Posts made by james

Ah! OK. I was looking at the long "-----" line, not the "-" one!

Been meaning to say this for a while. In the local version, it seems to make no difference to the level colour of the trailing stop if you choose another colour - its always deep pink.

OK. No problem!

Hey!

I thought paying customers were exempt from having to receive adverts! What's happened?

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I'd assumed that with conditions outside of a given group's trades loop I'd need to use this particular block. If group 2 = something, alter group 1, and so on.

The blocks say, if in the trades loop SL > Current Price (Candle close id 0), then don't run the trailing stop block. The trailing stop should therefore run if SL < Current Price (buys only).

Just a small suggestion...

Its not immediately clear in the "Modify each trade" block that to leave the TP unchanged, the field should be left blank or at 0. Other blocks have a "no change" option.

I can't work out why I'm getting this error:

__Modify error: Not initialized string in array (4009)[/quote:3noli3o0]
The blocks are shown here: http://fxdreema.com/shared/xFjydfUqb.

I hope it isn't me misunderstanding the "Check the distance between two levels" again!

Hi, and thank you very much for the reply. As always, I'm grateful.

I'm sorry that I've been somewhat slow on the uptake, but I think I have now better understood the machinations of "Check distance between two levels" when combined with the "Start trades loop" block.

I think I need to go back to the drawing board with this one. As I say, I've proven the method and outcome using minute data going back around 30 years and a spreadsheet. What I have to do is re-interpret and transfer the logic in the spreadsheet to fxDreema and thence to MT4. I believe my difficulty encountered thus far may be born of a confusion of logic and perhaps my attempt to make the odd short-cut.

But thank you again for shining a light into my darkness! Much appreciated. I'll let you know how I get on, and yes, the trailing stop thing is important to how the strategy works. The example I provided was a somewhat simplified version of the full EA so that you didn't have to spend hours trying to decipher my arcane logic! Therefore it may have seemed to be a 3 trade only scenario. Added to which, a part of the strategy relies on material which I can't disperse.

Doubtless I'll be back with a query or two as I re-work this - so my apologies and grateful thanks in advance.

Thanks again,

James.

Hello

No. I'm afraid I don't think your above example will do it because...
*- the add to volume style of the area called "Group #3" will get its own stop loss, whereas I'd like to use the fxDreema "Add to volume" block style, whereby the added volume utilises the original order's SL;

• a new trade must not be placed until break even is achieved on the last trade placed, which is why in my example I used "Check distance between two levels" block, but the problem with this is that the block can't differentiate between different groups, and simply looks at all levels and stops;
• this "pony-ing" must continue ad infinitum, trade upon trade.[/list:u:18qca0zu]

This is why I wondered if it would be possible to have the "Check distance between two levels" block optionally do so within groups - see mine of Tue Oct 22, 2013 5:06 pm. However, I understand that this may not be possible, and I'll have to come up with another method of checking if the SL of the latest trade is above its own opening price. Quite how, I don't yet know! Maybe writing something to a file is the answer.

Therefore I may have to revert to having multiple groups within one EA, and estimate how many trades ("Sell/Buy now" block) may come along at any give time; probably somewhere around 20, which will make the EA quite large. But that's just the way it goes sometimes!

Hi

Many thanks for the suggestion. I'll return to this next week after I've finished the block of work I'm doing just now.

Hi

Yes, I do use a group number in the "Start trades loop" in the full EA, although this wasn't shown in my example, and the screen dumps I show you are the ones generated by the full EA.

So, in my example, I have updated to show what's going on in the full EA. You can see it here: http://fxdreema.com/shared/veNl0Hdnc.

What seems to happen is this:
*Group 1 buy is placed, and its own SL is trailed.
Group 2 waits till GoGroup2=1, then when the condition is met, places a buy, and its own SL is trailed.
During the course of the above 2 actions, the SL of Group 1 moves above the buy prices of both group 1 and group 2.
The variable GoGroup3 is then prematurely set to 1, whereas I'm trying to make it wait until the SL of group 2 > open price of group 2.[/list:u:380d1y9b]

I can't see any other way in fxDreema of measuring when a SL is above its "mother" buy price; only with either a "Condition" block or the "Check the distance between two levels" block. And as I don't seem to be able to stop this premature setting of GoGroup3, this led me to wondering if it might be possible to add an "Origin of trades" to the "Check the distance between two levels" block so that it could optionally be made to look at a given group only.

Maybe I've missed something obvious, and can do the measurement of distance between a group's open price and its own SL differently. I'm also very happy that you have an idea to resolve this another way later on, but I just wondered if this would provide a workaround for now without causing you too much extra work! And the reason for that is my wish to get my EA running live soon!

Thanks again.

Me again - sorry!

I've had a look at employing groups with this pony-ing idea. I can get this to work fine when I have 2 groups, but not with any more. The problem seems to be detecting when the SL of the last trade is above its own buy price - the "mother" as you put it! The measurement of this seems to work on the highest SL, which could have been set several trades before.

