Forex AutoCash Robot User Manual
Copyright Information REPRODUCTION AND OR TRANSLATION OF ANY PART OF THIS WORK BY ANY MEANS ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL INCLUDING PHOTOCOPYING BEYOND THAT PERMITTED BY COPYRIGHT LAW WITHOUT THE PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER IS UNLAWFUL. Copyright 2008, Accura-FX Limited, All Rights Reserved Revision 1.03, December 2008 Author : John Burroughs Website : forex-autocash-robot.com Publisher : Accura-FX Limited
Disclaimer and Risk Warnings Trading any financial market involves risk. The content of this e-book, its various associated websites and all related correspondence are neither a solicitation nor an offer to purchase of sell any financial instrument. Although every attempt has been made to assure accuracy, we do not give any express or implied warranty as to its accuracy. We do not accept any liability for error or omission. Examples are provided for illustrative and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice or strategy. No representation is being made that any account or trader will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to those discussed in this e-book. Past performance is not indicative of future results. By purchasing the software, subscribing to our mailing list or using the website you will be deemed to have accepted these terms in full. John Burroughs (author), Accura-FX Limited (publisher), their representatives and associates do not and cannot give investment advice. We endeavor to insure that related websites are available 24 hours per day but we cannot be held liable if, for any reason, a site is unavailable. The information provided in this e-book is not intended for distribution to, or for use by, any person or entity in any jurisdiction or country where such distribution or use would be contrary to law or regulation or which would subject us to any registration requirement within such jurisdiction or country. Hypothetical performance results have many inherent limitations, some of which are mentioned below. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to those shown.
In fact, there are frequently sharp differences between hypothetical performance results and actual results subsequently achieved by any particular trading program. One of the limitations of hypothetical performance results is that they are generally prepared with the benefit of hindsight. In addition, hypothetical trading does not involve financial risk and no hypothetical trading record can completely account for the impact of financial risk in actual trading. For example: the ability to withstand losses or to adhere to a particular trading program in spite of trading losses are material points which can also adversely affect trading results. There are numerous other factors related to the market in general and to the implementation of any specific trading program, which cannot be fully accounted for in the preparation of hypothetical performance results, all of which can adversely affect actual trading results. We reserve the right to change these terms and conditions without notice. You can check for updates to this disclaimer at any time without notification. The content of this e-book and all related websites and correspondence are copyright and may not be copied or reproduced. U.S. Government Required Disclaimer Commodity Futures Trading Commission Futures and Options trading has large potential rewards, but also large potential risk. You must be aware of the risks and be willing to accept them in order to invest in the FOREX, futures and options markets. The past performance of any trading system or methodology is not necessarily indicative of future results.
Description The Forex AutoCash and AutoCashWB Robots have been created to assist you in trading the Forex AutoCash strategy which is based upon a proprietary methodology. In essence, the robot automatically monitors the market and identifies periods of time where price should move in its favour these moments in time are what I named Price Reversal Time Intervals PRTI for short. The catalyst for this process is a specific price pattern which occurs on most trading days and, once the robot has identified this pattern, it will begin to look for trading opportunities. Once a trade entry has been taken, the market will normally move in the required direction quite quickly, allowing the trade to be closed a profit grab but, occasionally, the market will move in the opposite direction before the profit grab can take place. How long this situation lasts can vary but the market has invariably retraced and allowed the profit grab to take place. A small bonus is that trades which remain open overnight attract interest, which is added to your account along with the profit achieved when the trade is finally closed. Important: A number of Anti-Virus packages particularly AVG & McAfee mistakenly identify elements of the MetaTrader system as being infected. This is categorically not the case. MetaQuotes (the authors of MetaTrader) are currently working with the various Anti-Virus system providers to overcome the issue. Until the issue is resolved, we suggest adding the location of your MetaTrader installation to the exclusion list of your Anti-Virus system. In addition, Norton Anti-Virus often blocks executable files downloaded from the internet so you may need to unblock the installation file before it will function. If you right-click the program file after downloading then there should be an option to unblock it please study the Post Installation section of this manual.
