pin bar experiment

a thread to test the pin bar method of trading

anyone feel free to post a pinbar setup as long as the call is reasonably real time, just enough so you are not just blatantly scrolling through charts for pins that worked/failed 3 months ago

no need to tell anyone you are trading it for real or not, just post the thing. also no need to watch for EVERY PIN EVERYWHERE, this can be done in free time when you happen to spot a setup, that will get a random enough sample.

basic rules (plus additions after being schooled in pins) to keep it nominally fair are

i) a pin bar = a wick three times the length of the body and it
ii) occurs somewhere in a zone of significance = round number, s/r, fibs, whatever
iii) and extends out beyond the neighboring price action
iv) and has its high/low broken in the direction of the trade to "activate it"
v) a winning trade = price moves into profit a magnitude of at least the same length of the pin, ie. a 1:1 R if the stop were set at the pin's end and the entry were the break of the pin.
a losing trade = it gets "stopped out" at the pin's end before moving 1:1

MARKETS: eurusd, gbpusd, usdjpy, eurjpy, usdchf, audusd, usdcad, eurchf and eurgbp
TIMEFRAME: 1hr charts

data collected: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgAHZO294we8dGNvY0V1bzRBS2prQ1VGVUNScFlaOUE#gid=0

this thread is for setups and results and the keen knife of internet science, not for lulz or opinions or drama (newsflash: no one cares about your opinion)

results and conclusions done on whatever sample we get before the thread gets boring/locked/full of drama

edit: ok because apparently people CANNOT READ and still insist on posting opinions - i am not pro pinbar, i already posted in the majordutch thread my skepticism on pinbars, this thread is for DATA ONLY, then afterwards, the analysis/criticism/conclusion of the data. this is not a pro-pin or anti-pin thread.

Can I please suggest that the mods delete any posts that stray too far from topic.

good luck with the thread but if you are looking at pin bars you are going down a blind alley.

I propose that any pro pin bar vendors should be banned from posting as should people just coming in to bash pin bars. basically pin bars or GTFO.

It'll be a nice and subjective analysis of their validity.

scose-no-doubt said:

It'll be a nice and subjective analysis of their validity.

Click to expand...

If you want to be really subjective then you really should check out the thread at FF where they where forward testing pin bars that formed on randomly generated charts.

IIRC they where trading them profitably. I'll say no more as this is the pin bar circle jerk thread.

squall321 said:

also no need to watch for EVERY PIN EVERYWHERE, this can be done in free time when you happen to spot a setup, that will get a random enough sample.

Click to expand...

If you think about this carefully you will realise this will not be a random sample. suggest you google 'The Belief Disconfirmation Paradigm'. Take any instrument you want and backtest for 10 years taking random pins, you will see they don't work. I can only suggest that you are looking for something that doesn't exist. I am not sure if you have worked out yet but the whole retail trading industry has been set up to extract money from the retail trader. You need to work out how the bigger players and market makers are profiting from the retails traders and join them.

God bless.

Here's one.

data

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgAHZO294we8dGNvY0V1bzRBS2prQ1VGVUNScFlaOUE

YouAreNotFree said:

Here's one.

Click to expand...

is that the DAX futures?

pitscalper said:

You need to work out how the bigger players and market makers are profiting from the retails traders and join them

Click to expand...

I doubt they move markets and make their billions from mugging off retail traders.

nasdaq 1h

squall321 said:

nasdaq 1h

Click to expand...

failed

YouAreNotFree said:

Here's one.

Click to expand...

Winner winner Chicken dinner.

@pitscalper.... Yep

Pin bars won't work very well if tested 1:1 risk reward, at least not on my backtests. Nor would many profitable trading strategies because that's not where it is

But if you're going to try to do the test properly, then I don't think an inside bar, and a pin bar which didn't break/barely broke (the first two calls here) are really doing the test justice

Shakone said:

Pin bars won't work very well if tested 1:1 risk reward, at least not on my backtests. Nor would many profitable trading strategies because that's not where it is

But if you're going to try to do the test properly, then I don't think an inside bar, and a pin bar which didn't break/barely broke (the first two calls here) are really doing the test justice

Click to expand...

well these are the rules I got from the trader_dante post, who did in fact throw down the gauntlet a couple of days ago asking people to test if the thread still works, but, the post is about 200 pages long (when it even gets started), so if some pin expert would like to clarify the exact rules then i'm more than open to hear them

What's the rationale behind a pin bar? What is it about player interaction around it that should validate it as a strategy?

Genuinely curious...

I guess these would qualify as your more typical pin bars people would look to trade ( J16 types etc).

Brent daily



USD/CAD daily

Shakone said:

Pin bars won't work very well if tested 1:1 risk reward, at least not on my backtests. Nor would many profitable trading strategies because that's not where it is

Click to expand...

well i changed the rules for the pin, don't know what to do about the 1:1 though, it is what majordutch defined in his thread so i'm going from that. plus i know pins are said to reverse the trend, and i would say that a countertrend should at least last one bar length and that's being generous.

any time-frame?

scose-no-doubt said:

any time-frame?

Click to expand...

yes, but mention the tf in the call, then afterwards results can be separated and compared by timeframe