Greetings and introduction, new to the community

 

Hello everyone,

I'm kira and have just started learning mql4. I love trading, been reading up on it for about 2 years where I started on stocks, then to options and finally on to currencies, where I feel the most comfortable.

I had been live trading forex (manually) for a couple months without consistency (both execution and returns), so I stopped. After much thought, I have decided to embark on this journey, to learn mql4 and create an EA to trade. A couple reasons are:

1. Less emotions involved

2. Less time spent actually monitoring the market after the EA is fully developed

3. Able to trade consistently without too consistent results and knowing that fluctuations are not due to poor execution of trades on my part

4. Able to test out strategies (entries, exits and MM) and collect data without spending hours manually walking forward years of data and recording on a spreadsheet (;

I am reading up on the book and the various helpful threads started by you guys which cover so much ground, I deeply appreciate all the sharing that is going on around here and look forward to contributing in any way I can as I learn. I have set some goals, but I am unsure as to their feasibility, if I'm aiming too low, too high, or simply grail-chasing. Please enlighten me if I'm being too unrealistic.

1. Using leverage of 1:100 and maximum draw-down to be less than 25%.

2. Average 120% return per year (I look at yearly returns instead of monthly as I prefer to trade time-frames of 1hr or above)

Thanks for taking the time to read this far, have a good day and hope to hear your opinions.

To successful trading and a purposeful life,

kira

 

TK

You're very welcome :)

-BB-

 

Welcome Kira,

I'm kinda in the same shoes as you. I've just taken Forex trading seriously within the last 6-months. Looks like you went the opposite route than me. I plan to go Forex, then Options and then Stocks. I like Forex because of free-Meta_Trader and Penny_Accounts. I'm sure there's a way to get penny stocks too but I'm not familiar with that. Stock and Options trading have more of a hold time, at least to me it seems.

 

I could have started out getting a Financial Education and Learning how to trade before trying to learn programming in mt4. That approach would have probably made more sense. However, I doing it back_wards again because I'm all too aware of the effects which Emotions can have on an other-wise Good Trader's bottom line.

 

With your 1,2,3,4 list of benefits to programming, i agree with all of them but with a slight adjustment to #1 Less emotions involved. Automation will not take the emotions out of trading. I read that somewhere but couldn't understand why it wouldn't at the time. My original goal was to create a Set-it-&-Forget-it robot. I'm realizing that's all Beginner's Fallacies. Tell you the truth from the beginning I didn't mind having to adjust the setting of the robot every now and then. Nor did I expect to walk away from my money for weeks at a time. What I do have a problem with however, is doing a 360 degree change in my trading methodology every weekend.

 

As of this point, I've programmed/tested some simple and popular systems. The results of that are good if they could be guaranteed in the future (but they cannot). I've listened to some seasoned traders and incorporating their advices. What I'm finding out now is that I generate much consistent results Manually Trading than any Forward Tested EA. The reason could be because I'm using a Demo-Account. But if someone cannot trade on a Demo account, they have no reason diving into real money IMO.

 

In my opinion, if you're starting out trying to built a bankroll, you're aiming Low with your 120% Annually and 1:100 leverage. When you're sitting on a 100k account then you have more to lose and wouldn't want to go back to the broke-house also, you'll be less younger from when you started and maybe even getting used to a different life-style. If I'm starting out, I'd be aggressive because I could always get a job to re-finance my mistakes. I'd say set a target like 1st 10k, 20k,50k,100k etc... and risk like 5%,3%,2%,1% etc (depending on how strong your system is of course) :).

 

Well, no easy answers here. See you on the other-side at Forex-tropia.

 

Thanks BB.

Hi ubzen, it's heartening to hear from you and from your posts elsewhere I thought you were actually programming for more than a year already. Anyway, your preemptive backwards style is rather interesting, regarding financial education/learning to trade, there are many awesome and free resources and books on the net which you probably have read as well, but sadly there's also a huge amount of thrash out there as well.


Thanks for giving your 2 cents about the emotions with automation, I'll bear that in mind. Also, I'm aware there is a huge disparity between Demo vs. Live and Back test vs. Forward test which is why I intend to shrink it by using larger time-frames of at least an hour, along with the other methods mentioned in other articles and posts. About building a bankroll, I'm actually gunning for the system first, funds later.(pitching for funds is not too hard if you can achieve proven >75% a year, glib tongue included) I hope you mean I'm aiming low with 120% only in the bankroll context and not that it is actually easily achievable, though that would be sweet, hard work needed, notwithstanding.



Either way, I appreciate hearing your opinion and I'll definitely consider the aggressive option though I'd rather not have to re-finance too many times y'know (;

You're right, no easy answers, see you at Forex-tropia, wherever that may be.

 

traderkira ...I hope you mean I'm aiming low with 120% only in the bankroll context and not that it is actually easily achievable...

 

Yeah, I mean in the bankroll context. Just because you can double 500$ into 1000$ for 100% return yearly does not mean you can double 500,000$ as easily. 1st enemy, fear or emotions. 2nd enemy the markets. Your big moves will not go un-noticed as others may capitalize on your positions. All in my humble opinion.