[DARWIN] TTD by Captain Currency

[SteadyWins]

Hey Steady,

I could be wrong but I reckon a low balance won't negatively effects the Rs score (as long as the balance remains stable). My Rs score got butchered in March when I made a large withdrawal but I didn't bring the risk fully back in line with the new balance 😥

I mean, if you have a low balance and you use a variable pips stoploss.

In case of a 150 EUR balance, suppose day 1, you have a 22 pips stoploss, and your calculated lotsize is 0,0151. It will be rounded to 0,02.

Day 2, due to volatility reasons, you have a 24 pips stoploss with a calculated 0,0138 lotsize. It will be rounded to 0,01.

In this example, on the second day, you trade half the risk compared to day 1.

Now in case of a 1500 EUR balance, suppose day 1, you have a 22 pips stoploss, and your calculated lotsize is 0,151. It will be rounded to 0,15.

Day 2, due to volatility reasons, you have a 24 pips stoploss with a calculated 0,138 lotsize. It will be rounded to 0,14.

In this second example, on the second day, you trade just 6,66% lower risk compared to day 1, while in the first example, it was 50% lower risk compared to day 1, with the same lotsize rules, but due to rounding differences.

So the second example, with 1500 EUR balance, will have a higher Rs score than the example with 150 EUR balance.

All this does not apply if you use a 150 EUR balance (kept stable), always use a (say) 20 pips stoploss and always use a (say) 0,02 lotsize. In fact, you will have a very good Rs score in that case.

 

[Captain Currency]

So the second example, with 1500 EUR balance, will have a higher Rs score than the example with 150 EUR balance.

All this does not apply if you use a 150 EUR balance, always use a (say) 20 pips stoploss and always use a (say) 0,02 lotsize. In fact, you will have a very good Rs score in that case.

Yep I see (and agree) with what you're saying in eg. 2 @SteadyWins

A bit of a rant ... like many other I'd say, we've have to adjust how we'd normally trade our own account versus trading a Darwin regarding position sizing / leverage.

Pre-Darwinex days I liked to either have a 20 pip or a 50 pip stop-loss on my trades - depending on the type of set-up. The 20 p SL might have been approx 2% risk and the 50 p SL might have also been 2% - I'd simply adjust the lot sizes. When trading a Darwin that choice is more or less taken away from you, choose only one size SL if you want to keep Rs stable.

IMO adjusting position size has a place in trading when carried out in a sensible way. But when trading a Darwin, it has to be done in a very black and white way, not much room for creativity / discretion.

 

[CavaliereVerde]

Pre-Darwinex days I liked to either have a 20 pip or a 50 pip stop-loss on my trades - depending on the type of set-up. The 20 p SL might have been approx 2% risk and the 50 p SL might have also been 2% - I'd simply adjust the lot sizes. When trading a Darwin that choice is more or less taken away from you, choose only one size SL if you want to keep Rs stable.

You can still do the same and var will stay stable.

 

[SteadyWins]

Yep I see (and agree) with what you're saying in eg. 2 @SteadyWins

A bit of a rant ... like many other I'd say, we've have to adjust how we'd normally trade our own account versus trading a Darwin regarding position sizing / leverage.

Pre-Darwinex days I liked to either have a 20 pip or a 50 pip stop-loss on my trades - depending on the type of set-up. The 20 p SL might have been approx 2% risk and the 50 p SL might have also been 2% - I'd simply adjust the lot sizes. When trading a Darwin that choice is more or less taken away from you, choose only one size SL if you want to keep Rs stable.

IMO adjusting position size has a place in trading when carried out in a sensible way. But when trading a Darwin, it has to be done in a very black and white way, not much room for creativity / discretion.

View attachment 289140

It could be true, what you say that trading a fixed lotsize and a fixed account balance (kept fixed) leads to the highest Rs. In fact, I think it is maybe the best way to get a high Rs.

However, I very much prefer volatility based stopsizes, with stopsize adjusted lotsizes. I think if done consequently, this also leads to a Rs high enough.

 

[Muiris]

It could be true, what you say that trading a fixed lotsize and a fixed account balance (kept fixed) leads to the highest Rs. In fact, I think it is maybe the best way to get a high Rs.

