Using Expert Advisors for Trade Management

In a trade execution process, there are a few steps to follow: 1. wait for the signal; 2. enter your orders; 3. set your exit points ie takeprofit and stoploss, if any; 4. Or do a manual close when it is time to exit.

So if you have an EA that handles the entire process, it is robotic trading or fully-automated trading. Like I mentioned in the last blog, if you are still hunting for the "Holy Grail", then take time to use EAs for managing your trades ie semi-automated. For example, you can choose to enter your trade manually and then let an EA take over the exit. You can have trailing stoplossess or moving takeprofit levels. There are many EAs out there that are free, some are generic and some exhibit certain closing criterias. A good one to use is MTPv1.5 by Stockwell Taylor.

Or you might let your EA hunt for signals and enter a trade for you. Then you manage the exit manually. But usually in this case, if you have your EA fire your orders, you might as well put in the exit conditions for your trades.

So there is this aspect of using EAs for semi-automated trading that adds to your arsenal of tools besides the indicators for technical analysis that we are often familiar with.

I have shared all these ideas in a forum at a Singapore Automated Forex Trading Meetup in greater details with examples. I will document more of this in this blog.

Using Expert Advisors (EAs) for Strategy Research

Trading has been made so much easier with the advent of computers and Internet. Now the rage is automated trading, algorithmic trading, robotic trading, to name some of the terminologies that has been used. the idea of a robot doing all the trading for you is so compelling that the search for this "Holy Grail" where it is like an automated teller machine, ringing in cash day-in and day-out for us is just irresistible. If you are like many searching for this "Holy Grail", you might want to consider other uses of EAs in the mean time.


Forex trading using the metatrader platform has gained popularity in recent years for many reasons. First, the software can be downloaded for free, along with extensive tools. Second, there is a large community discussing trading strategies with willing coders to develop the EAs, so there are many free EAs out there. Third, the metatrader platform is user-friendly, and somehow, is an easier platform to use. Fourth is the availability of no timelimit demo accounts from a number of brokers. This is especially important for longer term forward testing of your strategy.


EAs are important tools for us, and the more we know how to use them and better still develop them, the better will be our trading. I am sure we have at some point thought of some wonderful strategies and spending time to refine it by trial and error. Why not just code it into an EA and let it run 24x5 and see how your strategy performs. Or you came across a strategy you learnt from a forum ; you can then research deeper into this strategy with the help of an EA. Or test your own trading psychology to see if the strategy is your cup of tea. For example, some strategies requires high drawdown, and it may not be everyone's comfort to stomach high drawdowns or even have the capital to allow high drawdowns. So besides checking out your own strategies, you can explore others and incoporate those that suit your temperament and budget!

Why another blog on forex?

This is my first blog on forex, and in particular my thoughts on the strategies and what I observed, researched and experienced especially with the help of expert advisors or in more plain words, computer programs written for trading, whether it is fully automated or semi-automated.

This blog will not be another "how to do it", "where to find what". Instead, it will largely journal what I learn and experience as a result of using such tools in a more-informed and more-equipped world through infocomm technologies.

So how can these technologies help in one's trading? I will pen these thoughts in the next blog.