【Shōkinryū-EA】Why focus on "buy-only" — the strength of single-minded focus
You’ve asked me many times, “Doesn’t it handle both buying and selling?” The answer is simple: it intentionally focuses on a single direction—buying. This time, I’ll explain why Shōkinryū intentionally opts for a narrow “buy-only” design.
Gold (XAUUSD) is historically favored as a go-to asset in times of crisis and tends to hold its ground even when currency value weakens. Of course, in the short term it moves up or down, and there are downward periods. However, if you assume a long-term tendency that the upward direction is relatively stronger, it is easier to maintain logical consistency by fixing the bias to the buying side rather than adding a second decision axis for selling.
In reality, predicting the market’s next move up or down each time is not as easy as it sounds. The more you build logic to forecast direction, the more the markets that cooperate versus don’t, and developers end up endlessly chasing “why did it miss this moment.” Shōkinryū avoids this difficult problem of “direction forecasting” altogether and concentrates on a consistent action: buy when prices go down, close when they recover.
If you try to create an EA that handles both buying and selling, you would simply have to test twice as many patterns. Settings that work well for buying do not necessarily work for selling. Each side would require its own logic and adjustments, and fixing one side can cause the other’s performance to collapse. As a result, the overall performance tends to settle at “so-so.” Shōkinryū avoids this complexity from the start, focusing development on the buy direction logic alone. Simplicity, though low-profile, directly ties to robustness in design.
Shōkinryū centers on a “market-following” logic that automatically adjusts the averaging-down width according to price volatility. Because it is focused on a single buy axis, we could fine-tune every detail. If we had tried to implement both buy and sell, time and testing resources would have been split, preventing such depth.
Enduring 11 years of backtesting isn’t because of flashy mechanics, but because we narrowed the scope and continuously refined that one aspect. The constraint of a “buy-only” design is not a weakness but the foundation of Shōkinryū’s strength.
- Shōkinryū’s buy-only design is a deliberate choice based on Gold’s long-term rising trend
- Avoid the difficult problem of forecasting direction and focus on a consistent action: buy when prices drop
- Making it bidirectional would double the test patterns and tend to yield “so-so” performance
- Focusing on one direction enables thorough refinement and 11 years of backtesting durability
※This article is provided for information purposes and is not investment solicitation. The operating results presented are past performance and do not guarantee future profits. FX/CFD trading involves risks. Please make investment decisions at your own responsibility.