Blessing 2 - page 216
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Thoughts
All,
I've been very busy for almost 8 months now and haven't devoted a lot of time and effort towards Forex or Blessing. I have watched the market, however and look with dispair on what the regulators are trying to do. Here are some of my thoughts.
It doesn't matter what leverage you have on your account, Blessing is designed to trade in a grid with small lots. It's not how much margin you have out on a particular trade, it's the draw-down that could happen that will kill you. Blessing is designed to be a SAFE trader regardless of what the NFA imposes.
Blessing doesn't care about FIFO or hedging. It just simply works. Now, to that end, everyone thinks they have the golden BB for the settings in Blessing. Some have even modified Blessing to accommodate better entry timing (Stoch, Bollinger, etc...) but it's not the timing of the entry..it's the direction and whether or not it will retrace. This is what Blessing depends on, the retrace.
I have turned my live, $2500 account into $600 in 8 months using Blessing and other EAs. Every single one of the hits was a EP hit on the EU. Blessing was designed against the USDJPY so it's my own fault for "venturing out". But nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? I am still trading UJ with Blessing but have taken the original designed approach.
Chicago Rob has uncovered what has been covered up in these forum for quite some time. The original settings for UJ were an MA of 100 with the default grid. At the time, there was no AutoCal. I added AutoCal as a way for the grid to "breathe" ever so slowly. Again, it's just another setting that can be used. It doesn't have to be used but it can. What Rob has also revealed is that Blessing may work on the lower time-frames but only on the H1 UJ. I am still running UJ on the daily but I have turned off autocal and set my MA back to 100.
Holy Guy states that setting his trader to short only on the UJ is how he trades live but if you check, an MA of 100 on a daily chart will always tell Blessing to sell. An MA of 100 on the EU will always tell Blessing to Buy. It's the longer MA that holds true to what the market is truly bearing out! I will not trade Blessing with EU because of my 3 EP hits. It's too volatile and I'm too poor for another. I will go back to basics however, and run Blessing v5.2 with all of the safety features running (except POSL). My EP is set on to 65% and I'm only running Blessing on UJ.
Blessing won't be better with more indicators or fancier logic. It will be better if ran safely, on longer time-frames and with smaller portions and larger balances. Blessing does work, but like ALL OTHER EAs, it will fail to "guess" the market and that is why the safety features are in place in Blessing...so you can live to trade another day!
Happy Trading
v/r
Good to hear from you
Thanks for your comments, Iron. I really think Blessing
can be a serious tool, if due diligence is given to the
basics. My approach is to test '08 and '09 for any pairs
and settings that will pass without hitting EP. So far,
I've had success with usdjpy, eurgbp, and eurchf.
The next step is making some basic changes to lower
the DD as far as possible. I accidentally discovered,
during one of my tests, that usdjpy did better on the
H1 chart. The same held true for eurgbp, which I am
trading with usdjpy on one of my live accounts.
Backtests are surely not the grail, but they do help to
find combinations with the most potential.
Following, are the three backtest charts, which represent
usdjpy, eurgbp, and eurchf, respectively. DD for usdjpy
was 27%, eurgbp was 29%, and eurchf was 21%. Usdjpy
was, by far, the best performer, so DD is not the be-all,
end-all, criterion.
Disregard the n/a modeling on the last chart - it's a glitch
in my tester.
Rob
Answering Felines question about calculator
i want to spread it as much as possible? and another thing. i know i can do this myself but i am probably to lazy and i also have some other things to do today, but could anyone post me one of those calculators / sheets ? i need a way to calculate how many pips i can survive against me with X ammount of money, with autocal off ? thanks.
Sure thing, Feline, look at Page 197 (blesslvltable.xls). All the things in yellow on the sheet can be modified and the excel will update all necessary cells. look at one of your previous baskets of trades and match up the numbers to make sure the sheet calculates them properly, it won't be 100% spot on but should be damn close. Another guy posted a risk assessor around the same time as mine, but his calculations are way off although I will say that his is prettier than mine as he mentioned. However, I always pick function over form.
