Williama's Trading System

[Bogie]

Spreadsheet to Calculate Buy/Sell Levels

Hi All,
I don't know if anyone will find this useful or not, but I've generated a simple spreadsheet that calculates all of the buy/sell levels for Williama's system (which has intrigued me since I first read this thread 3 days ago).

I had to generate the spreadsheet because I'm using NinjaTrader and I need to calculate the SL and TP in pips from the stop price.

So here's the poop:

Simply enter the current price and all the other fields are calculated for you.

You can adjust the Spread, Steps (between levels), and the Half Range. This means that you can use it for any currency pair.

The spreadsheet may be lock protected. Only the fields you would want to change are unlocked. If for any reason you'd like to unprotect the sheet, the password is "stop" (less quotes).

Oh yeah. You'll notice that the Level 0 buy and sell are offset in the middle of the spreadsheet. I did this because I think that you would normally only enter a level 0 after a level 1 has been triggered. So it just keeps it outta the way until you need it.

Have fun!
Bogie

 

[tazmaan]

a simpler, more conservative application of williama's system can be applied safely and profitably.

first, using just one level (1 buy level and 1 sell level) will simplify the placing of pending orders and create a narrow enough range - 50 pips - so that the trade will hit TP every day.

second, targeting a more conservative % profit per trade would eliminate the risk of a margin call. Targeting a 1% acct increase per trade should be fine. also, it will create more money than you will ever need. Imagine any account compounding at 5% (minimum) weekly. Do the math on a $10,000 or $5,000 or even $2,000 acct. you will smile.

a probable set-up on the eur/usd might be as follows:

- TP (Buy) ... 20 pips from Buy Level
- Buy Level
- (10 pip spread between Buy and Sell Levels)
- Sell Level
- TP (Sell) ... 20 pips from Sell Level

you will have to figure out how many lots it would take to increase your acct by 1% in 20 pips. another way to look at this is to think of risk. how many lots could i bet so that i only risk 1% on the initial trade set up?

so, what's the point of this post? here it is. perhaps trying to hit a homerun w/ every trade isn't the best approach. how about just getting a base run w/ each trade? eventually, all the runs will get to home and score.

if you read this and see the value, good for you. if you get on a demo and test it out, better for you.

best regards to all.

9volt,
What are the stops you would set for these two trades. I think you read my mind without me knowing it!

 

[Bill Paroli]

Naufrage's EA

Naufrage,

Have you posted a update of your EA since your first post earlier this week? If you have, I'm having trouble finding it.

Thanks,

Bill

 

[mantorp]

on multiple charts

Hi Williama,

I need a confirmation: when you hit a level, you had always the same amounts of lots as pending orders (for example initial lot on the same side and double lots on the other), or you had an increasing amount of lot to always cover losses of already opened lots?

I ask you this because when making the EA, I ran into a problem:
-if I had always the same amount of lots as new pending orders, there will come a time, when the market go up and down without reaching an end, when new pending order won't cover losses of opened one. And after backetesting, this happened often, too often to be profitable
-if I increase the amount of the new pending orders added to always cover losses of opened one, the amount will grow exponentially, and eventually we run out of free margin. And, still after backtest, that happens sometimes, regardless of the size of your balance (I test with a 10 000 dollars and 0.01 lots, I still ran out of free margin and ended up with a big losses!).
And each case, this is very profitable... until the big losse occured.

As you said, no matter each end is reached, profit is made, IF and only IF we have enough margin to backup orders. Problem is, we don't know when the market will reach an end. It's like a martingale system (when you double your lot after each losing trade), in theory it always work, but in reality there will eventually be a bad day when you'll run out of money and lose everything, regardless of the size of your account.

But I'm still working on the EA as I think this strategy is good if we find a way to exit losing setup early. The "profit target" idea seems quite interesting in this regard. I'm thinking about a "dynamic" profit target, which would adapt to the market conditions to maximize profit and limit losses. If it interests someone, I'll keep you updated.

