Focusing on my Expert Advisor

Been focusing on developing my Expert Advisor lately… basically still using the same concept – CANDLESTICKS. But I’m trying to improve the ‘hit rate’ and trying to increase the average winning profit…. When that is done, I’ll try to improve the money management aspect, so that I will have a lower drawdown…. has been pretty enjoying the programming, and learning more and more about MetaQuotes… I’m glad I love programming….

I realised I’ve been shifting from task to task… At times, I develop my EAs… then I got bored.. and swtich to writing codes for Amibroker… then I change my mind and decide that I should do some fundamental analysis on stocks so that I can do some value investing since we are in a bear market… then, I find a book at Borders on commodities and decide to learn more about it…. then I decide I want to learn more about Economics…. etc etc…. I guess I am trying to do too many things at the same time…. maybe because I’m afraid if I don’t do it now, I’ll miss the party (like maybe the strong trend in Forex is gonna end soon… or the Bear market is gonna end and stocks are going to get expensive…)

Anyway, I know I gotta prioritize.. else I’ll end up achieving nothing…. so for now, I’m gonna be concentrating on developing my EAs…. till I get one satisfactory one out, I’m not going to switch to another money making task…..

Too good to be True

Ok, I’ve been programming a few strategies for Metatrader 4. After repeated trials, I find that my original EA which uses the Zig Zag indicator and a bullish engulfing candlestick still gives me the best results. However, I tried to further improve the strategy, and to my surprise, 2 simple lines of codes performed miracles.

if(Bid – OrderOpenPrice() > Point*StopLoss)
OrderModify(OrderTicket(), OrderOpenPrice(), 0, OrderTakeProfit(), 0, Green);
ok, from what I understand, I’m telling the EA that if my profit is greater than my StopLoss amount, I’m no longer willing to take a loss.

This simple amendments caused my profits to skyrocket from 7k to 40k. Ridiculous. Something must be wrong somewhere…

Anyway, I’ve successfully dropped 3 of my tuition classes, which means I’ll have a lot more time now. I’m still hoping that my Fri evening class will be replaced soon. Now that my Saturday classes have ended, I’m looking forward to my weekends, first time in two years… I no longer dread Saturdays…. I’m finally going to have my weekends ‘free’.

Let My Intuition Take Charge

I’ve yet to find a mechanical way to filter out the wrong signals. But I know it’s somewhere in my subconscious. I felt ‘uneasy’ when I opened those losing positions. I know there is a reason for that, but I can’t really pin it down. Maybe it is because the monthly candle is up, but I can’t afford to filter out all such trades, cause that contradicts the logic behind this strategy. Anyway, the best I can ‘mechanicalize’ it is the following:

1. Look out for danger Signs (Doji/hesitation on high volume, Engulfing 10% etc, double bottom etc)
2. The MA should be sloping downwards (at least 10% below peak)
3. Stock should preferably hit strong resistance/prior support (look back 3 years)

I love Amibroker

I’ve just found out, much to my (pleasant) surprise, that Amiquote (a free quote downloading program from Amibroker) is able to download current stock trading prices from Yahoo!Finance. That means I can actually do ‘real time’ (well, as real time as offered by Yahoo!) stock screening. I can jolly well screen for candlestick patterns around 1am (1pm EST) and enter a conditional order. Then I can go on to zzzzz. This way, I won’t miss out wonderful opportunities like UA, which dropped like a rock all the way down the moment the market opens the next day, after I spotted it as a potential sell candidate.

Wow! Ain’t that bery the powderful…. THANKS AMIBROKER! I lub u man!

Countdown: 2 more days

Finally, 2 more days to options expiry! YEAH!

Did some analysis. Concluded I’ll probably not enter a position with PEG, even though it is profitable. This is because Apr’s close is above Mar’s open, which makes it a bit risky (this can be a valid reversal). In addition, stock is barely below monthly MA(13). [Initially entered the position because the chart I used showed a stock spilt as a massive gap down!]

Anyway, I finally entered a position with real money today. I entered the position for both virtual trading and real money, and immediately spotted the difference. With virtual trading, the fill was immediate, with a credit of 70 cents (giving me a profit of $7/lot currently). With real money, I couldn’t get 70 cents, sold it for 65 cents only. Not extremely confident about this position. Believe it won’t go above $38, but the sold leg is $37.50.  We’ll see.

Hard to find new positions

It seems to always come to this point: I’m having difficulties finding new stock options to sell. One reason could be because of the weak trend now and because of my reluctance to be bullish yet. In fact, I don’t think the stock market’s recent rally will last, cause volume is just too weak. Anyway, I’m broadening my strategy. As long as the stock shows a reversal signal, I will analyse it further.