However, I very much prefer volatility based stopsizes, with stopsize adjusted lotsizes. I think if done consequently, this also leads to a Rs high enough.

if you have a large account size , say 1,000 0r even 10,000 and bet 0.01 lot. any change in your balance will be negligible . so you could use 20 or 50 pip stop. the darwin should have stable risk and trade at 6.5% var

does this make sense @CavaliereVerde ?

 

[Captain Currency]

You can still do the same and var will stay stable.

But would it not "confuse" the algos, adjusting the lot size? I can see how the VaR (risk) would be the same because it's the same amount of risk per trade.

But let's say 20 pips is currently working out to be 0.40% on 0.05 lots. Now on a 50 pip SL you'd need to drop the lot size down to less than 0.02 lots to keep the risk similar to 0.40%.

My concern would be, will the algo know that the current trade is 0.02 lots (and not 0.04), I wouldn't want the Darwins P&L to show a loss of -0.80% if the 50 p SL was hit (instead of -0.40%). Then on the next trade if I adjust the lots back up to 0.04 lots, will a 20 pip gain be only worth +0.20% (instead of +0.40) ....

I think the changing of lot sizes will throw the algos off, I may be completely wrong and open to correction.

 

[Captain Currency]

if you have a large account size , say 1,000 0r even 10,000 and bet 0.01 lot. any change in your balance will be negligible .

Yep, I agree @Muiris, I think ZVQ trades on low VaR (1.27%) on his underlying account.

The problem is, if I lodge +10k tomorrow and drop the lot size right back down to 0.01 it will screw things up on the Darwin for a while. The Darwins return on winning trades will be less than what it is now (so will neg. return on losers).

 

[CavaliereVerde]

As @Muiris wrote.
Low var is easier to keep stable than high var.
With 150 at var 30% you need to deposit/witdraw every week .
One of the reason official darwins (DWC DWF DWZ) run at low var is that in that way they are "mainteinance free".

 

[Captain Currency]

Tuesday 13th Oct went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Usd.Cad -20 pips / -0.47%

Just the one trade today after a short break from the charts. The Usd.Cad seems to have gone into a bit of a range lately and our entry never caught any wind. Our SL at 20 was hit so, no cigar!

Overall Tuesday was a "soft day", TTD is currently at -0.47% for October.

 

[Captain Currency]

Wednesday 14th Oct went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Usd.Cad -4 pips / -0.09%

Trade 2
Usd.Cad +12 pips / +0.27%

Trade 3
Eur.Usd -1 pip / -0.02%

Usd.Cad initially came within a handful of pips of our TP and the SL (20 pips) was trailed-down. Price went against us so I thought it was best to take a small loss of 5 pips now rather than a bigger one later on, it would have lost the full 20 if I held onto it.

Trade 2 I knew the TP was going to be a bit shorter than normal on this trade but felt the set-up looked good. This pair has been tricky to trade and after a bit of toing and froing our TP was successfully reached.

Trade 3 a decent looking set-up but by 6 pm this trade had put on the brakes and wasn't doing much. I could either hold the position overnight (and pay rollover) or close it at the end of the European session for a minimum loss, I choose the latter.

Overall Wednesday was a "toing and froing day", TTD is currently at -0.35% for October.

 

[Captain Currency]

Thursday 15th Oct went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Eur.Usd -20 pips / -0.48%

Trade 2
Eur.Usd +10 pips / +0.23%

First trade of the day sunk like a brick, never moving in our direction (this can happen) and the SL at 20 was hit.

Trade 2 on the Eur.Usd was a really good set-up, price never went against our entry. I had a TP1 of 18 pips and a TP2 of 38 pips. I had decided pre-entry to let this trade run into TP2. TP1 would have easily been reached but our TP2 was probably a bit out of reach on the day. At the end of the session I had to take a modesty 10 pip gain, some days you're better off having a closer target.

Overall Thursday was a "man over board" type of day, TTD is currently at -0.56% for October.

 

[Captain Currency]

Friday 16th Oct went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Eur.Usd +8 pips / +0.20%

Just this one trade I liked the looks of, everything else didn't float my boat, too risky! In the end it turned out to be a very slow Friday. TP wasn't reached (after hours) in this trade, our entry was good and SL never came under pressure. At the end of the session I exited with a few positive pips.

Overall Friday was a "slow day", TTD is currently at -0.36% for October.

 

[Captain Currency]

Monday 19th Oct went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Usd.Cad +16 pips / +0.38%

A 3 Ducks trade set-up, I got a good read and a good entry on Usd.Cad today. The initial SL of 20 was trailed lower as price moved in our favour, we exited at +16 pips.

