ATR - Is It Worth Anything As A Breakout Filter?

[Techguy]

I'm currently conducting an optimization test on whether or not the ATR can filter out bad breakout trades due to low volatility.

My initial premise was that if the ATR is under 2 pips on 1 minute bars, that would be a good way to filter out trading during times of low volatility.

My suspicion is that low volatility makes for poor trading conditions, especially during break outs.

My thinking is that Instead of making trading hour filters, just let the ATR filter out the low volatility time periods.

Your thoughts???

I will post my results when I have them.

[LeMercenaire]

I'm currently conducting an optimization test on whether or not the ATR can filter out bad breakout trades due to low volatility.

My initial premise was that if the ATR is under 2 pips on 1 minute bars, that would be a good way to filter out trading during times of low volatility.

My suspicion is that low volatility makes for poor trading conditions, especially during break outs.

My thinking is that Instead of making trading hour filters, just let the ATR filter out the low volatility time periods.

Your thoughts???

I will post my results when I have them.

Seems like a worthwhile way to spend your time. I look forward to seeing how it goes.

[Techguy]

Test Data Set: EURUSD Jan 01, 2017 to June 01, 2017, using 5 min bar data. Based on a lot size of 1.00.

The results were a mixed bag:
For my breakout code, the data distribution was only generally conclusive, as the scatter plot showed that parameters did not always correlate to like results.

However in general the test results were:

Very Low ATR's of 1 to 2 pips yielded lots of trades (880), low profit factor (1.02-1.04), and typically high drawdowns up to 31% (29 to 31%)

Lower ATR's, for example in the 3 to 5 pip range yielded typically about 200 fewer trades on average (514 - 902) the highest profit factor (1.08 to 1.14), medium drawdown (17 - 30%)

High ATR's, for example 7 to 9 pips, yielded low trades, low profit, and the lowest drawdown.

NOTE: RETESTING IN THE STRATEGY TESTER HAD WORSENING RESULTS USING ATR OPTIMIZED PARAMETERS.

My conclusion:
Don't use it.
I used an ATR filter of 3 pips, with an averaging of 1 bar. Results were bad for me. Multiple bar averaging in the ATR calculation did not appear to make trading worse or better.

See attached report to draw your own conclusions.

ATR Testing Results Gif

OptimizationReport-ATR-Sort by Profit.gif (5.5 KiB) Viewed 5726 times

[LeMercenaire]

Test Data Set: EURUSD Jan 01, 2017 to June 01, 2017, using 5 min bar data. Based on a lot size of 1.00.

The results were a mixed bag:
For my breakout code, the data distribution was only generally conclusive, as the scatter plot showed that parameters did not always correlate to like results.

However in general the test results were:

Very Low ATR's of 1 to 2 pips yielded lots of trades (880), low profit factor (1.02-1.04), and typically high drawdowns up to 31% (29 to 31%)

Lower ATR's, for example in the 3 to 5 pip range yielded typically about 200 fewer trades on average (514 - 902) the highest profit factor (1.08 to 1.14), medium drawdown (17 - 30%)

High ATR's, for example 7 to 9 pips, yielded low trades, low profit, and the lowest drawdown.

NOTE: RETESTING IN THE STRATEGY TESTER HAD WORSENING RESULTS USING ATR OPTIMIZED PARAMETERS.

My conclusion:
Don't use it.
I used an ATR filter of 3 pips, with an averaging of 1 bar. Results were bad for me. Multiple bar averaging in the ATR calculation did not appear to make trading worse or better.

See attached report to draw your own conclusions.
OptimizationReport-ATR-Sort by Profit.gif

That's too bad - on to the next one!

[Leoheart]

Test Data Set: EURUSD Jan 01, 2017 to June 01, 2017, using 5 min bar data. Based on a lot size of 1.00.

The results were a mixed bag:
For my breakout code, the data distribution was only generally conclusive, as the scatter plot showed that parameters did not always correlate to like results.

However in general the test results were:

Very Low ATR's of 1 to 2 pips yielded lots of trades (880), low profit factor (1.02-1.04), and typically high drawdowns up to 31% (29 to 31%)

Lower ATR's, for example in the 3 to 5 pip range yielded typically about 200 fewer trades on average (514 - 902) the highest profit factor (1.08 to 1.14), medium drawdown (17 - 30%)

High ATR's, for example 7 to 9 pips, yielded low trades, low profit, and the lowest drawdown.

NOTE: RETESTING IN THE STRATEGY TESTER HAD WORSENING RESULTS USING ATR OPTIMIZED PARAMETERS.

My conclusion:
Don't use it.
I used an ATR filter of 3 pips, with an averaging of 1 bar. Results were bad for me. Multiple bar averaging in the ATR calculation did not appear to make trading worse or better.

See attached report to draw your own conclusions.
OptimizationReport-ATR-Sort by Profit.gif

Thanks your the effort.

[henrybrewer]

Thank you for your time and effort in this

[sanavigupta]

Great Post

[sourlemon]

Your sharing is really helpful, thank you so much.

[TheRumpledOne]

TRO001.png (61.12 KiB) Viewed 4805 times

I don't know if you watch my videos or not.

I coded an indicator to show how many times the range is above or below a threshold for each hour of the day and you can filter by day of week.

The chart above shows High - Low for Fridays with a threshold of 13 pips.

You can see what hours to trade and what hours to avoid.

My broker doesn't have data for 23:00 on Friday because they close at 22:00.

[dennisbullock]

Some graphs look way too complicated, I don't know maybe I am too dumb for it...