ICC Forex System testing

GMP

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My intention in this journal is to log my attempts to trade Forex markets using a strategy based largely on a couple of MT4 indicators I've developed as an adaptation of NVP's FXCorrelator http://www.trade2win.com/boards/forex-strategies-systems/71854-correlation-trading-basic-ideas-strategies-304.html.

The aim is to record entries & exits (as closely as possible to) as & when I make them, and at the end of the day post charts of any markets I trade. Hopefully this will help me stick as closely as I can to the rules of the strategy I've developed ("ICC" for want of a better name - short for Intraday Currency Comparison), as well as throw some light on its weaknesses.

As such, this journal will primarily be a personal tool to help me examine this sytem, and to see if market correlation is a valid tool to use on such a short time-frame. I don't have any Holy Grain secrets to share and I certainly won't be impressing anyone with my insights & knowledge. I just want an online record of trades which reflect the human elements of actual smalltime spreadbetting (such as time of day, news releases, varying personal attention, server downtime, etc.) far better than any amount of mechanical backtesting can. I'm also too prone to chopping & changing the way I approach trading, so a public journal may help me stick to one system long enough to see if it has any genuine merits.

I'm a hobbyist trader (aka amateur) so time constraints mean I won't catch every entry my system throws up, but I'll probably include all of them on any end-of-day charts for completeness (and to see what I could have won, in the immortal words of Jim Bowen). My notional trading hours are around 8.30 to 12.00 and 13.30 to 17.00 UK time, outside which I won't usually make any entries (unless I've been woken up early, or see a succession of ideal entries at 7am...). I focus mostly on the crosses between $,€,£ & Yen, use 5min charts and never leave a trade on overnight.

Obviously this is a work-in-progress and is as likely to fall flat on its face as anything else out there, so there's not alot of point making any trades based on my posts. If the system proves successful, I'll be astounded enough to think about sharing the details of it but otherwise there's not alot of point: I just want to see if it works at this stage.
 
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Not alot of direction this morning, despite £ & $ looking stronger than € & ¥ for much of it. Things now appear to be taking off with £ & ¥ swapping sides, and my system said sell ¥ against £+€ at 12.25, but I'm very dubious about trusting moves over lunch, so I'll see how it's panned out in just under an hour or so.
Still short €$ from 10.45 this morning, and £$ from noon (usually the latest I'll enter a morning trade).
 
Exited €$ 10 mins ago, still short cable and now wishing I'd taken the ¥ shorts too.
 
Very probably closing cable short at the end of this 5m candle.
 
€$ signal possibly coming up.
Lunchtime Yen shorts that I didn't take would've bagged 29 pips (£¥) & 6 pips (€¥). Not sure what to make of that.
 
2 positions open at mo' - short $¥ and long €£. I don't like trading either of these crosses, but if a system's valid, it ought to work on the trickier pairs too so you may as well include them.
 
Probably no entries 'til the Canadian data at half past now.
 
dollar itching to fall, gold apparently not itching to rise...
 
That's the €£ trade dead, also break-even less the spread.
This system has a second, riskier entry strategy, and if those two trades are anything to go by, doubling the risk by using it on €£ & $¥ isn't going to be very successful.
 
right, a Buy in €$, 1.3609
...also in €£ at 0.8840 but I wasn't quick enough on that
 
€$ exited for loss of 18 pips, (€£ for another break-even)
 
got one last trade on here, selling $¥ in the (probably vain) hope that it'll have one more little drop down to where it was at 6am... might just be enough strength left in the Yen, but everything else looks flat
 
got one last trade on here, selling $¥ in the (probably vain) hope that it'll have one more little drop down to where it was at 6am... might just be enough strength left in the Yen, but everything else looks flat

Nope, pulled it for 8 pip profit - $'s looking too strong and gold's falling back again.
 
First EOD pip results:
£$ +11
€$ +2
€£ +5
£¥ -12
€¥ -11
$¥ +5
for a grand total of zero pips! What a waste of bloody time! Would be a little profit if I'd taken the lunchtime trades, but I've no doubt that wouldn't always be the case.

All the entries & exits can be seen on the attached. The exit strategy clearly needs to be looked at again.

Key: Vertical line on the left is 8am UK time
Arrows are Entries, Ticks are successful exits, Crosses are unsuccessful exits, Thumbs
up & down are signals (and their exit) rejected through timing (e.g. lunchtime, or just before a major
economic data announcement)


[just noticed the last x on cable should actually be a tick]
 

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hey mate

good luck here......it is certainly much more challenging when you have a public log going

dont stray tooo far from the corrie site either........and remember we (hopefully) have a private members club coming where I need your expetise to help develop it and police the action once I load up the core systems

Neil
 
hey mate

good luck here......it is certainly much more challenging when you have a public log going

dont stray tooo far from the corrie site either........and remember we (hopefully) have a private members club coming where I need your expetise to help develop it and police the action once I load up the core systems

Neil

Thanks Neil - blimey, you get up early!
I'll be happy to add any "expertise" to the Corrie club if I ever find any:LOL:!Hopefully this experiment will throw some light on how tenable my ideas are as regards using it.

Three Yen sell signals at 8.05 this morning, suggesting I should get my act together half an hour earlier than my usual 8.30 start. Could've closed them all at 8.50 for around 100 pip profit and gone back to bed for the day!
 
trying to judge when a retrace becomes a downtrend is one of the trickier aspects of trading - €£ currently at the point where it's either going to bounce or continue down
 
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