Forex EA Robot Trading Blog

We are putting out some updated statements today for pointbreak and carrygrid.

Here is the carrygrid on EURJPY.

http://www.easyforexdata.com/DetailedStatement.htm

Labels: CarryGrid EA, statement

Here i had an interesting discussion with another trader, which i thought was worth sharing.

[15:44:25] Michael says: I'm a forex trader and introducing broker
[15:45:20] Michael says: I have a few questions about carry grid
[15:46:46] Michael says: I understand that the system buys on daily, but what happens when the market sell off for severals day?
[15:47:04] Paul says: it waits until the buying returns
[15:47:36] Paul says: the whole thing is really predicated on a long term rising market
[15:47:45] Paul says: or an even market
[15:48:16] Paul says: then it will make a fortune. but if the market is going to become truly bearish, its not the right system.
[15:48:38] Paul says: basically its fortunes lie with those of all the carry traders
[15:49:06] Paul says: so GBPJPY i wouldnt go near, right now, but quite a few traders are using is on AUDJPY, EURJPY
[15:49:43] Paul says: personally, being completely honest, i prefer a bi-directional system. which is why im using pointbreak mainly at the moment, as its less stressful to watch.
[15:50:23] Michael says: I went back and notice we were in a overall up trend since 2000,looking at the monthly but from 1998-2000 we were in a major down trend I realize that was a long time ago buy in a case like that would it blow out your account
[15:51:01] Paul says: yes. this is a problem. there are trailing stops in the system but they reduce the profitability.
[15:51:23] Paul says: its risk/reward. If you rode that 6 year rise with the carry grid 10k would be millions.
[15:51:37] Paul says: but its nota system for the faint hearted
[15:51:43] Michael says: I followed point break the overall drawdowns I did not like...
[15:51:54] Paul says: ok
[15:52:04] Paul says: have you looked at shark ?
[15:52:11] Michael says: can u tell me more
[15:52:34] Michael says: yes I traded the shark great system poor tech support
[15:52:37] Paul says: you would have to check out their site, theres a link on the myfxtools site in the reviews section
[15:52:39] Paul says: ok
[15:52:47] Paul says: you know more than me then about that one
[15:54:02] Michael says: the system started looping trades and a friend of mines never got a reply from the seller/developer
[15:54:54] Paul says: ok
[15:55:15] Paul says: what kind of rewards are you looking for
[15:55:23] Paul says: you can run pointbreak on a lower risk level
[15:56:00] Michael says: just want a system that is consistant that will not blow out ones account
[15:56:17] Michael says: u think point break is the best
[15:56:23] Paul says: i honestly do
[15:56:32] Paul says: i can send you the reports from the live accounts i have running on my server
[15:56:45] Michael says: please do
[15:56:57] Michael says: deltatrading@cox.net
[15:57:01] Paul says: one is on quite conservative and pretty small drawdowns over the last 6 months even during bad periods for the system
[15:57:03] Paul says: ok
[15:57:40] Paul says: will do that later
[15:58:23] Michael says: when I ran the EA it did produce nice profits but the equity stayed below the balance for more than two months
[16:01:19] Paul says: ok yes ive seen the same thing
[16:02:07] Michael says: what should I expect from it?
[16:02:17] Paul says: the oldest account was run on 1 for 4 months, then went to 3
[16:02:23] Paul says: it started on 3k
[16:03:06] Paul says: its now at 3,600 or something. so thats 20% over 6 months at low risk. not bad really.
[16:03:33] Paul says: i have an account im running on risk 4, which is a small account
[16:04:05] Paul says: and what i plan to do is add more money if drawdown is high, and then when it hits 20k take half out, and continue running it at high risk.
[16:04:35] Paul says: so the total you can lose is never that high, the rewards are good, and you can always add more funds as its not a large account.
[16:05:06] Paul says: if i had a 50k account and had to pump in another 25-50k to save margin call i would not be happy
[16:05:16] Paul says: ive been in situations like that before
[16:05:42] Paul says: i used to trade a 100k account, and that amount frightens me these days.
[16:08:16] Michael says: ok..I'm watching some trades in the pound yen up 140 pips 190 pips and 108 pips now which is good but like you said when it turns it will not be good
[16:09:07] Paul says: yes, if you can trade with it, its a great tool, and thats how i used it
[16:09:31] Paul says: to be used at its best its not a complete autopilot system
[16:09:56] Paul says: if you already trade its a tool you might like to have in your arsenal. this is how i look at it, a tool for a particular job.
[16:10:09] Michael says: you just don't know when it can turn around and thats the scary part
[16:10:31] Paul says: true...
[16:11:13] Michael says: I appreciate your honesty
[16:11:21] Michael says: thanks a million
[16:11:29] Paul says: i had experimetned with variations that would close out on a daily trend change, but of course overall profitability was much reduced. perhaps a lower-risk version would be worth considering
[16:11:37] Paul says: no problem, always.
[16:11:46] Paul says: good luck with your trading.
[16:14:52] Michael says: thanks again

