Topic: (Closed) Butter Bot!: Premier Bitstamp, and BTC-E EMA Trading Platform (Closed) - page 17. (Read 274808 times)

Maybe this could be a feature which you could offer?  The ability to heat maps around variables.  Obviously you'd only be able to one set of variables at a time so
* heat map the short/long having chosen a set of buy/sell thresholds
* heat map buy (or sell) thresholds having chosen the short/long  (though a simplification could be to assume that the buy and sell would have the same values leaving us to experiment with any variations between them on back testing)
* heat map tick offset (this would be a linear representation) having chosen the remaining items

These heat maps would be available for either 1 week / 1 month /2 month possibly displayed at the same time or selectable OR for the user selected timeframe.  Similarly I don't see the value in heat mapping the time interval as we can play with setting that before running the heat map.

Given you've already got the data and back testing functionality this would be a logical thing to be offering (and for a beginner it would be a brilliant tool and value add).  It would be nice to be able to dispose of the reams of paper covered by scribbles of values and results which is my current "method" of trying to find a value set that works

Regards

Miles

The past few weeks have been hard on EMA which requires an up and down trend to profit. Regardless, your long term outlook should still be positive and Butter should have protected you from the crash.

We are working on releasing alt strategies as soon as possible to allow users to take advantage of different market conditions. If anyone has any ideas on what strategies or indicators they would like to see, please be sure to let us know.

Pablo.

Pablo.

Great suggestions so far, please keep them coming :=).

I saw heat maps earlier and they confirmed my feeling that there was no way to iterate to a better set of variables - how do I produce them?

Thanks

Miles

If it is at all mathematically/realistically possible, a trading indicator/strategy that can react more quickly to fast swings than EMA.. been losing a lot due to the bot buying at the peak of a $50 rise and selling after the price crashed back below the previous low. TSL doesn't do that job either because it either sells prematurely at a bit of jitter or doesn't react either until it's too late.
So far I've been completely at the mercy of the market and luck and I probably wouldn't be worse off if I hadn't used the bot at all. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the whole point though and this is as good as it gets?

Another feature I'd like, as I already said, would be the bot using actively and quickly corrected limit orders instead of market orders to reduce loss to slippage.

By the way, is it possible that the bot uses some server clock for ticks instead of local time and is that clock by a few minutes late? I've gotten the impression..

Settings profiles or presets.

more currencies trading ! and more exchanges, please!!!, my actual suscription will be valid in the next gen bot right?

^I've bolded these suggestions above as I think they are excellent and would really help improve the functionality and user-friendliness of the bot.

In particular, the "actual profit and loss in terms of both bitcoin and fiat" is perhaps the most important feature I'd like to see added as it would negate the need to record elsewhere how the bot is performing in accordance with mark-to-market pricing, which, quite frankly is a pain it would be nice to do without.

Thanks for asking for customer feedback Pablo, it is really appreciated.

In backtesting, I would like to be able to see the profit in terms of both bitcoin and fiat.  Or be able to toggle between them.

I would like to see actual profit and loss in terms of both bitcoin and fiat.

I would also like to be able to set both the fiat and bitcoin reserves as either a percentage or as a set amount.

I'm not sure what else.  Perhaps consider trading on CampBX...

Thanks!

I want to see profit & loss tracking somehow.

******************
Request for Input:
******************

Friends,
  We need your help with our new development project and we would love to hear from you:

1. What trading strategies would you like to see?

2. What trading indicators (or combination thereof) are important to you?

3. What features would you like to see in our next gen bot (settings profiles, etc.)?

We appreciate everyones input and if we could get a discussion going on what you guys think would be core features of our next generation trading bot, that would be great. We want to get as much of the stuff you guys want in there as possible!

Pablo.

Updated Starter Settings:

We are issuing the following updated "starter" settings for the current market:

We recommend the following starter settings:

Short EMA: 15    Long EMA: 31
Buy 1: 0    Buy 2: 1
Sell 1: 0    Sell 2: 1
1 hour time window.

Please also make sure to set a tick offset.

Let me know if anyone has any questions.

Pablo.

Good general synopsis. However, I don't advise random EMAs. Heat-mapping is a useful technique.

The plan can have multiple layers to it. For instance, my plan is to have the bot on, trading with my defined settings. However, I also have a plan to turn the bot off for sideways or slowly and steadily descending markets, as EMA crossover is a poor strategy in sideways markets. Certain criteria must be met for me to turn the bot off. And likewise to turn the bot back on. Some of the criteria include news, trading volume, my own personal sentiment (can be dangerous), key points of resistance and support, as well as analyzing EMA's across multiple time frames. The main point is to have a predefined reason to do what you do. If you feel your plan needs to be changed that's fine! Just take your time in analyzing why and how you're going to change your plan, and don't change it too often. Rash decisions wipe out accounts.

