Grid Trading EA 20.4

Metatrader Expert Advisor (MT4/MT5)

  • Overview

    Grid trading is an efficient mechanical trading strategy which has no reliance on direction, profits from volatility and uses the intrinsic wavy nature of the market. It uses fixed price levels to enter and exit trades in one or both directions. Such trades, generally spaced at 20-200 pip intervals, create a trading grid. Grid trading has several advantages:

    • Easy to set up and supervise
    • It is time-frame independent
    • No indicators or hard analysis needed
    • Trades price ranges, not trading setups
    • Requires little forecasting of the market
    • Extracts money out of the market regularly

    This EA has a set of unique features:

    • It can trade long, short or bidirectional
    • It can trade many simultaneous symbols
    • Grids can be closed or paused at the trader's discretion
    • It implements directional and bidirectional profit targets
    • It doesn't trade open ended grids, exposure is limited
    • The grid configuration can be changed on the fly
    • Risk and exposure is pre-calculated and displayed
    • It implements three different behaviors
    • It works for forex, CFDs and futures

    This is arguably the most flexible Grid Trading EA you'll ever find and can be used in a myriad of different ways.

    How to get started

    1. Load the EA to any chart and timeframe
    2. Choose a trading direction (buy, sell or bidirectional)
    3. Edit the spacing and amount of trades until risk is acceptable
    4. Start the grid

    How to achieve better results

    The profitability achieved depends on your ability to set wise price limits. Find reasonable price ranges to trade and enter those into the EA as anchor and limit prices. This practice concentrates the trading activity inside profitable price ranges. For instance, in EURUSD you might want to set a buy price limit of 1.35 and a sell price limit of 1.25. Use weekly and monthly charts to find these ranges.

    Usage Tips

    • If the market is cheap, trade long only
    • If the market is overpriced, trade short only
    • Don't feel obligated to do bidirectional trading
    • Don't load the EA twice on the same symbol
    • Avoid trading in a direction with big swap costs
    • Trade from a VPS or leave your trading computer turned on 24/5
    • Do not unload the EA to assure the atomicity of the process
    • There is no need to change the Magic Number from symbol to symbol
    • Use the phase (cash-in multiplier) of each grid to compensate floting point
    • Set a price limit for each grid on inputs, it will dramatically increase your profits
    • Use the profit targets to reset the grid regularly and avoid piling up many trades

    Technical Information

    • The EA evaluates at M1 bar closing
    • Trades have no stop-loss or take-profit orders
    • The EA uses market orders, spread is not an issue
    • The EA won't trade live if there is risk of a margin call with current settings
    • However, the EA will trade in the tester with any settings, regardless of risk
    • The EA trades a manual lot size: the tester won't reflect compounding profits
    • Swap costs are displayed in the bottom-right corner of the chart
    • When all trades are placed, the oldest trade is closed at a loss and the EA keeps trading

    Trading Guidelines

    • Minimum deposit: 3,000$
    • Suitable instruments: Forex, Commodities, Gold (long only), Indices (long only)
    • Suitable timeframes: All and any
  • Input parameters

    When loading the expert to any chart, you will be presented with a set of options as input parameters. Don't despair if you think they are too many, because parameters are grouped into self-explanatory blocks.

    Trading Direction
    It can be long, short or bidirectional.
    Bidirectional Profit Target
    When you are running a long and a short grid simultaneously, you can define a combined profit target. For example, one spacing unit. When the combined profits of both grids reaches your target, both grids are closed securing the profit, to later start trading again fresh.
    Grid Behavior
    This parameter controls how the grid operates and what it does when all the trades of the grid are allocated. In live trading, you would be changing the behavior of the grid according to what the market is doing and what you want to do with the grid -expand it or liquidate it-.
    - Regular: The grid operates normally, adding and closing trades.
    - Paused: The grid sits idle. Trades are not placed, nor closed.
    - Averaging: Tries to exit the grid at the average price of all trades.
    Trades
    This is the amount of trades in the grid.
    Spacing
    The spacing, also known as the gap, is the distance between the trades of the grid, and it is also the profit target for each individual trade. For live trading, a spacing between 80 pips and 200 pips can be considered safe.
    Lotsize
    This is the lot size for each trade of the grid.
    Phase
    The phase is the cash-in multiplier: a higher phase increases the profit target for each individual trade of the grid. For example, if we have a phase of 3 on a grid of 100 pips spacing, the profit target for each individual trade will be 300 pips.
    Take Profit
    The take profit for the grid is optional. A take-profit will cause the grid to reset, closing all trades and starting fresh, when a certain profit has been realized. This prevents the grid from over expanding. It is expressed in spacing units. For example, if the grid spacing is 100 pips and the Take-Profit is 10 spacing units, the grid will reset and start fresh when it has won 1,000 pips. This option is very useful if the symbol has high swap costs or if we are afraid of a trend going outside of the range of our grid.
    Limit Price
    This is the price limit for the grid: the grid will not continue trading beyond this price. This parameter enables us to configure grids that are only triggered if the market is inside a certain price range. For example, you can set up a buy grid on GOLD and instruct the grid to buy only if the price is below 1400$/oz. To do that, you would just enter 1400 in the Buy Limit Price parameters. The same applies for short but on the opposite side.
    Anchor Price
    Similar to the above parameter, the Grid Anchor is a price limit of the grid but on the negative side. This parameter enables us to limit the grid trading activity to a predefined trading range. For example, you might want to create a long grid on EURUSD from 1.0000 to 1.16250 and let the EA calculate the spacing for you. The EA won't trade EURUSD below 1.0000 or above 1.16250.
    Colors and sizes
    This parameter block sets the color and sizes for labels and lines.
    EA Settings
    If you know what you are doing, you can change the Magic Number of the EA, the comment for the trades and override the value of one pip, which can be useful if you are trading CFDs.
  • ? FAQ
    Should I use this Expert Advisor if I ignore what grids are?
    No, you should not. Grid Trading is for amateur traders and beyond.
    Is grid trading a martingale?
    No, it is not. There is no intrinsic difference between a trade of 0,20 lots and 20 concurrent trades of 0,01 lots. A strategy is a martingale inasmuch it deals with independent events with fixed probability of occurrence and payoff. Grids, however, use a constant lotsize per trade.
    I have heard that grid trading is dangerous. Is it?
    Yes, it is: just like any other powerful tool. Poorly managed or allocated grids can decimate your trading account. However, if properly used, grid trading is not only safe but very profitable because it provides almost unlimited adaptability to what the market is doing. The key is not using too much leverage.
    Is grid trading NFA FIFO compliant?
    No, it is not.
    Can I set the stop
    loss for each trade or for the grid?
    No, you can't. Make sure to configure the grid properly: the total grid exposure must never be above three times your account equity and the grid range has to be wide enough to reach a strong support or resistance. You can, however, stop all trading activity manually on certain drawdown levels.

Screenshots

Grid Trading EA EA for Metatrader
Grid Trading EA EA for Metatrader
Grid Trading EA EA for Metatrader
Grid Trading EA EA for Metatrader

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