Labels: CarryGrid EA, drawdown, Expert advisor, forex, PointBreak EA, shark

Question
Can this ea be ran on different chart times with the same risk factor.
If you ran it on a 5m chart with the same 5000 pip down draw allowed and diversified between different currency pairs would it still be safe to trade.

Answer
It has performed better over longer chart timeframes, mainly because trades have been allowed to play out, but a shorter time frame reduces risk as it is more sensitive to changes in short term trends. 5 minute chart timeframe is very short and the trend will be all over the palce. I would recommend 1HR timeframe at least. There are various hedging models you can use to offset risk in one pair with another pair, but i dont have an 'optimal' set of pairs to run it on.

Labels: 5 minute chart, CarryGrid EA

My understanding for EA is I have to run MT4 together with EA in order for EA to managed my account. My questions are:

1. Will EA open trade, set the currency pairs, lots, price, and close trade for me. it means i do not have to do anything after setup the criteria in EA, just open the 2 programs and let EA trade automatically for me? Is it that easy?

Yes it is that easy, you do have to select the currency pair and timeframe however, but its an easy choice, EURJPY or GBPJPY on 1H, 4H or daily.

2. If i have 2 accounts and would like to trade with 2 different styles, with different parameters, do i have to buy 2 licenses of EA? or i have to open 2 accounts at different brokers? If EA can managed multiple accounts, what is the max number?

No, one license will cover it, there is no restriction on how many accounts you can manage with it.

3. what will happen if my internet connection is down during a day and i do not notice that, i.e. i run the MT4 at home and i go to work. the connection may down up to 8 hrs. Will this situation ruin my life?

The system is long term and a downtime like this will not have a huge effect. We actually offered EA hosting for a while to solve this problem but having had no take-ups, have taken the service down. The problem with the EA hosting was that you are unable to modify the parameters.

4. will you send signal or any information to EA in realtime for better decision making in trades? or this resource stay in the software?

This stays in the software. Signals are sent from www.easyforexsignals.com, and the trendwatcher tool there also works in a similiar way to the trend tool inside the EA.

5. I'm new to forex but would like to gain more money, can i just buy EA and start in forex trading? or i have to study forex first?
You can learn 'on the go', by demo trading.

6. is it better to buy EA instead of let someone to manage my account?

It depends on how good the trader managing your account is, and whether you want to pay them the 30% commission they generally ask.

7. what is the minimum deposit EA can run? Is it applicable for 200USD?

1500-2000 USD is really the minimum starting point for this EA.

Labels: CarryGrid EA, FAQ

Q. As you are aware, that since I had been demoing your
EA, since 15 Oct., the markets have been very choppy,
maybe in 25 yrs. However, inspite of that your EA is
doing very well. The trades that were opened by your
EA in Oct. & not closed yet, I believe they'll stay
open collecting the swap? Right?

A. Thats correct, they will keep collecting swap and eventually the swap will cover their margin requirement.

Q. How soon could you set me up to host your EA only at
Interbank FX live?

A. With the dedicated hosting, noone has shown any interest until this point, but i will do it only for fxdd account holders, as it costs me $250 per license to run the multiple accounts on a server. So i can only run on fxdd currently, as this is the platform i am licensed for.


