Expert Advisers for MT4 Platform
If you’ve been trading Forex for any length of time then you are probably familiar with the trading platform called MetaTrader. I like this platform simply because it has many useful features. It has many technical indicators. You can even right your own custom indicator. Another good feature of this platform is that you can set the trailing stop. That means the stop-loss order will be moved automatically when specific profit target has been reached.
Besides all of that, what makes MetaTrader the most attractive trading platform is that you can automate your trading system. You can easily write a code with the rules of your system and let the software to open and close the orders automatically. Such peace of software is called Expert Adviser (EA).
It’s definitely a great tool to help in your Forex trading. Even though I don’t think a peace of code can turn your MetaTrader platform into an ATM it can help you in your trading. The best part of any machine or software is that it’s not susceptible errors due to human emotions. It is emotional overreaction usually a great obstacle for a new trader to consistently build his account.
Trading currencies is a boring job that requires continuous monitoring of the price movement until trading opportunity appears. This is where we can benefit from EA. It can automatically monitor the market conditions 24 hours a day. However trader needs to watch the overall tendency of the market. If it changes EA will stop being profitable since it was programmed for certain conditions.
MetaTrader has it’s own coding language MQL. It’s quite simple language designed particularly for the purpose of writing the custom indicators and Expert Advisers. Therefore it isn’t hard to learn writing your own technical indicators, scripts or EA that will execute your trading system.
Besides the problems related to trading systems EA can have one significant technical disadvantage. It requires to be constantly running on a computer connected to the Internet. Otherwise it will not be profitable if you turn it on and off whenever it is convenient for you. EA must monitor the price to catch an opportunity to open a trade. Even more importantly, it needs to monitor the market after it opens the trade to close it at the right time.
This disadvantage is one of those that can be solved technically. The beauty of MetaTrader is that you can connect to trading server from any computer connected to the Internet. If you know the IP address of your broker, your login name and password to your trading account. That feature is used for setting up virtual private servers (VPS). On such server you can set up MetaTrader client and run you EA for 24 hours a day.
