(Closed) Butter Bot!: Premier Bitstamp, and BTC-E EMA Trading Platform (Closed)

[Trafficlearn]

its been open for a good while now....2hours plus and i am sitting on 30 min EMAs i will try to restart the browser and see....

[NginUS]

It won't miss a chance unless there's a problem. As long as you have that checkmark you're golden. But it won't trade unless all the conditions are met, so sometimes you have to be patient.

I find it helps to punch my EMA numbers into bitcoinwisdom.com & set it to display EMA lines there so I can watch & see what the bot sees & can see right when the lines cross. Then I can know when to expect an 'imminent' email from the bot.

[Trafficlearn]

off and running....it was a minimum buy thing...had all my funds sitting in BTC and had to convert them to USD....didnt have enough cash readily available is there somewhere to factor in the trade costs? sorry....super newb to the bots

[NginUS]

Wierd.
I thought it was supposed to use whatever funds you gave it.
Pablo, that doesn't seem right. It shouldn't matter, should it?

[wiredmine]

I find it helps to punch my EMA numbers into bitcoinwisdom.com & set it to display EMA lines there so I can watch & see what the bot sees & can see right when the lines cross. Then I can know when to expect an 'imminent' email from the bot.

Yep I agree, I do the same on bitcoinwisdom with EMA's

[OleOle]

off and running....it was a minimum buy thing...had all my funds sitting in BTC and had to convert them to USD....didnt have enough cash readily available is there somewhere to factor in the trade costs? sorry....super newb to the bots

The way I read things is that with the BTC price on the up, if the funds in the account were held in BTC, the bot would have left the coins alone figuring that the market would have risen higher - hence no action on the part of the bot.

Once the funds were converted from BTC into USD, the bot, again thinking that the price of BTC was rising, would then buy BTC with the available USD.

Not 100% sure, but assume that trade costs are included in the overall buy/sell calculations.

That's my thinking anyway.

[wiredmine]

off and running....it was a minimum buy thing...had all my funds sitting in BTC and had to convert them to USD....didnt have enough cash readily available is there somewhere to factor in the trade costs? sorry....super newb to the bots

The way I read things is that with the BTC price on the up, if the funds in the account were held in BTC, the bot would have left the coins alone figuring that the market would have risen higher - hence no action on the part of the bot.

Once the funds were converted from BTC into USD, the bot, again thinking that the price of BTC was rising, would then buy BTC with the available USD.

Yeah that's exactly my reasoning there too, market is upward trend so buying BTC is the best option if USD available. if only BTC is available hen it would just leave them alone till the EMA's cross

[Trafficlearn]

all worked fine last night...would be nice to see a profit/loss calculator daily or weekly...dont know if there is one somewhere or not?

[Jmattes]

Hey Guys,

I got the trail software yesterday and well the bot made two bad purchases so far, but I guess they were initial purchases each time so I will let that slide.. As I hope it makes some better purchases in the future.

I am trading on BTC-e and I am using the default settings and this morning I see a $100 spread where I think bot would of done something but it didnt... Did anyone's bot do anything last night with the up at $750 ish and the down again to $650??

One of my miners were "sick" and it possibly made my browser freeze so maybe the thing wasn't working? Does the browser need to be open for the bot to make trades?

Since then I restarted my miner and the browser was working fine, but I am at work and haven't monitored it, but it hasn't made any trades.. Markets been up and down all morning but I do not what constitutes as enough to trade really..

Looking for some help as I had .56 btc and now I am down to .42

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

[mboehler]

Hey Guys,

I got the trail software yesterday and well the bot made two bad purchases so far, but I guess they were initial purchases each time so I will let that slide.. As I hope it makes some better purchases in the future.

I am trading on BTC-e and I am using the default settings and this morning I see a $100 spread where I think bot would of done something but it didnt... Did anyone's bot do anything last night with the up at $750 ish and the down again to $650??

One of my miners were "sick" and it possibly made my browser freeze so maybe the thing wasn't working? Does the browser need to be open for the bot to make trades?

Since then I restarted my miner and the browser was working fine, but I am at work and haven't monitored it, but it hasn't made any trades.. Markets been up and down all morning but I do not what constitutes as enough to trade really..

Looking for some help as I had .56 btc and now I am down to .42

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

If have US Dollars in your account, and you start the bot when the price of bitcoins is rising, it will automatically buy bitcoins for you.  I personally would prefer that it ONLY buy/sell on the crossovers, but it is not programmed that way.

Yes, the browser needs to be running in order for the bot to work.

The bot does not buy or sell according to spreads.  It buys and sells on EMA crossovers only.  And not exactly on the crossover, it uses the data you put into the trading engine, such as Buy Thresholds, Sell Thresholds, Frequency, Offset, etc.  Browse back through the thread to see exactly how it uses this information.

