Forex Hippo - Live Testing

[Simon]

We are delighted to welcome Colleen from Forex MegaDroid Forum and Traders Secret Library. Colleen will be joining us to run automated Forex testing and is an authority on this subject.

She will be running live tests of some popular and (hopefully) profitable Expert Advisors.

I'm sure you will all give her a big welcome.

First up is Forex Hippo.

Forex Hippo is an interesting EA that trades multiple currency pairs. It has had an excellent summer's trading and we have just been sent the latest updated version - Forex Hippo Version 1.2.

We thank Matt, the creator of Forex Hippo, for his assistance in setting up our testing and hope you enjoy this new section.

[Simon]

If you re interested in Forex Hippo, you can check out the official product website by clicking the image below.

[Colleen]

Hello Folks!

Thank you Simon for the warm welcome!

And first up on my docket is Forex Hippo...

We certainly do need to thank Matt, the creator of Forex Hippo, for his assistance in setting up our testing of this interesting ea...

This is an EA that trades multiple currency pairs indeed...

Thus far, I've set up this ea according to the well-written manual Matt has prepared and found this was a relatively easy bot to set up.

You do have to set specific parameters for the different pairs in one or two of the settings but if you follow the manual, you'll be on right on track!

I do look forward to posting some info about the "Positive Pips" we'll find trading with Matt's Forex Hippo!

Cheers,

Colleen

[Ken Long]

Currently running Hippo v1.2 for 1 week now. No problems at this point.
The past month and a halfs results have been amazingly good and can be seen on the ForexPeaceArmy and Donnaforex sites, both post the stats from their demo testing. The first losses in this period were just taken last week. This has been a hugely successful EA on these demo tests, and it hasnt has the intense push from all the usual affiliate hacks like certain other EA's, this is certainly a blessing, and I have some high hopes that it does turn out to be long term profitable.

The creator/developer Matt Robinson has been on the FPA forum answering some questions, as well he just released a nice survey on his EA. He seems quite real and committed to his EA. All his questions were inteligent, looking for honest opinions and comments, not pumping his product or his sales. This has been an under the radar EA as far as sales and promotion. This is quite unusual for the Forex industry, and I am quite pleased with it and glad I decided to step up and test anouther.

[frankjibe]

I bough ForexHippo one month ago, based on the good results on FPA.

Installed it with the settings coming from the user manual, then I started having loosing trade that were profitable on FPA. I wrote to Matt, here following my email:

Dear Matt
I purchased ForexHippo last week based on the results I saw on ForexPeaceArmy, and I have some questions about his behaviour.

First of all let me tell you I installed and configured ForexHippo with the recommended settings from the user manual, and I\'m trading with alpari UK.

The strange thing is that yesterda (24 Aug) ForexHippo opened a Sell position on gbgusd and closed it with a loss of 152 Euros as detailed below.

Ticket Open Time Type Size Item Price S / L T / P Close Time Price Commission Taxes Swap Profit
23074607 2010.08.24 10:00 sell 0.21 gbpusd 1.53900 1.55530 1.53160 2010.08.24 16:26 1.54825 0.00 0.00 0.00 -152.72
432987 Forex Hippo Sell

What\'s really strange to me is that it opened exactly the same position on FPA but it was closed with a small revenue.

Can you tel me what are the settings FPA is using? Might this be related to the risk level (actually at 15...not very low)?


Here following his reply

Hi there Francesco

I also had that exact same trade as yours yesterday, also for a loss. This is because of the StopLoss that is smaller than the one used by FPA.

It seems like FPA is not running my recommended settings, but default settings. I believe that in the long run the recommended settings will be more profitable than the default settings. It is nor related to the Risk setting, but the TakeProfit and Stoploss settings.

Kind regards
Matt

So I learned you cannot trust FPA results. I also asked for a live statement with the current reommended settings and Matt told me he was preparing it.

At that point I knew I didn't have any real info on ForexHippo, so I asked for and got my refund.

I had a look at ForexPeaceArmy statement. On top of the statemant they say that Aug 24 (the very same day I sent my email to Matt), they changed settings according to developer racommendation. From that moment on they are getting lot of huge losses.

It would be great, Ken, if you could share your live statement with myfxbook or similar (together with your settings)


Best
Francesco

[Ken Long]

I've only been running one week on the four major pairs he recomends, so I dont have a lot to report, just three trades, two very nice wins on the EURUSD and one smaller win on the USDCHF.

Matt did post a followup comment on the FPA forum.
The large losses they show on the EURJPY are obviously due to an error in their risk settings. They new recomended setting decrease the risk on the EURJPY to 2% to accomadate the aggessive SL and TP setting and more frequent losses. The FPA instead increased the risk to many times what the other pairs are running.
Also, he claims that the results from the previus versions can be duplicated by simple running the default settings with a fixed lot size, 0.05-0.10 per $1000.
He claims this is still what he runs on his live accounts.

He also sent out an excellent survey on Friday looking for feedback and opinions to help improve the EA.

He seems genuine, concerned about his EA and ways to improve it, he hasnt spamed my e-mail with any affiliate offers, especially with the most recent Bulletproof mega spam scam.

I've just begun my testing, so I am going to give him and his EA at least the month of Sept to get back on track before deciding whether to refund it. The last two weeks of Aug were incredibly hard on many traders, with complaints from traders on all time frames. His EA produced extremely well before that, and hopefuly will continue to.

