EA Wizard. User's Guide

Transcription

1 EA Wizard User's Guide Version Last updated:

2 Support If you'll have trouble understanding anything, you need help, or you simply have some question to ask (related to the system), remember your purchase includes also a support. We are here for you, you can contact us at: Articles and forum on our website provide additional source of knowledge All rights reserved. Copyright EA Wizard software, bonus strategies and content of this Manual is copyrighted. You can use them only with valid license. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means - including electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning or otherwise - without the prior written permission of the author Mark Fric, SonarBytes Ltd 2

3 Risk Disclosure Risk Disclosure Statement Trading any financial market involves risk. This Manual is neither a solicitation nor an offer to Buy/Sell any financial product. The contents of this Manual are for general informational purposes only. Although every attempt has been made to ensure accuracy, the author does not give any expressed or implied warranty as to its accuracy. The author does not accept any liability for error or omission. All examples are provided for illustrative purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. No representation is being made that any account, or trader will, or is likely to achieve profits or loses similar to those discussed in this Manual. Past performance cannot be relied upon as being indicative of future performance. The information provided in this Manual is not intended for distribution to, or 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 the author 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 system. 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 the trading losses are material points, which can also adversely affect trading results. There are numerous other factors related to the market in general or 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. U.S. Government Required Disclaimer - Commodity Futures Trading Commission Futures, Currency 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 futures and options markets. Don't trade with money you can't afford to lose. This is neither a solicitation nor an offer to Buy/Sell futures or options. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to those discussed on this web site. The past performance of any trading system or methodology is not necessarily indicative of future results. CFTC RULE HYPOTHETICAL OR SIMULATED PERFORMANCE RESULTS HAVE CERTAIN LIMITATIONS. UNLIKE AN ACTUAL PERFORMANCE RECORD, SIMULATED RESULTS DO NOT REPRESENT ACTUAL TRADING. ALSO, SINCE THE TRADES HAVE NOT BEEN EXECUTED, THE RESULTS MAY HAVE UNDER-OR-OVER COMPENSATED FOR THE IMPACT, IF ANY, OF CERTAIN MARKET FACTORS, SUCH AS LACK OF LIQUIDITY. SIMULATED TRADING PROGRAMS IN GENERAL ARE ALSO SUBJECT TO THE FACT THAT THEY ARE DESIGNED WITH THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT. NO REPRESENTATION IS BEING MADE THAT ANY ACCOUNT WILL OR IS LIKELY TO ACHIEVE PROFIT OR LOSSES SIMILAR TO THOSE SHOWN. 3

4 Software License Agreement This legal document is an agreement between you, the end user ('User'), and Sonarbytes Ltd ('Author'). AGREEMENT - By installing EA Wizard ('Software'), copying the Software and/or clicking on the 'I Agree' button during installation, you agree to all of the terms of this software license agreement ('Agreement'). If you do not agree with all of the terms of this agreement, click on the 'I Do Not Agree' button and/or do not install, copy or otherwise use the software. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. The Software and any associated materials are protected by copyright law. The package is a proprietary product of the Author. The Author retains title to and ownership in the copyright of the software program and the associated materials. You acknowledge that the Author owns all rights, title and interest in and to the Software, including without limitation all Intellectual Property Rights. 'Intellectual Property Rights' means any and all rights existing from time to time under patent law, copyright law, trade secret law, trademark law, unfair competition law, and any and all other proprietary rights, and any and all applications, renewals, extensions and restorations thereof, now or hereafter in force and effect worldwide. You agree not to modify, adapt, translate, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise attempt to derive source code from the Software. REGISTRATION. This program is neither freeware nor public domain. Use requires valid license. GRANT. Author hereby grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Software upon payment of the License Fee until the expiry date of the license (if any). Author makes no guarantee of the frequency, value, applicability or content of future updates or modifications to the Software. The Software will only be made available to you in electronic form for download. User's use of the Software shall be limited to use on a single hardware chassis, on a single central processing unit, as applicable, or use on such greater number of chassis or central processing units as User may have paid the required license fee. You may not: permit other individuals to use the Software except under the terms listed above; translate, reverse engineer, decompile, decrypt, reverse engineer, disassemble (except to the extent applicable laws specifically prohibit such restriction), or create derivative works based on the Software; copy the Software (except for back-up purposes); rent, lease, transfer, assign, sub-license or otherwise transfer rights to the Software; or remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Software. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE IS BORNE BY YOU. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES AND UNDER NO LEGAL THEORY, TORT, CONTRACT, OR OTHERWISE, SHALL AUTHOR OR ITS SUPPLIERS OR RESELLERS BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY OTHER PERSON FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES OF ANY CHARACTER INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF GOODWILL, WORK STOPPAGE, COMPUTER FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION, OR ANY AND ALL OTHER COMMERCIAL DAMAGES OR LOSSES. IN NO EVENT WILL AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES IN EXCESS OF AUTHOR'S LIST PRICE FOR A LICENSE TO THE SOFTWARE, EVEN IF AUTHOR SHALL HAVE BEEN INFORMED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY CLAIM BY ANY OTHER PARTY. THIS LIMITATION OF LIABILITY SHALL NOT APPLY TO LIABILITY FOR DEATH OR PERSONAL INJURY TO THE EXTENT APPLICABLE LAW PROHIBITS SUCH LIMITATION. FURTHERMORE, SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO THIS LIMITATION AND EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. TERMINATION. This license will terminate automatically if you fail to comply with the limitations described above. On termination, you must destroy all copies of the Software in electronic or other form, including any copies on backup tapes or other media. Upon termination of this License for any reason, you shall have no right to refund of the whole or part of any License Fee paid. 4