I have my bot's frequency set for 1 hour so I don't see trades very often.  This is what I expect from it.  It may trade only a few times per month.  But as is often repeated in here, EMA trading is a LONG TERM strategy.  If it is trading too much, you are losing money.

Go to www.bitcoincharts.com and put in the same EMA values into their charts as you put into your bot.  You can see where the lines cross and trades should be made.  You can play with the data there and see how EMA performs over different time periods, such as hourly, 6-hours, daily, etc.

I don't often do a very good job at explaining, so hopefully someone else can help out with this as well...

[Jmattes]

If have US Dollars in your account, and you start the bot when the price of bitcoins is rising, it will automatically buy bitcoins for you.  I personally would prefer that it ONLY buy/sell on the crossovers, but it is not programmed that way.

Yes, the browser needs to be running in order for the bot to work.

The bot does not buy or sell according to spreads.  It buys and sells on EMA crossovers only.  And not exactly on the crossover, it uses the data you put into the trading engine, such as Buy Thresholds, Sell Thresholds, Frequency, Offset, etc.  Browse back through the thread to see exactly how it uses this information.

I have my bot's frequency set for 1 hour so I don't see trades very often.  This is what I expect from it.  It may trade only a few times per month.  But as is often repeated in here, EMA trading is a LONG TERM strategy.  If it is trading too much, you are losing money.

Go to www.bitcoincharts.com and put in the same EMA values into their charts as you put into your bot.  You can see where the lines cross and trades should be made.  You can play with the data there and see how EMA performs over different time periods, such as hourly, 6-hours, daily, etc.

I don't often do a very good job at explaining, so hopefully someone else can help out with this as well...

I dont exactly get the whole EMA thing, but do understand that it buys and sells based on a crossover and its a long term thing..

Problem I have it the trail is what a week long? Should I expect to see some sort of gain in that week?

Because right now i've only lost money due to the bot in the last day.. So I do not see a reason to invest in this software..
BTC was at 670 this morning and with the default settings the bot only made a trade at 610.. it already dropped $60..
Now call me stupid because it did go down to 590.. but now its rebounding and what if it goes back to 670?
When is this bot going to buy? Will buy at $630 losing me $20? Or is it predicting it will crash even more?

Or am I suppose to continue to lose money for the next week and just believe it works?

I dont mean to put anyone down on this and I am sure theres a few that have made a profit..
But I am using the default settings and I dont see it..

[mboehler]

I dont exactly get the whole EMA thing, but do understand that it buys and sells based on a crossover and its a long term thing..

Problem I have it the trail is what a week long? Should I expect to see some sort of gain in that week?

Because right now i've only lost money due to the bot in the last day.. So I do not see a reason to invest in this software..
BTC was at 670 this morning and with the default settings the bot only made a trade at 610.. it already dropped $60..
Now call me stupid because it did go down to 590.. but now its rebounding and what if it goes back to 670?
When is this bot going to buy? Will buy at $630 losing me $20? Or is it predicting it will crash even more?

Or am I suppose to continue to lose money for the next week and just believe it works?

I dont mean to put anyone down on this and I am sure theres a few that have made a profit..
But I am using the default settings and I dont see it..

I do agree that a week is a very short amount of time for a trial of a bot that is designed for long term strategies.

That said, if you are at all considering buying a bot that does EMA trading, you NEED to learn about EMA trading.  If you don't understand it, it will be extremely difficult to make a profit using it.  Goomboo's Journal (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=60501.0) describes EMA trading in great detail.  It is a very long thread, but it has some very good information in it.

[jimmut]

How can you make the bot trade right when the EMA crosses. It always seems to wait till the next tick and I want it to trade as soon as it goes positive or negative. Anyone know?

[mboehler]

How can you make the bot trade right when the EMA crosses. It always seems to wait till the next tick and I want it to trade as soon as it goes positive or negative. Anyone know?

This has been asked frequently in this thread.  The answer is below.  Keep in mind that this may cause the bot to trade much more frequently than you expect.

To make it trade on the crossings you have to set the "1" thresholds to something high negative so that they are always met (e.g. -50) and the "2" thresholds to 0.

[jimmut]

I don't like the buy and sell thresholds. I guess because they don't make any sense. Why do you need a threshold and what is that really helping you do? If I just want to trade EMA lines crossing why can't I do that? I tried inputting those negative numbers and tried it on the back testing and I can't really see it performing like it should. My bot sold at $603 today at 1Hr intervals default settings. But if it would of sold as soon as it went negative it would of sold at $629. I guess I'm just dissapointed in this bot. It seems to make a lot of bad trades. Does anyone have good setting for this bot that give any better results? I wish I knew programming. It seems like you know what the bot should do but it just does whatever it wants and makes pretty bad moves. I thought I would give it another shot but its killing me.