However, I do have several concerns and questions about his settings which I voiced in his survey. Basically, why is the GBPCHF the only pair to use the BBOpenFilter, why dont the EURCHF and EURGBP use the MAOpenFilter, why dont any pairs use the MACloseFilter, and why are the EURJPY SL and TP settings the inverse of all the other pairs?
I also recomended that he install a volitility range based stop loss, similar to what Megadroid uses, which would work very nicely with his risk adjuster, which does use the stop loss amount to determine position size.

I also have doubts about the overall strategy of buying overbought conditions on all the indicators and selling oversold conditions, aligned with the trend, but we do have the option of reversing this, which may be a good move. This still needs to be tested further, as do the BBand filter and MA Close filter.

[Ken Long]

Frankjibe,

Just rereading your posting, it just came in on the e-mail, and the numbers quoted dont make sense to me. On your statement it says you opened the position short at 1.53900, with the SL 1.55530, and TP 1.53160, and the position closed at 1.54825, for a -152.72 Euro loss. If I'm reading this right you have a 163 pip SL, a 74 pip TP, and a 92.5 pip loss. These numbers add up to the 152.72 Euro loss, but they arent the default or the recomended settings for the GBPUSD. Did the EA open the trade with different settings than the ones you entered? It should have had a 30 pip TP and a 90 pip SL.

My mistake, I see these are the stealth numbers. I dont run my demo accounts on the stealth numbers because I like to see the actual levels, but its good to see the stealth system works. The FPA test shows almost exactly the same trade, with almost exactly the same loss, except the SL is listed as 0.00000, the other numbers vary by less than 1 pip. They dont show a profit, they show a 92 pip loss. I think you were looking at the wrong date.

This was a bad trade, it went to the full SL. The FPA shows four more full losses since then, the two on the EURJPY were grossly overleveraged and shouldnt have been , but there were no losses for the month and a half before that. I think a lot of this is due to the time of year. The general recomendation is to close up shop for Aug, or at least to be very cautious. Use much smaller position sizes and take profits quickly. The markets dont always act normaly in Aug. Other than that, did you check for news, maybe something triggered a large jump in the market. This is just an EA, it cant read the news or always react correctly.

Now its obvious what happened:

The EA opened a short position at 1.5390 on 8/24, 10:00FXDD time, 3:00 est, at the begining of the Eur session. There was a nice downtrend in place, and all the indicators were lined up according to plan, but price went sideways for the next 6-7 hours untill the US Existing Home Sales came out at 10:00am est, 17:00FXDD time. The report was quite negative and the USD droped hard, spiking the EURUSD, which took you out. Somehow it didnt take the FPA demo out right away though. Their position stayed open anouther two days. Thats why you saw a small gain, the position was still open. They were finally taken out on the 26th at aprox the same price as you.

This wasnt really a bad trade. There was a fine trend, and all the indicators lined up. Price simply stalled and it was eventually closed at a loss. If the Order Time Out filter was set for a shorter period of time it would have closed the trade at a 2 pip gain, but it missed its chance by about two hours.

My only complaint is that it entered the trade late. If it had entered two hours earlier it would have made its profits. It waited for the RSI to go oversold before selling, and entered on what became a bottom fractal.

[Ken Long]

I e-mailed this info to Matt Robinson so he can check and confirm. Also in reviewing some of these trades I find that the RSI filter is slower than the Stoch and CCI and often holds back entry past what I consider the optimal point. The use of these oscilators as momentum indicators rather than reversal indicators is fine, but they dont all need to reach the overbought, oversold areas to signal momentum, simply to be above the mid point should be enough. That along with a Fractal filter, to make sure its in close proximity to a fractal reversal might be an improvement. I sent this info to Matt, along with a link to this thread. I still have high hopes for this EA, it seems to have good potential. Ken

[frankjibe]

Hi Ken,

I agree with you, Matt is a nice guy and was one of the few giving some serius attention tu customers.

I had big expectation from that bot, I look forward for some consistent positive performance with recommended settings.

As you did, I configured the EA following the recommended settings for each pair, looks like the only difference is that I ran it in the wrong week while you are running it in a good one. What I look for in an EA is not a double digit profit each week, but consistency. From FPA forward test FH looked very promising but at the end it was not (at least in that week and the uptaded chart on FPA is, at my eyes, exactly the one I ran away from).

If it will prove to be profitable and consistent in the future I will give it a second try, and this time I will not forget to run it on a demo account first

Please, keep us updated
Francesco

p.s. at the moment I'm having good results with Cloverix EA. It has exactly the curve shape and lot progression that I like
CloveriX EA by Fx-EMIT.com Metatrader Expert Adviser Test by Forex Peace Army.

[Simon]

Hi Guys,

Sorry, took the last couple of days off!

I will answer your specific queries/concerns in the morning - I'm pleased to see this thread developing.

Ken - I just wanted to tell you that it is my pleasure to meet you here. Believe it or not but I used to search Google specifically for your name as I regard you as a real expert in automated trading, and I learned a lot from reading your posts on various forums (think that should technically be fora but never mind ).

I'm delighted that you are contributing to this thread and it is my pleasure to meet you.

Francesco - nice to chat to you the other day, thanks also for your interest in this section of our website.

Simon.

P.S. I am using Google Chrome which has a built in spell checker - which appears to not like the word "Google"!