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Combined auto-entry and manual-exit strategy as a money management device


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Combined auto-entry and manual-exit strategy as a money management device

  #1 (permalink)
 
nanobiotech's Avatar
 nanobiotech 
Brisbane, Australia
 
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Hi everyone

I have been a regular reader of this forum and Mike's blog for quite some time now and have been enthusiastically trying many of the great indicators posted - particularly Big Mike's and Sharky's. I am hugely grateful to Mike for setting this forum up and the talented people that freely contribute to it as I am certain that what I have learned and continue to learn is gradually transforming me from a hopeless amateur paralysed by fear of my own incompetence into a confident trader. Fortunately I have been very conservative with my trading and have been and remain in sim trading for 9 months to date with only the occasional live trade, therefore I have so far retained my (very) modest initial trading next egg.

Slowly a system that may (big emphasis on "may") prove to be profitable for me. I acknowledge that what works for me may not work for others as that seems to be a common experience among traders.

I noted that some traders on this forum use an auto strategy combined with discretionary trading and that appealed to me as taking entries has proven to be a pychological barrier.

My auto-entry strategy is dirt-poor simple: I use only the ADXVMA-internal_SharkyPkg indicator (Period = 7) and take longs when it is higher than it was 3 bars ago and shorts when it is lower than it was 3 bars ago. The indicator generally trends up or down or goes horizontal, therefore a change over three bars gives a useful signal. This is easy to set up using the wizard as I don't have the time to learn to write code effectively - I added a doorbell chime for an audio signal as well. I trade only 1 contract at present and use a 16 tick profit target. I don't presently use a stop as trades are automatically closed when reversals occur, but an 8-16 tick stop could (probably should) be used. I optimised and back-tested the auto-reversal strategy as much as I could on multiple instruments and % profitable varied from low 50s to about 70% - which of course does not correlate well with real time trading, but it provides a relative measure when assessing the variable settings. I reasoned that if I manually exit using a simple set of signals I should significantly reduce the magnitude of the losing trades without reducing the profitable trades too much.

For my manual exits I use the ECO2New2 (default settings) and the DoubleMAPaint_SharkyPkg (16EMA/16EMA and 36EMA/36EMA) indicators. When an entry occurs and the 16EMA DMA and ECO are in conflict, I immediately close the position, often for a few ticks profit or 1-3 ticks loss. When the DMA and ECO are aligned I let the trade run - I hit the 16T profit target more than occasionally but more often I manually close the position to preserve profits. When the ECO2New2 turns yellow, I close the position.

It's a very simple method and so far profitable (yielding about +$400-$600 for a 3-4 hour day for 1 contract). I have 6 charts open (I prefer the currency futures as I live in Australia and these usually trade well in the late pre-market time period, but ES and ZN are also good), which is OK on a 22" screen, and I prefer to use Point-O tick charts as they seem to work best. Currently I use 10tick Point-O but I am also trying 4tick Point-O charts. Generally I don't have more than 3 trades in different markets open simultaneously, which is OK to manage.

For me this simple method works because I can more effectively manage my money by terminating bad trades quickly and dispassionately (not letting the losers run more than a few ticks), and feeling comfortable about taking a profit early even though I usually leave a lot of profit behind - trading multiple markets stops me pondering on that. It has taken me a few days to become disciplined following these simple rules, but it was not hard to do.

In a sense this trading method is a bit like picking up rocks in a tidal pool - quickly look under one and if there's nothing of interest there, carefully replace it and try another one. Soon something really interesting (Crikey! - What a beauty!) will be found worthy of a closer look.

I think any auto strategy can probably be used together with discretionary exits in this way and I expect many traders do this successfully.

I look forward to hearing about similar methods.

Cheers,
Graeme

A screen pic is attached from today's 6E.

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  #2 (permalink)
 
Big Mike's Avatar
 Big Mike 
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Graeme,

Nice post. I've moved it to its own topic.

Mike

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  #3 (permalink)
 
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 jackyd 
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Graeme, sounds like you've got a nice system there.

Question, what are the Point-O charts you're using? Is that a custom chart type that's different than a regular tick chart in some way?

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  #4 (permalink)
 
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 nanobiotech 
Brisbane, Australia
 
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jackyd View Post
Graeme, sounds like you've got a nice system there.

Question, what are the Point-O charts you're using? Is that a custom chart type that's different than a regular tick chart in some way?

Hi jackyd

Big Mike submitted the zip file for Point Original Bars (Point-O bars) in this Forum in Downloads>NinjaTrader>Miscellaneous together with a brief explanation. I'm a great fan of range charts but I find Point-O charts to be consistently a little better when back-testing various strategies.

Graeme

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  #5 (permalink)
 
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 jackyd 
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Awesome, thanks. Totally missed that one.

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  #6 (permalink)
 
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 Peter 
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Thanks Graeme,

especially for providing the details and clear description.
I just printed it out to not to forget to look at it in detail.

Rgds Peter
- an almost fellow Brissy person -

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  #7 (permalink)
 
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 sudhirc 
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hi,

Can some one please guide me to a post or share a shell script that does auto entry and manual exits. I want to try a strategy of mine where i want to enter a trade automatically when my conditions are met and i want to control on when to come out.

Thank you.

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  #8 (permalink)
 
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 Xav1029 
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sudhirc View Post
hi,

Can some one please guide me to a post or share a shell script that does auto entry and manual exits. I want to try a strategy of mine where i want to enter a trade automatically when my conditions are met and i want to control on when to come out.

Thank you.

Check this

I was planning on doing automated exits with manual entries, but never moved forward with it.

London Calling
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  #9 (permalink)
 traderlange 
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I downloaded it while back. And have been developing some advanced trade management beyond the current sma/ema trails. I've added some more few trails, exit rules (usually ma slope based) and $profit targets (all customizable via chart trader). So for I have SuperTrend,Chandelier Stops,three bar trail, atr, tick, adaptive laguerre, and Instantaneous Trend (and a couple custom) stops/trails. It's not production ready though still buggy from my additions, as I've been just so busy. But what it posted now is brilliant, the developer did a great job to start a manual entry/automated exit framework to build on. I def check it out.

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  #10 (permalink)
 THEHAWKE 
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This looks good but seems to require that you fire up the Chart Trader to see the indy. Is there a way to bring up the trading panel as a standalone panel without invoking the chart trader? The reason being is that I want to also run a strategy while this panel is up . And we all know that NT has problems with strategies and ChartTrader running on the same chart.

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