Depending on how long you think it will be before you are able to get your idea of tricking MT4 by using Comment attribute of trades working, would it be possible to add an "Origin of trades" to the "Check the distance between two levels" block? Might this be a good idea anyway? Maybe this isn't possible. If so, please forgive my ignorance!

My picture below is of a hypothetical "Check the distance between two levels" block, which is checking SL > Open Price, and incorporates an "Origin of trades" filter to pick up "mother".

Many thanks, again.

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That's fantastic! Thank you. I look forward to when that's available, but I do understand that it's a big job and will take time. The stop losses seem to work as expected though, so hopefully that'll be one less item on your "to do" list...!

Ah ha! An MT4 limitation! Definately wouldn't have come across that in the spreadsheet. OK, so I'll try the route of using multiple buy/sell routines with their own individualised "Start trades loop" series using group numbers. This may mean I have to make the EA quite large, as I'll have quite a few of these, but hey! That's life!

If I've understood you correctly, then no, this won't work either. You can check if I've understood here: http://fxdreema.com/shared/X89LccS0d.

Here's a picture of the results:

As you can see, this makes two trades at the next buy signal from Area #1 at 2013.01.18 00:01. The one at 0.15 size came from Area #1, and the one at 0.10 from Area #2.

Not being able to get this to work is indeed causing a problem. It stops me properly "pony-ing up" trades as they become profitable as a trend develops. Normally this would be in this manner:

1st buy signal from Area #1, therefore buy #1
*
if price > buy price #1 by x, add to volume of buy #1 one time
[/list:u:1ksesney]
2nd buy signal from Area #1, therefore buy #2
*
if price > buy price #2 by x, add to volume of buy #2 one time
[/list:u:1ksesney]
3rd buy signal from Area #1, therefore buy #3
*
if price > buy price #3 by x, add to volume of buy #3 one time
[/list:u:1ksesney]
[/list:u:1ksesney]
...and so on
...and run trailing stops off each buy position for the buy position itself and its add volume.

I've back-tested this idea on a spreadsheet and I know it's good. But I just can't find a way to make it work with fxDreema. Clearly if I were able to program in MQL I'd do it, but I'm relying on you!

I'm happy with the way the stop losses are working. Its just the trades.

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...or perhaps change the "filter by type" choice in the Start Trade loop. At the moment there is:
*
Buys
Sells
Buys and Sells[/list:u:2gzrccvg]

How about this:
*
Buys created outside trade loop
Sells created outside trade loop
Buys and Sells created outside trade loop
Buys created inside trade loop
Sells created inside trade loop
Buys and Sells created inside trade loop
[/list]

Then using two "Start Trade loop" blocks, maybe I could achieve my aim?

Yes. I agree with you that it works on the first trade opened, but not on the second or subsequent when the first trade is still running.

I've again altered my example, here: http://fxdreema.com/shared/YgIu0iurc.

You'll see that I've removed the 1 trade in loop restriction in the "Start trades block", and changed block 17 to be "(in loop) Pips away from Open Price" block with +2pips.

So with those amendments I now get multiple "add to volume" hits after the first trade, as in this picture:

This isn't what I need. I need one additional add to volume per buy from Area #1 as in my post of Mon Oct 21, 2013 1:58 pm.

I'm trying to make the EA say:

• buy signal, therefore buy #1
• if price > buy price #1 by x, add to volume of buy #1 one time
• buy signal, therefore buy #2
• if price > buy price #2 by x, add to volume of buy #2 one time
• buy signal, therefore buy #3
  ...and so on
  ...and run trailing stops off each buy position for the buy position itself and its add volume.

You'll find that the US500 (S&P500) in January 2013 has a situation where this can occur.

I have a feeling that the "(in loop) Pips away from Open Price" block may need an additional option to do this.

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Hello, and thank you for your - as always - helpful suggestions.

I have again amended my example. Its here: http://fxdreema.com/shared/wkBAZyBY. You will see that I have incorporated your suggestions.

The only thing I haven't done is change the +50% in block 17. I understand what you've said about this, and will change it later. For now, however, I'd really like to address the problem of the Start Trades loop in Area #2 not doing what I think it should. Have a look at this picture:

In it you'll see that the first trade behaves as I think it should. Area #1 opens a trade, and Area #2 tracks it, adding to volume (draw arrow visible) and moving stop losses.

However, the second trade gets no add to volume, but its stop loss is tracked.

I'd like to be able to add volume to each and every trade, and have stop losses trailed.

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Thank you very much indeed for your reply.

Unfortunately I don't fully understand what you are saying because I don't have a "Once per bar" block attached anywhere in the "Start trades loop" in Area #2. I took note of what you said earlier, but still find that the trades loop doesn't work on the subsequent trades that the EA makes.

As I said, the blocks in Area #1 work perfectly, making subsequent trades after SL > Open Price. But after the first trade placed by Area #1, the ones after are ignored by Area #2.

I want the Start Trades loop in Area #2 to work on all open trades. This it doesn't do. How do I make it do so?