Q. The new EA you are working on, will there be updates or to be puchased seperatly?

The new EA will be a new product line, but available at a major discount for existing CG purchasers. Its optimised for each pair, and has a dynamic gridmesh and trailing stop, which makes it a LOT safer, and outperforms the current version significantly in terms of much lower drawdown.

Labels: CarryGrid EA, dedicated hosting, forex, swap collection

Q. The ea seems to work well,
but i am a bit concerned about the drawdowns in
backtesting. If the ea is supposed to recognise a
trend change and close open trades, why do we still
get a drawdown.

A. The version i am working on RIGHT NOW dramatically reduces drawdown by dynamically changing the grid mesh based on market volatility, and produces similiar results (10k -> 1 million in 5-6 years). Get on the newsletter to keep updated.

Labels: CarryGrid EA, drawdown, version 6

Q. Can you please specify what settings you would use on a 4 hour chart trading GBP/JPY, GBP/CHF, AUD/JPY, USD/JPY. I need to know safe settings with reasonable returns.

A. I run it on my live account with default settings, but if you want to lower risk there are several things you can do.
1) Use a larger gridmesh (i.e. 100)
2) Use the smallest lot size you can on your account
3) Lower the maxpositions property
4) Pick your pairs carefully
5) Work out the largest possible drawdown you want to be able to deal with and make a plan

I will add a video on safe settings in the blog here as well in the next day or so, with more detail.

Labels: carry trade, CarryGrid EA, forex, Safe Settings

We now have videos coming available instructing how to setup and run the EA. If you are using the EA, then you need to make sure you are signed up for the newsletter to receive the link to the videos, as they are not on the public site.

Labels: carry trade, CarryGrid EA, video

Q. What is the interaction with other EA on account or manually opened positions

A. The EA will not interfere with other EA or manual positions. They may affect the margin available which will determine the lot size, but that is all the interaction they will have.
Lots more details in here;

http://www.myfxtools.com/FAQ.html
http://www.myfxtools.com/blog

Labels: CarryGrid EA, interaction, manual positions, margin

I set the system up but is says that: We do not trade when the trend is against swap. Which parameter I need to change to get it going?

The EA is waiting for the trend to be bullish, if you go to a lower timeframe it is more likely to trade. Drop the indicator on a chart to see if it is red or green and then you know if it should be trading or not.

Labels: CarryGrid EA, swap, timeframe

I want to purchase your EA and I have Paypal.I have some questions before purchase:

1. How long until I get the information to download the EA after I pay by Paypal?
Is it direct download or I have to wait an email ?
2. What version will I
get ? Is it ver 5 or 4 ?
3. Can I choose to trade against the swap ?For
example EUR long term trend still UPTREND which is against the swap, but I
prefer to trade follow the trend than against the trend.

1. It is direct download, and you will also later receive a confirmation email with the information duplicated.
2. You will receive BOTH v4 and v5 along with the supporting indicator
3. The current versions do not support this.

Labels: CarryGrid EA, purchase, swap, trend

Q. What are the best conservative settings for the CarryGrid EA if I am only
trading the GPB/JPY? I was wondering if it would be better if I closed out the
trades that were losing a little or let the computer program do what it is
designed to do. If you could just list the settings and then tell me what each
button that runs the ea is that would be helpful. I have used ea's before. I
just am a little unsure of how to set up the internal setting properly.

1. To be conservative, the key settings are;
   LotSize - automatic lot sizing is pretty safe, you can go even lower manually
2. Risk Level - keep this at 1
3. GridMesh - a wider gridmesh is safer
4. TrailingStop - this should usually match gridmesh, but you can tighten or widen as you please
5. GridMaxOpen can be used to set a limit of open positions. This is becoming redundant with v5, as the trailing stop means we are unlikely to have many positions open, except when we have a fast run up, in which case we would like to have lots of profitable positions open!
6. Stoploss - you can assign a stoploss for each position in pips. Stoplosses wreck accounts if used badly, so be sure to give yourself enough room to ride out the waves in the market. Though if a tsunami is on the way you will be glad you had a 'get me out of dodge' stoploss.

The program does a good job of locking in profits with v5, but a human may be better, depending on their reading of the market.

