A Simple London Breakout 2017

Here is a simple London breakout strategy based on a variation of my BoxFibo indicator from my London Progressive Strategy thread.

I simplified the indicator to place the initial entry points just between what would normally be the 27 and 38.2 fib extensions on both sides of the box. I didn't want to extend it past the 38.2 extension, although it can be feasibly accomplished, because the farther away we move our target, the tougher it is to reach the intended targets as it move in proportion to the box size. I wanted to make sure we had a higher probability of reaching our target.The Profit Target line was carefully calculated to produce the same amount of pips as the box size. So, if your box size was 40 pips, your Profit Target lines should be exactly 40 pips from your entry point. Because of the smaller box size, this is not intended to grab a ton of pips, but to hopefully increase the success rate our trades.

You will need to place the indicator on a 15 minute chart. The start time is placed from 03:00 to 06:00 GMT, which is the 3 hours leading up to the Frankfurt open (if your broker's GMT time is not GMT +0, you'll need to adjust the times accordingly depending on your broker's GMT time). My broker is GMT +1 so I will start at 04:00 to 07:00. The obvious reason we put this before the Frankfurt open is to have the box drawn before the volatility kicks in and before the breakouts occur.

With regards to the trades that occur, you can handle them various ways. You can

A) take the first trade you get and just make one trade a night, win or lose, or:

B) take all of the trades that present themselves, it is your choice.

If you trade using option B) and still have open trades when the new box forms, you can leave the trade til it hits either you Profit Target or stops out, or you can close all open trades before the start of the new box around 03:00 GMT whether your trade is in profit or not, which is what I prefer to do so not to overlap the trades. I prefer the latter mainly because if I decide to incorporate any *Martingale type of approach, I need to know the new lot size I need to use before the next trade presents itself.

The nice thing is that you really don't see a lot of trades in a row that are losers. The most I've glanced at was 4-5 in a row, so you could experiment with a *Martingale style approach and increase lots on your losers to make up for your losses. Take 4-5 low spread pairs (i.e. Eur/Usd, Usd/Jpy, and so on) and play around with it over the next several days and over the weekend and then starting on Monday, the 12th, I will pick out a few pairs and show some examples of how the trades would have unfolded. You should see roughly around a 65-75% win ratio overall. The pairs I will be monitoring are:

Eur/Usd
Gbp/Usd
Usd/Jpy
Eur/Jpy
Usd/Chf

I highly suggest to not take trades if the box size is over 40-50 pips on all pairs. Generally, this is because a larger price movement has already occurred before the open and will make it more difficult to reach out targets. I'm not saying it's impossible, but use your common sense before you place any trades.

Good luck!

***Martingale strategies are inherently risky and not recommended unless adequate capital is readily available to protect your account from the possibility of a margin call. Please utilize proper Money Management at all times.***

*** Bug fixed in both indicators. Thanks to sangmane for the fix. New indicators and templates loaded.*** 4/12/2010

***Just a small note, I have updated the two indicators and templates in post #1 with the changes in the code that nightyhawk has made which included the MaxBoxSize parameter and the ability to change the level color. The Fibcolor input parameter was removed as I saw no changes when the input was changed. If you are using a 5 digit broker, please add an extra "0" to get the correct MaxBarSize.*** 4/15/2010

***A big thanks to Steve Hopwood for modifying one of his EA's to fit this strategy. The current version is from post #292*** 4/19/2010

***Indicator modifications done by sangmane and squalou are now incorporated to include that you can now change the color of the box if the box is greater than the MaxBoxSizeInPips input. You may also adjust the SessionEndTime color as well. You can now also change the entry level and profit target levels. The default levels in the indicators now are carefully configured to have the profit target from your entry match the box size. There is also a LevelResizeFactor parameter that has been added which allows you to fine-tune the levels if you want them different from the box size, but keeping the box as the basis? For example, if you set it to 0.7 (1.0 is the default for normal trading), then all levels will be adjusted as if the box was actually squeezed by this factor, still centered to the actual box "median Price". Post #357 has some example pics and a more detailed explanation. Thanks gain everyone for their contributions.*** 4/22/2010

***V7 of the Indicator has the following improvements:

- shows "Profit Zones" in green (can be disabled by input)
- displays the box size in pips below the box, and a "NO TRADE" sign for red boxes;
- puts a chart-Comment on top left corner with the main settings so you instantly know what they are for that chart;
- sets system-wide Global Variables for use with the treat below...

