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Best stops and entry orders to test my strategy

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 Michael M., Vice President, Business Systems Analyst at BNY Mellon

 Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Thank you for reading this first post of mine. I have built a system that has tested very well on paper for over a year, and had it coded for NinjaTrader in C#, but I wanted to ask the group what your experience has been in two key areas. First, regarding order entry I use market if touched, which has produced some large variances from my entry triggers. I am considering a switch to bidding/offering at limit plus a spread of a small %. I should mention that this isn't HFT at all, but trades on 5 minute chart intervals. The second question is about stops to protect profits on triggered orders in the event of reversals. Currently I use an initial stop value with a trailing component that doesn't quite respond fast enough. I welcome all comments and will investigate your suggestions. I hope to share the updates from those changes.


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5 comments on article "Best stops and entry orders to test my strategy"

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 Michael M., Vice President, Business Systems Analyst at BNY Mellon

 Friday, September 12, 2014



Alexander, and Alexander,

Thanks for your replies. I tested for several months in my test trading accounts, hoping to implement a solution to these problems. The gaps and subsequent reversals were a problem to be sure and watered down my paper trading results. One thing that worked was to limit my trading day to avoid premarket whipsaws and order imbalances with the specialists. Unfortunately, the downside is my price triggers often occur in the pre-open session, so limiting my session kept me out of many profitable trades. This is because I have added price limits to prevent chasing a move greater than a set percentage.

Also, my experience with MIT orders is that they lead to most of my reversal losses, whereas adding liquidity in both directions with a limit plus a small discretion amount has been beneficial. I wanted to compare notes on this to learn what methods others are using. As far as reversal orders what do you use to indicate that price is failing in the original direction, and how tight do you set your condition?

Best,

Michael


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 Nikolay Stoykov, Managing Member at Annapolis Fund

 Saturday, September 13, 2014



First, there is probably no elegant solution to stops. At least in my experience...

Second, it just sounds a bit confusing to me, you trade on a 5-min time frame and your trading session includes both pre and actual mkt hours. I do not trade that short term but pre-market price action is quite different than the 9:45 - 16:00 time period. If it was me, I would just concentrate on reg hours only ( if stocks) + then if results are good look to include pre-market.

Finally, I do not use market orders ( unless stops). Using MIT orders for entry seems like you give up a lot of edge. Yes, you will miss trades but over the long term, it pays to be patient.


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 Alexander C., Securities Controller

 Monday, September 15, 2014



Hi Michael

I use only market orders & real result for long time less (one week or more) only 30% than theoretical. I created traiding system for MetaTrader terminal by MQL5 lang.


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 private private,

 Monday, September 15, 2014



Hi Michael

I don't (and do not recommend) using %. You can not control or predict how much % the price will move. But as a reliable guideline, I find ATR works well. Perhaps (I'm only guessing here), this is why "the stop loss doesn't respond quite fast enough". The trading platform should allow you to set the trailing stop by a factor, after initial setting according to the ATR.

I use ATR for the time frame I'm trading (so for intraday trading I'd use the daily ATR value - usually Is set it to 14 periods). I find that this holds well even for intraday trading.

Intraday trading is far too volatile to test new strategies. If your strategy is adaptable, try testing it on daily, then move to intraday when successful.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

PS. Are you also considering your position sizing and risk per position to minimise your losses.


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 Justin D. M., Principal & Chief Investment Officer at Kopis Capital Management LLC Specializing in alternative asset portfolios

 Tuesday, September 16, 2014



Michael,

For stops you can use a volatility based trailing stop such as 2 or 3 ATR's away from a high or low price.

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