5 Table of Contents 1 Introduction What is EA Wizard? System Requirements Installation Tutorial - Making a simple EMA cross strategy Step 1: Creating new empty strategy Step 2: Defining the trading rule to go Long - Condition part Step 3: Defining the trading rule to go Long - Action part Step 4: Defining the trading rule to go Short Step 5: Saving the strategy as EA for MetaTrader Advanced topics Compilation Warnings Explanation Verbose mode Using EA Parameters Using global Stop Loss and Profit Target Using Money Management Closing open position Using Strategy Controls Working with Custom Indicators Managing custom indicators in EA Wizard Importing new custom indicator definitions from StrategyQuant Importing new custom indicator definitions from indicator files Manually adding new custom indicator Using custom indicators in EA Wizard Items & Functions List in EA Wizard Price Data Indicators Custom Indicators Time Values Strategy Control Functions Other Variables THEN Actions Final Words

6 1 Introduction 1.1 What is EA Wizard? EA Wizard is a program that enables you to create your trading strategy as a set of logical conditions and rules without any programming and then transforms it into real EA for MetaTrader4. Every trading strategy consists of a set of trading rules. Before you start building your EA you need to know exactly how it should trade - when it should buy or sell and when it should close the position. The trading rule is in form: IF (Condition is True) THEN Make some action. The CONDITION can be any comparison, for example 'CCI > 0', or 'EMA(10) crosses above EMA(20)'.The ACTION can be opening new order or closing an existing order. So the trading rule can be for example: IF (Current Hour = 8 and CCI(50) > 0 and No position is open) THEN Enter at Market with Stop Loss: 50 pips and Profit Target: 50 pips. Once you know your trading rules you can easily define them in EA Wizard in the Trading Rules tab: You can use unlimited number of rules, for example one rule to go long and second rule to go short. 6

7 1.2 System Requirements EA Wizard is not an EA, it is a normal program (EXE file) for Microsoft Windows and it will run on all standard computers with Internet connection. Minimum system requirements: 1.2 GHz processor 512 MB RAM 200 MB hard disk space Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8 operating system 1.3 Installation EA Wizard comes with standard setup wizard, you just download and run the installation EXE file and then follow the steps in the installation wizard. Important!!! Please DON'T install EA Wizard to standard C:\Program Files directory! It might not work correctly because Windows security settings don't allow the program to write to its data files. Instead install it to any normal drive or directory on the disk, like C:\EAWizard or C:\Trading\EAWizard 7