Good night everyone

Naufrage, when I was using your EA it wouldn't open orders if I added it to a new chart. The first one kept working fine, but any new charts would sit idle. Do you know why this is? Thanks

 

[chris001]

a simpler, more conservative application of williama's system can be applied safely and profitably.

first, using just one level (1 buy level and 1 sell level) will simplify the placing of pending orders and create a narrow enough range - 50 pips - so that the trade will hit TP every day.

second, targeting a more conservative % profit per trade would eliminate the risk of a margin call. Targeting a 1% acct increase per trade should be fine. also, it will create more money than you will ever need. Imagine any account compounding at 5% (minimum) weekly. Do the math on a $10,000 or $5,000 or even $2,000 acct. you will smile.

a probable set-up on the eur/usd might be as follows:

- TP (Buy) ... 20 pips from Buy Level
- Buy Level
- (10 pip spread between Buy and Sell Levels)
- Sell Level
- TP (Sell) ... 20 pips from Sell Level

you will have to figure out how many lots it would take to increase your acct by 1% in 20 pips. another way to look at this is to think of risk. how many lots could i bet so that i only risk 1% on the initial trade set up?

so, what's the point of this post? here it is. perhaps trying to hit a homerun w/ every trade isn't the best approach. how about just getting a base run w/ each trade? eventually, all the runs will get to home and score.

if you read this and see the value, good for you. if you get on a demo and test it out, better for you.

best regards to all.

Was starting to think along these lines too, 9volt. Finding a way of making sure the range is small enough to get hit. Is your choice of 50 pips based on a percentage of ATR?

Not sure where this would fit in with Williama's original inspiration to catch the brokers out but as a system it should still work.

Thanks. Chris

 

[chris001]

Hi All,
I don't know if anyone will find this useful or not, but I've generated a simple spreadsheet that calculates all of the buy/sell levels for Williama's system (which has intrigued me since I first read this thread 3 days ago).

I had to generate the spreadsheet because I'm using NinjaTrader and I need to calculate the SL and TP in pips from the stop price.

So here's the poop:

Simply enter the current price and all the other fields are calculated for you.

You can adjust the Spread, Steps (between levels), and the Half Range. This means that you can use it for any currency pair.

The spreadsheet may be lock protected. Only the fields you would want to change are unlocked. If for any reason you'd like to unprotect the sheet, the password is "stop" (less quotes).

Oh yeah. You'll notice that the Level 0 buy and sell are offset in the middle of the spreadsheet. I did this because I think that you would normally only enter a level 0 after a level 1 has been triggered. So it just keeps it outta the way until you need it.

Have fun!
Bogie

Thanks for doing this, Bogie.. looks very useful... but how does the half range entry affect anything?

Chris

 

[Bogie]

Spreadsheet

Chris, #196

Thanks for pointing this out. I neglected to delete that field before uploading.

My original thought was that if Williama had supplied the list of half ranges that he has worked out for the majors, I would have set up the steps field to be calculated from the Half Range field. The Steps field then would have been for reference only.

So as it stands, the buy and sell levels are derived from the current price and steps fields. You need to know what the spread between levels is supposed to be for it to work properly.

Bogie

 

[andrewdarnell]

Where's my missing $15K?

I am partly amused and partly disturbed to see this thread continue. But I am encouraged that WilliamA suffered a near miss in only his second demonstration of the strategy. Yes, he did bank profit on the set of trades, but he showed how quickly it can get out of hand, and only after 2 or 3 days of trades.

There are good aspects to this thread. It is causing people to do some investigating of an interesting system and that is great. But as I said in my first post, the worst thing about this thread is that WilliamA is making false statements to try to gain clients. He will trade these client's accounts at no risk to himself, taking 50% of profits monthly, until these account's blow up. He is preying on mathematically naive traders.

The system that he describes is a Martingale. When he says it is not, he is flat out lying. Please look up Martingale bet sizing on Wikipedia or elsewhere. Make sure you understand the math (it is not complicated) before you experiment with this strategy with real money. (Once you understand the math you won't risk real money.) One central characteristic of a Martingale is that you keep winning until you lose everything. It is extremely seductive and therefore extremely dangerous.