Installation Important: Read the following very carefully before proceeding! This manual covers installation of a revised version of the Forex AutoCash and AutoCashWB Robots. The robots should be installed using the Upgrade method explained below. The installation set is simply comprised of the new Forex AutoCash Robot files and is intended for upgrading old versions of the robots and/or installing the robots into existing installations of MetaTrader provided by other brokers. So... time to get started! Please click the following link to download the installation software: http://forex-autocash-robot.com/new/autocashrobots.exe You will also need your AuthentiCode in order to activate the robot once installed this can be obtained from your Profile page within the member area of the website. You can log in from here: http://forex-autocash-robot.com/login.php...which will bring you to your Profile page. Your AuthentiCode is shown near the bottom of the page you will need this code to activate the robot so please make a note of it somewhere safe and convenient.
Upgrade Installation Having either clicked the download link or pasted the link into the address bar of your web browser, please save the file to your Windows Desktop so that it is easy to locate. This will open a new dialog box looking like this...
...or this... Simply select your Windows Desktop as the destination to save the file then click the Save button.
Once complete, there will be a new icon on your Desktop named AutoCashRobots. Important: Before proceeding, ensure that MetaTrader is not running! Double left-click the icon to begin the installation process and the following screen will appear: The installation software will either display a default Destination folder or the location of the folder you last selected. Regardless of what is displayed, it is important that you specify the correct
folder for the robot files to be installed into. To slightly complicate matters, each broker offering the MetaTrader trading platform will have their own folder name. Some common folder names used by various brokers are: C:\Program Files\MetaTrader - ForexMeta C:\Program Files\MetaTrader - Alpari UK C:\Program Files\FXCM Trader 4 C:\Program Files\FXDD - MetaTrader 4 C:\Program Files\MetaTrader - FXOpen C:\Program Files\FxPro MetaTrader C:\Program Files\Interbank FX Trader 4 C:\Program Files\Straighthold Trader C:\Program Files\ODL MetaTrader 4 C:\Program Files\StrategyBuilderFX 4 C:\Program Files\Velocity Trader 4 To specify the correct location for your system, you basically have two choices: a) type the new location in the Destination folder field, or b) click the Browse button to locate somewhere suitable
If you decide to browse to locate the correct folder then a window similar to the following will appear: MetaTrader is most commonly installed on the C: drive which you will find under Computer for Windows Vista or My Computer for Windows XP. If you have a copy of MetaTrader provided by one of the brokers listed previously, simply browse to that folder location before clicking the OK button. If your broker was not listed, the correct folder should still be relatively easy to identify if you browse the C:\Program Files folder. IMPORTANT: Do NOT browse down to the experts folder which is contained within the main MetaTrader folder - this will cause the installer to place the AutoCash robot files in the wrong location.
If, on the other hand, you wish to extract the robot files elsewhere, you can use the Make New Folder option and a new folder will be created which you can optionally rename before selecting it. If you wish to keep a set of the upgrade files easily to hand then you can simply select Desktop and click the OK button. Once you have either located or created the Destination folder, select the folder by left-clicking it in the folder list, then click the OK button and the Destination folder field will be updated. Alternatively, click the Cancel button to abandon your choice. If everything is ready then click the Install button the process is very fast. If you selected Desktop as the destination then you will find a newly created folder called experts containing the ForexAutoCash.ex4 and the ForexAutoCashWB.ex4 files.
Post Installation VERY IMPORTANT Having successfully installed the updated files, it is now necessary to tell Windows that the software installed is not a potential threat. To do this, you need to locate the folder that your copy of MetaTrader is installed in you can do this using either the My Computer (Windows XP) or Computer (Windows Vista) utilities located on your Start menu: If you chose the default installation folder then you will need to browse to the Program Files folder which is under: My Computer Local Disk (C:) for Windows XP, and Desktop Computer???? (C:) (where???? is the drive name) on Windows Vista
...as shown below: The next thing to do is expand out the Program Files folder by clicking the small [+] (Windows XP), or small arrow (Windows Vista) to the left of it...
...so it looks something like this: Now, scroll through the list of folders to locate the installation folder for MetaTrader and expand that too, followed by the experts folder:
Right-click the ForexAutoCash.ex4 icon, then select Properties from the context menu. When the properties dialog window opens, it will hopefully look similar to the following example:
But, if it has a security warning, like in this example......then click the Unblock button followed by the Apply and OK buttons. Now repeat this process for the ForexAutoCashWB.ex4 file.
Finally, click the libraries folder entry in the folders list......and repeat the process for the AutoCash.dll file if it exists. Not all installations of the ForexAutoCash system will include the AutoCash.dll file so if yours does not have it, there is nothing to be concerned about simply move on to the Getting Started section.