8 2 Tutorial - Making a simple EMA cross strategy What we'll learn: how to build conditions to trigger trading rules how to open new order how to close an open order In this tutorial we'll make a simple strategy that trades when faster EMA crosses slower EMA. The EMA Cross strategy is a simple, popular strategy of entering the market when faster EMA crosses slower EMA; we enter at the direction of the crossing. The strategy can work very well on trending market; the results are not very good on choppy markets. The strategy uses two Exponential Moving Averages on the chart as you can see on the picture above. The trading rules are: Enter Long when faster EMA crosses above slower EMA Enter Short when faster EMA crosses below slower EMA There will be no Stop loss or Profit target defined. The strategy will be in a position all the time, just reversing the positions between Long and Short. 8

9 2.1 Step 1: Creating new empty strategy Open EA Wizard and click on the New in the top menu of EA wizard and choose Empty strategy. Then switch to Strategy tab and name the new strategy EMA cross. The strategy consists of trading rules that tell the EA when to buy or sell, when to close the position, etc. Our next step is to define the trading rules for our strategy. Switch to Trading rules tab. Note! Trading rule is the basic building block of the strategy. Before you start building your strategy you need to know how it should trade - when it should open new trade and when it should close it. Once you know your trading rules you can easily define them as CONDITION and ACTION. It is simple, when the CONDITION is true, the ACTION is executed. The CONDITION can be anything, for example CCI > 0, or as in our case EMA(10) crosses above EMA(20). The ACTION can be opening new order or closing an existing order. 9

10 2.2 Step 2: Defining the trading rule to go Long - Condition part First we'll define the rule to go long. Double click on Rule 1 and rename it to Go long. Then click on Add new on the right side of the screen to open the condition dialog. Here we have to specify our rule. Remember, we should open long position when faster EMA (with period of 10) crosses above slower EMA (with period of 20). 10

11 We'll start with the left part. You'll find EMA listed under Indicators. You can also type "ema" into the search field on the top to search for indicator using its name. Open the Indicators select box and choose Exponential Moving Average. Now do the same also in for the right part. We have to set also the operator between the two values, to crosses above. Note that both indicators (on the left and right side) have their own parameters. We have to change these parameters now to finish our condition. We want to go long when faster EMA crosses above slower EMA. In our case we'll use period of 10 for faster EMA and period of 20 for slower EMA. So click inside the period field and change it to 10 for the left EMA and to 20 for the right EMA. The result will look like on the image below. Click OK and close the dialog. 11

12 2.3 Step 3: Defining the trading rule to go Long - Action part We just specified the IF condition, now we have to specify the THEN action - it is the action that will be activated when the condition is true. Click on Add new button in the THEN part. This will open the Add action dialogue. First of all we have to close the potential Short position. If you don't understand why, imagine how our EA will be trading - it will be always in position. So it is possible that the EA will have Short order opened when we receive a Long signal. We want to reverse the trade, so we have to first close the Short position and then open a Long one. 12

13 Click on the Order management and choose Close position. Closing an open position is simple, you just have to enter the order Magic Number. Note! Every order must use its unique Magic Number. The Magic Number helps EA to recognize and handle the order. We can use any value for Magic Number, as long as it is unique. In this sample I decided to use 100 for Long order and 200 for Short order. So here we'll be closing order with Magic Number 200, which is a Short order. If the Short order doesn't exist, nothing happens, the action is ignored. After clicking OK and closing the dialog we can see that we just added the Close position action. Now we'll add one more action to open a new Long position. Click on the Add new again and once more the Add action dialogue is opened. Here we'll choose Enter at Market and change the Magic Number for Long order to

14 That's all, we can close the dialog. We have just defined half of our strategy - a complete rule to go long. The Long rule will be activated when EMA(10) crosses above EMA(20) and will close the (potential) Short order and open a new Long order. 14

15 2.4 Step 4: Defining the trading rule to go Short Now we can repeat the whole process also for the Go short rule, but there is an easier way. We can Close the existing rule and just modify it. This way we can save a lot of time and work. Click on the Clone this rule button. It will create a copy of our first rule. Let's rename it to Go short. You can see that the new rule is an exact copy of Go long rule, so we have to change the conditions. Double click on line with condition EMA(10)[1] crosses above EMA(20)[1] in the IF window. This will open the Edit condition dialog. Because this is rule to go Short, we want to go Short when faster EMA crosses below slower EMA. So we have to change the operator from crosses above to crosses below. 15

16 We also have to change the THEN actions. Double click on the Close position in THEN rules. We have to set it to close position with Magic number 100 (which is Long order), so set the Magic number to