[Jazkal]

I don't like the buy and sell thresholds. I guess because they don't make any sense. Why do you need a threshold and what is that really helping you do? If I just want to trade EMA lines crossing why can't I do that? I tried inputting those negative numbers and tried it on the back testing and I can't really see it performing like it should. My bot sold at $603 today at 1Hr intervals default settings. But if it would of sold as soon as it went negative it would of sold at $629. I guess I'm just dissapointed in this bot. It seems to make a lot of bad trades. Does anyone have good setting for this bot that give any better results? I wish I knew programming. It seems like you know what the bot should do but it just does whatever it wants and makes pretty bad moves. I thought I would give it another shot but its killing me.

I could be wrong here, but this is what I think is the problem. Even though the bot requires it be always connected, it doesn't take advantage of that itself. It doesn't monitor the market moves, it only checks them on the schedule you set. So if you have it set for a 1 Hour EMA, it is only checking in once an hour, even though the 1 Hour EMA actually crossed over 45 mins ago, the bot is only now checking and making the needed trade.

[mboehler]

I don't like the buy and sell thresholds. I guess because they don't make any sense. Why do you need a threshold and what is that really helping you do? If I just want to trade EMA lines crossing why can't I do that? I tried inputting those negative numbers and tried it on the back testing and I can't really see it performing like it should. My bot sold at $603 today at 1Hr intervals default settings. But if it would of sold as soon as it went negative it would of sold at $629. I guess I'm just dissapointed in this bot. It seems to make a lot of bad trades. Does anyone have good setting for this bot that give any better results? I wish I knew programming. It seems like you know what the bot should do but it just does whatever it wants and makes pretty bad moves. I thought I would give it another shot but its killing me.

I could be wrong here, but this is what I think is the problem. Even though the bot requires it be always connected, it doesn't take advantage of that itself. It doesn't monitor the market moves, it only checks them on the schedule you set. So if you have it set for a 1 Hour EMA, it is only checking in once an hour, even though the 1 Hour EMA actually crossed over 45 mins ago, the bot is only now checking and making the needed trade.

That is correct.  It only checks on the interval that you specify; that is what it is designed to do.

You don't want it checking all the time, or it would be trading all the time.  It costs a fee each time you make a trade.  And often, the ema's will cross over several times in a short period of "sideways" movement.  If you trade on all of them, you end up just giving all your money to the exchanges.

What this bot works well at, is longer intervals.  You want to trade less often, but make a bigger profit when you do trade.  It is a long-term trading bot, not a day trading bot.

EMA detects trends.  Upwards trends and downward trends.  And it only knows the trend is over AFTER the trend is over.  It will never identify the highest or lowest values while it is at that value.  It will only do it after that value has passed.  Obviously, there is no way to tell if you are at the highest or lowest point.  Will the price keep going up?  Will the price start dropping?  No one can tell you.

So, you set your bot for EMA's 10 and 21 (or whatever you want), set your interval for 1 hour (or higher), and watch it make a few trades per month.   You want to grab the few BIG trends.  Not the hundreds of smaller ups and down that just eat away at your profit.

Please, everyone, go read Goomboo's thread.  It is difficult at first if you are not used to market terms and theories (I was not), but it is definitely worth it if you want to try to use this bot.

[Jmattes]

I just finished reading all of Goomboo's highlighted posts and have to say it was a worth it read coming from a similar opinion of many of the recent comments...

I sat here watching bitcoinwisdom going I should of sold there and bought there and next time around I will do that and get it right.. Uhh probably not..
I still want to go read more about cross overs and EMA, but from his results I think it may be on to something..

My bot also traded at the 610 but started the trade at 620 and I asked myself "wtf is it doing.. it could of sold at 680 this morning" honest why didnt it?
But Goomboo has a point where 7 out of 10 trades will be bad but the 3 that arent will be big ones (I hope). Look its back to 610 right now..

Now I know I am not making a good case for this system as I honestly dont believe it myself just yet.. but I think I need more than a week to figure it out.
So I guess I will buy a few months membership and give it a try.. I heard there was a referral program that give you an extra month?
Anyone care to share?

Quick Update: After reading Goomboo's posts I decided to change the short/long to 10/21 and the bot would of sold this morning before the drop if it was set to that..
Where as with the 20/42 it didnt.. May be worth thinking about..

[tralala33]

I'm using 20/42@15m at Bitstamp lately and it has performed very well during those post-rally conditions. I sometimes buy back some BTC gradually during hard crashes (having an option in the bot to do that would be awesome), so I almost doubled my BTC over the last two weeks or so.

It sold at 644 today btw.

[Jmattes]

I'm using 20/42@15m at Bitstamp lately and it has performed very well during those post-rally conditions. I sometimes buy back some BTC gradually during hard crashes (having an option in the bot to do that would be awesome), so I almost doubled my BTC over the last two weeks or so.

It sold at 644 today btw.

Youve kept the bot on 24/7? and double your coins at 15min interval?