Topic: (Closed) Butter Bot!: Premier Bitstamp, and BTC-E EMA Trading Platform (Closed) - page 76. (Read 274808 times)

Great idea, of course!

This is actually pretty great advice on the best times to fund your bot. I'm adding this point to our customer support wiki, if that's okay with you .

Before anyone asks, yes, we really want to release a forum/wiki for FAQ's etc. Will do as soon as we get some free development time .

Pablo.

Easy answer:  Yes, when Butter sends you an email that it is buying is a good time to buy more coin if your have cash.

The Golden Cross is where the EMA lines cross at the bottom of the curve.  This corresponds to where Butter buys.  The Dead Cross is the top, this is where Butter sells.

So no, you don't really have to "watch" anything if you don't want to... just wait for Butter to Email you.

What makes a "Golden Cross"?

Under what conditions does the bot go from red to green?

I'm too new to be familiar with these things yet, so I'd have to constantly be watching the little icon, which isn't practical. I watch a chart periodically on bitcoinwisdom.com instead. So could you share with me what kind of pattern I can be on the lookout for there so I'll know to have an educated guess as to when I should check the bot to see if it's in this condition you speak of when it's going from red to green?

I get emails when the bot buys. Should I just wait until the bot says its a good time to buy? I use btcQuick rather than the exchange to buy, but still it can be an indicator.

A good time to buy is at the "Golden Cross"; when the bot goes from red to green.

Patience is an important part of trading.  Wait this cycle out.  It is good practice.



Sean

Q: Is it a good idea given the insanely high price of BTC lately to buy BTC to give the bot a little more capital to work with now, or would it make more sense to wait & see if there will be an end to this rally in a couple weeks & then maybe be able to buy 1 BTC more for the bot to have to work with, just later? Might the bot earn whatever I might be able to get by waiting out the rally if I just buy now at the high prices, and let it do its thing with it?

I think it is beneficial to all in our little community here to share as much information as possible.  So here are answers to some of the PMs I have gotten.

Q:  What tick offset are you using?

A:  Ok except tick offset.  It is really not going to affect or interfere with my trading if a lot of other people are using similar EMA & gate settings, but if we are all trying to buy/sell at exactly the same time it is going to create a sharply focused pressure point on the market and have a negative affect on our trading.

Q:  I am getting better results with settings other then what you are using, why is that?

A:  While you can get good results over quite a range, your specific testing results are affected by your tick offset.  The tick offset introduces a degree of randomness, but may also telegraph trading & bot trends from other traders.  One should avoid obvious offsets such as the top and bottom of the hour, as these obvious trade points can be skewed easily by those working to fool bots.  I recommend finding an offset that you believe would not be widely used by other traders.

If you have time on your hands you can play with offset timing and you will notice some anomalies.  You will find spots on the clock that will swing favor wildly toward and wildly away from your advantage.  This is possibly due to random luck, but as time goes by, I am finding that those "spots" persist.  This should not happen if the readings are random.  I am developing a hypothesis that what I am actually seeing is a pattern from either popular trade-trigger times, or even a single heavy-trader's trigger time.  To explain, if you and I are running similar settings and your offset is 15, then when I test using those settings I "catch" those depressions you made in the market when you traded.  This is not to my advantage, and it skews the test results away from me.  If I move my offset to 20, I may catch the sharp correction to your large trade; skewing the numbers sharply back in my favor.

Random, or pattern?  I don't know, but it sure can't hurt to find a historically "sweet" offset and use it.

Q:  I am using the same settings are you are, but I am not making a profit?

A:  Give it 30 days.

Q:  Is $30 enough in an account to make a profit?

A:  Yes, as long as the exchange will allow trades that small (I have not tried).  $30 will make you the same percentage as $30,000.  Just understand that 10% of $30 is $3, while 10% or $30,000 is $3,000.

NOTE:
If you are trading higher amounts (>$20,000), spread it across all three exchanges to maximize return (market fade).

Happy trading, I hope you all are enjoying this bull market as much as I am.

Sean

I'm loving Butter. I'm really on edge looking for when it can do altcoins and other exchanges (cryptsy for example).

I was one of the folks who had some losses on the trial period, but once I kept trying the bot out and getting a better feel for it, I realized how it worked, and bought a copy. My past several trades have been profit, the bot has already paid for itself.

As do I, and yes, they seem more logical to me.

I have not posted much about experiences with other bots in this forum, as I was not sure how appropriate it was.  I will share some results here, however, because it shows Butter it a good light.

My "manual" trading in the past was guided in part by a "reverse EMA" strategy.  I viewed "straight EMA" as more of a safe, built-in stop-loss strategy then a high-return strategy.  It then made great sense to me to have 1/2 of my BTC investments "safe" in a butter-run EMA bank while I traded the other 1/2 manually.  I admit to some shock when Butter started matching & even beating me with its trades.

Always wanting to be on the cutting edge, and fascinated with the idea of bots, I have purchased every bot made available to the public and tested it.  I am constantly looking for new & interesting bots and how to use them (love the activity and improvements from the Butter team).

Over the last month or so I have been conducting an experiment.  Three accounts were set up with equal amounts of BTC.  One account was given to Butter, the other two managed by a competing bot that shall remain nameless.  Snapshot of results:

Reverse EMA.
Poor trading results.  To be fair, I have, and am still struggling to get the bot to trade the way it works in my mind.  Not working well.    May not be the bot's fault, maybe I am not setting it up right (it is pretty complex).  In the end, the market ran-away from it, and the experiment was a loser.

RSI.
During flat or "sideways" markets, RSI is satisfying.  The more frequent trading is a thrill, but the returns were underwhelming.  There are a lot of bots out there doing this, and the margins are not great for this type of trading.  Two weeks into the experiment Butter was beating the RSI bot handsomely, then the bull-charge came.  As with reverse EMA, RSI sold and got left behind.