There is a far greater chance that the AutoCash.dll file has been flagged as a potential security threat due to the type of file that it is so please do not overlook this stage. If the file has been blocked then the expert advisor will be prevented from accessing it and this can result in the expert simply freezing with the Waiting for tick data... message. Once the files have been checked and unblocked as necessary, the system should be ready to go so just close the file browser and move to the next step in the process Getting Started. VERY IMPORTANT: Under NO circumstances should you rename the DLL file this will prevent the expert advisor from functioning. Note: Always ensure that you have the latest version of the expert advisor installed the version number is shown in the top-left of the chart you.
Getting Started When you launch MT4, you will see the standard interface looking something like this: If this is the first time you have used the software then a registration window will appear:
Fill in your details and pay special attention to the entries circled in red. As most trading accounts are denominated in US$, it makes sense to select a US$ demo account as the account type. It is also sensible to keep leverage reasonably low 1:100 is a good compromise. Finally, for demo accounts with ForexMeta and FXDD, use a $10,000 deposit and for Varengold, use $20,000. This is because their demo accounts default to a larger minimum order sizes than some other brokers (0.1 for ForexMeta & FXDD and 0.2 for Varengold, compared to 0.01 with other brokers) and the larger deposit makes it possible to trade without over-leveraging. After clicking the Next button, the window will change and list the available servers for the broker concerned...
...select a server and click the Next button. Once the account has been registered with the server, the window will change again to display the account login details:
The MetaTrader software is constantly being improved. Each time you start MetaTrader, it will check for updates and, if a newer version of MetaTrader is available, you will be presented with the LiveUpdate window and offered the chance to upgrade.
If this is the first time that you have used the installed copy of MetaTrader then there is a very good chance that the LiveUpdate window will appear: To update your system, just click the Start button. The process only takes a short time, after which MetaTrader will restart and you will be running the latest version.
If you are not running the ForexMeta pre-configured version of MetaTrader then the first thing we need to do is go to the Tools Options menu. Select the Expert Advisors tab and ensure that the highlighted options are set exactly as shown below: You may also wish to uncheck Disable experts when the account has been changed and Disable experts when the profile has been changed options though this is more of a convenience rather than a requirement. Click OK to continue.
Next, click the small [+] to the left of Expert Advisors in the Navigator pane. This will expand out the Expert Advisors section to display the available experts (robots): If everything is correct then you should be able to see that the list contains our ForexAutoCash robot along with any other expert advisors that are provided with MetaTrader 4. Please note that the ForexAutoCash icon is grey whilst other icons in the list are colored this is perfectly normal. A colored icon means that you can change and adapt the behaviour of the expert i.e. the instructions that tell the expert how to trade, a grey icon means that you cannot.
Setting Up For Trading From this point onwards, the instructions for the Forex AutoCash Robot are interchangeable with the Forex AutoCash WB Robot. The only obvious differences are that the Forex AutoCash Robot trades the EUR/USD pair with a default StopLoss of 650 pips whereas the Forex AutoCash WB Robot trades the GBP/USD pair with a default StopLoss of 950 pips. To begin trading, you will require a EUR/USD chart open. You can either use an existing chart (provided that no other expert advisor is attached to it) or just open a new one. To open a new chart, click the New Chart button in the toolbar:...then click EURUSD. Once the chart is open, left-click the ForexAutoCash icon in the Navigator and drag to the chart. The chart timeframe is not important but it is best not to change timeframe once the system is running. When you drop the expert advisor onto the chart, the Properties dialog window will open. The dialog contains two tabs Common and Inputs. Let us look at the Common tab first...
It is very important that all three of the settings circled in red match the image above or the expert advisor will not be able to function. Now, on to the Inputs tab: As you can see, the Inputs tab lists a number of adjustable settings which
are explained on the next page. To change the value of any setting, double left-click in the Value column for the setting you wish to edit. For example, to change the RiskLevel setting, simply activate the property editor by double-clicking the value area (the right portion of the parameter line) as shown below and the property editor will activate. Once the new settings are entered, click the OK button to restart the expert advisor.