You'll probably want to change the grid in the spreadsheet to be:
25
25
25
50
50
50
50
etc....
Goodluck Feline and feel free to pm me or post something if you had any questions about the excel sheet.
Iron! Its nice to hear from you and get your recent insight. I got into this whole automated forex thing late and I hadn't seen you post anything in a while, so I just wanted to give you my thanks.
Thanks!
Take Care Guys and Good Luck
Thanks for your comments, Iron. I really think Blessing
can be a serious tool, if due diligence is given to the
basics. My approach is to test '08 and '09 for any pairs
and settings that will pass without hitting EP. So far,
I've had success with usdjpy, eurgbp, and eurchf.
The next step is making some basic changes to lower
the DD as far as possible. I accidentally discovered,
during one of my tests, that usdjpy did better on the
H1 chart. The same held true for eurgbp, which I am
trading with usdjpy on one of my live accounts.
Backtests are surely not the grail, but they do help to
find combinations with the most potential.
Following, are the three backtest charts, which represent
usdjpy, eurgbp, and eurchf, respectively. DD for usdjpy
was 27%, eurgbp was 29%, and eurchf was 21%. Usdjpy
was, by far, the best performer, so DD is not the be-all,
end-all, criterion.
Disregard the n/a modeling on the last chart - it's a glitch
in my tester.
Robhi Rob,
Terrified about an EP hit I made a few mods to improve DD and am testing now. Would be great if I could test with your set files as I am only testing on EU which is the only pair I have had luck with (a few close calls however). On my live account I average 5%/month. Appreciate if you could share you set files.
sean
hi Rob,
Terrified about an EP hit I made a few mods to improve DD and am testing now. Would be great if I could test with your set files as I am only testing on EU which is the only pair I have had luck with (a few close calls however). On my live account I average 5%/month. Appreciate if you could share you set files.
seanAll sets go on H1 charts. To mimic the DD, etc., you will need to input
$10K for 10-cent pips, at .01 lots(Alpari, etc.). I would not recommend
trying to use anything but a dedicated Alpari UK terminal for backtests.
All sets go on H1 charts. To mimic the DD, etc., you will need to input
$10K for 10-cent pips, at .01 lots(Alpari, etc.). I would not recommend
trying to use anything but a dedicated Alpari UK terminal for backtests.Awesome. Will update you as I go.
Cheers
sk
Set Files
Rob,
I see you're right back to basics....good job testing! Every set file is the same; MM is turned off, lots are set to .01, AutoCal is off, LAF is 1, GAF is 1 (doesn't matter with AutoCal off) and MA is 100.
This intuitively makes sense. With MA of 100 on an H1 chart, the look-back for MA is 100 candles or 100 hours or roughly a week. On the Daily chart, the look back is 100 days or roughly 12 weeks! You've still managed to find a way to making Blessing responsive with a higher MA.
The Daily chart swung a 100 MA very rarely and if you look, will always be selling at the moment on UJ. A 100 MA on the EU still isn't quite enough for the volatility of the EU; it may need to be even higher to force all buys out of Blessing or just do the Holy Guy trick of Buy only on the EU.
I'm not sure who posted it but EG and EC were potentially good ranging pairs; the type of pairs that Blessing needs to get the required retrace and I believe you've found it. I couldn't get the same backtest results as you on my FXDD tester with Alpari data however, on the EG.