17 We also you have to change the direction of the opening order in the THEN rule from Long to Short. So double click on Enter at market and change the Direction to Short and also Magic number to 200 (remember, we'll use 200 for Short orders). The strategy is complete. We can recapitulate what we done so far. We defined a Go long rule that is activated when faster EMA crosses above slower EMA. It first closes the Short position and opens the Long position. Then we defined Go short rule that is activated when faster EMA crosses below slower EMA. It first closes the Long position and opens a new Short position. 17

18 2.5 Step 5: Saving the strategy as EA for MetaTrader Now that we are finished we can save our new strategy as an Expert advisor. We'll switch to Source code tab and change the Source Code Type to Expert advisor for Metatrader4(.MQ4). We can immediately see the expert advisor code for the strategy we've just created. All we have to do now is to save it to MetaTrader4/experts directory and our new EA is ready to be tested or traded live. 18

19 3 Advanced topics 3.1 Compilation Warnings Explanation When you compile your new EA in MetaTrader4, you can see a number of compilation warnings, like on the image below. This is normal, there's nothing wrong with the EA! The warnings are there just because EA Wizard uses a library of functions that are copied to every EA, but not every EA uses all these functions. The warnings merely mean that some functions are not used and won't be used in the compiled file. 3.2 Verbose mode In the new version 2 a fixed VerboseMode parameter was added. This enables logs all the actions of the program and all the important function calls, so that it is possible to find out why something is not working as expected. VerboseMode parameter can have three values: 0 verbose mode is off, EA logs only minimum messages 1 verbose mode is on, and it is logged to the standard MT4 Experts log 2 verbose mode is on and it is logged to a special file. When backtesting the log files are created in {MT4}\tester\files folder, during trading the log files are created in {MT4} \experts\files folder. 19

20 3.3 Using EA Parameters When you run any EA you can notice that it can contain some configurable parameters that allow you to configure it or optimize it to look for optimal values. How can we add parameters to EAs made by EA Wizard? It is very simple. Maybe you noticed that the Strategy tab in the EA Wizard contains Strategy Parameters section. This is the place where we can define the EA parameters. 20

21 Click on the Add new button to add one or more parameters. You can change its name, its type (integer, float, boolean or string) and specify the default value. Let's define a parameter name TrailingStopInPips, with type int and default value 50. It will look like this. Now, we have the parameter but it isn't used anywhere. Since it is a parameter for trailing stop, we'd want to use it in our order as a trailing stop. We can switch to trading rules and when we create or edit our Enter at Market order, we can define the trailing stop there. Just click on the small button with three dots in the Trailing Stop parameter. This will open the Trailing Stop Dialog where we can choose fro various options, and one of them is - Use from variable. 21

22 This way we can let the EA use trailing stop from the parameter that we can change. Note! The three dots button next to every parameter always allows you to specify a parameter instead of fixed value, or even opens a new configuration dialog with more choices. 22

23 3.4 Using global Stop Loss and Profit Target For every order you can specify its own Stop Loss and Profit Target levels. To make things simpler, it is possible to use Global Stop Loss or Profit Target just once and let every order use it. Global SL/PT can be defined in the Strategy tab. There you can either enter a pip value, for example 40, or click on the button to open more advanced settings. As an example we'll define Stop Loss as fixed pips value - but we'll use EA parameter, so that we can change the value later. For profit target we'll use simple 2 * ATR(10) formula. Let's define Stop Loss first. Because we want to use EA parameter, we'll define new parameter StopLossInPips and set it to 50 default value. 23

24 Now we'll go to global Stop Loss and click on the button to open the Stop Loss dialog. There we'll select the option Use from variable and we'll select our variable. So now we set global Stop Loss to the value in StopLossInPips variable. Next we click on the button next to the Profit Target field to open the Profit Target dialog. And we'll choose the ATR based option, with correct coefficients. We are almost done, we defined our global Stop Loss and Profit Target levels. 24

25 There is one more step to do! We defined our global SL/PT, but no order is currently using it. To apply it to orders, we have to go each of our orders, click on them to edit them and click on the Profit Target. button next to Stop Loss and In the dialog that appears we have to select Use global Stop Loss and Use global Profit Target. Only then our orders will use the globally configured SL/PT. That's all, now our order will use globally defined SL and PT. 25

