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[DARWIN] TTD by Captain Currency

Hello friends,

Monday 21st Sept went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Usd.Jpy -20 pips

Trade 2
Usd.Cad -20 pips

Trade 3
Usd.Jpy +18 pips

A bit of a disappointing day that could have easily been an up day if the market was just 2 pips kinder to us! Our first trade on the Usd.Jpy just got stopped out by 2 pips only to see it go strongly in the direction we wanted. If this trade would have stayed in-play we would have not entered trade 2 Usd.Cad.

Trade 2 Usd.Cad initially gave us about 5 pips of profit (not enough) but then turned against us quickly for a 20 pips loss. Usd.Cad had a big up day today, I thought it would have stalled and moved down, but it didn't. Taking a 20 pip loss on this trade was the correct thing to do as it could have been a much bigger loser.

Trade 3 Usd.Jpy was a re-entry, entering in around the same area as trade 1. Trade 3 turned out to be a winner, hit our entry and never looked back, heading straight for our profit target. I only wished I'd have stayed with this trade a bit longer, moving my stop-loss up and maybe taking 30, 40 or 50 pips of profit, hindsight is wonderful!

Overall Monday was an "unlucky day" but to walk away with a nett 1 loss (loss / loss / win) is not as bad as it might have been.

Chat soon,

Andy
Captain Currency
 
Tuesday 22nd Sept went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Usd.Cad -20 pips

Trade 2
Eur.Usd +16 pips

Trade 3
Eur.Usd -2 pips

A choppy start to the day, our first trade; a 3 Ducks momentum type of trade on the Usd.Cad easily sailed into profit straight away, a clean breakout with our 20 pip TP in sight. The market then hesitated and rolled back lower by about 20 pips. At that point I needed to do a bit of trade management and our TP was adjusted, lowered down to the recent high which if hit again would have seen us walk away with about +10 pips of profit, not to be sniffed at for a trade "gone-off". Unfortunately this trade didn't want to work for us and the 20 pip SL was hit. Later on in the day Usd.Cad did move back in the direction of the 4hr up trend.

Trade 2 Eur.Usd, I got a good read on this pair and waiting on the pullback payed off. With the previous trade losing, the plan was to take the profit at TP1 and move on to the next trade (I only ever have one trade open at a time). The TP was hit but in the end this trade could have gave us another 20 pips of profit with the TP2 easily been reached, good to know for next time!

Trade 3 Eur.Usd was an exhaustion type of trade, playing for some type of soft reversal on late afternoon profit-taking. Our entry was good and hit at about 4:30 pm, our 20 pip SL was safe. We did initially see a move in our favour by about +10 pips, our TP1 was at +20 pips. Over the next hour and a half this trade went a bit up and a bit down and by 6 pm (my finishing time) I closed the trade out for a -2 pip loss.

Overall Tuesday was a "bit of this, bit of that" type of day, call it a breakeven day even though we gave the market back 6 pips.

t2w.jpg
 
Wednesday 23rd Sept went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Eur.Usd +18 pips / +0.44%

Trade 2
Usd.Cad +18 pips / +0.40%

I always like to start the day with a bowl of Weetabix and a winning trade! Our first trade a 3 Ducks momentum trade in the direction of the 4hr down trend on Eur.Usd moved in our favour once we entered, never going negative (see max. positive / negative excursion per trade graph below). TP1 was set at 18 pips from our entry and in hindsight this TP was in a good spot, this pair bottomed out shortly after. Even if I had decided to run this trade into TP2 (28 pips) or TP3 (48 pips) I would have trailed the SL down ensuring we didn't lose.

Trade 2 Usd.Cad, was a counter trend trade, I felt I had a good read on Usd.Cad all day long and was confident to trade against the up trend. I spotted an area of weakness and traded it to the short side. After the entry we almost hit out TP, just stopping 5 pips shy of it. We had to wait a bit longer before our TP was hit, drifting slighter higher against our entry for a little bit.

Overall Wednesday was a "good day", TTD is currently up about +1.5% for September.

t2w.jpg
 
Thursday 24th Sept went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Eur.Usd +6 pips / +0.15%

Our first (and only) trade of the day was on Eur.Usd, it was the hardest 6 pips of profit I've worked for in a long time! Reason been, soon after our entry the market drifted into a sideways phase, we of course got stuck in the middle. Our 20 pip SL did come under some pressure but we held on. At this point our TP needed to be revised down from 18 pips to just 6 pips, call it trade management - something that saves our skin on days like this. By late afternoon / early evening we finally seen price move out of the range and hit our TP for +6 pips. Our initial TP of 18 pips would have been reached (eventually) but by 6 pm it was time for me to close the charts and go for a long walk ...

Overall Thursday was a "difficult day", TTD is currently up about 1.67% for September.

thurt2w.jpg
 
Friday 25th Sept went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Usd.Cad +5 pips / +0.10%

Just the one trade, a counter-trend trade on Usd.Cad. We did get to within 50% of our TP early on but buyers stepped back in and pushed price against us. Our 20 pip SL kept us in the trade even though price did come very close to touching it at one stage. By 8 pm on Friday evening I closed the trade out for a handful of pips, no point in holding this trade open over the weekend.

