MY TURTLES EA - need Testers - page 2

 

Got it running on the GBP hourly.

Big fan of the original turtle guys....should be fun.

 
mikhaildgreat:
Hello im using system 2, but i will develop system 1 after this EA is already working perfectly. the reason i chose sytem to to program first because it has much simpler condition to program.

As for exit strategy im using 2N as dafault for stoploss. You can change the values if you wish by changing Stoploss Multiple. Multiple is by how much to multiply the N with. Take Profit is exactly as in the book, after making a 20 bar low or high dafault(you can also change Exit bar lookback if you want to costumize this). So what I did is the exit acts like a trailing stop with the stoploss being adjusted to the low or high.

As for drawdown it is true that the system could lose much when the market is ranging but this is normal with the system because when you capture a trend it is able to make huge profits.

I hope this helps, and enjoy the forward test

regards,

Mikhail

Actually right now I don't have EA capabilities. I have access to MT4 for a demo account, but I'm not very proficient at it.

Just some thoughts/questions -

1. Do you think the turtles system only works because of adding to winning positions? One thought I'm having is whats wrong with just entering one position at the beginning and that's it? Adding to positions makes the average price higher, and therefore easier to fall into a loss on a reversal or retrace. That's why there are large drawdowns. It's a reverse martingale method, but to our disadvantage theoretically in this scenerio. Would it still be successful if we only traded the initial position, but exited as if we had added other positions?

I say it would be fine to do so because a key point of the turtles system is to equalize all trades across several markets based on their volatility. So it's not so much by how much we win, but that the wins and losses across the board are the same in dollar values. This averages everything out so we're diversifying our risk.

In fact I'll say that by adding to winners we are making our trades unequal as not all positions are added to at the same time. Without adding to positions we could still bank huge on the winners the system normally would have, but also profit on the trades that slightly turn on us that would close at BE or negative profits considering pyramiding raises the average price. Is adding to positions crucial to the success of trading the system?

2. Exits. It seems that the 10 and 20 day high/lows for exits isn't too necessary either. It's a good idea to make the exits simple for traders. That was the point of the turtles was to see if they could take anyone and make them a successful trader. If they can track a breakout to enter then they can equally track the exit since it's the same idea, but in reverse. So then do we need to wait for the 10/20 day breakout to exit in profit? The stop loss is always set, 2 N or 1 N depending on which method you wish to take while the exit strategy is just another way to trail the price.

Another way to describe the system is, wait for the price breakout to enter. Have a set 50 pip SL. As soon as price goes in your favor then institute a trailing stop of X pips or something based on ATR. This gives you exact losses of 50, but possibility of infinite profit depending on how loose your exit strategy is. I'm thinking something that could produce interesting results is if you code an exit script where say once you hit 100 pips in profit you institute a system where you have a SL of 30% or so. As your trade gains more profit the SL increases so at 200 pips profit you have a 60 SL. Eventually you could set a peak for the SL such that it doesn't increase the SL more. For example, max SL level is 150 pips, which would require the position to be at least 500 pips in your favor with a 30% system. Then if you're lucky enough to go to 800 pips in profit the SL is still only 150 pips instead of being 240. Just something to consider although as the method describes, it is better to base it off of volatility rathen than just 'x' pips.

Why was the turtle system successful? Was it because of the pyramiding or because of:

1. Letting runners run to infinity or until price told us to exit.

2. Cutting losers immediately without discretion.

3. Following the rules strictly without discretion.

4. Equalizing our risk across all positions based on calculations of volatility to make all of our trades equal and not allowing us to throw too much into a single play, i.e. excellent money management.

I ask these questions not to cast doubt on your EA and the method. It's just a matter of preference. For peace of mind I would rather enter one position with more chance of exiting in profit since I'm not raising my average price. It may reduce the compounding effect in the long run, but it would bring in more consistent profits. Please correct me if I'm wrong in saying adding to the winners is not a key aspect of the success of this system. I also don't want to worry about missing a point where I'm supposed to be adding to my position since right now my broker is only manual. Look forward to hearing from all of you. Matt

 

you should add function moveSLtoentry after +15 profit. So when the market goes against us, we are fine.... and please add trail stop

 
abrs70:
you should add function moveSLtoentry after +15 profit. So when the market goes against us, we are fine.... and please add trail stop

Hello thank you for your suggestion,

The EA already has this feature but does not count pips, instead counts market volatility, set ATRBreakEven to true, also if you want the breakeven level to be closer change breakeven multiple to a smaller value, this is the value we multiply Atr with to get the breakeven level.

Hope that helps, and keep those suggestions coming!

Thanks,

Mikhail

 
permanentjaun:
Actually right now I don't have EA capabilities. I have access to MT4 for a demo account, but I'm not very proficient at it.

Just some thoughts/questions -

1. Do you think the turtles system only works because of adding to winning positions? One thought I'm having is whats wrong with just entering one position at the beginning and that's it? Adding to positions makes the average price higher, and therefore easier to fall into a loss on a reversal or retrace. That's why there are large drawdowns. It's a reverse martingale method, but to our disadvantage theoretically in this scenerio. Would it still be successful if we only traded the initial position, but exited as if we had added other positions?

I say it would be fine to do so because a key point of the turtles system is to equalize all trades across several markets based on their volatility. So it's not so much by how much we win, but that the wins and losses across the board are the same in dollar values. This averages everything out so we're diversifying our risk.