Inputs An Explanation StealthMode: Most systems (and manuals traders) open orders with set Stop Loss (SL) and Take Profit (TP) levels set. Some brokerages and I stress the word some - are rather unscrupulous and, if they can see where your SL is (and it is within striking distance) they will sometimes manipulate prices so that your Stop Loss is hit. By the same token, if they know where your TP is, they can drive price away from it. The idea behind StealthMode is that the expert advisor hides the TP level from the broker, simply issuing an order to close the trade when a profitgrab is warranted. By default, this setting is enabled (true) but you can disable the feature by changing the setting to false. RiskLevel: Many people starting out in trading have difficulty with the principles of Money and Risk Management. In an effort to simplify this element of trading, the expert advisor can calculate everything for you and increase the size of your trades as profits build up all the while respecting your tolerance for risk. Let us look at an example: Assume that you have a $3,000 micro trading account - that means that the minimum lot size is 0.01 and each pip (the minimum price move) is worth $0.10. Let us also assume that you are prepared to risk 10% of your account on each trade. $3,000 x 10% = $300 risk capital Now, using the default Stop Loss distance of 650 pips, we get the following:
$300.00 / 650 = $0.46 maximum risk per pip Since the minimum lot size for micro account is 0.01 and a pip is worth $0.10, the expert advisor would open a trade of 0.04 lots. Therefore, your maximum actual risk would be: 4 * $0.10 pip value * 650 pip Stop Loss distance = $260 As you can see, even with a relatively distant Stop Loss, the system is able to keep risk well within an acceptable level and allows the system to significantly reduce the likelihood of a trade being stopped out. Compare that with normal trading where the suggested risk per trade is 2-3% and the Stop Loss is usually placed 30 60 pips from the trade entry level. Considering the average 100+ daily swings on most currency pairs, such nearby Stop Loss settings are asking for trouble. What do you think is easier to achieve? 1) Hitting a Stop Loss placed 650 pips away and risking 10% equity, or 2) Hitting a Stop Loss placed 30-60 pips away and risking 2-3% equity As I am sure you will have realised, option 2 has a very high probability of occurring and, more importantly, it has a high probability of happening several times in short succession. With that in mind, I am sure you can see that there is far greater risk involved in trading the safe and sensible normal way compared to the out of the box thinking behind the Forex AutoCash Robot! So, what RiskLevel setting should you use? Unfortunately, that is a question that only you can answer! Some people will feel quite cautious and will want to use a very low value whilst others will be more interested in the larger gains possible with a high value. Whatever value you choose from 1 to 100 it relates to the percentage of your equity to risk.
In addition to the automatic lot sizing (scaled lots) based on RiskLevel settings of 1 100, it is also possible to stipulate a set lot size (fixed lots) by entering a negative value for the RiskLevel i.e. -0.6 So, values... - > 0 result in scaled lots within the equity percentage specified - < 0 result in fixed lots where you are responsible for your own risk calculations StopLoss: This specifies the maximum distance (in pips) that the market can move against you before the trade should be closed at a loss. You are free to adjust this value either higher or lower however, the default value (650) produces optimal results. Important: If your broker offers Fractional Pricing i.e. prices run to 5 decimal places, do not adjust the Stop Loss the expert advisor will adjust for the extra decimal place internally. MaximumLots: This specifies the maximum number of lots that will be traded when using scaled lots. With the default value (zero), the expert advisor will restrict the maximum lot size to whatever the broker specifies (usually 100.00 lots). Obviously, reaching 100 lot trades is not going to happen overnight but trade sizes can quite quickly reach the 1 10 lot size range. You may decide that you are content to restrict trading to a maximum of 5 lots, in which case, set the MaximumLots value to 5.
Slippage: When an order is placed into the market, it is not always possible to open or close that order at exactly the price requested. The Slippage value tells the brokerage how far the price can be from the requested price and still be acceptable. For instance, if the last price for EUR/USD was 1.4210 and the expert advisor requests a long (buy) order at the same price, the brokerage will attempt to fill that order. When they do, the available price might be 1.4213 with a Slippage value of 5, the brokerage would know that the available price was acceptable and you would be in the market. If, however, the available price was 1.4216, the brokerage would not open the position. As with the StopLoss, you are free to adjust this value either higher or lower however, the default value (5) works well with most brokers. CloseDelay: Some brokers insist that a trade remains open for a minimum period of time trades opened and closed within this time limit are considered scalping and may not be permitted. This parameter allows you to adhere to your broker s terms by ensuring that trades are held open for the minimum period of time specified by your broker. Most brokers simply require trades to be open for a short period of time (i.e. around 1 minute) whereas other brokers stipulate up to 10 minutes. Whatever period your broker requires can be specified (in seconds) i.e. if your broker requires trades to remain open for at least 2 minutes then you would set CloseDelay to 120. GMTOffset: This parameter is only used during back-testing in the Strategy Tester. In order to achieve realistic results, it is important that the correct value is used. Obtaining the correct value is covered later under Strategy Testing.
