Hi all, first time here, I’m a newbie in this Forex world, and that’s why I got the MDP robot. So far, nothing happened, I opened a demo account with Thinkforex, but the EA has not made any trade yet, 7 hours later and no trades at all, I changed some settings to see if that would do the trick, nope. :31:
This is the chart.
hope you can help me
Thanks!
BTW, right now I’m using default settings, version 1.2.0, demo with ThinkForex ($250).
First off welcome to babypips. This is a great place to learn forex. As for mdp not trading I would wait and be patient. mdp looks for large spikes to trade maybe there just hasn’t been any yet.
Hey Jhonny, thanks for your reply, I’ll be patient 
One question. While the EA is running, can I do some extra trades?, in the same currency or in other ones? Or is better to leave that MT4 instance alone and create another one with a different account?
Thanks!
UPDATE.
I just change to a Live trading account. MDP is up and running but no trades yet. I’ll keep you updated.
Does anyone know something about this?
While the EA is running, can I do some extra trades?, in the same currency or in other ones? Or is better to leave that MT4 instance alone and create another one with a different account?
UPDATE 25-10-2011
Hey guys, Yesterday I closed with -38.67 (-16.10 Commision -22.57 Loss), this was the second day of the MDP in Hotforex (I’m using nextpoinhost for the VPS). Also I received this message.
Too many attempts reject by broker.
I need to confirm if this is caused by some lag of the VPS or it’s the broker itself.
I hope today I’ll have some profit. 
thanks
Be patient bro. It takes some time. After all this is finance not some poker game. The biggest minds in the world are working to make it big in Forex and stock market. Your time will come
I’m trying my friend, yesterday I didn’t have any trades, and today early I have this.
:(, I’m trying not to feel bad about this, but I put a limit already, so, I hope not reach it.
Do you an special configuration for the MDP? I’m not sure of having the correct one for the version 1.2.0
thanks for your reply btw. 
I would also like to know about the configuration actually.
Hi,
I’m new to the Forums at BP and came here specifically looking for additional information on MDP myself. I’m a commercial VPS vendor providing high speed, full support, monitored VPS model for clients, directly on the US East Coast and in the UK/Germany. Since we provide EA programming and analysis as one of the services we offer, I’ll share here what we’ve learned so far, being fairly new to the MDP tool, ourselves.
The MDP behaves like an inverted news hunter, or more accurately a “spike hunter”. This is the reason [U]you need both a fast connection and a fast broker[/U], to maximize how close to the spike you can process, to effect the best net possible.
It enters using a counter-trend process, dropping opposing stop orders along the price momentum direction, once a sufficient momentum move is detected. It then works to trail the stop behind the market as the spike grows, (providing you got there in time), keeping you close to the moving momentum.
Then, as the momentum dies off and (under most conditions), price begins to retrace, those stops laid down like seeds are hit and filled on the retrace. The EA then begins an inverted trail moving away from the price, kind of like it’s waiting for the retrace to over-run the reversing trailer. It is a fairly unique and intuitive approach imo, as a programmer.
As the price recedes from the spike, the planted stop(s) fill you into the market and eventually the inverted trail is hit to capture the net. if everything goes to plan.
The problems we’ve noted with this EA, are more about understanding the EA from the designer’s standpoint, (not well documented), in order to configure it with any available nuances to [U]best match it to your broker and VPS performance[/U].
Specifically those problems are like this…
[B]1)[/B] The EA is still under development and we’re all beta testers, like it or not. That may sound harsh given it’s producing, however the changes showing up in the last revision 1.2.0 reflect developmental changes introduced by suggestions from other users of the EA, so with a grain of salt, understand MDP is at least making use of user feedback.
[B]2)[/B] ECN brokers face a certain amount of delay as they pass their signal on to another liquidity provider and may or may not perform a secondary quote confirmation with their liquidity providers, which can A) cause delay on the confirmation or B) result in a prior quote being repealed and another bank being located to fill you. Both chew up time.
[B]3)[/B] Working with non-ECN brokers will offer faster fills, but there’s chances the broker, (if they are a prime with their own liquidity), are taking the other side and may identify you as a spike hunter and drag feet on the fills or even speculate the fill briefly if they have a truly hot speculator in their system.
[B]2-3)[/B] Probably best to keep with an ECN broker if they are shown to have a decent turn-around time. A true three-legged ECN should fill and confirm, most times, around 200 ms. However, keep in mind that a crowded ECN and an overloaded MT4server will both eat up as much as 700 ms each, putting you as far out as 1400 ms, or 1.4 seconds to confirm a fill, at which point the MDP SHOULD be warning you it has bad fill times.