As referenced throughout this thread, here is Goomboo's EMA crossover strategy thread: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/goomboos-journal-60501
It will provide you with everything you need to know. Spend some time there.

The whole Butter Bot started with Goomboo's journal thread.
What I learnt:
- When lower EMA crosses higher higher EMA, buy. Sell for opposite scenario.
- There is no hard and fast rule on EMA value setting. Just choose one that you like. Can be random as well.
- Manage the number of trades to reduce commissions for exchanges and slippage. Recommended trades per month: 8-12.

This is what I personally think:
- Past data serves only as a reference to start you off on the setting values.
- Settings should not be changed often. Change only when market conditions require it.
- Different exchanges may require different settings because of different commissions and volatility. Adjust accordingly.

My plan:
- EMA values not adjusted
- Adjust interval to suit market conditions. No more than 12 trades per month.
- Different intervals for different exchanges

Hope it is useful to you.

I think that the "always have a plan" bit is the aspect that most bites - how to balance the need to leave BB to get on with it and when to fiddle around to adjust to the conditions.  At the moment my choosing of variables is a fairly random; plug in 18/39, 18/50, 12/20 etc pairs and see what back testing says.  This really doesn't feel planned, more random motion.  Coupled with the fact that at the start I finally found some settings which were predicted to work - then I find that they dont seem to work.  Do I just swap to something else (on the assumption I can find a set which worked for last week) or stick with what I've got and wait for the 30/70% split to swing?  At some point the need to constantly adjust the settings stops being a plan becomes a pain

Coupled with a lack of any science/rigour about how to find and select the variables at the moment and this all feels very "un planned" and random which is both against your sentiment and my hopes for having a bot.

Where do I go to in order to improve my knowledge and technique here?

Miles

Really looking forward to the new features! Hopefully they will be released in time for the next massive swing!

Milles,

This is a poor market for EMA trading at the moment. I've turned off my bot since mid-January because I felt a sustained period of relatively stable price or slow decline coming for the next couple months. Stable price is bad for EMA crossover strategies or really any trading strategy.

Also, be aware that you may be losing 100% of your first trades right now, but you might win the next 3. You might lose the first 20 and win the next 6. Or you might just always lose (but this is about as unlikely as always winning). It's just unfortunate to experience the drawdown at the beginning, because you start to question the strategy and sometimes break from the plan and act on emotions. If you stick to the plan, you will likely enter the market on the next major swing and make up all of your drawdown. However, it can be advantageous to analyze the current market sentiment and adjust your plan accordingly. Just always have a plan, and always honor your plan, or you will lose.

I've saved about 15% of my account balance by turning the bot off so far. I have set resistance points / crossovers that when satisfied, I will re-enter the market and turn the bot back on. Butterbot is a great tool, and in some of these extreme BTC market conditions, you can even just set it and forget it and still see large gains. But if you want to maximize your gains, it takes a decent knowledge of trading, planning, strategy adjustment, and emotional disregard.

I am in need of a little help...

I started using the Bot on the 24th Feb and struggled with working out what settings to use (not how they work - that's fairly clear thanks to this thread) and finally settled on 18/38 with thresholds set to 0/0.2 which back testing suggested profits would be positive (1.05% over a week, 20% over a month and 64% over 2 months - I don't see the point of anything longer given the basically "up" nature from before that).

Now I know that I need to wait and that the bot will loose 70% of the time but at the moment it is loosing 100% of the time and doesn't seem to capitalise even in large swing situations like last week.  I started with $91 (it was originally $100 but moving it into BTC lost me money at the time) and now I have $80.  BB buys/sells at the cross overs as designed but there is always a jump in the "wrong" direct at that time so it seems to buy at more than it then sells for

I assume others are actually making money (!) so what am I doing wrong? I have considered -50/0 so that it buys on the turn to minimise the impact of buying into a market which I guess is being moved by EMA trading but back testing always shows this to be a bad idea.

So as the sub title says - I need a little help because this isn't working at the moment (thank God I listened to the advice to put some "play" money in first!)

Thanks all

Milles

Hey ,
   Maybe I should have made this point clearer, the beta is really a separate app, so it has to be set individually.

I apologize if this caused any confusion.

Pablo.