Reference: This parameter is used by expert advisors to identify which open orders they should be controlling.you can change this value to almost anything you wish but do not change it while a trade is open or the expert will stop managing the trade (and may open an additional trade). AuthentiCode: Please enter your purchase receipt number into this field. Failure to do so will cause the expert advisor to disable itself. Do Not Overlook This Point. As you paid via ClickBank (even if you used PayPal as your funding option) then you need to enter the ClickBank receipt code from their purchase confirmation e-mail. Without the correct code, the expert advisor will be unable to authenticate with our server and will simply not function. You should only need to do this once if the code has been entered and accepted then it will be remembered each time you add the expert advisor to a new chart. Important: Authentication with our server will not occur if the markets are closed i.e. at weekends. Okay... everything has been set up, all of the parameters have been set and there is now nothing left to do but click the OK button to start the expert advisor trading!
If all is well then you should see a smiley face in the top-right corner of the chart (if not, either the Allow live trading setting is unchecked and a frowning face will be showing or Expert Advisors have been disabled and an X will be displayed along with an on-chart message)......and in the top-left, details regarding times and prices... As you can see, there are three times displayed two with offsets. Working from right to left, they represent: GMT: The strategy for the ForexAutoCash Robot relies on price points based on GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) Server: This is the chart time and varies between brokerages so, the offset (GMT+?) displayed will vary dependent upon which broker supplied your copy of MetaTrader Local: This is the time reported by your computer.
On-Chart Messages An Explanation The Forex AutoCash Robot is somewhat different to the majority of expert advisors in so far as it attempts to tell you if something is wrong and provides instructions for resolving the issue by way of on-chart messages which replace the time and price information in the top-left of the chart. There are a number of messages that can be displayed, such as: The full list of messages is as follows: *** Change MetaTrader Options *** Press 'F7' to access the Expert Advisor properties dialog and click the 'Common' tab 'Allow DLL imports' must be checked 'Confirm DLL function calls' must be unchecked This message is warning you that one of the important configuration settings (covered in the installation section of this manual) has been overlooked the instructions will resolve the issue temporarily but you should really update the settings under Tools => Options => Expert Advisors as shown in the installation notes.
*** Change MetaTrader Options *** Click the red 'Expert Advisors' button to enable EA processing Receiving this message means that expert advisors have not been enabled. Simply click the red button in the toolbar......so that it turns green like this: - the message will disappear and the expert advisor will begin trading.
*** *** Change Expert Advisor Options *** Press 'F7' to access the Expert Advisor properties dialog and click the 'Inputs' tab Enter a suitable RiskLevel value - a positive value (i.e. 25) = the percentage of the account equity to risk per trade (scaled lots) - a negative value (i.e. -0.15) = the lot size to use (fixed lots) Simply enter a positive value to trade with the in-built money management system or a negative value to trade with fixed lots. You can find a full explanation for RiskLevel in the Inputs section of this manual. *** Change Expert Advisor Options *** Press 'F7' to access the Expert Advisor properties dialog and click the 'Inputs' tab Enter a valid StopLoss value (minimum: xx) Enter a positive value the minimum value allowed by your broker is shown within the message, however, this is likely to be very low i.e. around 10, and is only really displayed for informational purposes. You can find a full explanation for StopLoss in the Inputs section of this manual.
*** Change Expert Advisor Options *** Press 'F7' to access the Expert Advisor properties dialog and click the 'Inputs' tab Enter your AuthentiCode (ClickBank receipt number - 8 characters) This message means that either no AuthentiCode has been entered or that the code is the wrong length i.e. you may have mis-typed it. You can find a full explanation for AuthentiCode in the Inputs section of this manual. *** Wrong Currency Pair *** ForexAutoCash is for EURUSD only! This message means that you have inadvertently dropped the expert advisor onto a non-eur/usd chart. A new version of the Forex AutoCash Robot is available. Please download and install at the earliest opportunity. No new trades will be opened until the upgrade is installed. This advisory message is slightly different to the warning messages above in that it displays beneath the standard time and price details rather than replacing them. If you receive this message then log in to the Members Area of the website (http://forex-autocash-robot.com/login.php) and upgrade your system by following the standard upgrade process explained at the beginning of this manual.
