It looks like GBPJPY is coming back to its senses

I have been trading GBPJPY almost exclusively with the AME Cross Trader. However, recently I had to switch to another pair (EURCHF) because my favorite pair has been acting a little strange and throwing off my EA. But I ran some tests today and it looks like I might be able to put my EA back on GBPJPY. If you are interested, you can try the following parameters on a mini account with as little as $500, on the 4-hour GBPJPY chart...

• minTradeSize=0.1 (0.01 for standard account)
• scaleDivisor=100
• stopDollars=1000
• shortMaBars=36
• longMaBars=120
• stopBars=36
• useLimit=1
• limitPips=70
• useMM=1
• aggressiveMode=1
• slippage=10
• panicMode=0
• maxTotalLots=1000

Please note that "stopBars=36" represents a 6-day high/low on GBPJPY, which means huge potential drawdown. However, in my backtest, this combination produced 200% gains in 1 month.

WARNING: If you are not comfortable trading GBPJPY without an EA, then you had better not even try it with the AME Cross Trader. Without sufficient experience you will panic at the first sign of drawdown and drain your account in a matter of days. But if you have patience and can control your impulses, you can easily double your account and take out your initial deposit, eliminating all of your risk.

How can I tell if panic mode has been triggered?

If you run the optimizer on the AME Cross Trader, you are likely to find hundreds of combinations that end in profit. Unfortunately, many of those combinations never survived the whole time period of the backtest. Instead, they ended prematurely due to a "panic mode". So how do you tell which ones made it all the way through and which ones didn't? Here's how...

1. Sort the optimization results by profit.
2. Double-click the highest profit result to load those parameters into the tester.
3. Run a back-test and view the results.
4. If the very last trade is closed by the EA instead of by stop loss or limit, then panic mode was triggered. This is not 100% accurate but pretty close.

Sometimes panic mode is a good thing, though, so don't discard it altogether. If you find a combination that has alot of trades, high profit factor (2.0+) but reaches panic mode near the end of the time period, then this is a fantastic combination that will probably work for you for several months without reoptimization.

Can I run the EA on multiple charts?

Someone asked if the AME Cross Trader can be run on multiple charts at the same time. I'm posting the answer here because the information is valuable for everyone...

You can run the EA on several charts at the same time without problem. Just be aware that the "stopDollars" parameter applies to your "account" equity. So (for example) if you have 3 charts running the EA, and all the EA's have stopDollars=0.3, then ALL of your EA's will trigger panic mode when ANY combination of them produce a drawdown of 30%. I haven't played with that situation at all, so enter at your own risk :-)

What if my broker doesn't allow mini lots?

I had a customer ask about using the AME Cross Trader on an account that does not allow trade sizes smaller than 1 standard lot. After a little thought and some experimentation, I came to the conclusion that it can be done, but not with a starting balance of $500.

If for some reason you are in this situation, then a starting balance of at least $2000 is required. I would recommend $3000. Also, when you optimize, load the "ame-cross-trader-h4-standard-full.set" preset file (on H4) and change the following parameters...

• minTradeSize = 1
• scaleDivisor = 10000
• stopDollars = 0.33

I found a combination on EURUSD that (in backtest) turned $2000 into $11000 in 1 month before a panic mode stopped it from trading anymore, so there's definite potential there.

My favorite pair stopped working!

I have been running the AME Cross Trader exclusively on gbpjpy for a few months now on my live account. In fact, since about November 7, I pretty much stopped interfering with it and let it perform its magic without me. The only exception is when a trade goes against me but take-profit is already set, then I tend to add a position (same size with same take-profit) to increase profits.

I added a link to a statement that's updated periodically (in the My Other Sites section).

Anyway, about 2 weeks ago, gbpjpy changed it's behavior and cost me a small bundle. So I stopped trading it until it gets back to some level of predictability and started looking for a new pair to trade. I found about 4 pairs but the one that caught my eye was eurchf. That was a week ago. At the time I had about $1000 in my account, and so far it is working pretty well for me. Not as aggressive gains as gbpjpy, but nice and steady.

Here are the parameters I am using on eurchf for a mini account (important) that can be started with $500...

• minTradeSize = 0.1
• scaleDivisor = 100
• stopDollars = 1000
• shortMaBars = 16
• longMaBars = 28
• stopBars = 5
• useLimit = 1
• limitPips = 60
• useMM = 1
• aggressiveMode = 1
• slippage = 10
• panicMode = 0
• maxTotalLots = 1000

Also, if you look at my recent statement, you'll see that it has placed about 5 trades in the past week and increased my account by almost $300. Like I said, it's looking promising. But eurchf is brand new to me and I am still experimenting with it.

