Three ducks system

[CanOz]

Hello CanOZ

I've been testing the 3-Duck System on MT4 for the past fortnight and after hours of watching the screen every night, I'm having no luck. Dunno why because te simplicity of the system really appeals to me. Well, after waiting every night, I still have not been able to catch a single early move like described in the Captain Currency ebook. Best I've got is a few quick pips on trades that lasted 5 or 10 minutes but this was followed by more losses so that after about 8 trades, I've turned the $5,000 demo account to $3,800.

Tell me, when you guys find the 4hr trend is up, confirm that 1hr is up, how long do you wait and watch the screen for a crossover of moving average on the 5 min chart? The waiting drives me crazy. Is that how you trade?
cheers

I don't only wait for a cross over, but instead postion a limit order to buy on a break of a pivot high or low, providing that the price is in the proper location in regards to the ma on the 5 minute. Sometimes you can get them setup just after the price crosses the ma, but thats been rare for me. Last night there were heaps of setups and i didn't take them....don't ask me why. i guess i thought i would wake up later and place the trades, but alas, i slept thorugh only to wake up and see that the equity markets collapsed and with it many of the pairs.

Oh, btw, plenty of setups starting appear again after this morning retracments. How low can they go though??? So oversold already!

Cheers,


CanOz

 

[CanOz]

This is an example of the setup that i'm waiting for Kam.

Green = Entry
Red = Stop

Cheers,


CanOz

 

[kam75]

Thanks CanOZ! I finally got my first few runs last night using the 3 Duck System!! The 4 hour and 1 hour ducks were aligned short on EURUSD and GBPUSD and long on USDCHF. I waited until the prices crossed and closed below the 60 SMA on their 5 minute charts. Got 30 PIPS on EURUSD, 126 PIPS on GBPUSD, and 15 on USDCHF. Am I on the right track?

By the way, MT4 qouted enormous margin, like 2500% on my trades last night. Is this for real when you trading with your broker CanOZ? Otherwise, how do you know how your trades will be margined before you take them?

 

[Wysiwyg]

Ducks up 900 virtual dollars so far on the MT4 demonstration account over the last five days of intermittent EA running.Maybe there is some potential for discretionary trades off the demo for when the obvious bad entry takes place .

 

[CanOz]

Good to see a few having some luck with the ducks...he he

Kam i think what you've done looks fine.

I try and move my stop to BE and quick often i get caught out. I have to learn to give the trade some time.

Overall i'm still up and will post a weekly record on Sunday.

Trends are all a changing now though.

Hope you can trade that EA Live Wyz.

Cheers,


CanOz

 

[lesm]

Good to see a few having some luck with the ducks...he he

Kam i think what you've done looks fine.

I try and move my stop to BE and quick often i get caught out. I have to learn to give the trade some time.

Overall i'm still up and will post a weekly record on Sunday.

Trends are all a changing now though.

Hope you can trade that EA Live Wyz.

Cheers,


CanOz

Can,

USD/CHF would have been a reasonable 3 Duck play tonight.:

Not using the approach, but following the pair with a different method and just took a quick look from a 3 Duck perspective after seeing your post.

Went through the R1 daily pivot at 6:35pm AEST and yesterday's daily high at 6:40pm AEST.

Will be interested in the results and hope you have a positive outcome with the method.

Cheers.

 

[CanOz]

Yeah that would have been a smashing trade! 200 odd pips!

Completely missed it!

Cheers,


CanOz

 

[lesm]

Yeah that would have been a smashing trade! 200 odd pips!

Completely missed it!

Cheers,

CanOz

That happens, you can't get them all.

The times in the previous post should have been AEDST not AEST.

With regard to your previous comment on moving stops to BE, it's a matter of finding the balance between protecting your position and giving the trade room to move. Not always easy.

Not aware of how wide your stops are, but you may want to consider moving it closer to breakeven, as a first step, rather than all the way to breakeven to reduce your initial exposure. Try playing around with it on a SIM and see if that helps.

Dependent on the level of volatility this may still get you stopped out, albeit with a lesser loss.

There is a natural tendency to try and move the stop to breakeven as quickly as possible, but you are aware of the downside of that. There is always the risk of a sudden reversal, but this happens, again it is about balance as well as confidence in your trading approach.

Cheers.

 

[CanOz]

In the case of this EUR duck trade, i set it and went to bed!

I normally sneak up the stop to BE, not all in one move.

