Dow Theory based Strategy (Markttechnik)

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What makes this script unique?

• calculates two trends at the same time: a big one for the overall strong trend - and a small one to trigger a trade after a small correction within the big trend
  
• only if both trends (the small and the big trend) are in an uptrend, a buy signal is created: this prevents a buy signal from being generated in a falling market just because an upward movement begins in a small trend
  
• the exit strategy can be configured very flexibly and individually: use the last low as stop loss and automatically switch to a trialing stop loss as soon as the take profit is reached (instead of finishing the trade)
  
• the take profit strategy can also be configured - e.g. use the last high, a fixed percentage or a combination of it
  
• plots each trade in detail on the chart - e.g. inner candles or the exact progression of the stop loss over the entire duration of the trade to allow you to analyze each trade precisely
  

What does the script do and how?

In this strategy an intact upward trend is characterized by higher highs and lower lows only if the big trend and the small trend are in an upward trend at the same time.

The following describes how the script calculates a buy signal. Every step is drawn to the chart immediately - see example chart above:
1. the stock rises in the big trend - i.e. in a longer time frame
2. a correction takes place (the share price falls) - but does not create a new low
3. the stock rises again in the big trend and creates a new high
From now on, the big trend is in an intact upward trend (until it falls below its last low).
This is drawn to the chart as 3 bold green zigzag lines.
But we do not buy right now! Instead, we want to wait for a correction in the big trend and for the start of a small upward trend.
4. a correction takes place (not below the low from 2.)
Now, the script also starts to calculate the small trend:
5. the stock rises in the small trend - i.e. in a shorter time frame
6. a small correction takes place (not below the low from 4.)
7. the stock rises above the high from 5.: a new high in the shorter time frame
Now, both trends are in an intact upward trend.
A buy signal is created and both the minor and major trend are colored green on the chart.

Now, the trade is active and:

• the stop loss is calculated and drawn for each candle
  
• the take profit is calculated and drawn to the chart
  
• as soon as the price reaches the take profit or the stop loss, the trade is closed
  

Features and functionalities

Uptrend: An intact upward trend is characterized by higher highs and lower lows. Uptrends are shown in green on the chart.
The beginning of an uptrend is numbered 1, each subsequent high is numbered 2, and each low is numbered 3.

Downtrend: An intact downtrend is characterized by lower highs and lower lows. Downtrends are displayed in red on the chart.
Note that our indicator does not show the numbering of the points of the downtrend.

Trendless phases: If there is no intact trend, we are in a trendless phase. Trendless phases are shown in blue on the chart.
This occurs after an uptrend, when a lower low or a lower high is formed. Or after a downtrend, when a higher low or a higher high is formed.

Buy signals
A buy signal is generated as soon as a new upward trend has been formed or a new high has been established in an intact upward trend.
But even before a buy signal is generated, this strategy anticipates a possible emerging trend and draws the next possible trading opportunity to the chart.
In addition to the (not yet reached) buy price, the risk-reward ratio, the StopLoss and the TakeProfit price is shown.
With this information, you can already enter a StopBuy order, which is thus triggered directly with the then created buy signal.

You can configure, if a buy signal shall be created while the big trend is an uptrend, a downtrend and/or trendless.

Exit strategy
With this strategy, you have multiple possibilities to close your position. All of them can be configured within the settings. In general, you can combine a take profit strategy with a stop loss strategy.

The take profit price will be calculated once for each trade. It will be drawn to the chart for active trade.
Depending on your configuration, this can be the last high (which is often a resistance level), a fixed percentage added to the buy price or the maximum of both.
You can also configure that a trailing stop loss is used as soon as the take profit price is reached once.

The stop loss gets recalculated with each candle and is displayed and plotted for each active and finished trade. With this, you can easily check how the stop loss changed during your trades.
The stop loss can be configured flexibly:

• Use the classic "trailing stop loss" that follows the price from below.
  
• Set the stop loss to the last low and tighten it every time the small trend marks a new local low.
  
• Confiure that the stop loss is tightened as soon as the break even is reached. Nothing is more annoying than a trade turning from a win to a loss.
  
• Ignore inside candles (see description below) and relax the stop loss to use the outside candle for its calculation.
  

Inner candles
Inner candles are created when the candle body is within the maximum values of a previous candle (the outer candle). There can be any number of consecutive inner candles. As soon as you have activated the "Check inner candles" setting, all consecutive inner candles will be highlighted in yellow on the chart.