EMA/Butter.
The RSI bot traded dozens of times to Butters 2, but Butter still pulled ahead in the account balance.  Still, Butter is boring... can be soooo long between trades, so I left the experiment run.  Then came the bull-charge.  Butter's "safe" EMA position stayed in, rode it up and only sold when it was obviously over.  RSI & reverse EMA were so hopelessly trounced by the experiment I have since turned off the "other" bot, and transferred the funds into a Butter run account.

Butter even beat me by a good margin for the first time, I sold too soon (who knew?).

I will continue to look for and buy anything (trustworthy) people want to program.  But for now, I am here, in this forum, because nothing out there is better then Butter.

GREAT JOB GUYS, I am having a great time making money with your product.

That is a dangerous mindset for a trader. What if it goes higher...

I would advise people to have a realistic idea of what they want vs what they need.

Then hash out over what period of time you'll actually be content if you receive that BTC or USD.

-------------------------

If you have met your trading goal for the moment, then you should cut it off and reel in your profits..rather than wait for a riskier "what if" scenario where it doubles your profits.

People who wait to see if it will go higher usually lose a ton. Take what you can get and you'll cut out a ton of those risky "wait-and-see losses" from your future.

Someone asked earlier in the thread that the price was 220+ and whether they should manually sell...Instead it looks like they let the bot sell them out at 170 or 180 instead by second guessing their own judgement about the situation.

I felt like asking that person why would you not call it, reel in a certain profit amount in the here-and-now rather than wait for a "maybe-profit" in the (unknown) future?

 If it drops 5$ and you buy in, why would you want to buy in again at an even higher price?

Not sure what this is about....

If you are after cash and not BTC then retaining value is what is important.

If you convert 10,000 USD in a buy in(of BTC) at 130$ and you sell it (BTC) off at 137$ (for USD)....while the market goes way up to 220$, you still have the same amount of USD cash.

Even if you buy BTC at 180 you still have the same value (10,000+ in USD). As long as the BTC valuation goes up you will always win extra USD as growth happens. You'd only lose if the BTC devalues against the dollar. (goes down in price)

At that point you'd be better off converting your BTC to USD before it get back to 180 or less. As it continues to go down (lets say into the 150$ territory it only gets cheaper to buy BTC.

As long as you protect your value in USD it would be pretty hard to lose in most circumstances.

This bot (nor is EMA) good for largely unchanging exchanges with high fees.

I use reverse EMA strategies and they are quite a bit more logical (from a human perspective I guess) in the profit area.

+1, and eagerly awaited... along with the other hints at future features.  The bot and it's development is almost as much fun as the trading & profits. 

You are right, it is math.  You are wrong about it not making sense.  I suggest you seek out and study common trading strategy.  Start with EMA, MACD, and RSI.  There are thousands of books written on it.

Or an alternative, is to just let it work for you... it will work even if you choose not to understand it.

Flyboy, that is RSI, and here is a bot that does that:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/haasonline-simple-trade-bot-for-btce-and-bitstampmain-topic-211979

Buy them both.  Run them side-by-side.  I am, and have for months.

Because of the large trending movement BTC is experiencing, EMA is killing RSI in returns; and Butter is the better EMA bot (STB does EMA as well, but not as well as Butter).

I actually to encourage you to buy both tho, and test it for yourself.  I am all about supporting those that write code and are gratuitous enough share it with the rest of us.

It has been said many times Flyboy, but will repeat it.  Use the demo to get a feel for what it looks and feels like, not for actual trading.  Chances are you will lose money.  It is a real trade engine, based on real a (old school in fact) strategy, it is not magic.

Looking for a testimonial?  Here is my experience.

Butter "paid for itself" within days of purchasing it.  It has since averaged 20% return each month.

Flyboy, I am going to repeat that.

20%/mo.

Yep, 20%

That is 240% APR.

During the time I have used butter it has made _scores_ of losing trades... um, because that is the very nature of trading.

Oh, did I mention 20% A MONTH RETURN!?  I am walking around with a perma-grin!  I made over $700 last month just off the mortgage payment I parked in BTC for 3 weeks until it was due (not that I recommend that).

Bottom line, wrong forum if you are suggesting the bot does not work; because it does.

In my case it sat there & did nothing mostly. At one point, however it sold low & bought high- losing a few 1/10 BTC. :-( 

My first experience with the bot's first trades. Now I'm afraid to deposit more money for it to work with. Maybe if this rally ever ends.

It made me tremendous return! 

Friends,
   We have just released a patched version of Butter-Bot to deal with an issue that could affect Reserve Trading on Mt. Gox. Only one instance of this issue has been reported because it only happens under very specific circumstances, nonetheless, this release fully solves the problem.

If you do not already have it in your inbox, please drop me an email.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need anything at all .

Pablo.

I've suggested this a short while ago and he put it on the list. I'm looking forward to it myself.

Ever considered simply copying/pasting the columns of trade history into excel??

Hey Guys ,
   This strikes me as a reasonable request and I think it's worth implementing. However, right now we are devoting all our resources on hosting and after that we will release altcoins. We literally do not have a single free development hour and we want to focus on getting the big tools (like altcoins and hosting) out right now, after that we should have time to focus on this.

We are working on several projects right now, some of which are not yet public, which are taxing our developers to the limit, but we think that when these come to fruition everyone will find them useful and profitable. Please give us some slack on this issue, we think it is an idea worth looking into, but just now we just don't have the resources. We take this request seriously and I will make sure that as soon as we have some free development time this is properly looked into.

Please let me know if you need anything at all.

Pablo.