Finally, the AME Cross Trader is available!

I just released the AME Cross Trader as a downloadable product. Actually I created a store where there will be several products available. But right now the only thing you can buy is the AME Cross Trader. This is an evolved version of the EA I used in the Automated Trading Championship 2008. So far the response has been pretty good.

Can you say "Holy Cow"?

Someone posted a question in my comments on the ATC2008 web site...

"Hi Tony, If you were to run your EA on a MT4 Strategy Tester report right now dating from 1 Oct 2008 until today, and not stopping where your EA did (60K), where would it be today, profit wise, and profit ratio ?"

Well, I don't have the original EA anymore. It has evolved and become a little more advanced. So I did the next best thing. I ran the optimizer on the current version to find a combination that would do well from October 1 until today. And here's what it produced...


Click Image to View Report
INSANE profits, and the panic mode still activated, but this time it wasn't until October 24. You have to see the report for yourself. I couldn't believe it when I saw it.

Now understand this. This does not mean that if I had this new version of the EA in the contest, that I would have done so much better. Most likely, I would have used similar parameters to the original and the panic mode would have still activated in the first week. I just show this report so that you can see the potential of the AME Cross Trader.

What? No gap?

After a 600 pip drop in 2 hours (GBP/JPY) on friday, then a retracement part of the way back for the rest of the day, I would have expected to see a big gap for sunday open. There was none. I guess I should be glad since I had open trades friday. I generally try to be completely out of the market before closing on friday, but this time it was impossible. Anyway, I just thought the lack of a gap today was really weird.

Have you ever done good but wish you did better?

I can't complain about this setup, but I'm going to. The EA had placed a trade and sent me a text message to my phone. After a few hours it had set the take-profit, then the price went way against me. This was my opportunity to buy more. Remember I said before, when the EA sets a take-profit, it is correct about 85% of the time.

Anyway, when it got near bedtime I checked the trades and one was in profit but the other was losing. I could have just let the EA do its thing and left it alone. Instead I rationalized that tomorrow is friday (a short trading day) and I didn't want to leave any trades open when trading halted on friday. So I closed all trades for a net gain of 94 pips...


Not bad, right? I should have been ecstatic! But instead, when I woke up in the morning I discovered that my take-profit was indeed reached. If I had just left the EA alone, the net gain would have been 208 pips!

Of course there are worse things to complain about, but I think I'm just trying to make a point here. Whether you win big or win little, you have *WON*. Complaining about winning is just wrong. I made out like a fat rat and I'm complaining because I could have gotten fatter?

OK, the Cross Trader was right :-)

That trade yesterday earned me 147 pips, but look at how far it had retraced before coming back...

I was away from my computer most of the day after it placed that trade, so I wasn't able to interfere with it. I'm glad that was the case because I would have probably panicked and closed the trade with a 100 pip loss. Instead the price bounced back and earned me 147 pips!

Incidentally, I was able to check the price maybe 2 bars after it was opened and saw that a take-profit had been set. Once the Cross Trader sets a take-profit, there's about an 85% chance that that price will be reached (again). It was my one chance to close the trade and cut my losses. The price was only about 60 pips against me so I just decided to let the Cross Trader do its thing, going entirely on faith since I saw a take-profit was set. This trade was kind of nerve racking but paid off.

Has the Cross Trader lost it's mind?

I get a text message a little while ago from my EA. It seems that after placing only sell orders for the last month, it has decided to place a buy order. If you look at the GBPJPY 4hr, it would seem like there is a definite downtrend and we are in the middle of a retracement. Here is the 1hr chart, which emphasizes this "retracement".

However, if you look at the moving averages as I have placed them, it looks like a clear uptrend signal. This is what the Cross Trader based its decision on. I'm not sure I completely agree with this but I will at least let the current bar complete and see if I need to interfere or not. So far in the last few weeks it has turned $300 into over $1500 (with a little help from me), so I'm reluctant to go against it with that success rate. This trade could be the exception, though.

The contest is going on without me. And yet...

Each passing day I am amazed at the fact that my EA stopped trading on October 10th, the 10th day of the contest, and yet I keep ending up in the top 10. If you don't know my story, my EA was set at such an aggressive setting, and the market was so wild the first week of the contest that the EA managed to turn $10000 into $81000 in the first week of trading. Since I could not interfere with the EA I had to put in a failsafe to keep it from draining my account. So here's a little background pertaining to this "panic mode".