Prices during an inner candle scenario might be irrelevant for trading and can be interpreted as fluctuations within the outside candle. For this reason, the trailing stop loss should not be aligned with inner candles. Therefore, as soon as an inner candle occurs, the stop loss is reset and the low at the time of the outside candle is used as the calculation for the trailing stop loss. This will all be plotted for you on the chart.


Display of the trades:
All active and closed trades of the last 5 years are displayed in the chart with buy signal, sell, stop loss history, inside candles and statistics.

Backtesting:
The strategy can be simulated for each stock over the period of the last 5 years. Each individual trade is recorded and can be traced and analyzed in the chart including stop loss history. Detailed evaluations and statistics are available to evaluate the performance of the strategy.

Additional Statistics
This strategy immediately displays a statistic table to the chart area giving you an overview of its performance over the last years for the given chart.
This includes:

• The total win/loss in $ and %
  
• The win/loss per year in %
  
• The active investment time in days and % (e.g. invested 10 of 100 trading days -> 10%)
  
• The total win/loss in %, extrapolated to 100% equity usage: Only with this value can strategies really be compared. Because you are not invested between the trades and could invest in other stocks during this time. This value indicates how much profit you would have made if you had been invested 100% of the time - or to put it another way - if you had been invested 100% of the time in stocks with exactly the same performance. Let's say you had only one trade in the last 5 years that lasted, say, only one month and made 5% profit. This would be significantly better than a strategy with which you were invested for, say, 5 years and made 10% profit.
  
• The total profit/loss per year in %, extrapolated to 100% equity usage
  

Notifications (alerts):
Get alerted before a new buy signal emerges to create an order if necessary and not miss a trade. You can also be notified when the stop loss needs to be adjusted. The notification can be done in different ways, e.g. by Mail, PopUp or App-Notification. This saves them the annoying, time-consuming and error-prone "click through" all the charts.

Settings: Display Settings
With these settings, you have the possibility to:

• Show the small or the big trend as a background color
  
• Configure if the numbers (1-2-3-2-3) shall be shown at all or only for the small, the big trend or both
  

Settings: Trend calculation - fine tuning
Drawing trend lines on a chart is not an exact science. Some highs and lows are not very clear or significant. And so it will always happen that 2 different people would draw different trendlines for the same chart. Unfortunately, there is no exact "right" or "wrong" here.

With the options under "Trend Calculation - Fine Tuning" you have the possibility to influence the drawing in of trends and to adapt it to your personal taste.

Small Trend, Big Trend: With these settings you can influence how significant a high or low has to be to recognize them as an independent high or low. The larger the values, the more significant a high or low must be to be recognized as such.

High and low recognition: With this setting you can influence when two adjacent, almost identical highs or lows should be recognized as independent highs or lows. The higher the value, the more different "similar" highs or lows must be in order to be recognized as such.

Which default settings were selected and why

• Show Trades: true - its often useful to see all recent trades in the chart
  
• Time Frame: 1 day - most common time frame (except for day traders)
  
• Take Profit: combined 10% - the last high is taken as take profit because the trend often changes there, but only if there is at least 10% profit to ensure we do not risk money for a tiny profit
  
• Stop Loss: combined - the last low is used as stop loss because the trend would break there and switch to a trailing stop loss as soon as our take profit is reached to let our profits run without risking them anymore
  
• Stop Loss distance: 3% - we are giving the price 3% air (below the last low) to avoid being stopped out due to a short price drop
  
• Trailing Stop Loss: 2% - we have to give the stop loss some room to avoid being stopped out prematurely; this is a value that is well balanced between a certain downside distance and the profit-taking ratio
  
• Set Stop Loss to break even: true, 2% - once we reached the break even, it is a common practice to not risk our money anymore, the value is set to the same value as the trailing stop loss
  
• Trade Filter: Uptrend - we only start trades if the big trend is an uptrend in the expectation that it will continue after a small correction
  
• Display settings: those will not influence the trades, feel free to change them to your needs
  
• Trend calculation - Fine Tuning: 1/1,5/0,05; influences the internal calculation for highs and lows and how significant they need to be to be considered a new high or low; the default values will provide you nicely calculated trends in the daily time frame; if there are too many or too few lows and highs according to your taste, feel free to play around and immediately see the result drawn to the chart; read the manual for a detailed description of this values
  

Note that you can (and should) configure the general trading properties like your initial capital, order size, slippage and commission.