1 Minute Daily
1 Minute Daily
Tim Trush, Julie Lavrin, T&J Profit Club, 2007, All rights reserved
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Table Of Contents
Chapter I: Introduction
I.1. The winning strategy is the simplest one_____________________________________________4
Most people are trying to succeed with help of sophisticated software, extremely complicated trading strategies, they are sitting in front of the screen all the day, but they are still losing money. There are also some lazy traders who trade a simple pattern once a day. They wake up, send an order to his broker in one minute and go swimming. They earn thousands every day and we call them top traders. What a joke!
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VII.2. Equity______________________________________________________________________25
The account equity gives us much more information than the total profit number.
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Chapter I: Introduction
If you have two theories that both explain the observed facts, then you should use the simplest one until more evidence comes along; Scientists must use the simplest means of arriving at their results and exclude everything not perceived by the senses; If you have two equally likely solutions to a problem, choose the simplest; The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct; The simplest explanation that covers all the facts is usually the best; Keep things simple!
Occam's Razor philosophy is applied to many areas such as biology, medicine, religion, statistics... and trading of course. Often times currency traders spend so much time trying to understand a system that is so mathematically complex, that they never get to apply it. We teach a system that is easy to learn.
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Some traders try to avoid false breakouts by entering the trade a few pips higher than significant high or a few pips lower than significant low. That's a good idea, but they are not making money consistently. Let's explain why. When you enter the trade, first you have to pay the spread between the Bid and Ask prices. Although a typical spread is relatively low (about 2 pips for EUR/USD), it cuts a significant profit. Some traders avoid false breakouts by entering 6 pips above the significant high. This way they filter all breakouts that don't go further than 6 pips. Some traders use even more than 6 pips. What does it mean to the overall profit? Treat those 6 pips as an additional spread. Instead of 2 pips you pay 2 + 6 = 8 pips. Eight pips from every trade! It is a game like trading EUR/USD with 8 pips spread a pure gambling. Another traders move stoploss to breakeven just as price breaks and moves a few pips their way. When the market continues to move, you can make money. When it turns to false breakout, you lose a small amount (don't forget that you pay the spread every time). Sometimes this method works, but not consistently. Sometimes you can catch the big move, but more often the price quickly turns back and you are out. Then you see another missed big move. This way you lose more often than you win and the big move cannot recover all the losses. The main problem is that false breakouts occur more often than good breakouts. This is why most momentum traders lose more than they win. Fortunately, a tricky solution exists. Trade all the breakouts! If a breakout turns to false, your given orders will take care of it. The next paragraph will bring light.
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Sometimes the breakout is false and price reverses. Then a new breakout strikes on the other side.
What is important here, the price moves much further during the day. Because the night range is more often a small fragment of the daily range, there is a high probability that price will break from www.1minutedaily.com 6
consolidation and it will hit at least one of our targets placed close to the consolidation area (the upper or lower target).
There is a very small chance that price will stay in a small range all day long. News are moving the market and the price is making new highs or lows during the day. Finally, the market moves in one main direction (the daily candle is either bull, or bear). Our goal is to profit from the short-term trend in a single day. Imagine two targets placed below and above the night range.
The distance between the upper target and upper band will be equal to the night range. The same holds for the lower target. Since the daily range will overrun the night range, at least one of our targets will be reached. If one target is missed, we should change direction and profit on the other side to recover the loss. Of course, all that will be made automatically by given orders.
The rules will become clear in Chapter III: Entry rule and Chapter VI: Examples. We will prove the profitability and consistency in Chapter VII: Full backtest. We trade all the breakouts and that's our unique way. Most traders are trying to filter false breakouts or they give up and stop to trade after a false breakout. Actually, nobody can predict the market.
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Wave The Wave indicator is nothing special, it actually consists of three exponential moving averages with period 34. We will use this indicator later in Chapter V: Trade filtering. Add this indicator to the chart: 1) Double click on the Wave indicator on left. 2) On the popup window, click OK. 3) You should see three red lines in the chart. We call them the Wave.
1MinuteDaily The 1MinuteDaily indicator defines the consolidation area during Asian session. It also helps you to locate the upper and lower target by two single dots. Add this indicator to the chart: 1) Double click on the 1MinuteDaily indicator on left. 2) On the popup window (Inputs tab), edit the variables by double clicking on their values. They define the broker time zone, the start and the end of consolidation. We will discuss the variables later in paragraph III.1. Define the breakout area exactly. 3) You should see yellow dots in the chart.
