Forex EA Robot Trading Blog

This is the follow up to the time frame switching video available in the members video area. We now have 6 videos in the members area.

Labels: forex, lifecycle of a trade, time frame switching video

Q. Can you please specify what settings you would use on a 4 hour chart trading GBP/JPY, GBP/CHF, AUD/JPY, USD/JPY. I need to know safe settings with reasonable returns.

A. I run it on my live account with default settings, but if you want to lower risk there are several things you can do.
1) Use a larger gridmesh (i.e. 100)
2) Use the smallest lot size you can on your account
3) Lower the maxpositions property
4) Pick your pairs carefully
5) Work out the largest possible drawdown you want to be able to deal with and make a plan

I will add a video on safe settings in the blog here as well in the next day or so, with more detail.

Labels: carry trade, CarryGrid EA, forex, Safe Settings

Q. How I should trade H1, H4 or D1?
A. You can trade any of them. Longer term is generally better, but with the trailing stop in place they will all work, and i personally use 4H.
Q. I have a message saying: Unable to trade as invalid lot size – please override with correct manual setting

A. You need to set UseManualLots to true and set the ManualLotSize to 0.1

Q. I can see CarryGriddingV5 with a happy face but I just want to make sure that everything is working perfect

A. That means its working. Drop the indicator on a chart as well as an additional reference for the trend.

Labels: forex, Happy face, invalid lot size, timeframe

We now have videos coming available instructing how to setup and run the EA. If you are using the EA, then you need to make sure you are signed up for the newsletter to receive the link to the videos, as they are not on the public site.

Labels: carry trade, CarryGrid EA, video

Q. What is the interaction with other EA on account or manually opened positions

A. The EA will not interfere with other EA or manual positions. They may affect the margin available which will determine the lot size, but that is all the interaction they will have.
Lots more details in here;

http://www.myfxtools.com/FAQ.html
http://www.myfxtools.com/blog

Labels: CarryGrid EA, interaction, manual positions, margin

Labels: forex-friend, video preview

1.First on download/opening the EA - this contains 3 files not sure what to do with them - do I save all 3 to My Docs?

You need to follow the instructions on the download page. We will actually create a video for this shortly which will ease the whole process.

2 Which of the brokers would you use if you lived in UK and wished to only trade with small amounts?

I dont know of any UK MT4 brokers, the majority are in the US. I personally use fxdd with no issues. Again, there is a broker list on the download page

3. MT4 Account opening box - do I choose forex USD or another? I assume this is for a free dummy trading account?

Yes this is a dummy account if you are setting it up through MT4.

We are planning to create a series of videos shortly to help ease users through this and other common problems.

Labels: broker, EA setup, open account, video

The newsletter for the site is being improved dramatically and for this we are using a third party service, and we only want to include members who wish to receive it, therefore you are required to opt-in to get on the mailing list. There will be freebies and promotions for upcoming products, and no obligations. You will see there are now newsletter signup forms on the site, and all existing members have been emailed to see if they wish to join the list. We intend to make the newsletter high quality with great giveaways.

Labels: newsletter

Q. After running the EA for few days on Day and 4H charts with the default values I saw that there are no trades at all but there are many orders can cancellations few seconds after placing the order. I also saw that you had few trades and that you have much less cancellations.Does something wrong ?

A. Youre not doing anything wrong, its just that when the markets are going against the swap or ranging dramatically then existing trades are cancelled once they are no longer viable. This is also explained in more detail in the previous post.

Labels: cancelled trades, CarryGriddingv5, swap

This is behaviour that has been in the EA for a long time, and is difficult to remove for the following reason;

Cancelled trades can appear when the trend is changing after an ORDER has already been placed. So the order is then rendered invalid and therefore cancelled. This behaviour will be fixed in a future version.

For now, the impact is that it adds a few records to the history but is not an actual problem, and is in fact there to protect you. For a period of time until the trend settles down it can switch back and forth a few times, thus creating cancelled trades.

Labels: cancelled, CarryGriddingv5, EA

Our affiliate program for both www.easyforexsignals.com and www.myfxtools.com are now ready, and sign up is available on the following url;

http://www.myfxtools.com/affiliate.html

Labels: affiliate

I set the system up but is says that: We do not trade when the trend is against swap. Which parameter I need to change to get it going?

The EA is waiting for the trend to be bullish, if you go to a lower timeframe it is more likely to trade. Drop the indicator on a chart to see if it is red or green and then you know if it should be trading or not.

Labels: CarryGrid EA, swap, timeframe

Q.