26 3.5 Using Money Management Every time you create an order you have to specify the number of lots that should be bought or sold like in the picture below. We can do it like this, but then our EA will trade always with one size of lots and it will be difficult to change it. It is much better and also simpler to use build-in money management. Instead of setting the quantity in order, click on the small button at the Quantity field and open the Quantity Dialog. We have few choices - we can enter quantity (lots size) as a number, or use it from a variable or Use predefined Money Management. Here we are just saying that the order should use predefined money management, whatever the MM formula is. You can set it like this for every order. 26

27 Money Management can be chosen in the Strategy tab, in Money Management tab. EA Wizard currently supports two different money management modes to choose: No money management - this sounds like a useless mode, but the point is that you can change the money management for all the orders by choosing the mode here. Trading with fixed lots is the most basic "money management" mode. Money management - risk fixed % of account equity - in this mode EA will trade with growing amount of lots as your account grows. You can specify the Risk in % which is the maximum percentage amount of your account you'll risk per every trade. So if you'll set ot to 5%, you'll never lose more than 5% if the trade goes to loss. The trade size in risk fixed % of account equity MM is computed from Stop Loss. For example, if you have $10,000 account and you are willing to risk 4% per trade, this means you will be risking $400 in every trade (4% of $10,000 is $400). The trade size will depend on your Stop Loss. If your order uses Stop Loss of 50 pips, then the trade size will be computed so that if the Stop Loss is hit, you'll lose only these $400. In this case the trade size will be 0.8 lots. Note! Remember, in order to use money management in your trades, every order must set the Quantity to "Use predefined money management". 27

28 3.6 Closing open position Your EA can control your open positions dynamically and close them when the situation isn't going in your favor. Just like when entering the position, you can create a rule to close a trade if given conditions are met. Let's say we are in the long trade and we want to close the position if CCI(50) goes below 0. We can define a new Long exit rule and set the condition like this: This means that the rule will be activated when we are in long position and CCI(50) is below 0. Then we define our action: Close position with Magic Number We have to specify the Magic Number of the order we want to close, here I assume that our long order has Magic Number Note! Every order must use its unique Magic Number. The Magic Number helps EA to recognize and handle the order. We can use any value for Magic Number, as long as it is unique. 28

29 3.7 Using Strategy Controls We don't need to compare only indicator values in our conditions. EA Wizard allows you to create conditions based on the current running orders. These functions are in the Add condition dialog in Strategy Controls combo box. There you can create a condition for example to exit the trade after given bars in trade, or to not enter to trade when there were 2 trades today already, etc. On the image below you can see the condition that is true when Open Profit (in pips) is lover than This means we are more than 50 pips in loss. Combine it with close position action and you have hidden Stop Loss not visible by broker. Using this rule the EA watches the trade and it will close it when the open loss is goes over 50 pips. 29

30 4 Working with Custom Indicators 4.1 Managing custom indicators in EA Wizard If you want to use an indicator that is not yet included in the EA Wizard, you can add it to the program as a custom indicator. Click on the Manage custom indicators button on the toolbar. This will open the Manage indicators dialog. Here you can see a list of all custom indicators added to the program. If you haven't added any new indicator yet, this list can be empty. Here we have few choices: Import new custom indicators from StrategyQuant website Import new custom indicators from indicator files Define your custom indicator manually 30

31 4.2 Importing new custom indicator definitions from StrategyQuant We at StrategyQuant keep and update a list of interesting custom indicators for everybody to download. To download new definitions simply click on Download new custom indicator definitions button. This will connect to our site and checks for any new custom indicators. If there are any new indicators found, it will display them in a list (see below). You can choose which of these indicators you want to add to the program and click on Add selected... button. New indicators were downloaded and added to the program, you can now use them in your trading strategies. Note! The new indicators are not only added to the EA Wizard, but the indicator files are also downloaded from our website and placed into the {EA Wizard}/custom_indicators directory. You have to copy these indicators also to your MetaTrader so that your EAs can access and use it. 31