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Chart properties Optionally, you can change your chart style. We find it useful for this strategy. 1) Switch to bar chart.
2) Remove the grid (CTRL+G). 3) Right-click on the chart and get the Properties (shortcut: F8). Change the bull-bar to green and the bear-bar to red.
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2) You have to set the Broker_GMT_Shift parameter to appropriate value. To get the 1MinuteDaily properties, press a shortcut CRTL+I, select an indicator and click Edit.
For example, if the matching time zone is GMT, then set Broker_GMT_Shift to 0. If it is GMT+1 (Central Europe), set Broker_GMT_Shift to 1. If it is GMT-5 (New York), set Broker_GMT_Shift to -5, etc. www.1minutedaily.com 11
The other variables remain unchanged. Times must stay in GMT. Compatibility with your broker / platform is solved automatically.
Example: For GBP/USD pair, the first candle inside the area opens at London_Night and the first outside candle opens at London_Open.
In the lower left corner, you see the breakout area information converted to your platform time.
With the Currency_Auto_Setup option, you can trade other currency pairs. The appropriate times are set automatically. This new feature is covered in Chapter VIII: Update!.
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The breakout area is shown in the chart every day. You can zoom the chart and switch to timeframe you feel comfortable with.
Next, we will discuss the strategy with the GBP/USD pair (London session). The consolidation ending time 7:00 GMT was just guessed. We will test the strategy for other values in paragraph VII.3. Backtest results for different entry times. After that, we will find the best London_Open value.
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Buy order: 1) Place a buy-stop order just one pip above the upper band. 2) Place a stoploss just one pip below the lower band. 3) Place a profit target at the upper yellow dot.
Sell order: 1) Place a sell-stop order just one pip below the lower band. 2) Place a stoploss just one pip above the upper band. 3) Place a profit target at the lower yellow dot.
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The profit is equal to the night range. Since we place an order one pip away from the band, the net In this case we lost 102 pips on the long position profit is 100 pips 1 pip = 99 pips. and made 99 pips back on the short position. The net profit is 3 pips. Class C: One false breakout Class D: Two false breakouts
We lost 102 pips. Since the position was opened too long, the second order was cancelled and not filled (according to paragraph IV.1. Time filter).
The worst case scenario. We lost on both positions. We lost 102 pips two times; 204 pips total.
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We have determined the percent occurrence of every scenario over the past few years. Average profit Class A Class B Class C Class D +99 pips 3 pips 102 pips 204 pips Percent occurrence 56% 18% 17% 9%
The average profit is 99 56% 3 18% 102 17% 204 9% = 20 pips. It's positive! We just proved that our mechanical strategy works. With a bit subjective approach, it could only be better.
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Notice how the price accelerates when the breakout happens. Notice how the market tends to reverse when the profit target is hit. The chart shows that our 1MinuteDaily strategy is robust.
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There are four true breakouts in the chart (the first, third, fifth and sixth day). In Chapter V: Consistency and the math behind, we called them Class A trades. On the second day, the short position was closed with a loss, but another buy-stop order was filled. We took a profit that covered our loss. This situation comes under Class B. On the fourth day, the worst-case scenario happened (Class D). The short position was closed with a loss, the buy-stop order was filled, but the profit target was missed again. The long position remained open until the stoploss was hit on the fifth day.
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We have chosen the next example to show you how our strategy behaves in uptrend (GBP/USD, 25th October 2007):
Our strategy works very well when the market is trending up or down. Most traders do not apply breakout strategies on a trending market. Momentum traders are looking for breakouts when the market is forming a triangle consolidation. Swing traders are looking for rallies and bounces when the market is trending up or down. As demonstrated by us, a breakout strategy works very nice in a trending market. Most traders would disagree. Disregard the majority opinion. It is probably wrong. Max Gunther: The Zurich Axioms
And that's the reason why we focus on the GBP/USD pair. It is the best trending currency pair among of all other pairs.
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An example when the market looks wild (GBP/USD, 13th November 2007):
There are four true breakouts in the chart (the first, third, fifth and sixth day). In Chapter V: Consistency and the math behind, we called them Class A trades. On the second day, the long position was closed with a loss, but another sell-stop order was filled. We took a profit which covered our loss. This situation comes under Class B. On the fourth day, the worst-case scenario happened (Class D). The long position was closed with a loss, the sell-stop order was filled, but the profit target was missed again.
