that was intended to reflect the turbulent period when COVID 19 was discovered.
The initial drawdown you can see at the beginning is worth noting. I went back and re-winded after the test ended and it seems that my account balance was 97.8k at one point. Considering my account was 100k at the start, this is very concerning from a prop firm perspective. If my account balance had hit 95k, many prop firms would have terminated by account.

Fortunately, the trading system made up for it's initial losses after the market recovered. The statement shows several large, winning long trades in the summer of 2020.
The ending ROI was +2.8%.

Best results of the day, however I think we can do better.
Not sure if I need to adjust the indicators to reduce signal frequency, or reduce risk-per-trade so that the drawdown isn't as concerning.

I think the most logical move is to to perform a 3 year back-test on another currency pair before making any more adjustments.

I wanted to change currency pairs and perform a back-test of CHFJPY which covered about 3 years of daily chart data.
When I was auditioning with my prop firm, I had done some research on Market Milk (https://marketmilk.babypips.com/) to see which pairs were the most volatile.
CHFJPY was usually amongst the most volatile pairs, along with GBPJPY or NZDJPY, if memory serves.

But I digress. In this back-test I got KILLED. I ended with -2.46% ROI.
I suspect that I ended with this drawdown because the system was unequipped to handle the extreme market conditions that CHFJPY presented.
I also noticed that all of the indicators appeared to repaint directly after they gave a signal. I did not notice the indicators repaint when a signal was already established in a period further back.
Again, this error seems to occur directly after a signal first shows up.
It is unclear why this happens. I suspect this could be a limitation of MQL4, the back-testing software, or the indicators themselves.
Furthermore, I do not blame the indicators for the negative ROI.
In the attached screenshots, you can see 3 different instances of these errors. In each case, it happened with a different indicator (first TDFI, then PTH, then SuperTrend).

For my next back-test, I will continue with the same data, but adjust the indicator parameters and reduce the risk-per-trade. Then, I will conduct another back-test with different indicators.

Here is a test where I continued to test CHFJPY with TDFI, Precision Trend Histogram, and SuperTrend Adaptive Averages. I increased the PTH sensitivity from 2 to 3, and I increased the TDFI trend period from 15 to 20.

The results were better than the last CHFJPY test, however the return over a 3 year period was only about 3%, so I wouldn't have been able to pass a prop firm challenge.

I can show you how i trade, after im done with my backtest
Im highly certain it will perform good

I dont use stop loss just correct position management
makes it easier

Even in spread and spikes 1-2% max might be a loss