32 4.3 Importing new custom indicator definitions from indicator files If you have your own custom indicators as files, you can easily import them to EA Wizard too. Just copy your indicator files to {EA Wizard}/custom_indicators directory, then go to Manage custom indicators and click on Recognize new custom indicators from files. EA Wizard will check its /custom_indicators directory for new files and display the import dialog again. You can choose which of these indicators you want to add to the program and click on Add selected... button. That's all, now you can use them in the program. Note! Only indicator files with source code (.mq4 extension) can be automatically recognized. If you don't have source code of your indicator (you have only compiled.ex4 file, the indicator will be not recognized. You can still add this indicator to EA Wizard manually. 32

33 4.4 Manually adding new custom indicator You can add new custom indicator also manually, it is relatively simple. Open new custom indicator dialog by clicking on Add new button. Here you can define any indicator by specifying its file name, name parameters, etc. The file name is the most important - it has to be an exact file name of the indicator file, without the.eq4 or.mq4 extension. If you put incorrect file name, the EA won't be able to recognize the indicator and the condition will fail. As a sample we'll define Aroon Up Down indicator. The file name is Aroon_Up_Down.mq4, so I'll enter Aroon_Up_Down as file name. The Indicator Long and Short names are just names under which you'll see the indicator in EA Wizard, it can be generally anything. Return type is another property - it is simple - if the indicator is drawn on the same chart with the price, like moving average, then the return type is price. If the indicator is displayed in separate area below the chart (like CCI, Momentum or Stochastic) then the return type is number. 33

34 Then we have to define indicator parameters. Every indicator has several parameters that can be configured in MetaTrader. To find out which parameters the indicator has, simply open the indicator in MetaTrader and switch to Inputs tab. We can see that our Aroon Up Down indicator has 3 parameters, so we can define them in EA Wizard. The indicator can also have multiple output values. If it draws more than one line on the chart then it has multiple outputs and we have to define it here. 34

35 Again, we can check in MetaTrader how many output values our indicator uses. To do this, we have to add the indicator to the chart and then open MetaTrader -> View -> Data Window We can see that our Aroon Up Down indicator has 2 output values - it draws two lines - blue and red. By checking the values in the Data window I can see that the first value is blue, and value 2 is red. So I can define the output values for our indicator definition as follows: That's all, this is the complete definition of new custom indicator. Once we click OK the indicator will be added to the program and you can use it just like any other indicator. 35

36 4.5 Using custom indicators in EA Wizard When you already have custom indicator defined in EA Wizard, it can be used simply like any other build-in indicators. You can use your custom indicator in the trade condition: Simply open the combo box with Custom Indicators and find the one you want to use. The Custom Indicators combo box contains all custom indicators defined in the system. Choose your indicator (for example QQE_ADV) and you can compare it to any other value on the right side, even another custom indicator. Note! Some custom indicators have multiple output values - for example Keltner Channels returns values for upper, middle and lower channel. You can choose the output value in the property panel. 36

37 Custom indicators can be used also in the order price levels, for example when you define price level for Stop order, or price level for Stop Loss or Profit Target. Note! To use the custom indicator in your MetaTrader, the indicator file has to be copied to {MetaTrader4}/experts/indicators directory, so that our EA can find and use it. 37

38 5 Items & Functions List in EA Wizard Below is a description of all the items that are available for you when creating the condition. 5.1 Price Data Contains all the standard price data values, such ask Ask, Bid, Open, High, Low, Close, Open Daily, etc. Ask, Bid Current Ask and Bid price Spread Returns current spread in real pips - so if the spread is 3.5 pips, it will return value , not 3.5 SpreadInPips Returns current spread in pips - so if the spread is 3.5 pips, it will return number 3.5 Open, High, Low, Close Open, High, Low and Close prices of given candle Open Daily, High Daily, Low Daily, Close Daily Daily Open, High, Low and Close prices of given day Heiken Ashi Open, High, Low, Close Heiken Ashi value for Open, High, Low and Close prices of given candle 5.2 Indicators Contains all standard MetaTrader4 technical indicators: Accellerator Oscilator Accumulation/Distribution Alligator Average Directional Movement Index (ADX) Average True Range (ATR) Awesome Oscilator Bears Power Bollinger Band 38

