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 Post subject: New Contest Rules Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Fri 11 Jun, 2010, 16:51 
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As we promised, new Contest Rules are published. The new amendments are applicable starting from July only.

You can read the new and the old rules on the JForex Comminuty Forum!


 
 Post subject: Re: General Discussion and Comments Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Mon 14 Jun, 2010, 15:36 

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Ridiculous:
The maximum amount of simultaneously opened positions is 1. Any further requests to open a new position will be rejected by the platform.

My strategy is based on HEDGE, how can I make an HEDGE if I can not open 2 orders on the same time?
I think HEDGE is very necessary on some situations and if Dukascopy allow HEDGE positions, the contests should allow too.

Maybe, change the rules to can not open 2 positions on the same side? And same CURRENCY ?
If not, multi-currency will be out too.

Cya,

rwrz


 
 Post subject: Re: General Discussion and Comments Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Tue 15 Jun, 2010, 09:32 
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Why not to make a conditional close of the existing position? You just need to either close fully or partially. It will be the same like hedging the position.


 
 Post subject: Re: General Discussion and Comments Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Tue 15 Jun, 2010, 10:38 

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I agree with rwrz, such limitation in number of simultaneously opened positions is not too life-like.

Quote:
The maximum amount of simultaneously opened positions is 1. Any further requests to open a new position will be rejected by the platform.
Quote:
The strategy ID will be automatically assigned to Participant when the first trade is made on the contest account. Any further modification of the script will result in change of strategy ID. Participants are not allowed to modify the code and trade with different strategy IDs on the same contest.

The platform should rather reject executing orders having a strategy ID different from the first trade.

Quote:
The strategy must be running at least 10 trading days of the month.

Is the strategy running time measured by the jforex application?
Please display also the running times on the ranking table.

szlnk


 
 Post subject: Re: szlnk Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Tue 15 Jun, 2010, 14:11 
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Quote:
I agree with rwrz, such limitation in number of simultaneously opened positions is not too life-like.


Ok, we agree that it's not life-like! But.. The trading environment becomes fair and adequate for all types of strategies! And, I would say, more life-like! Otherwise, the contestant will still have a big incentive to use aggressive gambling strategy by either averaging the entry price or using a martingale method. By having such a rule, only strategies with high-quality signals will survive!

Quote:
The platform should rather reject executing orders having a strategy ID different from the first trade.


Well, we still allow to change to code in some exceptional cases. Let's say, if you made a mistake in the code and would like to change it.

Quote:
Is the strategy running time measured by the jforex application?
Please display also the running times on the ranking table.


Yes, we can measure it. Perhaps, we will add this parameter into the table soon.


 
 Post subject: Re: General Discussion and Comments Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Tue 15 Jun, 2010, 14:43 

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Any limitation on a contest in the real-world environment will deviate from the real-world conditions. The short 1-month time period and the use of paper money was a setup for excessive gambling strategies. Would more rules help to alleviate this problem?

I don't know.

As long as the conditions are not the same as real-world (e.g. long period, no rules, and bet with real money), there will be compromises and possibly ways for contestants to game the system one way or another.

However, I certainly applaud Dukascopy's intention to mitigate this difficult problem of rules versus freedom. This is a matter of adjusting the leash to balance the game. Hopefully as the contest proceeds in the coming months, we can find a balance.


 
 Post subject: some questions Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Tue 15 Jun, 2010, 14:52 

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I have some questions regarding the new rules.

  • Regarding a maximum of one opened position, is that for the entire account or per currency pair? As someone else pointed out, that would exclude trading in multiple currencies simultaneously.
  • Regarding no @Config, can we use it to choose the currency pair to trade, the time period, or the direction of the trade?


 
 Post subject: feedback Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Tue 15 Jun, 2010, 15:21 
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Thanks to those who are leaving feedbacks in the forum. That's true. We are doing some steps to improve the strategy contest and find the right balance. There is more to come, for sure! The rules might change from time to time. Of course, some might think that we are just having fun by changing the rules and making life tougher for you.. but apart from that, we really want to make the contest more challenging for all of you! We are looking forward to hear any new opinions/suggestions/comments!


 
 Post subject: Reply to quantisan Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Tue 15 Jun, 2010, 15:29 
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Quote:
Regarding a maximum of one opened position, is that for the entire account or per currency pair? As someone else pointed out, that would exclude trading in multiple currencies simultaneously.


For the entire account. That means you have to either ignore the signal from a different CCY or close the existing position and reopen a new one.

Quote:
Regarding no @Config, can we use it to choose the currency pair to trade, the time period, or the direction of the trade?


No, @Config results to disqualification. You need to hardcode all scenarios right in the code.
However, you can still change the parameters, but only once. Send the code of strategy to jforex(at)dukascopy.com and upon receiving a confirmation, you can run the strategy with new parameters.


 
 Post subject: re: new rules Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Wed 16 Jun, 2010, 11:24 
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Dear Contestants,

We have decided to change the contest rules for July in order to make the competition a much more constructional and effective championship. With new rules, we hope to spur contestants to move away from gambling strategies to more intellectual ones.