Finally, the only other standard message that you should see is this: Currently over-leveraged due to minimum trade size restrictions! Optimal order size: x.xx Actual order size: x.xx This message occurs due to a combination of low RiskLevel setting combined with high minimum lot size and StopLoss distance. For example: Assume that you have a $1,000 micro trading account that means that the minimum lot size is 0.01 and each pip (the minimum price move) is worth $0.10. Let us also assume that you are prepared to risk 5% of your account on each trade. $1,000 x 5% = $50 risk capital Now, using the default Stop Loss distance of 650 pips, we get the following: $50.00 / 650 = $0.07 maximum risk per pip Since the minimum lot size for micro account is 0.01 and a pip is worth $0.10, the expert advisor would want to open a trade of 0.007 lots. This, however, is smaller than the minimum lot size permitted. Therefore, your maximum actual risk would be: 1 * $0.10 pip value * 650 pip Stop Loss distance = $65 Based on this calculation, the expert advisor concludes that you are trading in an over-leveraged fashion meaning that the requested RiskLevel cannot be maintained. This is a purely informational message and will not prevent trades from being taken.
Stopping Trading There are four ways to stop the Forex AutoCash Robot from trading: 1) Click the green Expert Advisors button in the toolbar please be aware that this will also stop any other expert advisors that you may be running. 2) Right-click the smiley face in the top-right of the chart window from the context menu, select Expert Advisors => Remove
3) Click the EUR/USD chart then press the F7 key to open the properties dialog window. You can also right-click the smiley face in the top-right of the chart window and from the context menu select Expert Advisors => Properties. Once the properties dialog window is open, switch to the Common tab and un-check the Allow live trading option before clicking the OK button. 4) Last, but not least, simply close the chart by clicking the red X button in the top-right of the chart window. Do not click the red X button in the top-right of the MetaTrader window unless you actually want to close MetaTrader.
Strategy Testing If you intend to perform strategy testing then you will need data to test against. When installed, MetaTrader contains no historical data at all so it must be downloaded. From the MetaTrader menu, click the Tools option, then select History Center (alternatively, simply press the F2 key) and the following window will appear: The layout of the left-hand panel varies between brokers but the operation is the same. Start by clicking the small [x] to the left of Forex to open out the list of available currency pairs.
Next, locate the EUR/USD entry and double left-click it to expand out the data timeframes.
Now double left-click on the 1 minute (M1) tag which loads a few recent data records. The last thing to do is click the Download button which will trigger the download warning window... Click the OK button to begin downloading the process can take several minutes so be patient.
One annoying issue with the data that can be downloaded is that it includes a number of errors. It is certainly possible to purchase excellent quality data from commercial data providers but, sadly, the cost is prohibitive usually in excess of $200 per currency pair and only for a limited historical period (approximately 2 years). Fortunately, it is possible to repair the most glaring errors in the free data provided by MetaQuotes. As soon as the download has completed, click the Download button again. The download warning window will appear again and, a few seconds after clicking the OK button, a new window will open, explaining that no new data is available and offering you the option of recalculating all timeframes. Choose Yes. After a brief period, the recalculation will be complete and your data will be of significantly better quality. If you find that strategy test reports mention a number of Mismatched data records then you may wish to repeat this process one or more times. Click the Close button to close the History Center window.
Preparing for Testing Before running a test with the Forex AutoCash Robot, you will need to discover the correct GMTOffset value. This is actually done for you, however, in order to obtain the correct value, the markets must be open (late Sunday through to late Friday). You will need the Server time offset displayed on the chart when the Forex AutoCash Robot is running. As you can see, in this case, the required value is +3. There are well over 100 brokerages offering MetaTrader so it I cannot list them all, however, here are the values for a few well known brokerages: ForexMeta +3 FXDD +3 Alpari +2 IBFX +0
Running a Strategy Test In order to begin testing a strategy, the Strategy Tester must be selected click the Strategy Tester button in the toolbar......to display the Strategy Tester panel at the bottom of the MetaTrader window. Click here to select the expert advisor......here to select the currency......and here to select the 1-hr (H1) timeframe Select Use date then specify a start & end date - you may wish to test back from 01/01/2000 though it will take some time to complete Finally, select Visual mode or you will not see the trades being made (or any of the warning messages if you have missed something!)