[B]4)[/B] Also, keep in mind, you cannot make this determination on a demo account as the Mt4 demo has no realistic execution features and always returns a falsely optimistic result. This is why the MDP EA provides the option to tell it you’re doing demo and to artificially create pseudo-delays to make the EA behave as if it were in real execution. I’ve not tested the validity of this feature but it makes sense to use it on demo.
[B]5) [/B]FIFO. Oh boy, thank you Frank-Dodd, you under-educated, controlling POS. I’m not here to argue stupidity in regulation or politics. The bottom line here is this…[B]A decent broker will already be handling the FIFO on their back office for you[/B], therefore the MT4 can and should be running as a virtual system on top of the broker’s back office in standard operation. [B]If your broker requires [B]YOU[/B] to do the FIFO management[/B], you should consider by now, this broker lacks finesse in their application of the Mt4Server system and likely lacks intuitive application in many other places. Bottom line… Find a broker that permits hedging on the US Mt4, which tells you automatically the broker is doing the FIFO for you. Otherwise your poor little MT4 and the system you’re running it on, are WAY too preoccupied shuffling FIFO to pay attention to crisp pricing coming in on the feed. Remember, the EAs success is based upon milliseconds and EVERY negative effect increases your potential for loss. [B]FIFO OFF[/B]
[B]6)[/B] Hard Stops, Trailing Stops and Auto_ECN… Here’s where it gets a little fuzzy, because the MDP authors have a very vague explanation of how their configuration options work with respect to Hard Stops, Trailing Stops and Auto_ECN. Basically, Auto ECN means the EA will try to determine for you, the benefit of using IE (Instant Entry, where the sl and tp are sent in with the main order), or if it will process the main order first, THEN send in the SL/TP [B]after[/B] order in the market is confirmed, (known as market entry method), deemed from the futures industry where this later method is the only way you can hit the SP 500, for example.
It shakes out like this… If IE (Instant Entry) is used, some believe there is less communication involved which reduces congestion or delay in order handling, as opposed to a second round of SL/TP transmission separately, which then also requires confirmation, etc. Makes sense right? In most cases it does. [B][U]For this EA it is not true[/U][/B]. It’s more important you accurately and[U] VERY timely get the main order in place [B]FIRST[/B][/U], then add the SL/TP. Getting the order in place timely is part of that crisp fill you need and you definitely do not want the MT4server playing Russian roulette either internally or with the prime, for anything dealing with the SL/TP in order to place and confirm your main order timely.
However, you DO want a hard stop and hard trailing because this is your ONLY defense to document your fill, transaction times and profit points with your broker if the broker should happen to slip the daylights out of you, or stumble / struggle updating your trails. At least with the hard trail on, you have a leg to stand on when you go back to your broker and ask him why your trails are late or your entries are slipping. (Even that stops can slip, most brokers have a typical slippage target they try to maintain). A decent broker when asked nicely, will many times upgrade your slippage at least to the stop price within their standard slippage allowance.
If you leave Auto_ECN turned on, the EA may very well decide to put you in IE entry mode all of it’s own accord, (bad), without you knowing it did so. To solve this problem, turn off the Auto_ECN function and set Hard Stops to “False”, but leave Hard Trailing turned on. This will force the EA to recognize it will not make the decision for you, (Auto-ECN is off) and it will also not place the SL/TP with the main order, (resulting in the market entry order type you want). Then, by having Trail Hard Stops set to true, the EA is forced to reconcile it must still give you a hard stop to trail and so it sends it in [B][I]after[/I][/B] the main order and begins trailing it at the broker, for you from there.
[B]7)[/B] Trailing resolution? Jury is still out on this and if we’ve helped anyone here at all, I’d appreciate some reciprocation from others with respect to how far away you’re finding the trail works best. I started out with a half pip and have since moved it to a full pip. While I [B][I]THINK[/I][/B] it has improved, I cannot prove it yet, so input from others on this particular setting would be greatly appreciated.
[B]8)[/B] Multiple orders and Risk Management. I’m testing with only two orders permitted and they are opted to “group together” if the EA finds it can. Multiple orders in my mind, among the speed this system needs, can quickly become a problem for both internal EA processing as well as brokerage communication congestion. It escapes me how more than 2 or 3 dropped seeds might grow improvement, if the EA has properly optimized the move and puts the volume where it’s best suited. Either way, the more orders and the more trailing you have, the more the chances are you will see 130 Invalid Price errors or other complaints in the log files. Keep it Simple Stupid has worked best for me here, 2 orders max, combined if possible.