I was looking at your live trading statement and saw 3 open buy positions for Oct. 17th. I then opened my IBFX GBP/JPY daily chart with the easy forex indicator attached. As far as I could tell the indicator was showing red lines (downtrend). I was under the impression the ea only went long when the indicator was green (uptrend). Am I missing something?

A.

The reason is that the EA on the demo is running on the 4Hr chart, so is it more susceptible to smaller variations.

Labels: EA, live trading, trend

These settings are not very clear, so here is a clarification on the EA settings/parameters for closing out trades.

CloseAllOnReverse =true
CloseOnlyProfitableAllOnReverse =true
So with them both being true, it will close out JUST THE PROFITABLE TRADES ON A REVERSE.

CloseAllOnReverse =true
CloseOnlyProfitableAllOnReverse = false
This will close all trades on a trend reversal, even the ones that are drawn down.
Finally

CloseAllOnReverse =false
(CloseOnlyProfitableAllOnReverse becomes irrelevant as it is not used)
This will not attempt to close out trades on a trend reversal - so you are relying on the trailing stop to exit trades.

Labels: CloseAllOnReverse, CloseOnlyProfitableAllOnReverse, EA Settings

• StratName- This is the name of the strategy for comments only.
• GridMesh - This is the distance between points on the grid. Default is 25, but you can widen/tighten the net.
• GridMaxOpen - This is the maximum number of positions that will be opened. Should be used in conjunction with GridMesh. Ideally you want to cover a 500-1000 pip range, so you might set gridmesh to be 100 and gridmaxopen to be 10 to have a conservative setting.
• minFromPrice - This is the minimum distance from initial price before we make a trade.
  suspend Strat - If you want to stop the strategy from placing positions, then set this to true.
• exitAllPositions - If you want to close all positions both pending and open, set this to true.
• Risk - The default setting is 1. The maximum setting that has been testing successfully is 1.3. This is a multiplier for the lot size if you wish to increase the risk.
• UseMicroLots - If you have a mini account or an account such that you will need to trade lots under 0.1, then set this to false. Some brokers do not allow trades to be placed under 0.1 lots, and so in that case set this flag to true.
• Stoploss - whether to place a stoploss with each trade, and how big that should be.
• CloseAllOnReverse - whether to close all trades regardless of current profit levels on a trend reversal.
• CloseOnlyProfitableAllOnReverse - whether to only close profitable trades, used in conjunction with the CloseAllOnReverse flag.
  For Version 3;CloseAllOnReverse being set to false, and CloseOnlyProfitableAllOnReverse set to true will result in only profitable trades being closed CloseAllOnReverse being set to true will result in all trades being closed regardless of profit
  For Version 4 and above;CloseOnlyProfitableOnReverse will close only profitable trades if set to true, else if it is set to false then losing trades will also be closed.
• UseManualLots - if the automatic lot size is too low for your account, then you can override it by setting this property to true, and setting the ManualLotSize to be your account minimum/desired lot size. this is set to false by default.
• ManualLotSize - the lot size to use when UseManualLots is set to true.
• (Version 5) TrailingStop - true will use a trailing stop, defined by the TrailStopLevel.
• (Version 5) TrailStopLevel - the trailing stop level, defined in pips. Once the order is TrailStopLevel profit in pips, it will move the stop to breakeven, and then as it moves further in profit it will move the stop up with it.

Labels: EA Settings

I want to purchase your EA and I have Paypal.I have some questions before purchase:

1. How long until I get the information to download the EA after I pay by Paypal?
Is it direct download or I have to wait an email ?
2. What version will I
get ? Is it ver 5 or 4 ?
3. Can I choose to trade against the swap ?For
example EUR long term trend still UPTREND which is against the swap, but I
prefer to trade follow the trend than against the trend.

1. It is direct download, and you will also later receive a confirmation email with the information duplicated.
2. You will receive BOTH v4 and v5 along with the supporting indicator
3. The current versions do not support this.

Labels: CarryGrid EA, purchase, swap, trend

Q. What are the best conservative settings for the CarryGrid EA if I am only
trading the GPB/JPY? I was wondering if it would be better if I closed out the
trades that were losing a little or let the computer program do what it is
designed to do. If you could just list the settings and then tell me what each
button that runs the ea is that would be helpful. I have used ea's before. I
just am a little unsure of how to set up the internal setting properly.