39 Bulls Power Commodity Channel Index (CCI) Demarker Envelopes Force Index Fractals Gator Oscillators Ichimoku Kinko Hyo Heiken Ashi MACD Market Facilitation Index Momentum Money Flow Index Moving Average Simple Moving Average Exponential Moving Average Triple Exponential Moving Average Moving Average of Oscillator On Balance Volume Parabolic SAR Relative Strenght Index (RSI) Relative Vigor Index Standard Deviation Stochastic Oscilator Volume Williams % Range 5.3 Custom Indicators Contains several build-in custom indicators and functions to get highest or lowest level, biggest or smallest range, etc. It also contains all the new custom indicators that you defined or imported into EA Wizard. Custom Indicator Allows you to manually specify your custom indicator. It is however much simpler to use the build-in functionality of importing a custom indicator described here Price Difference Returns difference of two prices 39

40 Highest, Lowest Returns highest high or lowest low of the period of bars Highest In Range, Lowest In Range Returns highest high or lowest low of candles in given time range Bar Range Size of bar - distance from high to low price, in real pips (value like and not 23) Biggest Range, Smallest Range Biggest or smallest bar range in given period of candles 5.4 Time Values Hour, Minute, Day, Day of week Returns current hour, minute, day or day of week in broker time Time Time of given candle as number (comparable with Functions->GetTime() function). This is the time of current bar, it doesn't contain seconds. TimeCurrent Current Time (including seconds) as number (comparable with Functions->GetTime() function). This returns the time of the latest tick, it contains also seconds. 5.5 Strategy Control Functions that give you information about opened or closed orders etc. Market Position Returns current market position. If there are more positions open at the same time, it will return the first one. Market position can be: Flat - no position is open Long - long position is open Short - short position is open 40

41 Order Position Returns current market position for the order specified by Magic Number Last Order Returns the type (long or short) of last active (not pending) order Last Order Today Returns the type of last active (not pending) order today Bars Since Order Open Returns number of bars since the order was opened, for order with given Magic Number. If you'll set Magic Number to 0, it will return number of bars since last opened order Bars Since Order Closed Returns number of bars since the order was closed, for order with given Magic Number. If you'll set Magic Number to 0, it will return number of bars since last closed order Pending Order Exists Returns true when pending (stop or limit) order with given Magic Number exists Order Opened This Bar Returns true when the order given Magic Number closed at the current bar Order Opened This Minute Returns true when the order given Magic Number opened at the current minute Order Closed This Bar Returns true when the order given Magic Number opened at the current bar Order Closed This Minute Returns true when the order given Magic Number closed at the current minute Orders Opened Today Returns number of orders opened today Open P/L (in pips) 41

42 Returns open P/L for order with given Magic Number. If you'll set Magic Number to 0, it will return sum of open P/L for all active orders. Closed P/L (in pips) Returns last closed P/L for order with given Magic Number. It will return 0 if the order hasn't closed yet. If Magic Number is 0, it will return closed P/L of last order. Sum of Closed P/L (in pips) Returns total closed P/L in pips for the last X orders with given Magic Number. It will return 0 if the order hasn't closed yet. If Magic Number is 0, it will return total closed P/L of last orders. Open P/L (in money) Returns open P/L for order with given Magic Number. If you'll set Magic Number to 0, it will return sum of open P/L for all active orders. Closed P/L (in money) Returns last closed P/L for order with given Magic Number. It will return 0 if the order hasn't closed yet. If Magic Number is 0, it will return closed P/L of last order. Sum of Closed P/L (in money) Returns total closed P/L in money for the last X orders with given Magic Number. It will return 0 if the order hasn't closed yet. If Magic Number is 0, it will return total closed P/L of last orders. Total Profits Returns number of profits in the last X trades specified by Magic Number.If Magic Number is 0, it will return number of profits of the last X orders Total Losses Returns number of losses in the last X trades specified by Magic Number.If Magic Number is 0, it will return number of losses of the last X orders Current Position Size Returns current position size (lots) for order with given Magic Number. If you'll set Magic Number to 0, it will return sum of position size for all active orders Account Balance Returns account balance in account currency 42

