The "Inside Bar" robot is currently on it's 3rd FXDD demo account (they expire every 3 months). In that time, starting with a $5,000 balance, it had returned a $2,000 profit each period, for a total of $4,000. If it had been one account that hadn't expired, the profit would have been more, as the lot sized used in trades is calculated from the equity of the account.
It is one of my most successful robots, and has inspired several variations which are currently under going testing. Additionally, the method was traded manually on a demo account with excellent success. Until, that is, recently, as we shall see.
The top picture shows the current account balance - $4,603.50. So it's down almost $400 since starting on 2012-09-17.
The second picture shows trades from this last week - a loss of $88.01.
There was one particularly good EURUSD trade which could we could have squeezed some more profit out of this week, but unfortunately the settings were not favourable to allow it's capture.
We may yet recoup the losses and end up in profit. We'll see. Another two and a half months left on this demo account.
The variations on this design haven't been doing too well lately either. Which leads us to ...
Inside Bar - Manual Trading
However, the last few weeks haven't been kind to the Inside Bar method of trading. At least not the way I'm trading it, which is with minimal attention to the charts.
The top picture shows the manually traded Inside Bar methods results. From a starting balance of $5,000, we're down to $4,384. Three orders are currently open with a profit of $80.55.
The second picture shows last weeks orders - a loss of $410 - the worst week yet.
I missed a good EURUSD trade early in the week (which the EA version caught for a small profit), was whipsawed badly on the USDCAD, and basically had a horrible week with no winning trades (other than what is currently open).
These results show that this method doesn't work under certain market conditions, which currently I'd describe as "emotional". Not really going anywhere but with huge swings.
This method could possibly work if, when we received an Inside Bar signal, switched to a lower time frame and, using the 4 hour Inside Bar high and low levels, carefully watched the trades. We'd have to adjust stop loss levels quickly and go for smaller profits. It would be time intensive, but it should work.
We *may* recover our losses using this method as-is in the next few weeks, but if these market conditions continue, there may not be much of an account left to trade with.
Also, the EA version trades only EURUSD and AUDUSD. This manual system adds USDCAD and GBPUSD. The other automated versions trade 8 different currencies. I suspect the AUDUSD is the better currency to trade with lately.
The lesson learned from watching this EA for over 6 months has been that the market can change and ruin an otherwise good EA. While it's days aren't over yet, the recent results are a little pessimistic.