Think about what happens when the market oscillates a few more times than you have planned for and you keep adding positions to the other side of the trade. You will get into a drawdown that you can't handle and your account will be toast.

On each oscillation WilliamA appears to be adding positions to the other side based on "feel." That's scary. That means he doesn't have a rigorous set of probabilities that he is operating from, and therefore no clear mathematical reason for putting on new positions (other than to make sure he makes ton's of money when the system hits the TP). What if he is feeling "sure" that the market is going up and he puts on larger than normal positions on the buy side? Then the market reverses and he's "sure" it is going to head down to the lower TP so he goes short strongly? What if it the market misses the TP by a few pips and starts heading up again hard? In order to stay "safe" you HAVE to add more positions to the other side when the market oscillates. YOU CAN'T STOP or you risk losing money if the market goes to the TP on the side that has fewer positions.

If you don't have a deep understanding of this system, either based on mathematical analysis or based on running monte carlo computer simulations, then don't trade this with money you care about. The only way to trade this system with a degree of safety is to trade so small that you may as well put your money in a CD.

(Also, I have been using EAs for a long time. Never had one "disabled." This seems like BS to me.)

And please tell me: why did he start off with that "broker manipulating prices diatribe?" It has absolutely nothing to do with this strategy. In fact, if you are extremely well capitalized, you could run this strategy with equal lack of success using futures instruments on an exchange.

At best, WilliamA is not a very clear thinker as evidenced by the following:
- He believes that the broker is able to manipulate prices over a range of several hundred pips on the GBPJPY.
- He considers a 40% draw-down manageable. Another few oscillations and the draw-down + margin would kill the account. And if he chooses not to keep adding positions (or gets to a point where he can't), he risks losing money on one side.
- He calculated $20K in profits during the trade, but ended up with $5100. Do you want this guy making calculations on what positions to add to save your account from ruin (after not having slept much for 3-4 days)? And what if a trade lasts 5 days? Does he sleep very little for 5 days in a row?
- The missing $15K was stolen by the broker -- "the broker took it in the sea of orders?" In a demo account? This is bordering on delusional. No, that's not accurate: this IS delusional thinking.

To me this is the scariest statement that he has made:
"I only add big lots to a pending order when I know market trend or movement is imminent. That is part of my trading skills to maximize profit." There is no better recipe for blowing an account with this type if strategy. All you need is ONE situation where he bets big and the market immediately reverses and you are in trouble.

So, my advice: Keep exploring because you will learn something about Martingales and this is valuable. Don't open an account unless you want to make a gift.

Finally, asking for postcards so that he can build a mailing list is probably something that Felix and his admins should look into.

 

[shiva]

Asking for trouble?

Willama, not a good idea to publish personal info such as your address, daughter's name on a public forum.

Ok everyone,

I hope I have contributed with something nice and useful to you. I am going to take a break and sleep for 3 days so I can rest.

I want to tell everybody that I enjoy very much different cultures, places and people, for this reason I would like to make a request to all of you. I want to cheer someone I love, my wonderful daughter Katherine Christina with a gift from you. Whenever possible and when you have time, can you send her a Postcard from your city?

Her address is:
Cr. 91 B No. 78 A 58
Medellín – Colombia
South America

Thank you to all those that accept my request.
By for now,

Guillermo Arango (williama)

 

[DMFXTrader]

Was starting to think along these lines too, 9volt. Finding a way of making sure the range is small enough to get hit. Is your choice of 50 pips based on a percentage of ATR?

Not sure where this would fit in with Williama's original inspiration to catch the brokers out but as a system it should still work.

Thanks. Chris

Making the range smaller will actually make the amount of each pending order larger than if you had a larger range. If the market ranged within the 50 pip range and kept hitting the pending orders, after 3 or 4 times you would be placing incredibly large trades. Paper trade it to see what happens - it is quite scary how quickly it could get out of hand.

This system is great in a trending market but in a ranging one get prepared to say goodbye to your account.