18000% backtesting bot doesn't perform good on live trading

Hi, i have written the following bot based on a ma envelope strategy. It opens a position whenever price gets below or the upper or lower band, with a tp of 2pips. When backtesting on eurusd, with comimission set to 20 and spread to 0.2, it gives pretty nice results. I dont use ontick data, as my strategy is based on a onbar method. However during forward testing it looses money very quickly. Any idea why, and tips so it might work?

You should use the envelope indicator: https://ctrader.com/algos/indicators/show/281

Source code:

using System;
using System.Linq;
using cAlgo.API;
using cAlgo.API.Indicators;
using cAlgo.API.Internals;
using cAlgo.Indicators;

namespace cAlgo.Robots
{
    [Robot(TimeZone = TimeZones.UTC, AccessRights = AccessRights.FullAccess)]
    public class NewcBot : Robot
    {
        [Parameter(DefaultValue = 52)]
        public int EnvelopePeriod { get; set; }
        
        [Parameter(DefaultValue = 0.101)]
        public double BandDistance { get; set; }
        
        [Parameter("Source")]
        public DataSeries Source { get; set; }
        
        [Parameter("Quantity (Lots)", Group = "Volume", DefaultValue = 1, MinValue = 0.01, Step = 0.01)]
        public double Quantity { get; set; }
        
        [Parameter("Periodpricema", DefaultValue = 2)]
        public int Periodsprice { get; set; }
        
        [Parameter("TP", DefaultValue = 2)]
        public int TP { get; set; }

        [Parameter("SL", DefaultValue = 10000)]
        public int SL { get; set; }
   
        private ExponentialMovingAverage emaprice;
        private EnvelopeChannels envelopeChannels;
        
        protected override void OnStart()
        {
            emaprice = Indicators.ExponentialMovingAverage(Source, Periodsprice);
            envelopeChannels =  Indicators.GetIndicator<EnvelopeChannels>(EnvelopePeriod, BandDistance, MovingAverageType.Simple);
            
        }

        protected override void OnBar()
        {
            var currentPriceMa = emaprice.Result.Last(1);
            var previousPriceMa = emaprice.Result.Last(2);
            var channelup = envelopeChannels.ChannelUp.Last(1);
            var prevchannelup = envelopeChannels.ChannelUp.Last(2);
            var channeldown = envelopeChannels.ChannelLow.Last(1);
            var prevchanneldown = envelopeChannels.ChannelLow.Last(1);
            var longPosition = Positions.Find("Buy", SymbolName, TradeType.Buy);
            var shortPosition = Positions.Find("Sell", SymbolName, TradeType.Sell);
            
            {
            
            //Buy Entry
            if (prevchannelup > previousPriceMa && channelup < currentPriceMa)
                {
                if (shortPosition != null)
                ClosePosition(shortPosition);     
                {
                  if(Positions.Count == 0)
                ExecuteMarketOrder(TradeType.Buy, SymbolName, VolumeInUnits,"Buy", SL, TP);
                }
                }
                
            if(prevchannelup < previousPriceMa && channelup > currentPriceMa && longPosition != null)
                ClosePosition(longPosition);

            //Sell Entry
            
            else if (prevchanneldown < previousPriceMa && channeldown > currentPriceMa)
                {
                if (longPosition != null)
                ClosePosition(longPosition);
                {
                if(Positions.Count == 0)
                ExecuteMarketOrder(TradeType.Sell, SymbolName, VolumeInUnits, "Sell",SL,TP);
                }
                }
             if (prevchanneldown > previousPriceMa && channeldown < currentPriceMa && shortPosition != null)
                ClosePosition(shortPosition);
             } 
             }
             
            
   private double VolumeInUnits
        {
            get { return Symbol.QuantityToVolumeInUnits(Quantity); }
        }
    }
}

Real-world market conditions are always different from backtests. I once created a bot based on the stochastic oscillator with a similar style of TP (1-5 pips) that gave me a 150,000% increase over a 10-year backtest. It then proceeded to lose money instantly. 

In reality, you should only backtest a bot to see if it works as intended (creating positions when conditions are met). I would suggest forward testing via demo as a more viable way to test this, as most brokers' demo accounts simulate current liquidity scenarios.

Hi isabakas,

Make sure that you are backtesting using tick data.

Best Regards,

Panagiotis 

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