[B]9)[/B] Risk Management of multiple orders… [B]BE CAREFUL here[/B]. My understanding from the docs was the EA would manage the overall risk among the multiple orders. My experience has been to have documented it doubled the volume I was indicating, by placing the full amount permitted on BOTH orders. What happened next was my stops failed to fill due to [NO MONEY], given insufficient margin to open the stop and the order failed to close until I was liquidated at the broker on a full liquidation sweep of all orders. OUCH. Start small, watch the patterns closely and assume the worst case full absorption of your available margin, until you can see first hand, you’re not getting any errors in your log files. [B][U]When running properly, this EA will show a clean Experts and Journal log file[/U][/B].
A final word of consideration…
The rest of the settings are either fairly obvious or have been discussed in detail in other places here on the board. The end result is this EA can be your best friend if you poke, prod, tune, tweak and reason out the best settings and best configuration possible, for [B][I][U]your [/U][/I][/B]given setting. It can also be your worst enemy, if you defer making the effort to determine how it’s working in your given instance and accommodate necessary changes.
An inverted spike hunter MDP is, very much needs the market to retrace the momentum surge, in order to capture profit. There really is very few ways an EA can distinguish a true news event that will retrace, versus one that leaves the average price altered in the direction of momentum and sustained there, forcing the EA to try to negotiate a break even and get out or better yet bail before a fill happens if price doesn’t turn back timely. The same undesirable effect happens when a government or large market maker spills a huge infusion in the market and leaves it there… The average price breaks out, shifts and [U]stays shifted[/U]. This will leave the MDP in a no-win condition most times, albeit I’ve seen the EA do a fair job of breaking even, suspecting they are possibly trying some bail and BE technique(s).
In closing, [U]these are interpretive results[/U] from running the system live. [B]Your mileage may vary[/B] depending on a few factors and we are NOT offering advise on trading. We offer suggestions you as a trader can investigate for yourself. We cannot give you facts and cannot see exactly inside the EA or beyond to pending version releases. Rather these are rationalized from experience as programmers and watching the behavior of the system over time. If anything, we hope that traders will be provoked to re-think and re-examine how they are applying the tool and hopefully you find some improved results from the information we’ve gleaned and perhaps you’ll offer some confirmation on what you learned in your efforts if they confirm what we’ve seen and pointed out here.
Having direct experience in brokerage, ECN design, Mt4Server application, and given we market high speed VPS systems for a living with fully integrated support, has afforded us several advantages shared here, without diminishing the trust or benefits to our own clients. We honestly don’t care who’s VPS a trader uses, if we can collectively find a way to improve the net gains traders are making with this tool. Hopefully BP members will make positive use of the information and we all collectively gain from that group result.
Be careful and above all, be patient and avoid loss as your first priority, always.
Engineered-Solutions
Update:
3 Trades on November 1st. Guest what?..Loses again. Now my deposit has a loss of 300$ and 280 of that was because of this EA.
Could anyone tell me if in a live account you had any profit today?
I changed my risk from 2 to 0.5, this EA is anything but smart to do the trades. Last week of using it.
Final thought: I’m still wondering if the settings that I’m using are the correct ones? I thank to Engineered-Solutions for the post, I tried to use it as a model, but the result was the same.
This kind of errors are getting common in the journal.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
Can you turn on diagnostics and then once the screen settles down, move the candles out of the way and snapshot the screen so we can read the diagnostics on screen?
I’ve had several good trades since yesterday.
It would help if you would also restart your mt4 to flush the logs then attach the Experts log and Journal log here, so we can see a full context of the details. [U][B]BE SURE[/B][/U][B] to remove any place your user license is listed in the experts or journal log first.[/B] But only the license data, all other data is important.
Next, please save your current settings in a .set file then copy / paste this to an attach also. [B][U]BE SURE[/U] to open this file also and remove your user license from the file first, so it cannot be seen.[/B]
Next, please confirm if you are trading from a local machine or a VPS and where is the geographic location, as in what country / state Mt4 is in and again the geographic location of your brokers Mt4Server, country / state. [B]DO NOT identify your actual IP address here and do not name the broker please.[/B]
Hi there, here are the logs and all the info.
I’m using a VPS (nextpointhost) it’s in Bulgary I think.
The broker is in Amsterdam/Netherlands
journal MT4.zip (20.1 KB)
Logs MDP.zip (14.9 KB)
Thanks again for your help.
Hi,
Good information and it is chuck full of exactly what was needed to know.
If you would, please blow up the upper left corner of the screen where the diagnostics are and re-post an image with better clarity. I want to be sure I’m reading it correctly.