43 Account Equity Returns account equity in account currency Order Opening Price Returns opening price for order with given Magic Number Order SL Returns order Stop Loss level Order PT Returns order Profit Target level Symbol Returns a text string with the name of the current financial instrument Order Symbol Returns symbol for order with given magic number 5.6 Functions Contains build-in functions to manipulate with the values Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division Performs the given operation of the two arguments: (Parameter1 + Parameter2) (Parameter1 - Parameter2) (Parameter1 * Parameter2) (Parameter1 / Parameter2) Indicator Angle A function to measure angle of indicator rise or decline. Be aware that its usability very much depends on correct setting of the Coefficient parameter! The indicator angle that you see on the screen depends on the scale of the chart and timeframe, it is not possible to recognize this all by EA. The good Coefficient value for all price indicators like EMA, Bollinger Bands, etc. is (0.005 for JPY-based pairs). For indicators like CCI, the best value of Coefficient is around

44 Indicator Average A function to compute average of any indicator. This function matches MT4 functionality of applying moving average to another indicator in the chart. Minimum, Maximum Returns minimum or maximum of the two values. ConvertToPips This is an oposite function to ConvertToRealPips(). It converts value from real pips (decimal number) to pips. It automatically recognizes used currency and its number of digits. For example value of is converted to 60 pips. ConvertPLToRealPips Similar to ConvertToRealPips, but you can convert P/L strategy functions. GetTime Returns time specified by Hour and Minute parameters as a number value, ready to be compared with TimeValue -> Time. This way you can use time based conditions in your trading. An example of condition could be GetTime(8, 30) = Time[1] - it will be true if the time at previous bar was 8:30. IsBarOpen Returns true when the bar opened. This happens only once during the bar, so you can use this condition for strategies that should open the trade only once at bar open 5.7 Other Contains build-in functions to manipulate with the values Number Use it to specify number in the condition. String Use it to specify string in the condition, for example for comparison with Symbol function 44

45 Candle Pattern Returns true if the specified candle pattern is formed on the chart at the given position. Candle patterns supported: Doji Hammer Shooting Star Dark Cloud Piercing Line Bearish Engulfing Bullish Engulfing Bearish Harami Bullish Harami Bearish Harami Cross Bullish Harami Cross 5.8 Variables This category contains list of all the variables (Strategy Parameters) that you defined in Strategy tab. 5.9 THEN Actions Enter at Market/Limit/Stop Opens new trade at market, limit or stop price. You can configure a lot of parameters in your order, including Profit Target, Stop Loss, Trailing Stop, etc. You must specify an unique Magic Number for every order. Magic Number can be any random number, for example 1, 2, 3, 100, 200, 11111, etc. Close Position, Close All Positions Closes order (specified by Magic Number) or closes all currently active orders at current market price. Close Position Partially Partially closes order (specified by Magic Number), you can specify how big portion of the order should be closed. Move PT/SL To Move Stop Loss or Profit Target of specified order to a given new level. You can use this function to move SL or PT of an order depending on other conditions, like market volatility, trading signal, etc. 45

46 Do Nothing Just a placeholder for empty action. It can be used for example for Signal Indicator. Assign Variable Assigns a new value to a given variable. Send Sends notification with specified Subject and Text. Note! - it depends on MetaTrader sending funcitonality, so you need to have correctly configured Options in MetaTrader (MT4: Tools -> Options -> Options). Send Advanced Sends notification with specified Subject and Text. Note! - it depends on MetaTrader sending funcitonality, so you need to have correctly configured Options in MetaTrader (MT4: Tools -> Options -> Options). The difference from Send function is that here for the Subject and Test YOU HAVE TO add double quote " to the beginning and end of string, for example "something to log". This enables you to concatenate strings and values, such as "Ask value: "+Ask Log To Journal, Log To File Logs specified text into Strategy Tester Journal or specified file. Note! - with this parameter you always have to use double quotes " when specifying text. Unlike other functions in EA Wizard, this function doesn't add double quotes to the beginning and end of text automatically.! This enables you to concatenate text and EA variables, such as "Current Ask is: "+Ask If you are missing some function, have any difficulty, or don't know how to do something, don't hesitate to Contact us. 46

47 6 Final Words Congratulations on completing the guide to EA Wizard. I hope you'll like the program and you'll use it as an important part of your trading. EA Wizard is very new program, and it is underactive development. This means you can look forward for new exciting features that will move the program functionality even further. I'm open to a new ideas or suggestions, so if you are missing something in EA Wizard or if you think something can work in a different way, don't hesitate to let me know. I wish you many successful trades, Mark Fric P.S. I would love to hear your success stories, so please let me know at mailto:support@strategyquant.com 47