Archive for October, 2010

What’s Coming This Week

Salve a tutti,

this week I’ll post some backtest comparison for all the new features so that you can decide which setting is the best. So that the week after I can release version 1.3 with you all knowing what are the pros and cons for each of them.

It’s taking a lot of time but I’m sure that results will be interesting to compare.

So stay tuned. Hopefully monday (tomorrow) I’ll be able to release the first set of backtests results.

P.S: Enjoy your creepy night! :D

P.P.S: I forgot in the previous posts that I added the option to use a fixed stop loss for each single order. I added ONLY because some of you asked and because it makes them feel better to know that there’s a “per trade” stop loss. Crescendo works using a totally different approach to “stop loss” and we know that well, so those intentioned to use the “per trade” stop loss have to know that they’ll go against the strategy and themselves doing that. So I wont’ give any support on that or any “suggested” value for it. You’ll be free to use it or not, and choose the value that you think suits better your tastes :)

2010
10/31
CATEGORY
Crescendo
44 comments

One Month

Salve a tutti,

it’s one month today that Crescendo is public.. “only” one month.

I’d like to take that occasion to thank you all the “Crescendinos” and particularly the people of the blog.

What’s is an arrival point for many (become public) for me is really a starting point. Looking at version 1.3 I can say that Crescendo is growing fast. Even faster than I expected.

I got so many ideas for improvements that I’ll code for months probably :) But after version 1.3 I want to put on hold developing and work on an “Crescendo’s Advanced Strategies” ebook to be given for free to all the clients. I need to wait for version 1.3 as some of them perform better with the new features.

Version 1.3 will be out in a couple of weeks. I want to finish some coding this week and starting from next week start the live tests to make sure everything is working as expected.

I hope it’s been an exciting months for you as well and that your trust and interest in automatic trading has grown along with Crescendo.

2010
10/28
CATEGORY
Crescendo
60 comments

GallantFX and IamFX VPS

Salve a tutti,

there are still problems with authentication when using the EA on GallantFX and IamFX VPSes.

They problem is that they are using a Linux/Unix platform to run MT4 (a MS Windows program) via a program called “Wine”. Wine is not a complete environment but a simulation. So we have to give it all it needs to run Crescendo. To authenticate Crescendo relies on a MS system library (DLL) that is in all the Windows machines but is not present in Wine. But that DLL also depends on other DLL so it’s a complicated stuff.

Actually I’m working on finding an alternative solution to make it work even for those using it with GallantFX/IamFX VPSes. Please give me still a few more days to finish developing the solution and testing it.

Kind Regards,
Andrea

2010
10/28
CATEGORY
Crescendo
61 comments

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

… and four? :)

Here are the pictures that show you the “trend score” based on the new MTF trend algorithm that will be introduced with version 1.3.

I coded an indicator that shows you the score with colors… you’ll see 3 levels of green and 3 levels of red. The brighter the color the stronger the trend.

For each side (long/green and short/red) we’ll have 3 possible scores: +5 +3 +1 for long, and -5 -3 -1 for short, from the stronger trend to the weaker trend.

So:

  • Bright Green = +5 strong long
  • Medium Green = +3 medium long
  • Dark Green = +1 weak long
  • Dark Red= -1 weak short
  • Medium Red = -3 medium short
  • Bright Red = -5 strong short

Here’s the picture of the last 3 months for GBPUSD:

Here’s the picture of the last 3 months for GBPJPY:

Here’s the picture of the last 6 1/2 months for GBPUSD:

Here’s the picture of the last 6 1/2 months for GBPJPY:

Click the images to view the full size pictures. They are very large but that way you can see details.

Actually I have the best results with entries with +3 or above for long and -3 or below for short. So we don’t enter if the trend is not al least at that “score”.

I hope you like it ;)

P.S. The pictures are taken from Alpari UK platform so midnight (the white vertical dotted line) refers to GMT+2.

P.P.S. Added the colored bars so that you can see trend +-3 and +-5 directly on the chart.

P.P.P.S. Added 6 1/2 months charts!

2010
10/27
CATEGORY
Crescendo
237 comments

Crescendo’s DD vs Other Commercial EAs DD

Salve a tutti,

I’d like to write a few things about Crescendo’s max draw down feature… The famous 30% :)

First thing is that if you don’t want to use 30% of your account you can reduce that number and trade using a smaller %. You simply need to adapt the lot_size and the target_profit accordingly.

But more important is that most of the commercial EAs use that levels of DD but they simply don’t tell you! They don’t have any kind of “safety net” that will keep you from waking up a day with a wiped account.

Many of them have a temporary DD that is much larger than 20% in most cases but because they use only one order to reach that DD that doesn’t mean that the impact is less :) We use “many” small lot size orders. You don’t have to count pips as “pip value” is important to take into account when evaluating performances. We collected more than 10800 pips in those 8 months. It’s a lot! Almost no other EA does like that. But it’s money what is really important. How much each of those pips was worth in dollars.

I have a “collection” of commercial EAs running on demo and live accounts and I got statistics on them that proof what I’m saying and I think that most of you can confirm that by direct experience. How many of you did suffer a loss on their account of more than 30%?

I could have released Crescendo without any “max_DD setting”, like all the commercial EAs. But Crescendo approach to trading is different in that also. We want you to always know what you are risking in total. Not on a single trade base that can lead to “infinite” loss. I know that it may sound “unfamiliar” and “scary” but the reason for that is to protect your money.

