Restrict Trading by Day, Time, Sessions
The time settings allow the trader to restrict the days and times the Complex Trader EA is allowed to trade. This makes possible not to trade on non-farm payroll days or important holidays such as Christmas, and can also restrict trading to only certain markets. For example the trader can trade only during the first 2 opening hours of the New York trading session and the London session.
- Sunday to Friday - set to true or false to allow/restrict trading during the week days
- NFP Friday - set to true or false to allow/restrict trading during the Non-Farm Payroll day (first Friday of the month)
- Thursday Before NFP - set to true or false to allow/restrict trading during the Thursday before the NFP
- Christmas Holidays - set to true or false to allow/restrict trading during the Christmas Holidays
- Christmas Holidays Start (20th Dec) - this is the date when the Christmas Holiday starts; it ends after 31st December
- New Years Holidays - set to true or false to allow/restrict trading during the New Years Holidays; it starts on 1st January
- New Years Holidays End (5th Jan) - this is the date when the New Years Holiday ends; it starts on 1st January
- Auto GMT Offset - indicate if you want auto GMT offset turned on or off; has no effect when back testing
- Manual GMT Offset - if AutoGMTOffset is turned off, indicate what your manual GMT offset would be
How do you determine your manual GMT offset
Go to https://greenwichmeantime.com/ Find your brokers time by seeing it displayed in your trading platform under Market Watch (the top left hand side of your MetaTrader4 platform). Now do a little math to find out the hourly difference between the GMT and your brokers time. That is the offset. If the market watch time is ahead of the GMT then your setting is a positive number. But don't use a plus sign. Just write as you normally would for a positive number. If your broker's time is behind the GMT put a negative sign in front of the number.
- Enable Trading Sessions - set to true or false to allow/restrict trading during the sessions
- Trade Tokio Session - set to true or false to allow/restrict trading during the Asian session
- Start Tokio Session - set the time Tokio Session starts; if you include Australia, Sydney starts at 21.00, and Tokyo starts at 23.00 GMT
- Finish Tokio Session - set the time Tokio Sessions ends; defaulted at 07.00, the start of the European Session. Note that the Tokyo session continues on for 1 more hour to end at 08.00, so if you are interested in trading this session in its entirety, you should indicate from 23:00 to 08.00
- Trade London Session - set to true or false to allow/restrict trading during the European session
- Start London Session - set the time London Session starts; defaulted at 7.00 GMT, the start of the London Session, though Germany does not open till 08.00
- Finish London Session - set the time London Session ends. Note that the European Session continues till 16.00, so if you are interested in trading this session in entirety, you should have your defaults from 7.00 to 16.00
- Trade New York Session - set to true or false to allow/restrict trading during the New York session
- Start New York Session - set the time New York Session starts. Note that the NY stock exchange does not open till 9:30 EST, or 13.30 GMT, and the first hour and half (from 9:30 to 11:00 EST, or 13:30 to 15:00 GMT) is heavy trading, lots of liquidity
- Finish New York Session - set the time New York Session ends
Automatic LotSize & Order Management
The money management section allows the trader to use either a fixed lotsize or the percentage of the free margin, as well as the option to set a minimum profit or a maximum loss for trades or baskets of trades to be closed. This way the traders have full control of their equity and their risk appetite.
- LotSize as Fixed Value - set the initial lotsize an order will place, if no variable lotsize is used
- Automatic LotSize - set to true or false to enable/disable variable lotsize; if the fixed lotsize is preferred, this option must be set to false
- Lotsize as % of Free Margin - enter the free margin percentage amount to be used as lotsize; the Automatic LotSize must be set to true
- Minimum Profit - once this profit is reached, the EA can be instructed to close a trade or basket of trades
- Maximum Loss - once this loss is reached, the EA can be instructed to close a trade or basket of trades
- Stop Loss - the distance (pips) from the opened trade a stoploss will be placed
- Take Profit - the distance (pips) from the opened trade a take profit will be placed
- Maximum Orders - the maximum numbers of trades allowed at the same time, on the same chart; if this number is reached, the EA will not open any other trades
- Open Next Trade - This restricts the EA to open a next trade only after a certain number of bars/candles have been closed from the previously opened trade
Lock & Maximize Profit and Trail the Price
Even with the best forex trading strategy, if trade management is done wrong, it can turn a win into a loss. While sooner or later every good trader learns how to spot the trend, when to enter a trade, what forex news to trade and all the other forex secrets, many traders are closing their trades when they shouldn’t. The trailing stop feature can be used to manage winning trades and baskets of trades, by trailing the price once it goes in the trader’s favor, and to lock the profit.- Trailing Method - choose your preferred preferred trailing method:
- Candlestick (chandelier) - trails the price using the last candle, placing the stoploss at the end of this candle
- Fractals - trails the price using the fractals indicator, placing the stoploss at the fractal indicator level
- ATR - trails the price using the ATR indicator, placing the stoploss at the ATR indicator level
- Parabolic (PSAR) - trails the price using the PSAR indicator, placing the stoploss at the PSAR indicator level
- MA (moving average) trails the price using the moving average indicator, placing the stoploss at the MA indicator level