In fact I'll say that by adding to winners we are making our trades unequal as not all positions are added to at the same time. Without adding to positions we could still bank huge on the winners the system normally would have, but also profit on the trades that slightly turn on us that would close at BE or negative profits considering pyramiding raises the average price. Is adding to positions crucial to the success of trading the system?

2. Exits. It seems that the 10 and 20 day high/lows for exits isn't too necessary either. It's a good idea to make the exits simple for traders. That was the point of the turtles was to see if they could take anyone and make them a successful trader. If they can track a breakout to enter then they can equally track the exit since it's the same idea, but in reverse. So then do we need to wait for the 10/20 day breakout to exit in profit? The stop loss is always set, 2 N or 1 N depending on which method you wish to take while the exit strategy is just another way to trail the price.

Another way to describe the system is, wait for the price breakout to enter. Have a set 50 pip SL. As soon as price goes in your favor then institute a trailing stop of X pips or something based on ATR. This gives you exact losses of 50, but possibility of infinite profit depending on how loose your exit strategy is. I'm thinking something that could produce interesting results is if you code an exit script where say once you hit 100 pips in profit you institute a system where you have a SL of 30% or so. As your trade gains more profit the SL increases so at 200 pips profit you have a 60 SL. Eventually you could set a peak for the SL such that it doesn't increase the SL more. For example, max SL level is 150 pips, which would require the position to be at least 500 pips in your favor with a 30% system. Then if you're lucky enough to go to 800 pips in profit the SL is still only 150 pips instead of being 240. Just something to consider although as the method describes, it is better to base it off of volatility rathen than just 'x' pips.

Why was the turtle system successful? Was it because of the pyramiding or because of:

1. Letting runners run to infinity or until price told us to exit.

2. Cutting losers immediately without discretion.

3. Following the rules strictly without discretion.

4. Equalizing our risk across all positions based on calculations of volatility to make all of our trades equal and not allowing us to throw too much into a single play, i.e. excellent money management.

I ask these questions not to cast doubt on your EA and the method. It's just a matter of preference. For peace of mind I would rather enter one position with more chance of exiting in profit since I'm not raising my average price. It may reduce the compounding effect in the long run, but it would bring in more consistent profits. Please correct me if I'm wrong in saying adding to the winners is not a key aspect of the success of this system. I also don't want to worry about missing a point where I'm supposed to be adding to my position since right now my broker is only manual. Look forward to hearing from all of you. Matt

Great Great Post, Thank you for giving the turtle method and the EA some tought.

OK ill try to answer all your questions:

1: Ive backtested the EA using exact turtle stradtegy but without adding lots and what happens is it suffers many small losses and when it finally captures a big trend the gains from the big trend couldnt cover the losses, but with adding lots(although more risky) is able to make huge, huge profits that makes the long losing streak insignificant. One big trend could easyly double the account. I think the strategy simply tries to minimize losses and maximize gains. But still has room for improvement.

2: With the Exits, I agree with you we can come up with better exits. the turtle exit although is great because its able to give the market some room to retrace, but if the market is starting to go flat you will notice the exit going closer and closer to the spot price until either the trade is closed or the market shoots up/down again. But the drawback here is that it take quite long before the low or the high trail stop to kick in and is very prone to whipsaw, Thats why i put the breakeven ATR, but we could still find better optinons.

3: This is a great idea, but this looks like a whole new EA. Actually Im also working on a "Turtle Scalper" where my goal is 98% win rate, but just small wins...( but this is another story)

This Ninja Turtle EA is just Beta version, so its still a baby and will mature to be what it should be with your help and suggestion. THe first step is to see how it performs with live market feeds, if the program proves to be stable(but I already found a bug yesterday), but when it is already super stable we can start oprimizing it to make it super profitable, added options such as timefilter, trailing stop, etc.

So Once Again thank you, thank you for your ideas and suggestion, just keep them comin!

Kind Regards,

Mikhail

 
investor_me:
That's quite a promising start. If valvk in the mql4 championship wins second or third place, that is another hint that this may be a winner strategy. Do you plan to keep the forward test 24/5 ? If so, it would be great to see the results. I'll do some forward testing but later this week or the next week due to technical issues. Go turtle go!

YES but valvk turtle strategy is now quite different from the original, But still it proves to be profitable, thats why im also working on "turtle scalper" which will be much more similar to valvks turtle.

TURTLE POWER!

Mikhail

 

After open the first order, and the EA want to open subsequent order.

It just have "OrderSendError #130".

What does it mean?

I use fixed lot (0.1)

 
wilson1668:
After open the first order, and the EA want to open subsequent order.

It just have "OrderSendError #130".

What does it mean?

I use fixed lot (0.1)

What timeframe are you using? this is a bug. Ive noticed this happens when you close then open the terminal with open orders still open.

Will fix this and post update version soon.

Thanks for pointing this out.

Mikhail

 
mikhaildgreat:
What timeframe are you using? this is a bug. Ive noticed this happens when you close then open the terminal with open orders still open.

Will fix this and post update version soon.

Thanks for pointing this out.

Mikhail

I put the EA on 30min chart.

 

Bug Fixed

wilson1668:
I put the EA on 30min chart.

Hello Once Again thank you for your feedback, I fixed the bugs of the EA. So download the fixed version form first post, Beta2. before loading this EA delete all pending orders that have been generated by the first ninja turtle. But all Remaining Open Orders will be handled fine now, It will no longer try to Open new Pending Orders if It has been left out by the price, but will manage all the opened orders as it should.

Thank you again, pls post if you find anymore problems with the EA,

Mikhail