Since the beginning, more than one year ago now, when I code the Crescendo I do it for me as I trade my money with it exactly like you do. So I want it to be as much profitable, stable and safe as possible. With your help :)

There are a few people that are already helping me with some ideas and most of the new features come from “talking” with you. Thanks again!

2010
10/26
CATEGORY
Crescendo
Personal
464 comments

It’s Strange

… that the most of the “bad comments” in the blog come all from the same IP (someone from near Liverpool – UK) with different names and emails but more or less all saying the same thing.

I’m not going to delete them (for now), but also I’m not going to answer as they has been already answered more than once. They also came from someone that did not buy the Crescendo, but is so good to be able to judge it only by looking at the live statement.

Well, I’m here to improve Crescendo as I think there’s still room for that. And I’m spending most of the day doing that and helping people being profitable with it. If you got something interesting to say that can help me and the other people, you’re more than welcome.

2010
10/25
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
151 comments

Today Update

Salve a tutti,

today I woke up with a cold. So I’ll be working only a few hours to have a rest.

I’m monitoring the GBPJPY situation that is now as we wanted to be. Let’s see what happens.

Later today we’ll release the v1.2 with fix for those of you having authentication issues due to proxies. It’s not a mandatory update and we’ll send it only to those reporting that problem.

Backtests of version 1.3 are going well and the results are good. I’m not optimizing but only finding the best mix of features mainly based on my intuitions on how they should perform. I takes a lot of time as I’m doing it “visually” as there’s nothing better then looking at the EA trade to understand how it is working and if there’s room for improvements in the strategy.

Now I go. I’ll be back later.

2010
10/25
CATEGORY
Crescendo
Personal
8 comments

Lots Of Coding

Salve a tutti,

I’m working on version 1.3 as you know and most of the new strategies are almost ready.

I already coded:

  1. GMT based checks (and shift). So we no longer refer to broker server time but on GMT time
  2. A new strategy that adapts the “frequency” based on the DD level steps and step value (the check for opening new orders is made less frequently as the DD increases)
  3. MTF trend determination and trend strength threshold filter (the trend is determined based on 5 time frames and no longer in 1 time frame only, we have a “trend score” from -5 meaning all short, to +5 meaning all long)
  4. Close On Counter Trend strategy and trend strength threshold filter (if the trend reverses it closes all the open orders and opens in the new trend direction)
  5. Trend following strategy (opens a new order a set of orders is closed without waiting for the new check)
  6. Fibonacci martingale (orders are opened with increasing lot sizes based on the Fibonacci sequence)

What are the “benefits” that will come from every one of those options?

  1. GMT Time: we’ll have settings that are the same for all the users so that if we find a setting that perform well, we no longer need to do any calculation to adapt to our broker server time
  2. DD Based Frequency: this strategy will let the EA adapt the time to check for opening orders based on the DD level so that if the DD is low it’ll check more frequently to close orders faster and improve gains, when the DD is larger instead it’ll check less frequently to avoid opening unwanted positions so to lower the DD.
  3. MTF Trend: the MTF trend make the trend determination more reliable and it’ll also let the EA filter “non-trending” periods. This will lower the average DD as the orders are closed faster and opening an average lower number of orders. This let you determine a “trend score” that goes from -5 to +5.
  4. Order Close on Counter-Trend: this will let the EA cut the potential peaks of high DD. When the EA spots that the trend has changed it’ll close the pending open orders in loss and open a new order in the new trend direction. You can set the threshold (based on “trend score”) to determine if the trend is really changed or not.
  5. Trend Following: this opens a new order as soon a set of orders is closed. This can increase a lot the gains in situations like strong trends when orders are opened and closed in profit one after the other without waiting for the next check based on the frequency. This option id not needed in case the Frequency is automatically determined based on the DD level (point 2).
  6. Fibonacci Martingale: this options will increase the lot size for each order based on the initial lot_size and on the Fibonacci sequence. So if for example you start with 0.01 lots, the second order will be opened with 0.02 lots, the third with 0.03 lots, the forth with 0.05 lots, the fifth with 0.08 lots and so on. This lowers the time to close multiple orders as it lowers dramatically the number of pips needed to come back in profit but also increases the risks as it’ll use more lots.

As you can see this in more a version 2.0 :) I’m backtesting all of those options to find the best settings and most important the best mix of them all.

I’ll also start to forward test them this week. I’ll probably open some demo account with each new feature enable and publish results so that you can follow their performances as well.

Again… ALL THIS NEW FEATURES WILL BE OPTIONAL. It’ll take a lot of time before deciding to make any of them as default.

2010
10/24
CATEGORY
Crescendo
188 comments

Release Of Proxy Fix Version

Salve a tutti,

we just finished testing and in the weekend or Monday we’ll release the version 1.2b that fixes those having problems with authentication as they are behind a proxy.

This is not a mandatory update as it only solves the proxy problem.

If you don’t have problems with the authentication you don’t need to download and install it.

2010
10/22
CATEGORY
Crescendo
313 comments

Server Problems

Salve a tutti,

this morning we experienced a server maintenance issue with the forexcrescendo.com website.

This is the same server used by the Crescendo EA for the authentication process.

You should not had any problem with the Crescendo EA authentication if it is currently running as long as you did not restart it or change any parameter.

In any case I’m already working on hard coded stop loss and take profit so that in case things like that happen again won’t affect performances in any way.

2010
10/21
CATEGORY
Crescendo
159 comments
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