No doubts, the new rules are much tougher but the live trading is even a more difficult challenge.
And the right way for you will be to start developing single-position strategies with effective entry points and exits. It does not mean that the strategy becomes complex. Not at all, the algorithm can be still very simple but more intellectual. Instead of playing with numbers, you need to predict the market trying to catch the next move!

The discussions are still open and you might still make a contribution! So, what the rules will look like in August? Would you like to have more freedom? More simultaneously opened positions? Or you would like the rules to be tougher?


 
 Post subject: Re: what happened to....? Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Fri 18 Jun, 2010, 00:29 

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Contest Support wrote:
Well...you could find him at the bottom of the ranking table. The guys was too aggressive in his trading.

Started with 100 000 and reached 1 000 000 already in 2 weeks.

But what's interesting, he wasn't even trading with a strategy which means he would be nevertheless disqualified at the end of the month. Perhaps, if he could automate his trading idea and use less leverage, he could succeed.



I am still here, altough I am aware of the fact this is a strategy based competition :)

Back to over 1 mil again...


 
 Post subject: Contact with Strategy participants Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Fri 18 Jun, 2010, 16:37 

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How can I make contact with strategy contest participants ???
It is very hard to try to find contact information.
Regards,
Kuldin


 
 Post subject: Re: General Discussion and Comments Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Sat 19 Jun, 2010, 21:44 

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Hi,

i suggest counting the number of pips a strategy generated instead of how many percent on account were made. That means only well predicting strategies that get the most out of a currency move will win instead of nonsense high risk gambling strategies like martingale that just play with lot numbers.

To make my point clear lets look at the following example:

Strategy 1:
pip-win: 50 pips
maximum drawdown: 40 pips
win on account: 100%

Strategy 2:
pip-win: 300 pips
maximum drawdown: 20 pips
win on account: 25 %

Until now strategy 1 would have won because it produced the largest win on account by just trading high volume. That does not make sense. In real trading everybody would choose strategy 2 because it generated more pips with lower drawdown and we all know that win/risk is scalable by altering the lotsize.

Fuzzy


 
 Post subject: Re: General Discussion and Comments Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Sun 20 Jun, 2010, 12:02 

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I kind of agree with that, however that means we do not consider the money management side of the strategy. As you well know, money management is as (if not more) important than the win rate, wether in percent or in absolute pips. And a big part of money management is how the trades are scaled according to each trade risk, which is not necessarily reflected in the total pips won.

So, just considering pip earned is not a good measure either, in my opinion.


 
 Post subject: Re: Contact with Strategy participants Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Sun 20 Jun, 2010, 19:54 
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Kuldin wrote:
How can I make contact with strategy contest participants ???
It is very hard to try to find contact information.
Regards,
Kuldin


Kuldin, if you have any questions about the strategies, it's better to post them right here. Unfortunately, we can not allow any addvertisement of managed accounts.
Especially, taking into account the fact that the most of trading strategies are too aggressive.


 
 Post subject: Re: Fuzzy Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Sun 20 Jun, 2010, 20:21 
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The effective strategy is not only about the amount of pips gained but it's about effective money management. That is, the abillity to choose the right position size and manage the exposures to archive a better result.

However, we keep improving the contest interfase and as time goes by we will add some statistics on contestants. What other parameters you would like to see in statistics section?


 
 Post subject: June Contest Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Mon 21 Jun, 2010, 14:13 
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8 days left till the end of the month and the front-runners can change anytime!
As we usually have a lot of disqualifications, the true leaders might be somewhere below the top line.


 
 Post subject: Re: General Discussion and Comments Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Wed 23 Jun, 2010, 10:59 

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Hi,

I think laudable that dukascopy is refining the contest rules to encourage more "realistic" trading strategies, however I think the new rule 6.3 (no winning trade can make more than 50% of previous days equity) hinders strategies that are successfull at predicting price moves.

A strategy is good not only by predicting the direction of a move, but also the extent of it, and deciding when to cut the losses short or when to close a successful trade that the strategy decide would not go higher. By capping the moves that can be captured, the strategies can not capitalize on higher, successful prediction, therefore lowering the incentive to develop algorithms trying to predict when a move has reached the maximum potential for example. Overall, rule 6.3 discourages developing the strategy in an area that is as important, if not more, than simply deciding when to enter a trade, i.e: when to close a trade.

Rule 6.3 also does not address what happens with strategies that closes trades partially. For example, it is a valid money management scheme to close half of a winning position in order to capture some gain, then let run the other half, or close it if the market pulls back and before the position left becomes a losing trade. One can imagine many other strategies involving more sophisticated rules to close positions, but rule 6.3 will certainly discourage developers to investigate those.

A different rule that would approach the same goal of a lesser "gambling" position sizing strategy, but leave the incentive to develop strong position close strategies, would be to cap the size of any given trade to, for example, 5% of current equity.


I hope dukascopy will consider my comments for future contest rules


 
 Post subject: Neural Trading Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Fri 25 Jun, 2010, 12:55 

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What about using Encog Library for Neural Trading ?
Is it not allowed like other jar ?


 
 Post subject: Re: General Discussion and Comments Post rating: 0   New post Posted: Fri 25 Jun, 2010, 15:09 
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Once again, we have updated the interface. Now it's become much more convenient to select the portfolio of contestants and you can add up to 10 traders into your portfolio.


 

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