Missed out on several other good trades tonight but happy to bag this one to finish the week in healthy profit!

Cheers,


CanOz

 

[CanOz]

Correction: The last EUR trade was not technically a "duck" trade as the longer time frame was not set. This was a break trade i had setup before bed.

Cheers,


CanOz

 

[BentRod]

Fantastic trade Cannie.....you captured almost the entire range.

WD.

 

[CanOz]

Fantastic trade Cannie.....you captured almost the entire range.

WD.

Yeah but it was a counter trend trade so i didn't put on any others, and almost all of the pairs went for a ride.

Never under estimate the role of luck in trading!

Cheers,


CanOz

 

[CanOz]

Week 1 of the planned four weeks of live trading on the three ducks system has yielded a tiny profit and some interesting stats:

Number of Trades taken: 17
Winners: 5
Losers: 12
Average Win: 151.86
Average Loss: -34.96
Biggest Win: 195.45
Biggest Loss: 91.96

Starting Balance: 8438.45 AUD
Ending Balance: 8593.25 AUD

Profit for the week 154.80

Should i include anything else here?

Got chopped around a bit at times this week and missed some good moves while out on errands. I tend to sneak my stop up to BE a bit early at times and i think i have missed some good moves in the Asian sessions. I'll still try and trade only the European and US sessions but I'll keep an eye out for good moves during the local sessions too.

Cheers,



CanOz

 

[lesm]

Week 1 of the planned four weeks of live trading on the three ducks system has yielded a tiny profit and some interesting stats:

Number of Trades taken: 17
Winners: 5
Losers: 12
Average Win: 151.86
Average Loss: -34.96
Biggest Win: 195.45
Biggest Loss: 91.96

Starting Balance: 8438.45 AUD
Ending Balance: 8593.25 AUD

Profit for the week 154.80

Should i include anything else here?

Got chopped around a bit at times this week and missed some good moves while out on errands. I tend to sneak my stop up to BE a bit early at times and i think i have missed some good moves in the Asian sessions. I'll still try and trade only the European and US sessions but I'll keep an eye out for good moves during the local sessions too.

Cheers,

CanOz

Can,

That's plenty of information. Assume your using mini's.

Besides some movements during the day, from 3:00pm AEDST on through to the London open can give some good moves at times.

Will be interesting to see your results after four weeks.

Cheers.

 

[CanOz]

Assume your using mini's.

Yes, that's one reason i moved to Oanda for FX, now i can position size more accurately...ie. i calculate the size using fixed fractional positioning.

I don't get too fussy over a few bucks, i use 1-1.25% of the account on each trade.

CanOz

 

[lesm]

Yes, that's one reason i moved to Oanda for FX, now i can position size more accurately...ie. i calculate the size using fixed fractional positioning.

I don't get too fussy over a few bucks, i use 1-1.25% of the account on each trade.

CanOz

Mini's are a good way to try a system out and Oanda is a lot more flexible with its sizing than a number of other brokers.

Just a quick general question, have you considered or tested using volatility based stops when the market is more volatile, as we have seen over the last few months?

Cheers.

 

[CanOz]

Just a quick general question, have you considered or tested using volatility based stops when the market is more volatile, as we have seen over the last few months?

Cheers.

No i have not Lesm, but open to ideas for sure, you mean like an ATR?

I do occasionally use Parabolic SAR on the 1 hour as a trailing stop, but i don't get too close to the action, only the last two indicators.

CanOz

 

[lesm]

No i have not Lesm, but open to ideas for sure, you mean like an ATR?

I do occasionally use Parabolic SAR on the 1 hour as a trailing stop, but i don't get too close to the action, only the last two indicators.

CanOz

Can,

That's one approach. I have been playing around with an idea similar to Bulkowski's average high low volatility measure.

Les.

 

[CanOz]

For those interested here is TB's

http://thepatternsite.com/stops.html

CanOz

 

[lesm]

For those interested here is TB's

http://thepatternsite.com/stops.html

CanOz

Can,

Attached are two charts showing historic volatilty calculations for a 5 min and 30 min chart on aud/usd. The standard ATR indicator provided via NT is included for reference.

Bulowski's work published on his site, uses daily calculations to calculate the monthly average and multiplier of 2 to obtain the average volatility.

This indicator works across multiple time frames and you select the number of preceding candles to use in the calculation. Thanks should go to the original author, as it saved a lot of leg work. The original work was developed using the daily chart.

Will let you go back to discussing the 3 ducks.

Cheers.