The Legend of The Gambler - page 10
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Grids can be powerful and gobble up a lot of pips, but it can also be a Chinese water torture device when you don't know what you are doing. The swap and spread is never in your favor, and that's how the brokers win. The brokers just salivate when they see these huge grids building, first they love all the spreads being banked. And they know that eventually, when the grid gets too big, the investor is too deep in the knees to close it out, and they have you by the balls with the swap...and finally for the finishing move, they can spike the market temporarily to trigger a margin call based on their rules of liquidation. I do not mess with the grid unless it is set up properly, and I know exactly how to maintain it.
Running a grid like it was some kind of edge is for fools, and we all know what happens to fools and their money.
Although I do plan on using a grid on short term high profit high risk scenarios. But the risk to ruins is very high. If one can accept that fact, and understand it is purely gambling, then that's fine.
^Oh well, no biggie. I can probably patch something together that might work. It would not require a DLL, just a global variable.
^ M'fing double tops and double bottoms are no longer respected. I feel like Rodney Dangerfield. So now I'm holding the bag like a nub screaming at my screen. FOR GOD SAKES, RESPECT THE LINE! DON'T YOU DARE CROSS THAT LINE! AWWWHHHH!!!
BTW, the TA still works OK. Made me sweat a little bit (had drawdown of -$2K), and I could have gotten out a little later with more profit. But I'm just glad it's over. It was not a very smooth series of trades.
They never make it easy. Back in black again though.
RESPECT THE LINE!
Account #1 Summary (Post Date):
Deposit/Withdrawal: 20 000.00
Balance: 31 815.22
Equity: 31 815.22
Manually trading the double top congestion on Swissie, and the reverse head n shoulder on the Euro. Wish me luck.
More losses. Ugh.
Trend following during chop is just no fun. I guess it's back to see Johnnie for me.
Account #1 Summary (Post Date):
Deposit/Withdrawal: 20 000.00
Balance: 34 608.26
Equity: 34 405.00
My first attempt at coding the Basket Trading strategy (as I had mentioned earlier) was an utter failure during testing. Not performing as I had intended. I had to take it down, and plan to re-code again in the future.
I'm working out the bugs of my own hack job.
I think I'm at the point where it will actually open trades. 
Unfortunately, during testing, it only opened 4 trades out of the 14 it was suppose to open. No biggie...slowly getting there is half the fun.
I actually learned a great deal about custom indicator programming with how to pass the buffer to the screen, and using the iCustom function to reference an indicator value from the main program.
And I still do not understand why people make it so difficult with this method. It should be kept simple just as it was intended. I guess it is just human nature to reinvent the wheel.
UPDATE: LOL, the demo account was blown up in less than 6 hrs of testing. Back to the lab. Sigh.
Okay, I just looked at Mr. M's new scalper, and I'm not going to lie...I'm quite envious. I don't have the capacity to develop a scalper.
I've been trying to branch out to other strategy types in an effort to spread out the risk of my portfolio. I've wrecked my brains to figure out how to build a scalper profitably...especially with an automated solution. Every new strategy I create always becomes a trend following type of strategy when I'm done with it. It doesn't matter if it is a grid or basket, it always becomes a trend following type of strategy...so instead of being the edge, it has become just an entry vehicle to my trending following ways.
I'm not too happy about that. It feels like I'm a one trick pony.
I have a few more things left to do before I really dedicate myself to tackling a non-trend following strategy. I need to tweak my EURGBP strategy and debug 2 basket strategies. I also need to finish some additions to my high risk, high return strategy based on pyramiding, the closure logic is still missing.
On a brighter note, my 2nd account was funded today with $5k. This account, I'm going to be more risky with it. I'll probably fire it up by end of the week.
The Euro has been chopping within 100 pips range for 3 days now.
Did I mention how much I hate range?
The market faked the breakout to the top, then came back down and faked a breakout to the bottom. Now we are heading back up into the top of the range.
I gave it some thought, and then I put in an application to open another account.
I figure if I'm going to have a high risk, high return account, I might as well open a low risk, low return account.
In this new account, I'm going to practice the turtle method. Not the infamous Turtle Trading strategy, but a very slow methodical earner...trading what else...trend following of course (so in a sense, it is kinda like the Turtle Trading system).
No grids, no crazy baskets, no martingale, just simple trades that will make money in trends and lose money in chop. Breakout! I will be happy to see 15%-20%+ ROI annually. Sure as hell beats what the CD's are paying nowadays, 5%-6%.
I've codenamed the 2 accounts as a joke: Tortoise and Hare.
So I will have a Tortoise and a Hare in the game, I like stacking the odds in my favor. Slowly building out my diversification plan. The Tortoise and the Hare accounts will be linked, so one will really ever get too far ahead or behind of the other. I will balance the 2 accounts on a quarterly basis. I don't expect the Tortoise account to be funded until next year, there is too much expenses and events happening for the rest of the month. Hopefully the Hare account won't blow up before I fund this new account.
A good tool to keep oneself organized is a TO DO list, especially when you are tweaking and programming multiple projects. Sometimes, I just zone out because I can't remember what I have to do next since there are so many things that needs attention. Debugging this, debugging that, putting closure logic on this script, testing that script on demo, funding account, etc. etc.
I also keep a reminder of strategies that I find on the internet that I really want to take a deeper look at, or even build a strategy around.
For instance, I have at least 12 different things I need to do currently. But if you ask me list them, I can probably only remember 5 off the top of my head.
Therefore, I use a TO DO list. I still carry a paper notebook and pen everywhere I go, but I also use an online TO DO list, which has proven invaluable to me to keep myself up-to-date and efficient with my time. The list can be loaded as the computer background.
To do list, simple, easy, fast, sharable: Ta-da List
UPDATE: LOL, the demo account was blown up in less than 6 hrs of testing. Back to the lab. Sigh.
Finally debugged the basket strategy where at least I'm getting it to send orders in correctly, way too many flags/loops/calls. It it a major resource hog. I fixed the problem, but I still do not understand why it didn't work with the original method. Whatever.
I may not be able to run this thing with the amount of demos I have running simultaneously.
I'm just glad the first phase of building the foundation is over. I'm sure there will be more bugs that will pop up over time.
But at least now, I can start to evaluate the strategy.
/cross one off the list
...I don't expect the Tortoise account to be funded until next year, there is too much expenses and events happening for the rest of the month. Hopefully the Hare account won't blow up before I fund this new account.
I woke up this morning, and had a brilliant realization (to myself). I'm going to be conservative. So the recently funded account that was suppose to trade the high risk high return strategies (grid, martingale, pyramid, etc etc) will now become the Tortoise account, and the next account created will be the Hare account. I had given it some thought, and I didn't want the Hare account to blow up before I can even get the next account going. The $147.29 was left over from my previous venture into high risk high return strategy where I had blown up. So it isn't all fun and peaches around here. Trading is a tough business, and it requires a lot of respect and planning. I think I made the right decision today to go low risk low return first.
So today, I fired up the Tortoise account with the "slow, methodical, grandma speed, trend following, breakout loving" strategy.
Tortoise Account Summary (Post Date):
Deposit/Withdrawal: 5 147.29
Balance: 5 147.29
Equity: 5 147.29