72s Strat: Backtesting Adaptive HMA+ pt.1
This is a follow up to my previous publication of Adaptive HMA+ few months ago, as a mean to provide some kind of initial backtesting tools. Which can be use to explore many possible strategies, optimise its settings to better conform user's pair/tf, and hopefully able to help tweaking your general strategy.
If you haven't read the study or use the indicator, kindly go here first to get the overall idea.
The first strategy introduce in this backtest is one most basic already described in the study; buy/sell is when movement is there and everything is on the right side; When RSI has turned to other side, we can use it as exit point (if in profit of course, else just let it hit our TP/SL, why would we exit before profit). Also, base on RSI when we make entry, we can further differentiate type of signals. --Please check all comments in code directly where the signals, entries, and exits section are.
Second additional strategy to check; is when we also use second faster Adaptive HMA+ for exit. So this is like a double orders on a signal but with different exit-rule (/more on this on snapshots below). Alternatively, you can also work the code so to only use this type of exit.
There's also an additional feature which you can enable its visuals, the Distance Zone, is to help measuring price distance to our xHMA+. It's just a simple atr based envelope really, I already put the sample code in study's comment section, but better gonna update it there directly for non-coder too, after this.
In this sample I use Lot for order quantity size just because that's what I use on my broker. Also what few friends use while we forward-testing it since the study is published, so we also checked/compared each profit/loss report by real number. To use default or other unit of measurement, change the entry code accordingly.
If you change your order size, you should also change the commission in Properties Tab. My broker commission is 5 USD per order/lot, so in there with example order size 0.1 lot I put commission 0.5$ per order (I'll put 2.5$ for 0.5 lot, 10$ for 2 lot, and so on). Crypto usually has higher charge. --It is important that you should fill it base on your broker.
SETTINGS
I'm trying to keep it short. Please explore it further again. (Beginner should also first get acquaintance with terms use here.)
USAGE
(Provided you already have your own comfortable settings for minimum-maximum period of Adaptive HMA+. Best if you already have backtested it manually too and/or apply as an add-on to your working strategy)
1. In our experiences, first most important to define is both elements in the Market Movement Settings. These also tend to be persistent for whole season since it's kinda describing that pair/tf overall behaviour. Don't worry if you still get a low Profit Factor here, but by tweaking you should start to see positive changes in one of Max Drawdown and Net Profit, or Percent Profitable.
2. Afterwards, find your pair/tf Distance Zone. When optimising this, what we seek is just a "not to bad" equity curves to start forming. At least Max Drawdown should lessen more. Doesn't have to be great already, but should be better, no red in Net Profit.
3. Then go manage the "Trailing Minimum Profit", TP, SL, and max SL.
4. Repeat 1,2,3. 👻
5. Manage order size, commission, and/or enable double-order (need pyramiding) if you like. Check if your equity can handle max drawdown before margin call.
6. After getting an acceptable backtest result, go to List of Trades tab and find the biggest loss or when many sequencing loss in a row happened. Click on it to go to exact point on chart, observe why the signal failed and get at least general idea how it can be prevented. The rest is yours, you should know your pair/tf more than other.
You can also re-explore your minimum-maximum period for both Major and minor xHMA+.
Keep in mind that all numbers in Setting are conceptually in a form of range. You don't want to get superb equity curves but actually a "fragile" , means one can easily turn it to disaster just by changing only a fraction in one/two of the setting.
---
If you just wanna test the strength of the indicator alone, you can disable "Use StopLoss" temporarily while optimising settings.
Using no SL might be tempting in overall result data in some cases, but NOTE: It is not recommended to not using SL, don't forget that we deliberately enter when it's in high volatility. If want to add flexibility or trading for long-term, just maximise your SL. ie.: chose SL Point>ATR only and set it maximum. (Check your max drawdown after this).
I think this is quite important specially for beginners, so here's an example; Hypothetically in below scenario, because of some settings, the buy order after the loss sell signal didn't appear. Let's say if our initial capital only 1000$ using leverage and order size 0,5 lot (risky position sizing already), moreover if this happens at the beginning of your trading season, that's half of account gone already in one trade. Your max SL should've made you exit after that pumping bar.
The Trailing Minimum Profit is actually look like this. Search in the code if you want to plot it. I just don't like too many lines on chart.
To maximise profit we can try enabling double-order. The only added rule coded is: RSI should rising when buy and falling when sell. 2nd signal will appears above or below default buy/sell signal. (Of course it's also prone to double-loss, re-check your max drawdown after. Profit factor play its part in here for a long run). Snapshot in comparison:
Two default sell signals on left closed at RSI exit, the additional sell signal closed later on when price crossover minor xHMA+. On buy side, price haven't met our minimum profit when first crossunder minor xHMA+. If later on we hit SL on this "+buy" signal, at least we already profited from default buy signal. You can also consider/treat this as multiple TP points.
