New to MetaTrader...any useful EAs to study to introduce me to MQL?
Can anyone name a freely available EA that usually gains instead of losing?
It depends what level of returns you're expecting and what level of risk you're prepared to take. Investment theory isn't perfect, but if you can earn, say, 3% per year from a fairly risk-free investment, it's crazy to expect to make 3% per month without a corresponding huge increase in your level of risk - let alone the 10%/20%/30% per month which many people on this forum think they can get on a consistent, risk-free basis. It's like asking for a time machine or a faster-than-light warp drive.
I'm not aiming to get rich but I hope I might be able to earn a significant extra income. I would agree that a simple system is much better. I've just read about a system where you place orders at a time when you know a public announcement is to be made and catch any sudden prices changes, whichever way it goes. It seems pretty simple for a novice so I'm going to try it (manually, not EA) on a demo account for several weeks and see how it performs.
With regard to risk, I'm not looking for risk-free and accept that bigger gains means more risk. For EAs I would presume that an essential factor is testing its percentage accuracy and from that working out how much you can afford to risk on each trade without it eating your balance away.
One simple automation I've read about is scalping, but it was said that some brokers don't like it and increase the spread on your account if you start doing that, and it doesn't do well when the market is trending and is not recommended for those with small capital. Maybe I'll try it in the future if I have more cash to play with. There was a comment on one forum that EAs often lose so often that you may as well do the opposite to what it suggests - to my further amusement a reply said that's what some EAs do if they're not succeeding, just reverse the logic.
Indeed, I need to do plenty of reading. There's a lot to learn. Thanks for the book recommendation, I'll have a look for it. The automation stuff caught my eye initially because I have a fascination with number crunching and automation in general.
Can anyone recommend any good links or books on fractal analysis (i.e. searching for perodic order in the chaos) with regard to forex? It's something I'm very curious about. I realise that Elliott Wave Theory is a form of fractals and I intend to buy a book on that.
Hey basil,
It's nice to see someone passionate about trading and automation, that's the boat I am in as well. I must have tried any imaginable strategy in the last 11 years. The news breakout strategy you are talking about, watch out for 1) being stopped out, if you put a stop loss (i wouldn't trade it with a set stop loss), 2) if you go bi-directional make sure you are not going 'into white' (ie below lowest point in last 3 days, or above highest point in last 3 days). It's a real fun strategy though as you keep in touch with current happenings.
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scalping is defined differently by different people, so you don't need huge amounts to do it (my definition is very fast entry (intra 1-minute) and taking a few pips). when i scalped, i did it on eurusd only (if you look at different charts, compare spreads you'l see why), started with about $300, trading only during active hours (GMT 6.30-9.00am: during this time big breakouts happen, and often turn into little trends), used 1 minute chart, and a NR4/7 set-up, that's it, nothing else. Important thing is to know the bar range for the timeframe you are trading (yep, so bar range indicator is essential), as you will be scalping bit's off bars, or if you are lucky you get a whole bar. Typically within that time period about 40 trades (as soon as nr4/7 happened, getting ready to trade the breakout on next bar). That worked magic, but not on MT4, MT4 was too slow for this, I used a faster spreadbetting platform (but spreadbetting firms notice this as you start to make money and start delaying the execution, so you won't last for long on a spreadbetting platform). let me know how it goes and if you need any advice, i'd be happy to return the favour (as the people on this forum have helped me a lot already).
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I wouldn't quite agree that percentage accuracy is the most important thing. this would depend on the model you are using. if you read Tharp's book he describes this very well. You can have a very profitable strategy with only 20-30% of trades being profitable (if that's what you meant by percentage accuracy)
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I'm new to MetaTrader and looking to experiment with my own EA. I've done plenty of C and Javascript before so it should not be too difficult. I have a demo account with a broker and tried out the two example EAs provided (MACD and Moving Average) on EURUSD. When I ran a strategy test on them their performance was rubbish and lost a lot money. Is it just the current market or are they always that rubbish? Can anyone name a freely available EA that usually gains instead of losing? I'm considering testing out some Elliott Wave analysis in my EA.
Edit: after reading another post I should point out that I would be starting with only a few hundred dollars, so I'm particularly interested to hear about EAs or strategies that work reasonably well from such a small initial balance.