I've taken way too many EP hits (WILL NOT TRADE LIVE WITH BLESSING) with EU but none with any other well tested pair (EG, UJ and EC). I take that back, the CAD pairs simply sucked and I dumped them early just because they trended way too long. I got a small EP hit on AUDCAD with a portion of 4...no huge hit. UJ remains a staple and is the only pair recommended by 9 out of 10 traders! (attempt at humor)
I may be going live with EG and EC just due to your testing. Blessing ALWAYS got my money back....BTW, Blessing 2 v5.2 remains the tried and true Blessing recommended on this thread. If anyone cares to use a modified version, for whatever reason, please go to those threads. I am not changing Blessing 2 again for indicators sake because I truly believe in this Blessing and how it enters and exists trades.
Happy Trading
v/r
Well actually, Jeff, the multiplier for EG is 1.3. I think it had a little trouble
at 1.4, so I lowered it. It seems to work well, also, at 1.25, but profits are
are smaller.
It probably doesn't make a big difference, but I got better DD numbers with
the H1 chart, at least with the '08 and '09 data.
I'm always wondering how well the settings will hold up, but they look good
over two very tough years. I try to not look at these things through the wrong
end of the telescope; I don't want to over-optimize. I'd rather have something
that has a broader scope, which can ride out big trends, even if it means lower
profits in the long run.
I've been playing around with EG for a while, but I think Chartwalker was
the one who really concentrated on the low ADR of EC. What we really want
with Blessing is good price action within a narrow channel. This will be enough
to get the retrace. I'd rather get a bunch of level 2 and 3 baskets, than to
sweat out level 9 and 10 baskets.
Regarding the backtests on EG, try a multiplier of 1.25. I only test on an
Alpari terminal, so that could make a difference, but I'm not sure.
For a while, UC was a decent pair for Blessing, and then it just started going
nuts. A lot of people took EP hits with that pair. I always thought AC was
better, but it started acting up, also. For me, UJ has been the most reliable,
so I tend to concentrate on it.
I am putting my own money on the line, since I switched all my pairs to
standard parameters, but with the H1 chart. I make no promises, though:
anything can happen in forex. For anyone else who wants to try the latest settings, I recommend putting them on demo, or a small account, just to
see how they play out with a live feed. Brokers *do* make a difference, and
I take that into consideration, since I only use IBFX. I haven't had any problems live-trading with them, except for one small instance, when a
basket closed for a very small loss(could happen with any broker). Another
positive for IBFX is the further lowering of spreads, which can only help.
I will keep a watchful eye on my accounts and report back from time to time.
Rob
A fixed EP
Hi Iron,
Glad to see you come back to this thread. One idea I want to point out, see if you guys think it worth to change or not, which is the EP. The current EP is based on the % of balance, if the balance grows up, the EP amount will increase accordingly, thus when hitting the EP, the loss will be more than the original EP.
How about we set a fixed EP, saying 500 usd for 1K account, which can cover 7 levels. One can change the amount with their own preferable levels. With the growth of balance, we still set the EP=500. In case we hit EP some time, we still have more money left in the account.
What do you guys think of this idea?
asam
Testing Thoughts
Rob,
I've been testing your settings most of the evening Rob and I have noticed one thing that I just can't get past: Blessing needs a HUGE account for the basic settings.
Based on markets two years ago, I was able to tweak Blessing settings using multiplier and AutoCal however, they simply don't cut it in today's environment. Why? The account balance was too small! Your backtests work with a huge account balances. In fact, it appears that the new defacto minimum per pair on a micro account (penny a pip) is $1000! (was $250).
In order to use money management based on this new standard, you would have to engage the LAF. Lets say you have a $3000 account and wish to trade Blessing on the UJ. You would need to set your portion to 3 (portions account into thirds). Since Blessing will calculate a micro lot size of .04 on a $1000 with money management engaged, you would need to set the LAF to .25 to drive the lot size back down to .01. This will now be the only way to use MM with the new defacto account size.
I'll leave the other math scenarios up to you but this appears to be what is happening with today's market. Finally, if you don't care about automatic money management, just ensure your portion on that pair is a minimum of $1000 on a micro and $10,000 on a standard with MM set off and lot size set to .01. Thoughts?
Happy Trading
v/r