MT3 drawdowns, ow to improve

Question
Hi Tom
Using the HILO on MT charts I’ve experienced some very heavy draw-downs. The worst to date is $4,725.00. What can I tweak to limit these losses?

Answer
There is an enormous number of permutations.

If you think of the premise of the system, you have
a Low or high with a reversal price action entry -

The smaller the time series more signals, the more signals the more wins and losses.
There is some middle ground that provides a pay off between profit oppurtunity and early entry to stop size vs confirmation.

For higher dataseries values
The profit target will be less adaptive stops more - static stops more likely to be hit in sideways/chop along highs/lows..
So you can chose a stop that was 4 ticks above/below the entry candle versus a static stop for example
The Parameter Stop Adaptive Placement controls stop placement.

Effects can be illustrated by perhaps using a range 5,10,15,20 minute 5,10,30 renko 5, 10,15,20, Tick 144, 233, 377, 610, 987

Maximising profits verus losses.
The numbe for Target Units can have an effect,
You want to avoid losses but stay in for runs - 1 target approach with a breakeven and trail can provide that,
Or a take one off and trail the second is a common approach.
You might to work on a long range target of the daily ATR ,and one 1/3 of the way to entry, using a trail stop for the second

Stats Feedback
To get stats perhaps you would put an a larget stop in of 30 ticks, a target of 100 ticks and see what the MFE and MAE averages are and use that to gudie oyu on your stop size, breakeven and trail, target - use the Performance analysis to see those stats.

Nuances, confirmation and filters
The basic pattern is Top Reversal, Bottom Reversal.

Confirmation can be increased with Price action, you might want to add a Trade Entry Pattern or Candle Pattern on top of the Trade setup
Such as
Setup = Top Reversal
Entry = Close below Setup Candle Close + Lower high + Candle = Bear Candle + ( Closed at Low )

or

Setup = Top Reversal Double Top or Twin Peak
Entry = Close below Setup Candle Close + Lower high + Candle = Bear Candle + ( Closed at Low )

Reverse for Long

Filters

TIME
You can add Timing for trading, high energy times, the open the last hour before lunch.
Session Times only trade from 8.00 to 9 -get the open range reversal etc
or
Only take trades from 8AM to 12AM and or 14 to 16:00

Range Filter:
Only trade if current range is at 50% or over daily predicted range

Bias Filter
Trade with a moving average filter.
Trade Long if 200SMA is rising etc

Manual Filters
Pause the trading enabled feature in the MT Easy Trader -
If today is a news day and obviously waiting for news... etc

Using volume deltas, Order analytics wait for confrluence

Levels:
Are we in a Weekly chart Trend Channel support/resistance zone etc?
Pivots - are we at s1,s2,s3
daily,weekly etc

MT Fib Grid - are are at a 23% 50%, 76% 100% ranges etc

Dynamic S/R
Are we pulled back to the 200SMA on a 30 or 60min, or did we bounce, or cross and retest etc?

HTF
Weekly, Daily Fib numbers

Daily Range
MT ATR RAnge HTF
15 days of data 30min chart
is the green line avove the the grey or in between the blue lines - have we hit the daily range -

Figures/ round numbers

Extremes
60Min chart WoodiewsCCI is it at 200? etc

Trend
What is HTF trends are we in a counter trend pullback or trend continutation phase?
Accumulation, breakout?

Correlating stats:
You can test many dataseries and markets in parrallel, the stats are best collated in Sim Accounts that you create in the control center
Tools >options > Simulator.
This way you trade each sim setting and market on a seperate account and have easy aacess to intelligence and analysis stats/
EG create a sim account MT3 6B 10Range V1

Gathering Nuances
Best kept in Excel.. test in realtime and make notes of trade result and nuances - find the common elemeont of losers or winners if you can..

I put something together for FX here:
http://forum.micro-trends.co.uk/topic1104-forex-trading-system-trade-plan-and-journal.aspx
You can expand on it etc...

A column for each nuance etc...

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