I (mistakenly) figured that my EA would generate something like $90000 to $100000 by the end of december when the contest ended. I also knew that the EA would completely drain my account if I didn't change the way it trades. So what I essentially did was put in a $20000 "trailing stop" and called it "panic mode" because if this trailing stop was hit the EA would NEVER trade again. It was also configurable and I arbitrarily set it to 20000, thinking that in order for me to lose that much in a single trade I would have to have a bunch of equity and my trade sizes would be very large. I also assumed that if that were the case, it would be near the end of the contest and I needed to protect my gains at all cost. My assumptions were (mostly) wrong.

Here is what actually happened. The market went CRAZY on the first week of trading and my balance (not equity) was up to $81000 when my "trailing stop" hit and drained me of $20000. This was on day 10. The EA assumed it was near the end of the contest and quit trading altogether. Now the EA is sitting doing nothing with a balance of $61000, which at the time of this writing has me in 9th position. An amazing feat when you realize that it has been over a month since that last trade. Here is a chart of the trades that took place...

I was trading 0.1 lots for each $500 in the account. As my balance grew, my trade sizes grew. Here is the progression of trade sizes...

• 2.0 lots: +71 pips
  
• 2.2 lots: +116 pips
  
• 2.7 lots: +68 pips
  
• 3.0 lots: +110 pips
• 3.6 lots: +97 pips
• 4.2 lots: +211 pips
• 6.0 lots: +155 pips
• 5.0 lots: +213 pips (not sure what happened there. should have been about 7.9 lots)
• 4.0 lots: +238 pips (another anomaly. should have been even more like 9.0 lots)
• 5.0 lots: +281 pips (at least it's increasing lots again but should have been maybe 11 lots)
  
• 6.0 lots: +63 pips (guessing it should have been maybe 13 lots by now)
  
• 5.0 lots: +363 pips (noticing a pattern? smells like a bug to me)
• 4.0 lots: -505 pips (WHAMMO! panic mode stops all trading)

Incidentally, if the EA had done the trade sizes like it was supposed to, I estimate it would have had nearly double the balance it had, and have been trading at least (I guess) 15 full lots by the time panic mode hit. That would have put me in first place even until now.

Now I'm not saying all this to brag. I know it was a fluke in the market that caused such unbelievable gains, even with a bug in my trade size calculation. I just want to point out what's possible in forex. Do you really need an EA that can run for the long term unattended? No. You can get by quite nicely by finding an EA that has explosive growth for a short time, then spend all of your energy learning how to spot the market conditions that your EA thrives in. Use the EA like a tool and know when you need to run it and when you need to keep it turned off.

There's another key element to trading successfully with an "explosive short term growth" EA, but you'll need to read the book to learn about that one. :-)

Welcome to my blog!

My name is Tony Manso and I am wrote a book about Forex Trading. It is not an ordinary book, though. Most books will tell you all about fundamentals, technical analysis, blah blah blah. They are great books and teach valuable skills. They then proceed to tell you to start trading with a minimum of $50000 in your account. Most people when they see this, they put the book away and never start trading because they just don't have that kind of money. That's what happened to me.

My book, The Forex Millionaire Maker, assumes you did what I did after reading those other books. It assumes you have read those other books and have tried simulated trading with some level of success, but do not have a big pile of money to start trading with. My book teaches you how to start with as little as $500, and use that to build up your account so that you end up with $50000 or more to apply the stuff you learned in the other books!

Now I know what you're saying... "Tony, why don't I just keep doing what YOU taught me in your book? Why do I have to stop doing it your way and switch my method?". The answer is simple. RISK. My method is risky. Very risky. However, your total risk if you do it properly, is $500. Let me explain how that works...

Suppose you start with $500, and using my method, build your account up to $10000, then lose it all in a single news announcement. Did you lose $10000? NO. You lost $500, because that (and your time) was all that you invested in the first place. Is this starting to make sense? I am going to teach you how to use forex to repeatedly create "Explosive Short Term Growth". Then I will teach you how to use some of that for cash flow while building your account up to a size where you can play with the big boys and do it like they do. Two years from now, your friends will ask "How's it going?" and you'll say with a big smile on your face, "I lost $250000 this morning, and I'm taking my family on a Disney Cruise!". Only then will you understand why I chose to call myself (and my book) "The Forex Millionaire Maker".

So what are you waiting for? Go right now to The Forex Millionaire Maker Site and begin your journey on your way to wealth.