1. To be conservative, the key settings are;
   LotSize - automatic lot sizing is pretty safe, you can go even lower manually
2. Risk Level - keep this at 1
3. GridMesh - a wider gridmesh is safer
4. TrailingStop - this should usually match gridmesh, but you can tighten or widen as you please
5. GridMaxOpen can be used to set a limit of open positions. This is becoming redundant with v5, as the trailing stop means we are unlikely to have many positions open, except when we have a fast run up, in which case we would like to have lots of profitable positions open!
6. Stoploss - you can assign a stoploss for each position in pips. Stoplosses wreck accounts if used badly, so be sure to give yourself enough room to ride out the waves in the market. Though if a tsunami is on the way you will be glad you had a 'get me out of dodge' stoploss.

The program does a good job of locking in profits with v5, but a human may be better, depending on their reading of the market.

Labels: CarryGrid EA, settings

Q.

What would you say are the optimum settings for v.5? What settings do you
use, if you don't mind me asking?

A.

I use the default settings, and automatic lot sizing on just GBPJPY. Sometimes i see a pair is undervalued and get into that one for a bit. Ive been tracking AUDCAD and the range is pretty small, so in a case like this you would need to change the gridmesh and trailing stop to match each other (in this case to 15 due to very tight range).
The key to safe trading for me is to find pairs that are ranging/undervalued, find the right timeframe, and limit your risk via the positions open. Then you can focus on collecting that swap.
If you had the patience it would be great to stick on a pair for a few years, and collect positions throughout the entire market range of values, sort of spinning a spider web that produces interest payments.

Q.

Have you heard any negatives about IBFX? I would definitely switch brokers
if it would be best.

A.

I have heard negatives about all brokers, but my experience with them was fine, and i have some friends that use them with no complaints. They are pretty good, in my personal opinion.

Labels: Carrygridv5, IBFX, optimum settings

I currently have a live mini account with IBFX. Is there any broker that would be better to trade the CarryGrid EA? Any recommendations?

Ive been trading with fxdd (i am not an IB this is a straight link) for the last couple of years with no major issues running the EA (although they did screw up my account once but they put it all back). I wouldnt commit major funds (>100k) to these brokers unless they are goverment backed in case of another refco type disaster. I am not aware currently of any brokers that support MT4 that are goverment backed.

Labels: broker, Carrygridv5

Q.

I have version 5 installed on 2 IBFX charts (EUR/JPY and USD/CHF) in mini account with a $3000 balance. The version 5 default settings came up as GridMesh 50, GridMaxOpen 30, minFromPrice 6, and Risk 1.In the FAQ section it states "This is how many orders will be placed. As a rough guide, gridmesh / gridmaxopen gives you a risk ratio,. So at a setting of 50, using 10 orders, the ratio is 5. This is a safe level to run the EA at. Generally it is good to make sure your risk ratio is above 3, unless you have a clear understand of the state of a given pair." The default settings give a ratio of 1.66Is this ok? or should those settings be different? Also, is it ok to trade two pairs at the same time ? If so, how do I adjust the settings?

A. Good questions. The FAQ was last updated for v4, and with version5 it is impossible to have that many open drawn down positions anymore, i have not seen more than 3 drawn down positions at a time, and usually its 2 or 1. So the maxopenpositions is not likely to be hit. The FAQ needs updating. You can set GridMaxOpen to 5 and i doubt it will make any difference in v5, except for extremely strong run-ups, where you want to take on all the positions you can.Yes its ok to trade 2 pairs at the same time, as the EA will look at available margin when determining lot size. If you have overridden the lot size manually, then be much more careful that you are not eating up too much margin.

Labels: Carrygridv5, default settings, FAQ, GridMaxOpen

Q. i opened a mini account at interbank (demo) and wanted to try your EA. But at IBFX i can not trade the GBP/JPY currency with mini account......
A. You can override the lot size by setting manual lotsize to true and then setting the lotsize value.
Q. how can i use your EA on this currency? (GBPJPY)
A. Yes you can use the EA on this currency
Q. Can you please let me know what is the easyforexindv2.exe file is for?
A. easyforexindv2.ex4 is the indicator used by the EA and can be displayed on a chart also

Labels: CarryGrid EA, easyforexindv2.ex4, FAQ, GBPJPY, mini account

Q.

What are you able to share with me backtest results, forward test results, recommended settings, recommended pairs, etc.?

A.
The best thing is to read the download page and look at the faq, as this is quite an extensive amount of information. If there is any information missing, check the blog here, or contact us and we will add it. A lot of new information is coming into the blog here, as its easily searchable.

