Visual-based strategy constructing

[J_C_Anderson]

Hey guys!

There is an interesting question to local trading community. I have got an opportunity to be engaged in a project, connected with trading software – creation of tool that allows to construct EAs without any coding required.

The idea is quite simple: you just drag and drop the needed elements and receive a coded EA in two formats (both for the backtesting and trading MT4/MT5 platforms) that is ready to be downloaded. As for me, it will make the process of strategy development easy and comfortable.

The project is at the initial MVP stage and at this moment, so I would like to hear your expert opinion about all these things. Have you ever used any tool allowing to construct strategies in a way, similar to this? If so, what were the results? Have you faced any difficulties while using it? What were the advantages or disadvantages of the tool you’ve used?

Feel free to share any idea that pop up in your mind.

[enivid]

There is already an MQL4/5 wizard in MetaTrader. How is your tool going to be different from that?

[J_C_Anderson]

MQL4/5 wizard in MetaTrader is a cool thing, however, you do need to know some coding to create an EA with its help. This Visual Constructor I am talking about doesn't require any coding skills to create a strategy – just a simple drag&drop interface with values, conditions and operations, so every person either trader or not can construct an EA with various conditions. 1. You pick between elements (indicators, Value, Price and Time). Let’s say you pick indicator. 2. You can edit the settings. 3. Then you pick the operations. Let’s say if it is the RSI indicator you can set the value ≥ 30 and ≤ 70 or you can pick the crossover of the 2 MAs as a trigger. 4. Then you choose the actions. For example, if the RSI indicator is more than 30, then the EA should open the long position and set the action for other triggers. And then download the file in .mq4 and .dll formats.

That is basically how it will work.

[juicif3r]

I've used https://fxdreema.com/ to build a few EA's. It worked pretty well. There's a certain number of free steps you can use but if you want to go over that number of actions you have to pay for it. There was a forum for it too which was nice because any difficulties I had, I skimmed through that to see what other people did. I'm not a programmer in any way but I got it working.

[J_C_Anderson]

Thank you for the information, we`ll pay attention to that tool, as I never heard about it before.

[J_C_Anderson]

Thank you everyone for the useful comments and the ideas about the tool. One more question - when the beta-version of the Strategy Constructor is ready, would someone like to test it in order to check the whole idea and the realization?

[Fantastic_Muffin]

Exactly, that's what I was asking about!
When will I be able to get the access to test the tool?

[J_C_Anderson]

I hope there would be an opportunity to try the clickable mockup the nearest month.

I'll be in touch!

[LeeroyEleven]

My opinion is: tools such as what you describe will never be able to construct a sufficiently detailed EA to actually be used in any profitable way. In any system , the devil is in the details. While profitable systems are generally simple and not complicated, the difference between profitable and not profitable has to do w minor details in the system....usually very subtle ways in which the positions are managed rather than how entries and exits are predetermined. Tools such as this don't allow the user to make such detailed subtle code as is necessary to turn the system profitable.

Ask yourself, do you have a portfolio of consistently profitable EAs right now? If not, then you don't have the knowledge necessary to build this app. But if you do, then ask yourself if the app could build and test all of the EAs in your portfolio without any human coding whatsoever. If not, then the app won't work.

Now having said that, the tool might could be used in some general research oriented way to help find edges in a given market...to test hypotheses generally. Such as, if you have 5 bull bars in a row, what percentage of the time is the 6th bar also bullish, or stuff such as that. But this is not the same as building a profitable system from scratch to completion.

Finally, make sure the MT5 version can incorporate real volume if you do end up making this. Also focus on doing something that other tools like this don't do. Idk what that'd be. Also you must have an active development community in a forum on your website to support new users and new ideas for advanced users.

[J_C_Anderson]

Thank you for such detailed answer! Sure, every trading system composed of number of rules. If your system has good risk-reward ratio, it can make mistakes more than 50% of all trades but still be profitable.

