Hi Support
I think you guys should take a look on top 30 leader's strategies, all are identical with little bit change either the time frame or the Stop loss and take profit levels but rests are same.
I once used Sanjivk's strategy and I accepted it that I used and my Dukascopy points have been deducted and they are still deducting my points rather than checking the strategy who is the owner of the strategy but I just used it only for 3 months that's all.
But for January competition I made my own strategy and got 9th rank on the last day of the competition but then again my Dukascopy points are deducted from 79 to 34 and I got down from 9th rank to 17th Rank, I have also lodged a complaint regarding that issue but still I haven't received any answer from the contest support and my Acccount Manager.
Here is the link to the post :
viewtopic.php?p=70124&_dc=226&sid=0b008d00b2709cafdd02ae29170a919c#p70124

But it's another issue, my current issue is that Dukascopy either it should deduct anyone's Dukascopy points whoever copies strategy from the original creator, and give the strategy contest a meaningful and respected place again just like 6 or 7 months ago..
Thanks everyone

Hi pawansansanwal,
I would not expect an answer from the support. They have a strange policy on this. First, set the rules and then they do not hold their own ... As for strategy, I think it should be compared only fragments of the input, output and driving position. Structure of the strategies can be very similar in many cases.
Greetings to support.

Today I was watching Contest Checkup NR115 video, and found some unexpected point about a participant strategy :

Participant told that strategy is based on Moving Average, and after looking at strategy code of participant, I do not find any single line of code of Moving Average.

Below is strategy code of participant:

 public void onTick(Instrument instrument, ITick tick) throws JFException {
    }
    public void onBar(Instrument instrument, Period period, IBar askBar, IBar bidBar) throws JFException {
        if (!instrument.equals(instrument) || !period.equals(selectedPeriod))
            return;
        IBar prevBar = history.getBar(instrument, selectedPeriod, OfferSide.BID, 1);
        double oc=  bidBar.getOpen()-bidBar.getClose();
        double  co=bidBar.getClose()-bidBar.getOpen();
        double  hc=bidBar.getHigh()-bidBar.getClose();
        double  cl=bidBar.getClose()-bidBar.getLow();
        double [] atr1 = indicators.atr(instrument, selectedPeriod , OfferSide.BID,  13, indicatorFilter, 12, prevBar.getTime(), 1);
        // SMA crossed previous green candle
       if (co>base*atr1[5]) {
            submitOrder(OrderCommand.BUY);
        }
        // SMA crossed previous red candle
        if  (oc>base*atr1[5]) {
            submitOrder(OrderCommand.SELL);
        }
    }

According to my view, If participant is not able to explain their own strategy then it means that participant has used copied strategy, Dukascopy should also deduct point of those copiers. Don't you think that if any participant does not have any knowledge about their own strategy, why should participant get point for strategy at all?

Apart for this, I can see that out of top 10 leading competitors, 8 are using copied strategy, and 4 has same strategy and only difference is either different pair or different stop loss/take profit target.

Do you think it is fair competition at all?

I would request Dukascopy Support Team to take any action on it. It might be possible that we will have only 20 - 30 participants in a month for strategy contest like Article contest, but after making some changes, it would be clean and fair contest. And those, who wants to learn about programming, they can using WIKI page to develop any strategy by their own.


Regards,
Santosh.

Hi drishti! Thanks for your post.

Please note that we have given the role of the judge to participants. You can always post a copyright claim against any participant who has actually used a strategy of a different participant. We are not able to verify all strategies that are posted in the contest. If we don't have any copyright claims at the end of the month, we simply leave the dukascopy evaluation unchanged. Please note that you'll need to post a claim each month if the participant is using the same copied strategy over several months.

Hi Support,

I was expecting an appropriate answer, still I got good answer. But few points are still untold.

And you are right, it is impossible to verify each strategy.

I also leave it to DFC Community members for fair practices.

Regards,
Santosh.

Hello Support
Why am I not receiving any answer from you guys neither on here forum nor by the mail?
Or am I now not a Dukascopy's client, I mean seriously waiting for around more than 20 days for your reply but my query is still unanswered.
Is it a fair deal?