Next, try to find out your broker’s server IP address…
Open a command prompt on your vps and type Ping nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn to your broker and reply with the average ping time you are seeing.
Last, please open task manager and make sure you have available RAM and your CPU is running around 2-4% when there’s no action happening, (assuming you’re not running a bunch of mt4’s on the vps).
Please respond with this data as you’re able.
Engineered-Solutions
Hi again, here are the images.
Unfortunately I don’t have access to task manager in the VPS ( I requested that already). I’m thinking that one of the problems is the latency. I received one email from the VPS provider explaining the current latency, and I don’t know why, taking trash about my broker.
I’ll post the answer later.
Thanks
Great. I’m tied up for a few hours but I will be back yet later tonight, EST. For now I would disengage the EA to avoid any further loss until we get to the bottom of it.
Engineered-Solutions
I’m starting to look the data over now, sorry for delay.
When you can reply, please confirm if you believe this broker to be ECN based or not.
Are you running any other EA’s or applications on the same VPS that might consume performance?
An ECN broker “[B]should[/B]” be passing the trade onto another neutral party, but that can also be a bank in kahoots with the broker, sharing the “other side” of the trade, “appearing” to be neutral. If that’s the case and they are taking the other side behind your back, they may play a lot of games on transaction delays and slippage to avoid losing.
VPS vendors know this and will many times defend their latency as most “Good” VPS companies pay a premium for fat fiber connections and secured peering relationships. Your 35 ms latency is a bit longer than would be desired, but definitely not a show stopper that would cause this much trouble and my guess is that’s a fairly low value for the distance I’m judging is between the VPS and the broker. I don’t “think” it’s the VPS.
Even if they’re a fair broker / bank, the fact the ECN has to exchange with the bank, means they have a polling and price quoting delay to confirm your order against the original quote, so an ECN will always have a longer transaction delay which is a serious issue for a fast spike scalper like this EA.
If they’re not an ECN broker, their transaction delays should be somewhere around 200 ms or less in most cases. That also would mean they DEFINITELY are able and likely to be taking the other side of the trade. The delays shown on the diagnostics are deceiving because you’re getting a lot of re-quotes and Invalid price/stop errors which are likely mixed into the delay factor the EA is posting, which is the nature of the beast, until we stop the errors from happening.
I’ll try to reply shortly to break down, the other things the logs are showing which are themselves creating much of the delays and failed orders you’re getting.
Understand, unless you return to Demo, (which will paint a somewhat optimistic result), you will face the chance of further loss to try things. With the volume turned down I would think the losses will be recovered quickly if we get it working, at least mine did.
Engineered-Solutions
I’ll prefer to stop using the EA until new settings were been applied. Not sure about the demo account, I used before, the results were fantastic, as soon as I switch to Live, BOOM!
The broker is ECN based, at least they advertise that in the type of account that I’m using (currenex), so I don’t know if there’s any funky business behind that’s it’s causing me this issues.
Thanks!
>>>—> :39: Did you confirm if you’re running other EAs or other tools that could eat performance?
It’s very important you idle EVERY source of performance loss for the time being and if you can get to your C: drive properties TURN OFF indexing. Who needs to kill time / performance indexing the drive on a VPS, while the machine should be making trades? For that matter, if you can get to services, turn of indexing and every other thing you can get to that’s not required.
Ok, understand I’m not giving you trading advise. I can only tell you here what I did to dig myself out of a similar issue or what I would do in your instance. “[I]The past performance of any trading system or methodology is not necessarily indicative of future results.[/I]”
A) I’m still on build 406 of the MT4, (Help > About), 409 is undocumented and some are complaining, but so far I’ve only seen a return to improved performance on 409, like prior to 406 gave. I never install MT4 in Program Files, always in Documents if you are on Server 2008, (read as bloated Vista). UAC interferes with Mt4.
A2) Turn on Market Watch window and Right Click, choose [B]Hide All[/B]. This will unsubscribe you from 92% of your symbol feed demands on TCP. [B]Why feed all those pairs you’re not using[/B]? You are spike hunting with MDP after all, so all those pairs will be jamming at the speed of light eating up CPU and TCP like a free lunch. Get Lean always on all MT4’s.
EA config…
B) I’m running Show Diagnostics, Show Debug, Verbose and Silent, [B][U]ALL[/U] set to false[/B].
C) Your log files are so congested, it’s hard to say exactly what is causing what to worsen, (more later on that).
D) For now, I would [B]back down to only a single order[/B], so you reduce congestion and bandwidth demand. There’s no sense trying to manage multiple losers if you cannot get a single order to work right.
E) I have used 0 NumOrders_Level and all 8 additional channels set, to keep the trading frequency elevated.
