futuresgrid
A grid like strategy with dynamic trading targets and integrated trailing for both buying and selling.
The idea of this strategy is to always be in a position, use market orders only, average down when prices goes down, take profit when price exceeds break even. And do so with an absolute minimum ****number of settings.
This strategy is basically the same as “spotgrid”, it’s just made for futures and additionally offers the option to trade shorts.
TIP
This strategy is a bit different than all other AILidex strategies: there are just a handful configurable options and it’s “always in position”: instead of waiting for the perfect entry it is always looking for chances to average down.
If you want to customize settings a lot, this strategy is not for you.
Trading behavior
When you run futuresgrid on a pair in an uptrend, this is the kind of trading behavior to expect:
Typical futuresgrid trades. Green arrows are buys, orange arrows are sells.
Let’s break down what actually happens:
When the strategy first runs and there is no balance to sell, it immediately places a market buy order
If price goes down and it exceeds the futuresgrid line in the chart, buy trailing is activated. As soon as trailing finishes, a buy order is placed. The break even price is now lower.
If price reaches the Sell target on the chart, sell trailing is activated and the complete position is sold at profit when trailing finishes.
After having sold, the strategy immediately starts buy trailing. If price goes up it will quickly open a new position, if price goes down it will place a buy order below the last sell rate.
You will see that the first few buy orders happen fairly quickly when price starts going down. After a few trades, the price distance between buy orders gets much bigger. All targets are set automatically.
When the market goes down, the strategy starts to accumulate units at ever lower prices:
Slowly accumulating with same sized orders
The bot will continue to accumulate until max buy count is hit, or when it run out of available funds. Every new buy order will lower the break even price. As soon as price hits the sell target and finishes trailing above break even, a sell order is placed.
Balance management is very important, make sure you can afford the planned number of buy orders.
TIP
The next trading targets are always visible on the chart.
Keep in mind the targets lines are moving over time, they represent the current targets.
How to create a futuresgrid strategy
Using the advanced strategy editor: create a new strategy and select futuresgrid as buy and sell method
Essential settings
To use futuresgrid, there are just three essential settings:
Setting Description
Trading limit
The amount to invest per buy order
On an USDT-BTC pair, a trading limit of 20 means that every buy order is for 20 USDT. Always make sure that trading limit is set higher than min volume to sell.
Max buy count
Limits how many buy orders are allowed
Setting a max buy count of 10 means that the bot may do up to 10 buy orders in a row, to average down in ever increasing price distance.
Max open contracts
Limits position size
On an USDT-BTC pair, setting max open contracts to 0.1 means that no buy order gets fired if it would result in the total position exceeding 0.1 BTC.
Direction
Sets the direction to trade
Pick either LONG, SHORT or AUTO
The AUTO mode uses a non configurable trend detection that uses EMA, OBV and ATR data from both 15m and 4h charts, and only opens a long or short if confirmed by the trend definitions.
If in a position already and trend changes, the strategy will first attempt to close at profit before opening a position in the opposite direction.
Trend variant
Trend source to use when direction is set to ‘AUTO’.
Legacy mode uses the strategy timeframe, plus 1h and 4h data.
4h uses the same trend module as in stepgridhedge, using 4h data only.
1h_15m uses the same trend module as in stepgridhedge, using data from 1h and 15m charts.
There are a few more settings that can optionally be used with this strategy, described below
Additional settings
There are a few additional settings you can use with this strategy.
Setting Description
Stop after next sell
To stop trading a pair after the position closes
When enabled, no new position gets opened.
Averaging down of the current position continues.
Auto gain
Activates dynamic sell target
Enabled by default. The dynamic target is based on the distance between support and resistance, capped at a minimum profit of 2x trading fees. The target decreases when position size increases. Overrules a manually set target.
Gain
Manual sell target value
Set a manual sell target, as a percentage above the break even price. The sell target is where trailing starts. With 0.5 as value, the sell target is 0.5% above break even.
Grid multiplier
Controls the distances between buy orders
Can be used to increase or decrease the distance between buy orders.
The default value 1 means that the hardcoded levels are used.
1.5 would increase the levels with a factor 1.5x, a value of 0.5 would halve the default levels.
Trading limit multiplier
Can be used to increase or decrease the invested amount with each consecutive buy order. Examples with trading limit 100 USDT and max buy count 3:
1: each buy order is for 100 USDT
1.5: first buy 100, second buy 150, third buy 225
2: first buy 100, second buy 200, third buy 400
Period
Sets the chart interval
The default period is 15. Make sure to only use supported period values. The trading settings editor suggests valid values for the selected exchange.
SMA period
How many candles are used for calculating support and resistance levels
By default 50 candles are used to calculate support and resistance.
First order delay
Additional delay after opening a new trade. Does not apply to DCA orders. Value in seconds.
Can be used to prevent multiple orders in case the exchange does not update balances fast enough.
Minimum buydown
Minimum distance between two orders
Set a minimum distance between two orders that add to a position. Value represents a percentage.
This acts as an override to the built-in buydown levels that increase with each additional dca order.
When set to 0.6, this means that the minimum distance is 0.6%.
Keep 1x TL
Save fees on first trade
Instead of reopening a position shortly after closing one, with this setting enabled the bot will keep 1x trading limit open when (partially) closing a position.
TIP
Other parameters
Buy and Sell enabled options can be set as pair overrides. Watch mode is respected.
Besides settings mentioned on this page, no other strategy setting has any effect on futuresgrid.