Overall Friday was a "slow day", TTD is currently up about +1.77% for September.

t2wfri.jpg
 
Monday 28th Sept went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Usd.Cad +18 pips / +0.42%

Trade 2
Usd.Jpy +15 pips / +0.34%

A trade against the 4hr up trend on Usd.Cad, today I felt I had a fairly good read on this pair as it went through the phases. SL (20) never came under too much pressure and when we got going the SL was pushed down to BE before our TP was reached. A good exit because this pair resumed its uptrend soon after our exit.

Trade 2 Usd.Jpy, a 3 Ducks momentum trade with the trend on Usd.Jpy. I waited until the end of the session before I found a set-up I liked. A safe 15 pip TP was all I was after on this short term trade. Our SL (20) never came under any pressure, plain sailing with the wind at our backs all the way to the TP.

Overall Monday was a "trouble-free day", TTD is currently up about +2.54% for September.

t2wmon.jpg
 
Tuesday 29th Sept went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Usd.Cad -5 pips / -0.11%

Trade 2
Usd.Jpy +17 pips / +0.40%

Trade 3
Eur.Usd -15 pips / -0.36%

I was looking for some revision on the Usd.Cad but instead I got whipped and an early exit (for a small loss) was needed. An initial SL of 20 and a TP1 of 18 pips, this trade went in our favour early on but then went aggressively against us putting the SL under pressure. Trade management (TM) needed to be employed at this point, I adjusted the TP back into the entry zone (breakevenish). Confusing as this may all sound, it was the correct action to take, in the end instead of losing the full amount of 20 we lost just -5 pips. After we exited our position this pair headed up again and would have taken out our SL for the full amount.

Trade 2 Eur.Usd, a deep retracement on Eur.Usd had me looking for a trade back in the direction of the 4hr down trend. By the afternoon I had spotted an opportunity having previously passed-up on two earlier set-ups. A SL of 20 with a TP1 of 17, post-entry and after some hovering around the entry we then got a move in our direction and TP was hit.

Trade 3 Eur.Usd, this was a re-entry of the previous trade on Eur.Usd. A SL of 20 and a TP of 48 this time around. We never got any movement in our favour and by the end of the day I exited manually with a -15 pip loss. Not much point in holding this position open and paying rollover, cut our losses early.

Overall Tuesday was a "jumbled day", TTD is currently up about +2.47% for September.

t2wtue.jpg
 
Wednesday 30th Sept went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Usd.Jpy +18 pips / +0.39%

With it been the last day of the month (and the last day of the third quarter) I decided early on to take a cautious approach. Between the 3 pairs I trade: Eur.Usd, Usd.Cad and Usd.Jpy I reckoned the Usd.Jpy is/was currently the least volatile pair and could probably offer us the safest set-ups. After getting a good read, a 3 Ducks set-up presented itself and we entered with a SL of 20 and a TP of 18. The trade worked in our favour, not going too negative after the entry and the TP was reached within a few hours. The month ended there, not much more you can really say about a short-term move ...

Overall Wednesday was a "careful day", TTD ends the month of September with a gain of +2.87%.

t2wwed.jpg
 
Sept Stats: The Three Ducks (Darwin TTD) 🦆🦆🦆

Trades: 40
Win rate: 55%
Avg win: +13.6 pips / +0.27%
Avg loss: -10.7 pips / -0.21%
Pairs traded: E.U / U.C / U.J
Avg trade: 1h 34m
Return: +2.87%
Max DD: -1.41%

t2w1.jpg


Approach, September 2020 was the start of a new phase with the introduction of mean revision / counter trend trades. Previously Darwin TTD only traded momentum / breakout / trend following trades. TTD is a discretionary day trading Darwin seeking short-term moves and is based on The 3 Ducks Trading System here on T2W.

Risk per trade, stop-losses are now fixed at 20 pips (approx. 0.40%) on TTD and as Darwin investors know, risk per trade is managed by the Darwinex algos with trades (entry / stop-loss / take-profit) been provided by the Darwin manager / trader.

Help needed, after 4 years of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole (and a resulting weak d-score) work will continue on TTD's investable attributes. Any help or suggestions by fellow veterans would be gladly accepted.

Chat soon,

Andy
Captain Currency


PS: I won't be trading for the month of October (or most of it) 😭
 
Hi @Captain Currency
Congrats for your solid performance on 1Y !
Naw, to be honest my results have been pretty rubbish since I started with Darwinex. Over the past 4 years (the learning years) I've had to chop and change the way I trade, trying to get to grips with investable attributes and VaR. Trading your own account versus trading / managing a Darwin is two different things.

Maybe now I've completed my "Darwinex apprenticeship", let's see what the coming months and years holds for TTD.

t2w.jpg
 
Risk per trade, stop-losses are now fixed at 20 pips (approx. 0.40%) on TTD and as Darwin investors know, risk per trade is managed by the Darwinex algos with trades (entry / stop-loss / take-profit) been provided by the Darwin manager / trader.