- Profit % - trails the price using the profit’s percentage (example: if profit is 500 pips and Profit % = 50, the stoploss will be placed at 50%*500, meaning 250 pips)
- Points (classic pips trailing stop) - trails the price using the points; use with Minimal Profit if Trailing Stop Points below (example: when profit reaches Minimal Profit if Trailing Stop Points, trailing will start and the stoploss will be placed)
- Trailing Buffer - the stoploss will be placed at this distance from the trailing indicator/signal (MA, PSAR, fractals etc.); this value is also used by the When Minimum Profit is reached > Start closing LOSING trades & Set BE for winning trades if selected
- Trailing Step - this is the distance (in pips) that the stoploss will be moved when the price will move this distance from the previous stoploss
- Lock Profit - the stoploss set by the EA at breakeven and/or trailing the price will be placed at this distance (pips) away from the trade's opening price; in case the price will reverse and hit this trailing stop, the trade will close with a positive profit
- Trail from Profit - if this option is set to true, the EA will start trailing the price only if the trailing stop can be placed in a green area; if the price will reverse and trigger the stoploss, the trade will close with a positive profit
- Trailing Timeframe - this allows the trader to choose a different timeframe when trailing the price by using a MetaTrader indicator or chandelier (select from the Trailing Method list)
- ATR Period - Average True Range period settings
- Parabolic Step - PSAR indicator step settings
- Parabolic Maximum - PSAR indicator maximum settings
- MA Period - Moving Average period settings
- MA Method - Moving Average method settings
- MA Price - Moving Average price settings
- Profit Percent - profit percent settings
Recover Losses, Hedge or Martingale
Inspired by Joseph Nemeth's "zone recovery" trading strategy, we have managed to improve hedging to an almost no loss/no risk trading strategy. Besides hedging a fixed recovery zone, as the Auto Recovery EA does, our hedging algorithm can also hedge with the trend. This means that the Complex Trader EA will only place opposite orders when and if an opposite trading signal will occur, hence increasing the chances for the loss recovery to happen and decreasing the time until it will finish the process.
Besides hedging, another possibility to recover losses - this time from already closed trades - is to increase the lotsize of the next trade. This process is called martingale and it is usually avoided by unexperienced traders, but used with caution can safely recover any previous losses.
- Hedging Method - select the hedging method, Hedge Zone ()hedge fixed recovery zone) or Hedge Fluid (hedge with the trend) or simply disable hedging
- Enable Hedging Lot Size Multiplier - whether or not to use a lotsize multiplier when hedging; if set to false, the EA will use the ratio between the Stop Loss/Take Profit (1:1 ratio means double the lotsize)
- Hedging Lot Size Multiplier - the next (opposite) hedging order lotsize multiplier, when the Enable Hedging Lot Size Multiplier is set to true
- Hedge Last Order Lotsize - if enabled, it will set the hedging lotsize based on the last order lotsize instead of considering the entire baskets of opposite trades
- When Hedging Fluid, hedge 1st trade - whether or not to place 1 single zone recovery pending hedge order even when Hedging Method = Hedge Fluid
- When Hedge Zone & gap occurs, open hedge trade - whether or not to automatically hedge an opened trade when the price skips a pending hedge order (such as when gaps occur during weekends)
- Prevent Double Pending Orders - set to true if you want the EA to count the pending orders and delete them if more than one; this can be used for the situations when less reliable brokers place 2 pending orders instead of one, when the trader is hedging
- Enable Martingale - whether or not to use martingale; set to false to disable increasing the lotsize of the next order in case the previous closes with a loss
- Martingale Multiplier - this, multiplied by the previous (losing) order lotsize, equals the lotsize of the next order
- Retry Martingale - the number of tries that the EA will increase the lotsize according to the martingale settings
(more) Ways to Trade Profitably
- Close Opposite at Trade/s Signal - when set to true, any opposite trades will be closed before opening the new trade
- Close Trades When Maximum Orders is reached - whether or not to allow the EA to close all the trades on the chart as soon as this number is reached
- Close Trades When Maximum Loss is reached - whether or not to allow the EA to close a trade or basket of trades as soon as the profit reaches Maximum Loss (-$$$.$$)
- When Minimum Profit is reached... - choose what to do when the profit reached Minimum Profit; the following trading scenarios are possible:
- Start closing ALL trades on the chart - the expert will close a trade or baskets of trades as soon as the profit reaches Minimum Profit ($$$.$$) - this is very useful when hedging, if used as a basket breakeven
- Start closing LOSING trades & Set BE for winning trades - closes the losing trades and sets a stop-loss for the winners
- Do nothing (ignore Minimum Profit)
- After "Close Trades when..." - select what should the expert advisor do whenever it closes a trade (or more) according to these criteria
- Remove the EA from the chart - the EA will remove itself from the chart and therefore auto trading will stop
- Close MetaTrader - the MetaTrader trading software will be closed
- Continue Trading - trading will continue according to the EAs trend/signal settings
Filter Trades by Price Swing Movements
The swing zone confirmation is useful to filter fake trade signals and restricts the EA from placing a long order when the price is close or above a previous highest high (HH), or from opening a sell if the price is near a lowest low (LL).
- Swing Zone Bars - set the amount of candlesticks the EA will look back to find the HH/LL levels
- Pips Away from Last Swing - a new trade is placed only if the signal occurs this number of pips away from the last HH/LL; to disable this trade confirmation, this must be set to 0