For longer-term trading, what you need to maximise is the Minimum Profit, so it won't exit whenever an exit condition happened, it can happen several times before reaching minimum profit. Hopefully this snapshot can explain:
Notice in comparison default sell and buy signal now close in average after 3 days. What's best is when we also have confirmation from higher TF. It's like targeting higher TF by entering from smaller TF.
As also mention in the study, we can still experiment via original HMA by putting same value for minimum-maximum period setting. This is experimental EU 1H with Major xHMA+: 144-144, Flat market 13, Distance multiplier 3.6, with 2nd order activated.
Kiwi was a bit surprising for me. It's flat market is effectively below 6, with quite far distance zone of 3.5. Probably because I'm using big numbers in adaptive period.
---
The result you see in strategy tester report below for EURUSD 15m is using just default settings you see in code, as follow:
(From our forward-testing, the difference we get from net profit is because of the spread, our entry isn't exactly at the close/open price. Not so much though, but not the same. If somebody can direct me to any example where we can code our entry via current bid/ask price, that would be awesome!)
It's already a long post (sorry), think I'm gonna pause here. Check out the code :)
---
DISCLAIMER: Past performance is no guarantee of future results, and so on.. you know the drill ;)
Please read whole description first before using, don't take 1-2 paragraph and claim it's the whole logic, you are responsible of your own actions and understanding.
If you haven't read the study or use the indicator, kindly go here first to get the overall idea.
The first strategy introduce in this backtest is one most basic already described in the study; buy/sell is when movement is there and everything is on the right side; When RSI has turned to other side, we can use it as exit point (if in profit of course, else just let it hit our TP/SL, why would we exit before profit). Also, base on RSI when we make entry, we can further differentiate type of signals. --Please check all comments in code directly where the signals, entries, and exits section are.
Second additional strategy to check; is when we also use second faster Adaptive HMA+ for exit. So this is like a double orders on a signal but with different exit-rule (/more on this on snapshots below). Alternatively, you can also work the code so to only use this type of exit.
There's also an additional feature which you can enable its visuals, the Distance Zone, is to help measuring price distance to our xHMA+. It's just a simple atr based envelope really, I already put the sample code in study's comment section, but better gonna update it there directly for non-coder too, after this.
In this sample I use Lot for order quantity size just because that's what I use on my broker. Also what few friends use while we forward-testing it since the study is published, so we also checked/compared each profit/loss report by real number. To use default or other unit of measurement, change the entry code accordingly.
If you change your order size, you should also change the commission in Properties Tab. My broker commission is 5 USD per order/lot, so in there with example order size 0.1 lot I put commission 0.5$ per order (I'll put 2.5$ for 0.5 lot, 10$ for 2 lot, and so on). Crypto usually has higher charge. --It is important that you should fill it base on your broker.
SETTINGS
I'm trying to keep it short. Please explore it further again. (Beginner should also first get acquaintance with terms use here.)
- ORDERS:
Base Minimum Profit Before Exit:
The number is multiplier of ongoing ATR. Means that when basic exit condition is met, algo will check whether you're already in minimum profit or not, if not, let it still run to TP or SL, or until it meets subsequent exit condition, then it will check again.
Default Target Profit:
Multiplier of ATR at signal. If reached before any eligible exit condition is met, exit TP.
Base StopLoss Point:
You can change directly in code to use other like ATR Trailing SL, fix percent SL, or whatever. In the sample, 4 options provided.
Maximum StopLoss:
This is like a safety-net, that if at some point your chosen SL point from input above happens to be exceeding this maximum input that you can tolerate, then this max point is the one will be use as SL.
Activate 2nd order...:
The additional doubling of certain buy/sell with different exits as described above. If enable, you should also set pyramiding to at least: 2. If not, it does nothing.
- ADAPTIVE HMA+ PERIOD
Many users already have their own settings for these. So in here I only sample the default as first presented in the study. Make it to your adaptive.
- MARKET MOVEMENT
(1) Now you can check in realtime how much slope degree is best to define your specific pair/tf is out of congestion (yellow) area. And (2) also able to check directly what ATR lengths are more suitable defining your pair's volatility.
- DISTANCE ZONE
Distance Multiplier. Each pair/tf has its own best distance zone (in xHMA+ perspective). The zone also determine whether a signal should appear or not. (Or what type of signal, if you wanna go more detail in constructing your strategy)
USAGE
(Provided you already have your own comfortable settings for minimum-maximum period of Adaptive HMA+. Best if you already have backtested it manually too and/or apply as an add-on to your working strategy)
1. In our experiences, first most important to define is both elements in the Market Movement Settings. These also tend to be persistent for whole season since it's kinda describing that pair/tf overall behaviour. Don't worry if you still get a low Profit Factor here, but by tweaking you should start to see positive changes in one of Max Drawdown and Net Profit, or Percent Profitable.
