Participating in the $10,000 Demo Account Challenge sounds like a great way to learn and gain insights from fellow traders. It’s not just about the final account balance but also the knowledge and experience we acquire along the way. During the challenge, let’s share our trades, strategies, and observations with each other. By discussing our approaches and learning from different perspectives, we can expand our trading horizons and become better traders collectively.
Never used MT4 but MT5 was developed with improved back testing as a selling point. I wouldn’t expect different performance if you changed no settings at all though
I know, I tested the same data and dates again just to make sure I wasn’t going mad and they seem to almost always give different results!
OK everyone. I’ve spent two days building a EA which I have back tested and it was profitable in the tune of 30% in 2022. It’s not been that good back testing this year but I thought I’d give it ago anyway to see what happens. So it’s switched on and ready to trade!
What’s the strategy? Did you use the optimiser?
Similar strategy to my original idea, but I’ve stuck in a ton of other rules such as looking at the previous candles, day to trade and when to exit trades etc.
Morning Everyone
So todays, the day.
The EA I made starts looking for trades today. I’ve set the parameters very similar to my originals strategy with a few tweaks. Firstly the EA will look at the D1 chart and if the EMA50 is below both the EMA14 and EMA7 it will indicate a bullish trend (vice versa for bearish). It will then confirm the trend on the H1 chart with the same EMA parameters and if both are giving the trend signal the EA will then start looking for opening positions on the M15 chart. I’ve set the EA to only open positions on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and close all profitable trades at the end of each day and carry over losing trades in the hope they will go into profit. Then on a Friday it will check hourly to see if the losing open trade goes into profit and close it, but if it doesn’t it will close the trade either way before the market closes.
I back tested the strategy over the weekend and let it run for the whole of 2022. With a starting account balance of $10,000 it finished the year with a balance of over $13,000. However, in normal trading conditions I would be switching the EA on and off to navigate around major news days and ranging markets etc, so in theory the yearly profit should have been larger.
Trade no. 12 (EA Trade no. 1)
Exciting times.
Today my EA made its first trade, which is still running. The trade executed at around 11:00am UK time. At the time of writing this post the trade is in profit and will run for the remainder of the day unless it hits stop loss or take profit. If it doesn’t hit either and is in profit at 20:00pm GMT the trade should close. If it’s not in profit it will roll on.
Account balance $9869.80
Trade EUR/USD short, volume 0.33
Entry price 1.07727
Stop Loss 1.09227
Take Profit 1.06727
OK, it seems my robot has malfunctioned! It didn’t close the trade at 8pm GMT as programmed! Luckily the market is still moving in my favour so I’m going to let the trade continue while I test and tweak my robot to see what went wrong.
I back tested my EA on yesterdays charts and it did execute the closing of the trade at 8pm GMT correctly. So not really sure why it’s let my trade continue past that point. I have redesigned my EA to try and make that part a little sleeker and have back tested three different versions and they all closed the trade at 8pm. I’ve decided I’m going to close the trade manually this morning and let the EA look for another trade and see if it all works now.
Boom! 
I’ve now manually closed my 12th (1st EA) trade to take a profit of $109.89. This is my highest profit for a single trade so far and now I just need to wait for my EA to find another trade.
Also almost back to my original account balance.
New account balance $9,979.69
EA Trade no. 2
So, not long after I manually closed my last trade all the parameters for a buy signal were met and my EA opened a new trade at just after 8am UK time. I’m hoping this trade can get my account balance back into the green. I’m also interest to see if the EA works today and if it’s in profit it exits the trade at 8PM GMT.
Account balance $9,979.69
Trade EUR/USD short, volume 0.33
Entry price 1.07314
Stop Loss 1.08814
Take Profit 1.06314
Drumroll…
If it doesn’t close, look at the experts tab. It might be failing for some reason. Are you using the trade class to do your trades, or the clunky other way?
I’m not sure which way it’s doing the trades! I just deployed it by dragging it onto the chart and changing the setting to active to give it the smiley face.
The same thing happened tonight and it didn’t close the trade at 8pm GMT as programmed. So I’ve closed it manually. Just weird how it works OK during back testing but doesn’t when live.
The EA is only set to open trades Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so will be interesting to see if it does anything tomorrow.
I checked the experts tab and it says it’s been loaded successfully and initialised (well, it actually says initialized because Americans can’t spell).
Boom!
I manually closed my 2nd EA trade last night to take a small profit of $26.07. This trade puts my account back in the green. Onwards and upwards.
New account balance $10,005.76
Hi,
Just to let you know, I’m enjoying your journey! Looks like you’re having fun. I’m intrigued as to why your stop loss is set to around 15 pips and your take profits are 10 pips. Will this be the setting for the EA?
Hiya
Thank your for the message. The SL is set at 150pips and the TP at 100pips. The EA is set the same. The reason I’ve chosen to set the SL at 150pips is just to give the trades room the breathe as it’s very rare for EURUSD to move that far in a day. The EA is only looking for trades that are in line with the trend so even if it doesn’t reach the TP it should hopefully be in profit at the end of the day.
Looks like my EA won’t be making any trades this week as the EURUSD D1 chart is showing a bearish trend and the H1 and M15 are showing a bullish trend.
EA Trade no. 3
In the Sydney and Toyko sessions the H1 and M15 trend have revertered back to match the D1 trend and my EA has opened a new trade around 8:45am UK time.
Account balance $10,005.76
Trade EUR/USD short, volume 0.33
Entry price 1.06719
Stop Loss 1.08219
Take Profit 1.05719