FX Auto, It would be good to know maximum drawdown during trades, not just at close of trade. After all, we traders have to survive drawdowns during trades, not just at close of trades. I have been surprised to see that some systems will allow a trade to go many hundreds of pips into loss during a trade, much more than the maximum drawdown shown in the performance tables for closed trades. This feature is already available in MT4 backtests, as the green Equity line shown in addition to the blue Balance line. The only insights we get into intra-trade drawdown now on FXDD Auto are the System Provider's estimate of Average SL (often shown as Vary) and the "Show Open Position Status" button in Portfolio Builder, which gives a snap-shot of current open positions. It's not possible to size a position correctly until you know the worst intra-trade drawdown you are likely to experience, so this is a major omission in the information you provide now imho.
I completely agree. As an example, Forexgear which appear to have a good track record currently has USDJPY open at -387 pips and yesterday hit a stop loss for EURJPY at -513. In order to assess whether this is a signal provider I would wish to use, I'd like to know what has happened on previous trades...if the stop loss being set at these levels is the norm, I would have to think very carefully about using this provider even if they have an excellent track record of closed trades. I have emailed Forexgear to ask whether this is standard stop loss policy but have yet to receive a reply. Does anybody else have any information on this?
Hi, The "show open trade" status will allow you to check the status of current open trades in "open pips" column. In the next update we will incorporate this column into the main screen so the user can see at a glance what the current status is. This function allows you also to see a large winning position, for example Quants are holding many positions >+500pips.
Rhizome99, Thanks for your support, forexgear is my main problem at the moment too, with -388 pips on usdjpy, -360 on eurusd and a massive -544 pips on gbp. fx-auto, I mentioned in my original post that we can already see current open positions, and your intention to move that information to a different place does not solve the problem. All responsible traders need to see the maximum drawdown the system has experienced since it started, INCLUDING open trades. Showing max dd of closed trades only is not good enough, and showing a snapshot of the current open positions is nowhere near good enough for proper position sizing. I hope you will be able to make this change, so that serious traders will feel able to use your system with the confidence that comes from knowing a system's likely maximum drawdown.
Hi Barry, We are showing the maximum closed drawdown (realised) and current open floating profit/loss. What you are asking is for the LOL,(largest open loss) which is actually unrealised. Even though this is not the system maximum drawdown it would provide you indication of the margin level required to maintain a position with this signal provider, is that correct? Rhizome99, Thanks for your support, forexgear is my main problem at the moment too, with -388 pips on usdjpy, -360 on eurusd and a massive -544 pips on gbp. fx-auto, I mentioned in my original post that we can already see current open positions, and your intention to move that information to a different place does not solve the problem. All responsible traders need to see the maximum drawdown the system has experienced since it started, INCLUDING open trades. Showing max dd of closed trades only is not good enough, and showing a snapshot of the current open positions is nowhere near good enough for proper position sizing. I hope you will be able to make this change, so that serious traders will feel able to use your system with the confidence that comes from knowing a system's likely maximum drawdown.
fx-auto, Thanks for listening. Yes, that's right, it probably is best called largest open loss. It would be a big step forward if you could provide it. An example is forexgear which lists Max DD as -159 pips, and yet it has open losses much bigger than that, including -380 as I write, and maybe even more in the past? I can't tell if the current open loss is the largest ever, and it would be good if you could list the largest open loss ever, so we know what to expect and so we can size positions accordingly. Thanks, Barry
Absolutely...this is probably one of the single most important stats when deciding leverage/margining. FX Auto please take note and see if you can incorporate this on future software releases. Whilst a single stat for largest open loss since system started is definitely useful as a warning shot, it would be even more helpful to find a way of accessing how often a particular provider goes over a certain open loss e.g. on what % of open trades does system X, go over say -200 pips? Not quite sure how this would be presented in the context of the platform...any thoughts Barry/fx -auto?
I want to add that "Equity Curve of this portfolio" also would be more informative if to add curve of equity (now are displayed curve of balance, or I'm wrong?) and curve of margin requirement.