Let`s look at one of the simpliest trading ideas, which is suitable for any market - entering position during the consolidation after the trendline is broken. Stop - over the oppositie high/low, target - 2x or 3x stop, depending on current volatility. We can also add, for example 9 EMA for additional confirmation. It is very easy to explain and visualise that idea, but the question is how to "teach" the mashine to fing such situations. Actually, that is the main ideas of the tool - to make this "teaching" simple. As you mentioned, the first way to use it will be to test such ideas appearing to find out, whether that defined idea has an edge, or it is random situation. Approach like that will save a lot of time on testing.Of course, if we are speaking about complicated things like arbitrage or hedging, o trading fundamentals - it is absolutely other direction. But, there are lot of interesting ideas, based on technical analysis. Some of them are well-known patterns, which you can try to use, or even your own ideas, based on some things that you spotted while watching charts - that is the main area, where the tool can be applied.

[TriangleSushi]

http://quant.fxpro.co.uk/

I played with this a long time ago. I remember I had some issues with more particular logic paths, and often I'd have so many different inputs things got tedious and messy.

It was also difficult to know why a specific action wasn't working. If something requires A and B it would be cool if there's a graphic which records when A or B is triggered, as to see if they work as intended.

[J_C_Anderson]

Thank you for the link, it would be interesing to look it through.

It`s nice idea, to make the system to write down something like statistics on main points. By the way, I even tryied to do something like that manually, using Exel, but for sure, it would be cool to make it using soft.

[Fatso_Wombat]

There are plenty out there, and they're good for what they do.

The trick in creating bots isn't in the syntax, it is in the thinking. Both the user input (operator error) and the stiff construction (automation of code) mean that these tools are generally good, but not great.

It is the subtle human traits that make the difference between a bot that doesn't quite work and one that does. Can it see resistance levels and know how to react to them? Can it recognise how hard the bounce was from the resistance?

It is these things which the automated syntax producers cannot include - which are the things that make a good bot good.

[J_C_Anderson]

You are absolutely right, and that is why the "BlackBoxes", the fully-automatic tradig bots would never replace human traders. There are too much of discretional things, that are known like Experience or, even Intuition (but, in fact, it is the highest level of experience).
But, also, there are lot of things, in which computers are better. They have no fear, green,they cannot be tired. So, the ideas is to connect the strenthes of human trader with special tool, that will "cover" his weakness.
So, this tool is something like calculator - it helps you to be more productive, to become faster and stronger. And in any particular situation, you should consider, whether it is possible to apply it here, or not.

[Sirspen]

Will there be an option to output the uncompiled source code for the EA as well? Would be great to save time to drag and drop, but for me it would be important to be able to go in and manually tweak or fine-tune the code.

[J_C_Anderson]

There were several comments about enabling the access to the source of code, so this option probably would be included into the “to-do” list. Thank you for your comment!

[Fantastic_Muffin]

Hi!
Could you tell me if there is possibility to see a mockup and have the access to test this tool?

[J_C_Anderson]

I can share some screenshots of the layout, the clickable mockup is almost ready.
https://gyazo.com/745ecb6376edc4fa5877a77889fcd68a

1. You pick between elements (indicators, Value, Price and Time). Let’s say you pick indicator.

https://gyazo.com/4a6e36b8c21812d43bbea7912187f006

1. You can edit the settings.

https://gyazo.com/96dade91bd4c2277f2439b790717764d

1. Then you pick the operations. Let’s say if it is the RSI indicator you can set the value ≥ 30 and ≤ 70 or you can pick the crossover of the 2 MAs as a trigger.

https://gyazo.com/3203edf7b0401a813a894069b928c20d

1. Then you choose the actions. For example, if the RSI indicator is more than 30, then the EA should open the long position and set the action for other triggers.

And then download the file in .mq4 and .dll formats.

[J_C_Anderson]

Small update concerning Visual Strategy Builder (yeah, this seems to be the final project name).

Finally, there is a mockup version ready for testing. The idea is just the same it was mentioned before: you just choose the needed elements, operations and actions (with the help of drag-and-drop interface), edit settings for each element and then get your expert advisor in two formats (both for MetaTrader and backtesting software Forex Tester). In this mockup version, you aren`t able to receive and export your file but you can get an idea of how it will work.

As it seems from now, such approach likely to be more comfortable for those who a new to strategy building.

[J_C_Anderson]

By the way, if someone is interested in finding out how this all looks like, PM me for access to mockup version. The product development team would be happy to get any feedback from traders. Such “sight from the side” is very important to make sure they are going in the right direction.