Labels: FAQ

Q.
I am Running now both EA on a testaccount. The CGv4 is nunning better now...But it is more risky did I understand that right? The v5 takes profit much time before the v4 right? I that the only difference? And what are the detailed settings for take profit on v5 and v4?
A.
The CGv4 is more risky, with a correspondingly higher reward, as it does not have a trailing stop feature. v5 will do better in ranging/bearish markets (smaller drawdown, profit during ranging periods), but not collect huge profits during a run up (as during retracements positions will be closed out). v5 can be made to run more like v4, by modifying the trailing stop value, or turning it off altogether. this will give your trades more room to breathe.
v4 will close out trades when the TREND changesv5 will closeout trades when either the trend changes, or we are in profit enough to have activated the trailing stop, so the trade will be stopped out (in profit)

If you look at the online statement you will see the equity curve with v5 is quite linear.
A potential change for the future is to modify this trailing stop value to reflect the current market conditions, so during ranging periods it would tighten, during trending periods up widen, and during trending periods down, possibly tighten again.

Labels: CarryGrid EA, Carrygridv5, Closing trades, v4, v5

Just to clarify something that has come up a few times;

Q. This ea is using martingale approach?

A. No its not a martingale system, as it does not trade if the trend is against us - we look to lock in profits with a trailing stop, and we only place trades if the prevailing trend is swap-positive.

A martingale system looks to average down regardless of the trend - this is not what we are doing.

Labels: martingale

There is now a free trial available until the end of october 2007, at which point there will be no more trials for a while. If you go to the EA page you will find it there. Go soon!

Labels: EA Free trial

someone has been spamming me with forex articles. I thought this one was actually the best of the lot, even if they are punctually challenged

100:1 leverage means pretty well what you think it means - your buyingand selling power is multiplied by a hundred times. It's like buying aMerc for a 100 dollar bill. For traders it means having the tradingmuscle of $20,000 for just $200 down.This massive trading advantage is where the power of leverage reallystarts to show its fantastic potential to increase your earnings.Let's say that you buy $20,000 worth of Euros with your Dollars.It doesn't actually matter much what the exchange rate was when youbought the Euros - it's the movement after that counts. Let's say youbought at a EURUSD rate of 1 - that means there was one Dollar exactlyto the Euro. Now let's say the rate ends the day at 1.01, or oneDollar and one Cent to the Euro.Not a massive change you'd have thought. However, that one Centincrease in the value of the Euro means that your $20,000 holding ofEuros is now worth $20,200 ($20,000 x 1.01). That's an increase invalue of $200. If you sell your Euros right away you'll receive that$200 as straight profit.However, you only had to lay down a real $200 to make that $200profit, so you've made 100% profit in a day!Only one comes readily to mind and that's to do with the leveragealready mentioned. In fact, the 100:1, and even 200:1, leverage that'soffered is the extreme that traders are allowed to work with - it'suseful to have it there but a much more realistic limit to work to is20:1 or 30:1. Excellent profits can still be made but without thedownside risks if sudden reversals occur.To those of you used to holding stocks for weeks and months at a time,with all the additional risk that entails, day trading forex will comeas a refreshing change. Most times you will be in and out of trades inthe same day, happy to go to bed at night knowing you're not carryingforward any risk.It's the ultimate very quick profit market.Why is it then that around 90% of all the people who ever starttrading forex lose money and end up leaving the business? Answer -they make the wrong trading decisions."So", I hear you say, "it's just a buy or sell decision each time andstill 90% of people get it wrong?". Yep, that's about it. The majorityof people entering this very simple business get it completely wrongand end up flat on their faces.

Labels: leverage

Here is part of a discussion i have been having over email. I think the information is useful in a general sense, and as i dont always have time to update the FAQ on the site (and frankly, the blog technology does a better job of organising the content), im going to post most of the FAQ's, mainly regarding the CarryGrid EA, on here.

Q. Differentials can mean several things....yes, one way to look at it is
the correlation between the pairs, in the case of the EURUSD and USDCHF they're
negatively correlated. But I also look at several other ways to measure
risk when I hedge....one is the number of pairs open in any combination for
instance, EUR buys vs EUR sells or CHF buys vs CHF sells or EUR buys and CHF
sells vs EUR sells and CHF buys which are all essentially the same thing.
Its important to see the relationship of all pairs at all angles so that when
there's profit taking, you take it so that you manage each trade individually
but work the entire basket of trades as a whole so as not to break your risk
factors. So whenever I hedge trade, I am mainly concerned about 1) capital
preservation first 2) profit taking second 3) keeping risk at 1% or lower if
possible. This way, you can still have a drawdown of say 2000 pips and
still only risk 1% of your total account. I see many people trading
hedges that don't really have a clue how much risk they're really taking.
Freedom Rocks clients are famous for this. In any case the Carry
Gridding EA looks promising. I used to run standard Grid EA's but with the
turbulent volatility in the markets, its absolutely suicide. The
CarryGridding EA however is great since it seems to be waiting for trend
direction and is intelligent enough to hold back trades if the market turns and
takes small enough position sizes that I feel comfortable with. I'm
not sure which basket of pairs to combine however to get a faster overall gain
but at the same time stay conservative still on risk. Capital Preservation
is my number one concern....

