Trend Scalping Strategy - Forex

29 paź 2018Hi all,

I have created the attached strategy for my own use primarily but thought I would share it as my experience to date is that it is profitable in particular circumstances, so thought I would open this out to the community to see if it can be successfully applied on any other pairs and timeframes.

I have protected the source code at this time - mainly because it needs massive tidying up! If I ever get time to do this then I will

The concept of the strategy is based upon the slingshot method - the strategy fundamentally does the following:
- Tests each candle for a new short term trend based upon EMAs
- If there is a new trend, check the RSI and ensure it isnt above the upper RSI threshold (for long positions) and below the lower RSI threshold (for short positions)
- If it passes the RSI check, entry is valid and draws a bar on the chart to show the opening entry position, stop loss position, take profit 1 and take profit 2 positions.

I have backtested this across 28 pairs on the M15 timeframe, comprising of a total of 140,000 candles (35,000 hours of trading). Across this period, 18 of the 28 pairs I looked at were profitable, with overall significant profit if live traded across the 28.

I have live tested 5 pairs on the same timeframe:
- GBPJPY
- GBPUSD
- GBPEUR
- CADJPY
- EURJPY

These pairs have to date given a rough ROR (Return on Risk) position of approx 60% average per trade.

All of the above has been done with the following inputs:
- RSI Upper - 68
- RSI Lower - 32
- Stop Loss - 0.0015
- TP1 - 0.002
- TP2 - 0.004

The SL and TPs are based on a decimal entry of a percentage movement - i.e. the Stop loss above reflects a 0.15% movement, etc etc. Obviously if this were to be tested on longer time frames it is likely that these would need to be larger figures.

I have also tested this live with great success on the S&P 500 and the FTSE, with the following settings:
Indicator Timeframe TP1 TP2 SL Upper Lower
FTSE M5 0.0015 0.004 0.001 70 30
SPX M5 0.0015 0.004 0.001 75 35

Three key notes on trading this below - THESE ARE VERY IMPORTANT!

- This is NOT a high strike rate strategy. Strike rate on profitable pairs is between approx 45 and 55% (although I have seen as low as 35% and still seen significant profit). This has two natural conclusions - risk management is VITAL (I risk 0.5% on each trade, but this may in fact be high for this strategy), and be prepared for potentially significant drawdowns. I have seen certainly drawdowns of 20 consecutive losing trades (counting TP1 and TP2 as 2 trades) and probably longer, which obviously means drawdowns of 10% or greater. The other thing to bear in mind is that with this kind of strike rate, you shouldnt be setting TP1 at a 1:1 risk reward or lower.

- Take Profit 1 is easy - straight Stop and Limit orders. Take Profit 2 is a trailing stop with a start point of the limit for TP1, with then a trailing stop of this distance. This means that should you win on TP1, TP2 is a risk free trade but also trails in for profit if TP2 isnt reached (which it normally isnt). DO NOT set TP2 as a standard stop and limit, this rapidly makes this strategy unprofitable. The point here is that if you reach TP1 you are in some form of trend where you want to capture as much profit as you can.

- Do not enter a trade mid candle. The strategy is based upon the close of the trending candle not the "live" price during this candle, so no need to rush into a trade. If you enter mid candle you will find more often than not that the indicator wasnt for a valid trade by the candle close.

Also, standard disclaimer - past performance is no guarantee of future performance, and if you choose to use this strategy/indicator you do so 100% at your own risk. As a minimum, pick your pairs carefully - I have found particular unprofitability with this strategy with the AUD and NZD pairs so I have ruled these out completely at present, although with different timeframes and inputs these may of course be profitable.

I hope this is helpful for someone...I'd welcome any feedback or other setups where this is profitable.

Moving forward, I want to do some more work on this strategy to rule out some of the more negative trades, and I primarily intend to do this using pivots - however this will be an as and when I get chance.