F) [B]Slippage[/B] I permit to go to 1.0 Pip fully, (hoping the EA tells the ECN 10 points (= 1 Pip), reducing requotes. You should confirm this with both the MDP website and with the broker, to see if either one multiplies by 10 to cover the 5th place decimal. To know for sure you [B]must[/B] ask MDP “Do you multiply the slip setting x 10 internally”? (Some EAs will, some won’t) And [B]then ask the broker[/B], "If I send you slippage of 1.0 exact, will that mean 1 Pip or 0.1 Pips. Some brokers require you to multiply times ten, others don’t. From both sources you should end up knowing if you need to use 10, 1, or 0.1 to end up at an exact 1 Pip value. [B]This could actually be why you’re re-quoting so often[/B]. I see about 2 per week.
G) I would put risk at 1.5%, I never risk more than 2% per trade or 10% total in market, same time.
H) [B]Max_Simultaneous_Orders[/B], I would run at just 1, so you keep down execution demands and traffic and thus keep the errors in the log file easily figured out.
I) [B]FIFO off[/B], as long as this broker confirms they are not doing FIFO. Not sure why they would, but ask, don’t assume anything at this point.
J) [B]Order Comment[/B]… “11-2–1” Today’s date, first setting change, (keep notes) and save the setting file with the same naming convention to keep them orderly.
K)[B] Pessimistic = false[/B], (this is for demo testing)
L) [B]Funky Exit True[/B], to get out sooner since I would be questioning delays.
M) [B][B]AutoApplyECN, [U][I]FALSE[/I][/U][/B][/B] This will force the broker to enter the main order first, then the SL/TP second. This way the distance of the SL and TP to the spread is always accurate and the main order has no challenge getting placed timely. [B][U]ONE MUST[/U][/B] confirm the message at the top of the screen ends up reading “[B]Use_Stop_Orders:[U]false[/U][/B]”, which is part of this. You will still get a stop-loss even if this sounds like you won’t.
N) [B]Min_Lots / Max_Lots[/B], again 0.1 and 0.2 should be a safe start, or even 0.1 and 0.5 if you’re feeling brave.
O) [B]Risk at 1.5%[/B] is likely safe, but the larger your account the larger it will use up the min/max lots setting. For now, you’re doing only 1 trade and limited by Max Lot size setting.
P) [B]Group_Orders true[/B]. Once you go to two trades at a time, this setting will try to combine them to one trade if it can and reduce the communication overhead required.
Q) [B]Trail_Resolution[/B], I’ve put back down to 0.5, (Half Pip) I would not set it any smaller.
R) [B]Use_Stop_Orders FALSE[/B] Sounds odd, but with AutoECN turned off you will force the EA to do the faster market entry and not place the stop with the main order, (more below on this).
S) [B]Hard_Stop_Trailing TRUE[/B] This setting in combination with the Use_Stop_Orders false, forces the EA to add an SL to the order and actually send it to the broker. If we cannot improve performance we may reverse this in a manner to do a stealth SL, but if possible you really do want the SL at the broker to defend against bad fills.
Again, I can’t say this is perfect on the broker you’re using or even on mine yet. I can only say it got me out of trouble and why. I really think it’s possible your broker has slow execution, whereas demo will always be instant fill.
By starting with a single order your log files will start to show much more intelligent results you can better diagnose and much simpler to send to the broker or MDP for further advise also. Then try to creep up the ladder carefully making changes once a week, or two at most. I still see between 2 and 5 losers a week but they are well controlled and very tolerable so far.
[B]NOW[/B], all that said and once changes are made and saved… I would CLOSE THE MT4 to flush logs, go to the folder where Mt4 is and take all the log files and tuck them into a new subfolder called “Old”. Re-start with a clean slate and [B]pay very close attention to what each trade actually does[/B]. I open up both EA and journal and I copy paste JUST that last trade/trades to a separate file and I print them out. I study it until I can make sense of what happened when, which likely caused what to happen next, and so on.
You can also ask the broker to send you the matching MTserver logs with “full” detail. If they refuse… Get a new broker, because he sure as 63LL doesn’t want you to see what the server did. I manage two Mt4 servers as part of my business and can tell you this much is for certain. It WILL show you if and where he has internal and external delays resulting in aged prices, slip and re-quotes.
If you post those new logs here, I’ll try to point out what I can see, once all the clutter is gone.
Good luck
Engineered-Solutions
Excellent thread.
I just got a vps, MDP, and FXOpen demo account. No trades, yet in 6 hours. Will follow this thread & report my results.
Does MDP close out all positions for the weekend?
