"Universality" of your trading system?

Discussion in 'Strategy Building' started by gmailer, Mar 11, 2012.

  1. gmailer

    gmailer

    Any idea how I can get such data for USD/EUR? I use MetaStock...can't figure out how to create USD/EUR chart/instrument out of EUR/USD data. I even exported EUR/USD to excel hoping I could do it this there but have no clue how to do it...
     
    #21     Mar 14, 2012
  2. jcl

    jcl

    I'm not this familiar with Metastock, but even if it does not allow you to modify price data, can't you just replace f.i. h with 1/l, and l with 1/h in your strategy script, and inverse the trade direction?
     
    #22     Mar 15, 2012
  3. gmailer

    gmailer

    Are you sure this would work? If EUR/USD H=1.30 then 1/h would be 0.76...no chance EUR/USD could cross such level. Do not hesitate to correct me if I am missing something.
     
    #23     Mar 15, 2012
  4. jcl

    jcl

    Hmm, when a price c crosses a level h, then a price 1/c will cross a level 1/h at exactly the same bar, just in the opposite direction. At least this seems to me plain math.

    I don't know how your strategy works, but my suggestion to test the inverse price curve was meant for a quick test in 5 minutes. If it is very complicated to do, due to some shortcomings of Metastock, it's probably not worth the hassle. If your strategy is 100% symmetric and only compares prices, without filter functions, fixed thresholds or the like, the inverse price test will anyway generate the same winning and losing trades. In that case the test is meaningless and you know not more than before.
     
    #24     Mar 16, 2012
  5. The strategy you're describing cannot possibly be profitable long term, but the nature of it is to reflect the inverse.

    Only one of my strategies will have this property, but what you've described is only relevant to forex and not anything you can test on futures.
     
    #25     Mar 16, 2012
  6. gmailer

    gmailer

    OK guys. I have made additional tests with my system on other pairs than EUR/USD. I never do it but I used optimization and with specific "periods" setting my system did bring on historical data good results on any currency pair.

    So I want to make things more clear and ask again, summarising everything.

    Should system (that has exact periods settings) work on many markets if "periods" is fixed? Example:

    ENTER when C is above HHV(100) - works good on EUR/USD
    on GBP/USD it sucks until I change periods to 50(instead of 100)

    Can such system be any good? Or does it have to work on many markets under the same conditions/period settings("100" for every market)?
     
    #26     Mar 16, 2012
  7. If you using a system that works only on some markets and only recently, that means you exploit inefficiency that appeared on those markets recently. It's up to you if you want to put your money on that, but I would never do it, as there is high chance that the inefficiency will disappear (assuming system is not just a curve fit to noise in the first place).
    On the other hand, it's natural that some markets (let say illiquid penny stocks) don't give profit with your system. The rule I use is that 70% markets must be profitable on 10 years of data, 80% on 20 years, 85% on 30 years and so on. Don't expect to get system profitable on absolutely every possible market in the world (including Bangladeshi stocks).
    That applies to one system - no parameters' changes.
     
    #27     Mar 16, 2012
  8. gmailer

    gmailer

    I understand...so you have system with fixed parameters and it should work on 70% of markets?

    1. May I know what markets you test your system on? Are we talking about currencies too? Does your system work on EUR/USD and GBP/USD at the same time?

    2. Also - when you say 10 or 20 years what time frame you are thinking of as far as charts are concerned? Daily charts or other? I test my systems on 1h charts, 8y period.
     
    #28     Mar 17, 2012
  9. I haven't been trading forex that long, but I can tell you what ever works on anything won't work on GBP. I don't care if you are automated or trading by the seat of your pants.

    I think there's a guy in London who's job it is to trade GBP, and if it's too high he sells and it it's too low he buys.

    He just works for the CB part time, his full time job is at the art museum. Bean, I think is his name.
     
    #29     Mar 17, 2012
  10. Ad1. Indexes, currencies, commodities, bonds. It also work on most stocks, but I don't trade them.

    Ad2. Daily
     
    #30     Mar 17, 2012