2. Afterwards, find your pair/tf Distance Zone. When optimising this, what we seek is just a "not to bad" equity curves to start forming. At least Max Drawdown should lessen more. Doesn't have to be great already, but should be better, no red in Net Profit.
3. Then go manage the "Trailing Minimum Profit", TP, SL, and max SL.
4. Repeat 1,2,3. 👻
5. Manage order size, commission, and/or enable double-order (need pyramiding) if you like. Check if your equity can handle max drawdown before margin call.
6. After getting an acceptable backtest result, go to List of Trades tab and find the biggest loss or when many sequencing loss in a row happened. Click on it to go to exact point on chart, observe why the signal failed and get at least general idea how it can be prevented. The rest is yours, you should know your pair/tf more than other.
You can also re-explore your minimum-maximum period for both Major and minor xHMA+.
Keep in mind that all numbers in Setting are conceptually in a form of range. You don't want to get superb equity curves but actually a "fragile" , means one can easily turn it to disaster just by changing only a fraction in one/two of the setting.
---
If you just wanna test the strength of the indicator alone, you can disable "Use StopLoss" temporarily while optimising settings.
Using no SL might be tempting in overall result data in some cases, but NOTE: It is not recommended to not using SL, don't forget that we deliberately enter when it's in high volatility. If want to add flexibility or trading for long-term, just maximise your SL. ie.: chose SL Point>ATR only and set it maximum. (Check your max drawdown after this).
I think this is quite important specially for beginners, so here's an example; Hypothetically in below scenario, because of some settings, the buy order after the loss sell signal didn't appear. Let's say if our initial capital only 1000$ using leverage and order size 0,5 lot (risky position sizing already), moreover if this happens at the beginning of your trading season, that's half of account gone already in one trade. Your max SL should've made you exit after that pumping bar.
The Trailing Minimum Profit is actually look like this. Search in the code if you want to plot it. I just don't like too many lines on chart.
To maximise profit we can try enabling double-order. The only added rule coded is: RSI should rising when buy and falling when sell. 2nd signal will appears above or below default buy/sell signal. (Of course it's also prone to double-loss, re-check your max drawdown after. Profit factor play its part in here for a long run). Snapshot in comparison:
For longer-term trading, what you need to maximise is the Minimum Profit, so it won't exit whenever an exit condition happened, it can happen several times before reaching minimum profit. Hopefully this snapshot can explain:
As also mention in the study, we can still experiment via original HMA by putting same value for minimum-maximum period setting. This is experimental EU 1H with Major xHMA+: 144-144, Flat market 13, Distance multiplier 3.6, with 2nd order activated.
Kiwi was a bit surprising for me. It's flat market is effectively below 6, with quite far distance zone of 3.5. Probably because I'm using big numbers in adaptive period.
---
The result you see in strategy tester report below for EURUSD 15m is using just default settings you see in code, as follow:
- 0,1 lot for each order (which is the smallest allowed by my broker).
- No pyramiding. Commission: 0.5 usd per order. Slippage: 3
- Opening position is only using basic strategy #1 (RSI exit). Additional exit not activated.
- Minimum Profit: 1. TP: 3.
- SL use: Half-distance zone. Max SL: 4.5.
- Major xHMA+: 172-233. minor xHMA+: 89-121
- Distance Zone Multiplier: 2.7
- RSI: Standard 14.
(From our forward-testing, the difference we get from net profit is because of the spread, our entry isn't exactly at the close/open price. Not so much though, but not the same. If somebody can direct me to any example where we can code our entry via current bid/ask price, that would be awesome!)
It's already a long post (sorry), think I'm gonna pause here. Check out the code :)
---
DISCLAIMER: Past performance is no guarantee of future results, and so on.. you know the drill ;)
Please read whole description first before using, don't take 1-2 paragraph and claim it's the whole logic, you are responsible of your own actions and understanding.
Release Notes:
Sorry, seems I skipped my Market Movement setting for EU 15m sample above. It's Flat Market:17, and atr(14) >= atr(46).
14 from 12 bars (3 hours) plus 2 bars. 46 is from half a day of 15m bars minus 2 bars (or a full 1st movement of Beeth's Moonlight Sonata minus 2 bars.. whatever make more sense 😁)
14 from 12 bars (3 hours) plus 2 bars. 46 is from half a day of 15m bars minus 2 bars (or a full 1st movement of Beeth's Moonlight Sonata minus 2 bars.. whatever make more sense 😁)
Release Notes:
- Exit signals is now also plotted on chart.
- Added simple alerts for when buy/sell and exits. To add: ⏰ > 72s Strat: Adaptive HMA+ pt.1 > alert() function calls only.
—Exit alert will be triggered when closing position, as an exit, regardless it's a TP, SL, or early exit.