Labels: CarryGrid EA, settings

Q. i opened a mini account at interbank (demo) and wanted to try your EA. But at IBFX i can not trade the GBP/JPY currency with mini account......
A. You can override the lot size by setting manual lotsize to true and then setting the lotsize value.
Q. how can i use your EA on this currency? (GBPJPY)
A. Yes you can use the EA on this currency
Q. Can you please let me know what is the easyforexindv2.exe file is for?
A. easyforexindv2.ex4 is the indicator used by the EA and can be displayed on a chart also

Labels: CarryGrid EA, easyforexindv2.ex4, FAQ, GBPJPY, mini account

Q.
I am Running now both EA on a testaccount. The CGv4 is nunning better now...But it is more risky did I understand that right? The v5 takes profit much time before the v4 right? I that the only difference? And what are the detailed settings for take profit on v5 and v4?
A.
The CGv4 is more risky, with a correspondingly higher reward, as it does not have a trailing stop feature. v5 will do better in ranging/bearish markets (smaller drawdown, profit during ranging periods), but not collect huge profits during a run up (as during retracements positions will be closed out). v5 can be made to run more like v4, by modifying the trailing stop value, or turning it off altogether. this will give your trades more room to breathe.
v4 will close out trades when the TREND changesv5 will closeout trades when either the trend changes, or we are in profit enough to have activated the trailing stop, so the trade will be stopped out (in profit)

If you look at the online statement you will see the equity curve with v5 is quite linear.
A potential change for the future is to modify this trailing stop value to reflect the current market conditions, so during ranging periods it would tighten, during trending periods up widen, and during trending periods down, possibly tighten again.

Labels: CarryGrid EA, Carrygridv5, Closing trades, v4, v5

Here is part of a discussion i have been having over email. I think the information is useful in a general sense, and as i dont always have time to update the FAQ on the site (and frankly, the blog technology does a better job of organising the content), im going to post most of the FAQ's, mainly regarding the CarryGrid EA, on here.

Q. Differentials can mean several things....yes, one way to look at it is
the correlation between the pairs, in the case of the EURUSD and USDCHF they're
negatively correlated. But I also look at several other ways to measure
risk when I hedge....one is the number of pairs open in any combination for
instance, EUR buys vs EUR sells or CHF buys vs CHF sells or EUR buys and CHF
sells vs EUR sells and CHF buys which are all essentially the same thing.
Its important to see the relationship of all pairs at all angles so that when
there's profit taking, you take it so that you manage each trade individually
but work the entire basket of trades as a whole so as not to break your risk
factors. So whenever I hedge trade, I am mainly concerned about 1) capital
preservation first 2) profit taking second 3) keeping risk at 1% or lower if
possible. This way, you can still have a drawdown of say 2000 pips and
still only risk 1% of your total account. I see many people trading
hedges that don't really have a clue how much risk they're really taking.
Freedom Rocks clients are famous for this. In any case the Carry
Gridding EA looks promising. I used to run standard Grid EA's but with the
turbulent volatility in the markets, its absolutely suicide. The
CarryGridding EA however is great since it seems to be waiting for trend
direction and is intelligent enough to hold back trades if the market turns and
takes small enough position sizes that I feel comfortable with. I'm
not sure which basket of pairs to combine however to get a faster overall gain
but at the same time stay conservative still on risk. Capital Preservation
is my number one concern....

A.I totally agree with you on the capital preservation comments, it is also my
primary concern. The basket/hedging is something i have visited several times -
the concept of using the carrygrid in combination with a basket of pairs to
produce positive interest and minimise overall exposure. However i just found it
insanely complex to manage, and i am a big fan of the 'keep it simple stupid'
motto. If i cant understand it, i cant trade it. Similiarly i find hedges are
notoriously difficult to manage; especiallly with the additional margin they
take up. I prefer taking the minimum lot size, gradually building a
position over time type approach. Well, that is one approach, its not the way i
manually trade, but as i have said before, its a tool that i use on my accounts,
as its smart enough not to position in against the trend.
Also, I was looking at AUDCAD as a new potential candidate for the v5 grid - it looks really promising to run on a short time frame as its a range bound pair. Check out the 4Hr chart for more details.

Labels: AUDCAD, Capital Preservation, CarryGrid EA, Differentials, hedge