Are you new and looking for someone to code?
I forgot to add:
When talking to your developer, don't talk about the future of the price movement. Focus on the past 3 to 5 candles of movement. Like I tell my clients, "Stand on the newly forming candle, turn around so all you can see is the collection of candles that have already formed. Evaluate the indicators on that information. There are some indicators good for forecasting and predictions. They do pretty good, however, your accuracy will climb faster by looking into the past first. Once you are happy with the past, candle patterns, indicators, etc, then look to the future for what might be coming, based on indicators.
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So many times out there new folks come along and want to have someone build an EA for them or an indicator. You can pay top dollar for good coding or for bad coding. You can also pay cheap dollar for good coding or bad coding. The difference is going to be in you and how well you pay attention to detail. The second condition will be the coders experience and the ability for the two of you to communicate.
Here are some tips to help you prepare.
1. When you want to convert a manual trade to an automated trade, be sure to be specific with every detail of the trade entry and exit. Here is a bad example of what not to do:
I want to open a trade at the top of the price movement and close it at the bottom of the price movement.
What is wrong with this? Too generic. There is no specification of what does "top" or "bottom" mean to you versus what it means to the developer. In your mind, what dictates the "top" or "bottom". This is what the developer is wanting to know. So usually the next level response to this is:
When I see a green candle up and a red candle down, while on the 5 minute timeframe and the red candle is lower than the green candle.
Again we are still not getting specific enough. A price movement can generate a slight pull back and create this monstrocity. Usually indicators help you to develop a solid idea of when and how to expect the reverse of a price movement. Caution though, the market knows this and can perform a tree shake just to trip you up. For example, let's assume that you tell me that you want to open a sell when the price movement reaches the top bollinger band and you want a confirmation on the reverse. So this basically means you are looking for 1 green candle up to touch the bollinger price then a red candle down and another red candle down will serve as the confirmation. So it gets coded as such. When you play it out, frequently you discover that the trade activates where and when you instructed for it too, but the market did not agree with you, so the price movement reversed, but as soon as that 2nd candle down touched the median (middle) bollinger band it reversed again and shot the moon for a nice 50 to 100 pips in the opposing direction.
Many times it takes more than just one indicator, sometimes, timing in the market could be the cause, or a news announcement, or maybe the indicators you choose are too heavily dependent upon the past historical data and nothing to monitor the predictive behaviors of the market in future tense. Get to know the indicators and which ones are based on history, which ones are based on prediction. The more you understand what is going on in the markets movements and the more precise you can be with the trade signal conditions, the better your success with your developer will be.
2. Work with your developer on small piece work at a time. Don't go to market with the idea that your developer has understood everything you have asked of him/her, and have them build a mansion for which you have paid a mansion price, instead, build small pieces at a time and while he/she is in construction on one piece, back and forward test the pieces that are complete.
For example, start with the firing trigger. If you cannot be accurate here, you are going to pay for it with the developer and at game time when you enter the market. Problem is when you playing for keeps in the market, you may not be able to get out of it if you are in too deep. Start by getting the accuracy up. How many successful trades did you have that hit the actual desired entry point? Did the entry point have faulty signals? Can you find a indicator or method to correct the faulty signal conditions to avoid the bad trade before entering it? When you have gotten this part worked out, you have increased your ability to be successful by more than 60%. Why is that? Well, if you have a 50/50 chance of being right once you are in the market, by avoiding the faulty signals, you have increased the 50/50 chance in your favor, it is no longer 50/50. I say 60% because there is always room for error, on your part, the devs part, or the market changing behaviors.
The last thing you want to focus on is your stopping condition. Now I know this freaks out some pros around here, but if you focus on your stopping conditions first, then you will disappoint yourself into failure. It is a phsycological condition. So save the disappointment for last.
Once your accuracy is up, look at the timing of the market, when is it good to take this kind of trade? When should I make sure to NOT be in the market? Sometimes, you have a perfect signal, good trading position, but with bad market timing, you enter a trade only seconds before a news report comes out or before one market closes and another opens. Have some timing conditions in mind. I don't want to trade during the half an hour before or after a market opening, or I only want to trade on hours 4, 6, 19, 23. Maybe you only want to trade on the first hour of the first day of the month. It's your EA, you should think it through.
3. You are building on a piece by piece development, why not pay on a piece by piece payment. If you are working a trigger that really isn't working out and all you have paid for is the trigger, then you are not for the expenses of the timing, the stop losses, the money manager, the lot manager, etc. By keeping it small, your expense will be small per transaction. This is not to say you cannot or will not go back to the dev for more work, just that you are making sure you get what you are paying for. On the reverse side of this, the developer focuses on 1 task at a time and is paid accordingly, he/she is not at risk of being stiffed because you cannot pay for several hours of their time spent trying to put it all together.
4. Pass your code around to friends you are close to and can trust to run a demo version of your code for forward and backward testing. (make sure you work out the details with your dev about how to secure it for demo purposes only). By doing this, they may find something wrong with it even when you do not.
5. Make sure you run a long term back test on your EA. When you are nearly done with the project, run it over a couple years worth of time. Things happen in the market that screw up just about every pattern or trend you find in the market. Your idea may be one of them.
6. A perfect world for you does not make a perfect world for everyone. Everyone has different comforts in risk and rewards. Sometimes what makes a decent risk for you may be too risky for another. This works with both devs and you. If you are a risk adverse person, don't go to a dev who is more comfortable about risk than you are. If you do, make sure the developer has planned and implemented a safety net in the program for you. This will give you a chance to bail out even if the developers tastes for risk is more than you want to deal with.
7.ALWAYS.... ALWAYS keep a copy of the code in a non compiled state. Store it off on multiple disks place it in different locations. If you plan on making money with it, keep a copy in your bank deposit box, keep a copy under your pillow, or in the folgers can burried in the back yard. The idea here is that you and that developer do not share the sam life conditions or life expectancy, that developer may not be around in the future to complete the job. A fire may take out your copy at home, PC's die all the time, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A GOOD NON COMPILED COPY.
Using decompilers are not reliable and are not well accepted in this industry. If a developer hears of someone using one, they will be very reluctant to so much as say hi to you when you are in dire need of fixing your code. Decompilers steal hard earned money from developers. They spend several hours on projects and get stiffed at times. Decompilers is a way to really take food from teh developers table. Learn when NOT to go cheap, get your moneys worth, but don't steal from a developer. They work for a living just like you. Using the information above will keep it fair to you and your developer. There will be no need for them to rob you and no need for you to rob them.