Once everything has been set, the Strategy Tester panel should look like this: The last task is to click the Expert Properties button which opens a dialog window similar to the usual properties dialog covered earlier: For the purposes of this test, you can select a $10,000 initial deposit, then click the Inputs tab.
The Inputs tab lists the same parameters as the normal properties window covered earlier but has some additional columns. As this is the first time running a test with the Forex AutoCash Robot, some values will require changing (only update the Value column): RiskLevel: Set to a positive value (10 is fine for testing) GMTOffset: Set to the correct value for your broker AuthentiCode: Enter your AuthentiCode (ClickBank order number) - scroll down the list of parameters Once the values have been updated, click the OK button. The last thing to do is to click the Start button. A visual mode test chart will appear and, after a short delay while MetaTrader loads the historical data required, you will hopefully see the system opening and closing trades.
If any MetaTrader or parameter settings are incorrect then you will see the relevant message (covered earlier in this manual) displayed on the chart. If a warning message does appear, simply click the Stop button (which was the Start button earlier), resolve the issue then click the Start button again. Assuming that there are no warnings to resolve, you will notice that the time and price information displayed in the top-left of the chart window is slightly different to the details displayed on a live chart......there is an informational message explaining that the GMTOffset value is being used as the time difference cannot be calculated during strategy tests.
During testing, you may switch between the various tabs at the bottom of the Strategy Tester window. The most interesting will be the Results tab...which shows each trade, its profit (or loss) and a running balance, and the Graph tab which shows the trading results in graphical format: Important: One point that I need to clarify is shown in the following Results and Graph extracts...
I am sure that you are now shocked to see a losing trade from the Forex AutoCash Robot but... all is not as it seems! If you look at the comment just to the left in the results list......you will notice the phrase close at stop. That does not mean what I am sure you assume it does! As you can see in the following screen shot, the Stop Loss did not get hit at all. The order was closed at 1.3770 yet the Stop Loss was at 1.3635 135 pips away! What actually happened is that the Strategy Tester reached the end of the test period and still had that order open, so it was simply closed.
That is an aspect of strategy testing that you always need to be mindful of. The Strategy Tester can only do the best it can and sometimes that can result in misleading information if you are not aware of how things work. Once the test has concluded, you will want to review the Report tab which provides a summary of the test results. As mentioned before, one thing to watch for are Mismatched chart errors which are shown in the top left of the report if the number is more than 2 or 3 then you should try cleaning the data again.
Issues and Solutions Meta Trader Crashing The Solution A small number of owners reported a problem with MetaTrader crashing after installing the Forex AutoCash Robot. After much digging, we finally identified the primary causes of the issue. The most obvious cause is running an out-of-date version of MetaTrader. If this is the case, simply closing down and restarting MetaTrader should activate the LiveUpdate system and resolve the problem. In addition, we have updated the robot to minimize the issue by being more version tolerant however, if you are still experiencing this problem then please read on. All the crashes we investigated were on Windows Vista systems. If you experience such a crash after installing the robot into MetaTrader then please follow these steps: 1) Click the Start button in Windows 2) From the menu that appears, click on Control Panel 3) From the displayed options in the Control Panel window, click on System
4) On the right-hand side, click on Advanced System Settings 5) You will see the following window pop up: If the Advanced tab is not active, click it.
6) Now, click on the top Settings button:
7) The following window will appear:
8) Now click on the tab labeled Data Execution Prevention in the top right-hand corner:
9) After clicking it, the tab will become active and you will see the following in the window:
10) If your system is set to option #2, like above, Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select, that is very likely to be the cause of MT4 crashing so please select the top option instead: The red arrow shows the option that SHOULD BE SELECTED in order to avoid MetaTrader crashing on Windows Vista systems. Once again, if the bottom option is selected, please select the top option indicated by the red arrow.
11) After selecting the correct option, click the Apply button. You will be asked if you want to restart your computer. Click the Yes button. If it does not restart automatically then restart it manually. Once your computer has restarted, MetaTrader should no longer crash. If it does, simply re-open MetaTrader and it should then run flawlessly.
Knowledge Base A large number of FAQs and general questions are answered in the knowledge base section of the HelpDesk which you can access via the Members Area of the website. The KnowledgeBase is constantly being updated so please visit this section of the site frequently.