Help needed, after 4 years of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole (and a resulting weak d-score) work will continue on TTD's investable attributes. Any help or suggestions by fellow veterans would be gladly accepted.
If you trade the same risk per trade there are no problems.
You made some changes recently but now if you keep trading the same rules and same risk you can expect a recovery of Risk stability and Loss Aversion .
BTW with DScore 2020 edition what matters is Return and DD so if you make pips and new highs it will recover.
 
if you keep trading the same rules and same risk you can expect a recovery of Risk stability and Loss Aversion .
Probably my own fault, my Rs score took a big drop when I made a large withdrawal back in March 2020, the score went from about 7 to 3. It was in around that time my La score also dropped from 8 to 3.

Makes me wonder, if I was to make a deposit of +10k, what effect do you think it might have? At +10k I'd probably want to drop down the risk per trade % of the underlying strat while obviously keeping the same / current rules: -20 pip SL and no more than one open position.

Recently, in order to try and keep IA scores stable and risk per trade the same every time (0.40%), I've just left €150 in the account. If the trade is a loss I just top the account back up to €150 from funds in the wallet or if the trade wins I simply skim off the profit and bring the account back down to €150.

Any thoughts?
 
You have to keep the same 0.4% risk per trade.
If you go to 1500 the tradesize has to be 10x.
0.3 or 0.5% would be fine, what you have to avoid is going to 4% or 0.04%

Probably now you are at minimum tradesize of one microlot, so 2€ is the value of your 20 pips
You can go to 1500 and 0.1 size for 20€ risk per trade, same 20 pips.
I think you got the logic, stable leverage or stable risk per trade.
 
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You have to keep the same 0.4% risk per trade.
If you go to 1500 the tradesize has to be 10x.
Yep, it just a multiplier. The Darwins risk per trade is currently 0.40% (I'd actually like this to be higher) and the underlying strats risk per trade is currently about 4% (I'd actually like this to be lower). I can't actually get the 0.40% Darwins risk any higher because of the margin requirements.

Probably now you are at minimum tradesize of one microlot, so 20 cents is the value of your 20 pips
You can go to 1500 and 0.1 size for 2€ risk per trade, same 20 pips.
I think you got the logic, stable leverage or stable risk per trade.
Yep, my trade value (20 pips / 0.05 lots) is about €6 on a €150 account, bumping it up 10x would mean 20 pips / 0.50 lots would equal about 60 quid. As you say, we've got the logic, my concern is if I go back up to +10k and I drop the risk down on the u/strat it will probably screw-up the risk per trade on the Darwin, maybe dropping it to around 0.25%.

It's a math puzzle at this stage rather than a trading puzzle. At least you now know why I hold just €150 in the Darwin ;) I do have skin in the game, it's just not visible ...
 
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Recently, in order to try and keep IA scores stable and risk per trade the same every time (0.40%), I've just left €150 in the account. If the trade is a loss I just top the account back up to €150 from funds in the wallet or if the trade wins I simply skim off the profit and bring the account back down to €150.

Any thoughts?
I do the same, with my darwin RJT. For slightly different reasons, but that does not matter.

I keep my trading account stable at 1750 EUR. That is better than 150, because of rounding differences.

Suppose, with 150 EUR in account, the calculated lotsize is 0.0151, it will be rounded to 0.02. 0.02 is double the risk compared to the smallest lower alternative lotsize choice (0.01).

Suppose, with 1500 EUR in account, the calculated lotsize is 0.151, it will be rounded to 0.15, 0.15 is just 7% more risk compared to the smallest lower alternative lotsize choice (0.14).

I hope you understand what I mean. In a Darwin, keeping your account size stable can be a good idea, depending on the purpose. But do not keep the balance too low. That would hinder your Rs.
 
We all know that 150 @ var 30% is the same as 1500 @ var 3% , same skin in the game.

Unfortunalelly it is not the same for Darwinia, second case is 10 times better.
 
I do the same, with my darwin RJT. For slightly different reasons, but that does not matter.

I keep my trading account stable at 1750 EUR. That is better than 150, because of rounding differences.

Suppose, with 150 EUR in account, the calculated lotsize is 0.0151, it will be rounded to 0.02. 0.02 is double the risk compared to the smallest lower alternative lotsize choice (0.01).

Suppose, with 1500 EUR in account, the calculated lotsize is 0.151, it will be rounded to 0.15, 0.15 is just 7% more risk compared to the smallest lower alternative lotsize choice (0.14).

I hope you understand what I mean. In a Darwin, keeping your account size stable can be a good idea, depending on the purpose. But do not keep the balance too low. That would hinder your Rs.
I thought about it a bit more, but my theory does not apply if you use fixed pips stoploss and fixed lotsize.

But it does if you use variable pips stoploss, and adjust lotsize accordingly (for volatility reasons for instance).
 
But do not keep the balance too low. That would hinder your Rs.
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 😥
 
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