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1) Look at the chart and label every day as explained in Chapter V: Consistency and the math behind. 2) Then assign a number to every label: A: +99 B: 3 C: 102 D: 204 3) Sum up the numbers to obtain the total profit for a given period. This is a rough test assuming that average range is 100 pips. A very precise test including money management is shown in the next paragraphs.
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VII.2. Equity
The account equity gives us much more information than the total profit number. There is another important parameter called drawdown. Drawdown is a reduction in account equity from a series of trades. The more smooth the equity curve looks, the more powerful the strategy is.
This is the account equity from backtesting results in the year 2007. Starting with $1000 we doubled our account. There is an ugly drawdown on the equity curve. We have to do some more research in the next paragraph.
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Which account equity would you choose? If you have choosen the second one because of the greatest profit, then go back and read the previous paragraph again. If you have chosen the third chart, then you are right. Take a look at the half-year. Unlike the second chart, this period was profitable. We like consistency more than the overall profit.
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The two years backtesting results show us that our 1MinuteDaily strategy is consistent and really powerfull. Starting with only $1000, we made $3653.
You can find the full backtesting results in the Excel sheet: RESULTS.xls, Sheet: GBPUSD fixed.
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You can find the full backtesting results in the Excel sheet: RESULTS.xls, Sheet: GBPUSD 5.
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You can find the full backtesting results in the Excel sheet: RESULTS.xls, Sheet: GBPUSD 10.
Our final account is $62,187. We made $61,187 from $1000 in two years! Starting with $10,000 you should make $611,870, etc. This is the way how the lazy multimillionaires are born. Working just one minute daily and making 61-times in two years is a dream of every small trader. It's not a dream, it's reality!
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Over-optimization is a process of adjusting the indicator's parameters. You can easily find a perfect system created by randomly chosen indicators. The only thing what you have to do is to tune up their parameters to appropriate values so that the system looks perfectly on historical data. And if you have enough adjustable parameters, there is no doubt that you will find such a good combination. But you never know what parameters will be good an hour later... On the left, there is a history. On the right, there is a mystery. Now, let's talk in general about how to avoid over-optimization when creating a forex system. Imagine that you have found / created / bought / learned / developed a system based on moving averages and it works great when the EMA period is 34. Try to test the system with EMA period 33 or 35, or ask the vendor / trader if the system works with some other values close to 34. If the system totally fails with EMA period 33 or 35, then you are walking on weak ice. A little change should not discard the system. Such a system does not have any chances to work in future. It is over-optimized. As you have seen in the last chapter, the system works for various times after 7:00 GMT. If one used it at 7:00 GMT instead of 9:00 GMT, he would made a profit as well. Another tricky way to prevent over-optimization is to optimize your strategy on some historical data and then test it on the new data the so called forward-test. The most robust and convincing test is to review the results after some time. And that's what we have done in this update. www.1minutedaily.com 31
With the Currency_Auto_Setup option set to true, you don't have to care about the times. The breakout area will be set up automatically for GBP/USD, USD/JPY and GBP/JPY.
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Conclusion: GBP/USD is still doing great. Moreover, the performance has increased dramatically as compared to the previous results (from 1761.5% to 6074.6%). Trading the GBP/JPY pair with true money management (5%) is a bit riskier than the other currency pairs, but acceptable. The USD/JPY pair is a big winner: $125,740 from $1000, and that's 12,474%!
Licensed to
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Happy Trading!
Risk disclaimer: Trading foreign exchange on margin carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. The high degree of leverage can work against you as well as for you. Before deciding to invest in foreign exchange you should carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite. The possibility exists that you could sustain a loss of some or all of your initial investment and therefore you should not invest money that you cannot afford to lose. CFTC RULE 4.41 - Hypothetical performance results have many inherent limitations. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to those shown. In fact, there are frequently sharp differences between hypothetical performance results and the actual results subsequently achieved by any particular trading program. One of the limitations of hypothetical performance results is that they are generally prepared with the benefit of hindsight. In addition, hypothetical trading does not involve financial risk. Variables such as the ability to adhere to a particular trading program in spite of trading losses as well as maintaining adequate liquidity are material points which can adversely affect actual real trading results.
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