After a longer break from trading (more about that in another post on this blog), I was thinking about what strategy to choose. I told myself: âA strategy for a comeback? Then it has to be a sure thing.â
So I started looking for ideas. One beautiful, though dreary day, I stumbled upon the London Opening Breakout strategy. It sounded promising. I sat down at the computer, opened the editor, and said to myself: âMr. Dvordo, this might be the one.â (I have a habit of treating myself with utmost respectâespecially in letters.)
đ ď¸ Birth of the EA
I wrote a simple Expert Advisor. The input parameters were:
startRangeHour
endRangeHour
startTradeHour
endTradeHour
RRR
SL (and for completeness: TP = SL Ă RRR)
I set values that made at least partial sense to me and ran a backtest on USDJPY. And lo and beholdâthe thing started making money.
With a fair dose of skepticism (Iâm a cautious person), I watched the rising profit curve and kept repeating to myself: âThe world doesnât work like this.â (Notice that I was so shaken that I forgot my manners and didnât address myself properly.)
đ Optimization and the Answer 42
I ran an optimization. And here came the first mistake: the instrument. It shouldnât have been the âJapanese.â The second mistake: timeframe M30. The optimization results were:
startRangeHour = 0
endRangeHour = 0
startTradeHour = 0
endTradeHour = 0SL and RRR werenât important at that moment. I stared at the results in disbelief. I felt like that mythical alien race that built a supercomputer to find the answer to life, the universe, and everything. The answer was: â42.â
MT4âs optimizer gave me a similar answer. After a bit of digging, I realized my EA didnât need any breakout zone at all. Thanks to its internal logic, it had two entry options: at 00:00 and at 00:30.
đ° The Profitable BUG
With a pounding heart, I launched this unbelievable combination on DEMO. And I christened my new EA âThe Profitable BUGââbecause of the error in the timeâwindow logic.
The very next day it opened its first trade into the insane postâmidnight spread. Using trailing, it managed to secure a decent profit. It wasnât a clean TP, but at that moment I didnât care. I told myself: âMr. Dvordo, donât celebrate. First win drives the second one away.â (And I added: âAn apple before bed keeps ailments away,â but thatâs irrelevant to this story.)
The second day brought a clean TP. By then I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown from sheer joy. On the third day, a modest loss finally arrivedâand I calmed down. My EA wasnât a money machine.
đž TokyoRaider and Its End
We continued at this pace through June and July. It felt silly to keep calling my creation an evolutionary mistake, so I dropped the label âProfitable BUGâ and gave it a new name: TokyoRaider.
And that was the end.
From the beginning of Augustâperhaps due to the new name, perhaps due to changes in U.S. fiscal policyâTokyoRaider gradually started eating away at what it had earned in the previous two months. Attempts at reâoptimization failed. The market had changed so drastically that I was forced to say goodbye to TokyoRaider, probably for good.
đ§ In Conclusion
TokyoRaider wasnât just an EA. It was a symbol of return, hope, mistake, and humility. And even though it ended, it left behind something more important than profit: experience.
And so I set out once again to find a strategy that would be not only profitable, but also faithful.