A.I totally agree with you on the capital preservation comments, it is also my
primary concern. The basket/hedging is something i have visited several times -
the concept of using the carrygrid in combination with a basket of pairs to
produce positive interest and minimise overall exposure. However i just found it
insanely complex to manage, and i am a big fan of the 'keep it simple stupid'
motto. If i cant understand it, i cant trade it. Similiarly i find hedges are
notoriously difficult to manage; especiallly with the additional margin they
take up. I prefer taking the minimum lot size, gradually building a
position over time type approach. Well, that is one approach, its not the way i
manually trade, but as i have said before, its a tool that i use on my accounts,
as its smart enough not to position in against the trend.
Also, I was looking at AUDCAD as a new potential candidate for the v5 grid - it looks really promising to run on a short time frame as its a range bound pair. Check out the 4Hr chart for more details.

Labels: AUDCAD, Capital Preservation, CarryGrid EA, Differentials, hedge

Q
(1) Are you able to hide the stop loss settings so that the broker will not be able to see the settings?

No that is not possible to hide the actual stoploss used, though the
EA parameters will not be visible to the broker, as its running client-side. I
dont really understand why this would be an issue, unless you suspected your
broker of being a stop-loss hunter. It would be possible to implement a
stoploss without using the normal stoploss mechanism, which would hide it from
the broker.

(2) Can the EA work on mini accounts?

Yes it will, providing you can also trade micro lots, or small enough lots.
For instance, on a 2k mini the auto lot sizing will trade mini lots around 0.01
- 0.02 in size.

Labels: CarryGridding, FAQ, mini account, Stoploss

Q. Do you know what type of results you are getting from V4 versus V5? I
left my V4 running on GBPJPY and forgot about it. I set CloseOnProfit To
True only and now the demo account is up 11K and has made up 4K over the initial
losses. So at what point does it close the profitable trades again?

A. v4 is definitely going to win over v5 on a big run up, like the present. If you check the demo statement you will see the equity is steadily increasing, but when there is a pullback theres only a couple of open trades, as it generally takes a couple of hundred pips for the trend to change. It will close the profitable trades when the trend reverses - and this is shown by the line colour on the indicator
supplied.
This is also why we still include v4 in the download package. Actually if you use
v5 and set the trailing stop to false you will effectively have a version 4 EA
running.

So v5 presents a lower-risk version with associated lower profits. It will do better in ranging/falling markets, protect your equity better, but in a big bull market you will profit but not make the same killing as you would if you rode it all the way. So it can be tailored to your risk profile.

Labels: CarryGridding, Close positions, GBPJPY, v4, v5

Q. Will the new version of CarryGridding that can trade long and short be ready any time soon?

A. Its still in development, and its not going to be released until November as we have to forward test it for a reasonable period of time as well.

Labels: CarryGridding, EA, FAQ

I am going to start posting more FAQ information here, as the FAQ on the site is already quite long, and it is hard to scan for updates.

1. Please can you explain in a short message what the parameters do - is everything to change in the parameters ?? or can i start it how it received me ?? whats the best settings ?
2. Is it only for GBPJPY ??
3. How did i received updates ??

1. The parameters are explained in the download page sent to you.. if you read
   further down the page you will find all the parameters explained.. there isnt
   anything you should have to change, unless you have a problem with the lot size.
   If there is a problem with the auto lot size, it will tell you in the top left
   part of the screen that the lot size is invalid and you will have to set it
   manually.
2. Basically it can be used on all the high interest bearing currency
   pairs, such as GBPJPY, GBPCHF, AUDJPY, USDJPY - but you should not be using it on too many pairs simultaneously as you may be placing too many positions. Its a decision concerning risk/reward, which comes back to the individual taste.
3. You will receive updates via a newsletter that is sent out every few weeks
   with information regarding the latest version and any other freebies/promotions that we have. For example, we recently sent out another EA we have in testing.

Labels: EA, FAQ, GBPJPY, parameters, updates