1 strategy with Buy and Sellshort cimbined vs 2 strategies with them separated
- This topic has 10 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 2 years ago by
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The surprising answer : separate Long and Short vs combined, always loses (severely). But mind you please, this is for winning Strategies in the first place. Thus, it is just not so that separating the Long/Short will bring more profit. Always less up to losses.
Even more surprisingly : this counts for all “separating” means I could think of. Thus for example, also the “5 minutes” allowed for a Strategy to start. For example, we have Strategy A and B, both being exactly equal, except for
- A is allowed to start at 1st, 3rd m 5th etc. 5 minutes of the hour (like between 01:00 and 01:05, 01:10 and 01:15, 01:20 and 01:25, etc.
- B is allowed to start at 2nd, 4th m 6th etc. 5 minutes of the hour (like between 01:05 and 01:10, 01:15 and 01:20, 01:15 and 01:30, etc.
The math around this is beyond me (hence I don’t see it), but it just is so. And thus : good question !
My own question would be : how is this possible ? It must be something about too many constraints in either and thus less trades. And indeed, intuition tells (me too) so much the opposite …
PS: You can just try this via subsequent backtests.
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I think there are many opinions about it. I myself use StopandReverse, i.e. strategies that can switch in the other direction even while they are in position if the input conditions are right. But I also split the same strategies into two strategies, i.e. onlylong and onlyshort, to see which is better. I think, depending on the market situation, sometimes one is better than the other. At the moment, with relatively little volatility, onlylong / onlyshort seems to have an advantage. Because there is no constant long and short switching.
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Strategies cannot open trades in opposite directions at the same time.
There’s no option to enable this.
Whenever you open a trade in a direction, any open contrary trade is first closed and a Stop & Reverse takes place.
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If you run separate strategies you can open contrary trades, provided you enable Force Open with IG.
You cannot in a single strategy.
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Roberto’s answer referred to a single Algo … which cannot be both long and short at same time.
2 different Algos can have both Long and Short at the same time, i.e Algo A can be Long and Algo B can be Short.
Manual trades can be Long and Short at same time as long as Force Open is enabled.
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shortsell will not kick in until you have closed the long position
Only if you (have to) use If Not OnMarket etc.
On most of my own coded Algos … a SellShort will close a Long and vice versa.
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So StopandReverse in one strategy in only one direction or two separate strategies onlylong and onlyshort. That’s the most practical I think.
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