Squalou has modified Steve Hopwoods's "London Breakout script" (presented on post #138 and attached here), go read it to get the scripts basic usage.

This new script will take advantage of the improvements added in V7 indicator, so that you do not need to manually enter entry/TP/SL values anymore!!!

Here is how to use it:

-1- load the "London BreakoutV7.mq4" indicator (or higher version) on the chart;

-2- drag the script to the chart, and just click OK, that's it.

The script will automatically replace input values left to 0 with the corresponding entry/TP/SL levels for the BuyStop and SellStop orders that the Indicator has computed using your indicators inputs, so you don't need to manually input them. You can use the script on charts open with different pairs each. Use "F3" key to show the created GlobalVariables. You can change their values directly there, these will be the ones taken by the script. They will be updated automatically when a new box is formed the next day. *** 4/28/2010

***V8 has the following added inputs***

This version will allow to keep SL/TP levels into "reasonable" min/max limits on days with too-high or too-low pre-breakout volatility...

It has 2 more inputs acting as box size limiters.

Don't want your TP/SL levels go off the roof ?
Just set the "MaxExtentInPips" to whatever box size you don't want to exceed, and that's it.

And for those days where you think that the box is too small, and you could surely harvest more pips than what the tiny green strip suggests...
then just set the "MinExtentInPips" !

Of course, as usual, ignoring those values (default 0) won't change the behavior of the previous versions indicator... just to keep you feel at home...

Thanks to squalou for all the improvements. If you have any technical questions on the indicator or script parameters, please PM squalou directly, thanks.*** 4/29/2010

***Complete package is now added in a zip file which now includes:

Steve Hopwoods EA (modified by squalou)
Indicators (New V.9.1 Indicator)
Scripts

Any questions, please PM or e-mail squalou for specifics.*** 5/6/2010

***An alternative setting is currently being tested starting in post #647. The alternative settings and rules can be found in post #506*** 5/11/2010

***V4.0 version of the EA...

New features:

- Added Trailing Stop capability

New inputs:

TrailingStopPips(0)- pips to trail the StopLoss; when 0 no trailing is applied (fixed SL as before).

TrailingStopStep(1)- trailing SL will jump by this amount instead of trailing at every tick; (helps limit the number of sent orders, and therefore order rejections).

- Added profit lock-in after fixed profit:

"BreakEvenPips"- when "BreakEvenPips" is >0, SL is moved to BE+"BreakEvenProfitInPips" when price has reached BE+"BreakEvenPips". Works independently from "AllowHalfClose" option (but uses the same BreakEvenProfitInPips value); Will also be trailed if TrailingStop is selected; (inspired from Steve's MPTM EA...)

"MaxRisk"- if >0, then order size is the min of Lot input and calculated max Lot based on MaxRisk and Stoploss;

- All open/pending trades will be closed when the EA is unloaded;

- replaced order-related functions with "reliable" versions of them... (will retry 10 times at timed intervals if call fails).

- when MagicNumber is 0, a unique MagicNumber is created by the EA, MagicNumbers will be different for each pair/timeframes. This helps running the EA on different pairs/timeframes without having to manually change the MagicNumber.

- added Alerts when the Indicator Settings Global Variables cannot be found. The EA will stop trading in this case.

- fix: in V3.0, objPrefix default value was not set to "LB-" as it should have been, leading to error 130 "invalid stops". 5/20/2010***