Diversification is always our gene. 9 months ago, our R&D team has started to explore diversification possibilities for Ophiuchus EA. After some time of research, the team finally decided to add AUDCAD support for Ophiuchus EA.
Why AUDCAD?
Obviously, AUDCAD is not a common pair that most traders trade and why do we select it? The key reason for this pair is our intention is to select a currency pair that has the least relevancy with EURUSD. If you trade other common pairs like EURGBP and GBPUSD, you will realize that most of the time when the USD goes strong, EURUSD, GBPUSD both will go in the same direction and it is the same for EURUSD and EURGBP too when EUR is in favor.
However, it is not right to say that EURUSD and AUDCAD have no relevance at all. CAD as the currency of Canada is the country that is just beside the United States. It tends to follow US policy. While AUD as the currency of Australia is the country that has a close relationship with Europe, or more precisely the UK, which was part of the EU before Brexit and it is still beside other EU countries in terms of geographical location.
Another main factor that we consider is the currency spread. We want to pick the currency that has the least relevancy with EURUSD and has the lowest spread possible. From our recommended brokers, the spread of AUDCAD is around 17-24 points.
At the end of our research, our team decided to pick AUDCAD to enable true diversification.
Backtest Performance
After many rounds of performance tuning to enable Ophiuchus to support AUDCAD, we manage to achieve backtest performance as follows.
- With USD 2,000 as capital
- backtest from 1 January 2017 till 1 January 2022 (Duration of 5 years or 60 months)
- Total Profit is USD 7951.74, which is 397.58% return in total. Average monthly profit of 6.62%.
Please note that past performance is not equivalent to future performance. Future performance depends on market condition
Limitless trading
Live Trading Performance
For the live test, we created another account on 7 Sep 2021 and enabled Ophiuchus EA to trade EURUSD and AUDCAD there. Then we will compare with the performance of our Ophiuchus that only trades EURUSD. Both Account always has a capital of USD 2,000 and every month end the profit was withdrawn. We tried to make the trading condition as similar as possible for both accounts during the testing period. Eg, when we stop EURUSD trading for FOMC, we stop for both accounts too but still allow AUDCAD to continue trading.
The following is the monthly performance of both accounts.
| Month | EURUSD only | EURUSD and AUDCAD | Additional Profit (%) |
| Sep 21 | 207.29 (10.36%) | 243.47 (12.17%) | 1.81% |
| Oct 21 | 173.47 (8.67%) | 262.71 (13.13%) | 4.46% |
| Nov 21 | 265.47 (13.27%) | 365.59 (18.28%) | 5.01% |
| Dec 21 | 187.80 (9.39%) | 257.41 (12.87%) | 3.48% |
| Jan 22 | 228.33 (11.42%) | 223.32 (11.17%) | -0.25% |
| Feb 22 | 389.47 (19.47%) | 496.58 (24.83%) | 5.36% |
As you can see from the above result, generally the Ophiuchus account that trade EURUSD and AUDCAD will have higher profit in a range of an additional 2-5% except for Jan 2022. For Jan 2022, after we investigate, we made a mistake that month to enable trading for EURUSD only account earlier than another account after FOMC meeting in Jan 2022.
In summary, the backtest and live trading results proved that Ophiuchus EA will be able to generate additional profit for trading AUDCAD.
The Risks
We have to reiterate the risk of Martingale’s strategy again to all our clients.
All Martingale strategy always has a risk of Margin Call ( MC ).
Limitless Trading
Although our intention is to add AUDCAD as a supplementary trading pair on top of EURUSD trading to achieve with same capital but higher profit outcome, we can’t deny that adding this pair will increase the risk as well. The risk is if both pairs also have a lot of orders and require more margin, it could increase the chance of a Margin call. We do not have a way to validate this backtest as the Metatrader 4 backtest can only test with one pair of currency. The live test that we did for the past half-year does not guarantee this situation won’t happen in the future too.
Hence, we recommend all our clients assess their own risk profile and decide whether they want to add this additional pair to your current trading account. Alternatively, you can also create a separate account with additional capital just to trade this pair but the return will be around 3-7% per month. So, it is your choice to decide whether you are comfortable with either option.
Steps to Enable AUDCAD pair
First, you will need to get the latest Ophiuchua EA. AUDCAD pair is only supported in version 3.2 and above. Place the latest version of Ophiuchus EA in the MQL\Experts folder and then refresh your Expert Advisors on Navigator Panel to show the latest 3.2 version.
Right-click on the Market Watch Panel and Click on Symbols. Symbols Dialog will appear and then click on Forex and then double click on AUDCAD to make it appear on the Market Watch panel.
Right Click on AUDCAD and then click on Chart Window. An AUDCAD chart window will appear.
Click on the AUDCAD chart. Remember to click on M1 to change it to M1 chart. Drag and drop the Ophiuchus EA 3.2 to the AUDCAD chart. Go to the Inputs tab. First, change the Max Spread Allow to 30. In the 3.2 version, now you will have to select the currency mode, click on it and a drop-down list will appear. Select AUDCAD mode. You will have to key in your License key too, which is the same license key you use for EURUSD.
You will need to adjust your starting lots using the same formula as EURUSD.
Starting Lots = Capital / 200,000
Now, you will see the left Panel appear and you should see the smiley face. Ophiuchus EA will start trading AUDCAD pair.
Lastly …
As our usual advice, we provide options for our clients to increase their profitability and diversify their trading and also share with the clients the risk involved with this option. All our clients will have to consider their own circumstances and decide what to do with this option as they will be solely responsible for their profit or loss of your decision.
You can start with a separate account or you can start with a smaller starting lot size in the same account as a start and observe how Ophiuchus EA trades in AUDCAD till you are comfortable with it.
If you read this article before 16 Mar 2022, to be on the safe side, we also recommend you to start this AUDCAD trading after the upcoming FOMC meeting. Refer to this market update for more info. You also can take this opportunity to observe how AUDCAD performs during the FOMC announcement to see the relevance between these two pairs.
Happy Trading! Hopefully, we can provide all our clients with more profitability options in the future.