Overall Monday was a "quiet day", TTD is currently at +0.01% for October.

 

[Captain Currency]

Tuesday 20th Oct went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Usd.Cad +19 pips / +0.45%

Trade 2
Usd.Jpy -6 pips / -0.16%

Post-entry we seen a bit of price movement against our position but with the SL at 20 we'd have jumped out if it went further against us. Shortly afterward things settled down and price moved in our direction without any hiccups reaching the TP.

Trade 2 Usd.Jpy, a very slow pair over the past few days. The entry was good on this one and we moved into profit early on. With a SL at 20 and a TP at 18 time beat us and by the end of the session the trade was deemed "non-performing" and closed out for a small loss.

Overall Tuesday was a "moderate day", TTD is currently at +0.31% for October.

 

[trendie]

Good, solid, reliable performance there, Captain.

Just wondering; how long did you trade at Darwin before you get on anyones radar, and get funded?
How long have you been funded?
Does the funding stay fairly even, or are there noticeable fluctuations?

 

[Captain Currency]

Good, solid, reliable performance there, Captain.

Cheers @trendie, delighted to hear from you!

I changed around a few things at the start of September and the results have been not bad. Looking for those short-term moves rather than trying to ride a trend. I've also added a few mean revision / counter trend trade set-ups into my toolbox.

Just wondering; how long did you trade at Darwin before you get on anyones radar, and get funded?

I've been trading with them 4 years this month, Darwinex is a very large pond with thousands of traders, good luck getting noticed ...

How long have you been funded?

Not long, I think the one investor I have is my dear old mother, do you wanna be my 2nd?

Does the funding stay fairly even, or are there noticeable fluctuations?

Depends on the investor, the good ones will stay with you through thick and thin, others will jump ship when you have a losing month.

Chat soon,

Andy
Captain Currency

 

[Captain Currency]

Wednesday 21st Oct went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Eur.Usd -20 pips / -0.45%

Trade 2
Usd.Cad -20 pips / -0.50%

Trade 3
Usd.Cad -1 pips / -0.1%

A trade that was hard work from the get-go. Price pushed through the entry and backed off, then came back into the entry only to push off once again, similar price action I noticed about this time last month also. Even with an active trade management plan for trades that go like this, this trade just didn't want to work for us.

Trade 2 was on a different pair but it was very similar to the first trade, price pushing forward and backwards, missing our TP even when it was adjusted during the trade management phase.

Trade 3 a small bit of profit at the start but things slowed down towards the end of the European session and the trade was managed to minimise risk, we exited with a very small loss.

Back-to-back losses on Wednesday (never nice) but it just shows us that the market can have these fuzzy days. It would have been nice to get out of at least one of these trades at BE (we tried) but the market never obliged.

Overall Wednesday was a "desperado day", TTD is currently at -0.65% for October.

 

[Captain Currency]

Thursday 22nd Oct went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Usd.Cad -1 pips / -0.01%

Trade 2
Eur.Usd pips -20 / -0.51%

Needed to take a small loss on this trade after the trade management kicked in, post-entry our initial SL of 20 came under pressure and the TP of 18 would have been unlikely hit after such a drawdown.

Trade 2 on the Eur.Usd seemed like it could move in our direction but got a bit sticky post-entry, this seems to be the common theme over the past few days and the past 4 or 5 trades on TTD. This trade was allowed to run past the European close but this didn't make much difference, SL was reached.

Overall Thursday was a "long day", TTD is currently at -1.16% for October.

 

[Captain Currency]

Friday 23rd Oct went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Usd.Jpy -2 pips / -0.06%

Just one trade today but price soon drifted away from our entry. Later on in the day, price came back to our entry and also coming into the end of the session I decided to nip this trade for a small loss, didn't want to risk holding a position open over the weekend.

Overall Friday was a "lumbered" type of day, TTD is currently at -1.22% for October.

 

[Captain Currency]

Monday 26th Oct went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Eur.Usd -1 pip / -0.01%

Some days the market can be very slow, today was one of those days. This trade on Eur.Usd wasn't doing what we wanted and trade management kicked in at the end of the session, the trade was finally scratched for a small loss.

Overall Monday was a "waiting around" type of day, TTD is currently at -1.23% for October.