Regarding the issue of this thread:

How do you evaluate a copied strategy ?
The beginning of the strategy is basically the same in every strategy:
- you need to load the jforex package
- you need to load the appropriate libraries, but for a beginner in java programming like myself I only need the basics and so do most people
- You need to define the variables, constants
- You need to use the basic program structure defined in dukascopy.api libraries (onBar, onTick, onAccount, and so on...). If you load the libraries in a compilation program and start a new java project these methods are loaded automaticaly.

So what's really different ? I'll tell you what: the engine of the strategy ! The engine is what makes the strategy work, it makes the decision between BUY and SELL, TP, SL and Volume (if they are variable. They could also be constant). The engine contains the appropriate indicators and the math to make them work. There could also be other minor things that are different depending on everyone's preference (Personalization, encoding, tricks to spot your copied strategy, period lock, and so on...)

Some strategies use the same indicators, but the way they interact is what makes a strategy different.

So a shoutout to all the people complaining somebody stole their strategy:
Analyze what is trully different between the strategies before you comment !
Considering you made that strategy you know every inch of it and that wouldn't be so hard to check.

I learned one thing growing up, amongst other things: think twice and speak once
Good luck to everyone !

Thanks for a good outline about a strategy.

So do you think that logic/algorithm behind buy/sell has difference?

If yes, then it's time, you should think twice before commenting.

Cheers for your trading strategy


Regards,

My point was: there are these guys around here posting stupid comments and claiming a strategy is copied and as proof they submit basic methods and classes used in all strategies.
My strategy has code that is similar to other strategies, I'm not denying that, but it's not exactly the same.
I can take a winning strategy and rewrite the whole code to do the exact same thing. Could you tell it's copied ?
The point is 99% of the strategies have very similar code, and if you know a little Java programming you can strip down the code and see exactly what's different between them. And after quantifying the exact amount of information you can change (that actually does something) you realize that if you change the TP,SL, Volume, Time Period, instrument you have already changed more than 50% of the strategy, which complies with contest rules The rest is the engine.

In the end I don't see why everybody is whining about copied strategies. If it meets the contest rules, why not ?
What I am against though , is public strategies and popularity/beauty pageant part of the contest. Strip that away and you have yourselves a truly fair contest.
The strategies have spread around and everybody can get his hands on one now. The tricky thing is to make it work on the long term, and without being able to see others' strategy many will fail.

If I write more this will turn into a novel so I'll stop.

Good luck to everyone and Happy Easter to the Catholics ! (I'm not catholic )

Friend,

Please write it more, at least we will have something to read on weekend.

In fairness what's really annoying right now are people running multiple strategies... (obviously they are clone on top of that)...

How would multiple strategies help anyone?
First off: If you use the same name you would be disqualified immediately cause it's easy to check that. If you use a different name, you need to supply real information, so if you win you would be able to get the money. I doubt anyone would agree helping you without getting a share of the profit, and also quite easy to check if 2 strategies work in opposite directions and are from the same area (country, city, IP).
I've heard alot of complaints for awhile now, and 90% of them do not rely on actual facts.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't side with Dukascopy, nor do I say the rules are perfect, far from it.
But I have a few friends participating in this contest and we talk all the time about how we can improve our strategies, and do our best not to brake the contest rules and how is everyone else doing... Some of them do this for quite some time now, and I heard them talk the same as you do that "the contest is fixed", "the cheaters are not being punished", and so on.
I have a different view and see behind the mechanics of this contest. I think it's quite fair considering it's aim, and the only thing I have against it is the popularity part. I keep mentioning the popularity part in the hopes that someone would see this ( Dukas support) and realize it's futility.

And yet another chapter to the novel I started

Good luck this month everyone!
May the trades take you to green places

Hello traders,

I agree that as long as there has Strategy Contest always been some injustices in the allocation of prizes. Since this matter be once more to be discussed, I decided to write an article where you can see a practical example. You can leave a comment if you see it fit:
https://www.dukascopy.com/fxcomm/fx-article-contest/?action=blog&user=LinnuxFX#gsc.tab=0

Thanks,

LinnuxFX