Purely Mechanical Trading System and Exiting Based on SMA Crossover

Two questions based on the sample system shown in the school of pipsology (shown here):

  1. Is it possible to exit the trade automatically without developing a expert advisor? Should a complete beginner use an EA for something like this? If I follow a system like this, my main concern is that I’ll be away from the computer and won’t close the trade when I should.

  2. Is it necessary to develop a purely mechanical system? My guess is no, but I’m not sure what a trading system looks like that isn’t purely mechanical. Is a more subjective system something I should explore only after I get some experience without emotions/subjective thought involved?

yes - for a start, EAs are limited to Metatrader, which is a dreadful platform for a beginner to be using

no - complete beginners should never be using any kind of automation at all, and in any case shouldn’t be using Metatrader and therefore not using EAs anyway

if you have a trade open when you’re away from the computer, it will close according to the target and stop loss you previously entered with the trade

that applies to both manual and automated trading

not necessary, but maybe advisable for a complete beginner, as long as you know how to backtest it reliably before trading it with real money, and how to forward test it on a demo account for long enough, too

they tend to be discretionary, and therefore depend on some understanding of price action, which a complete beginner can’t normally have, more or less by definition

[quote=“flamingoproxy, post:2, topic:157947, full:true”]…EAs are limited to Metatrader, which is a dreadful platform for a beginner to be using
[/quote]

Why is Metatrader dreadful? Because the software is too complicated for a beginner?