Top 3 Expert Advisor Design Tips

Almost nobody turns their first EA into a winning strategy. Like any new task, you’re more than likely going to fumble the first few attempts. It takes time and experience to anticipate design mistakes that may lead to trading losses.

I cannot promise that following this guide will turn your expert advisor into a winning strategy. But, what I can promise is that you’ll be less likely to lose if you following these three simple tips.

Time of Day

The forex market has a personality. Each currency pair also acts somewhat differently from all the others.

We’ve all seen the warnings to never trade the Asian session, but sometimes it makes sense. Australia shares that time zone. It’s one of the most liquid times of day for AUD/JPY.

You shouldn’t avoid sessions just because they are generally bad. On the other hand, you shouldn’t be trading all time sessions either.

Adding time restrictions is one of the simplest and easiest ways to only trade when it makes sense.

Choose the right currency

A strategy is more likely to outperform on one currency over another. So, it makes sense to focus your limited trading capital where it stands the best chance of suceeding.

EAs fall into one of of two categories: range trading or trend trading. Forex pairs fall into the same categories, too. Make sure thee currency pair that you’re trading matches the expert advisor’s style.

The GBP/JPY is among the most notorious trending pairs. The EUR/GBP is a total snoozefest. Trying to trade a trending EA on the EUR/GBP is a surefire loser.

Stop trading so much

Everyone wants a scalper EA. Unless you have a compelling reason to scalp, it’s not a good idea. Trading costs a lot of money.

Consider a strategy that trades 1 standard lot once per weekday. That’s about $20 per trade in spread costs on the EURUSD for most brokers. Multiply that by 260 (the number of trading days per year) and you come out with an annual cost of $5,200. That is a steep hill to overcome.

It makes a lot more sense to kick back and let your expert advisor do what it needs to do.

Conclusion

Trading is hard. Making an EA that earns a profit over the long run is even harder.

My advice is to focus on doing the big things right and worry about the little things later. It may seem obvious, but forcing a trend trading method onto a range bound pair is something many people try. As my old boss loved saying, “Remember the 40,000 foot perspective.”

You have to fit the expert advisor into the general environment. Only once that’s done will you be able to start tweaking the finer details.

Author: Shaun Overton

Shaun Overton writes a forex blog on trading with expert advisors for his company OneStepRemoved.com. The company specializes in building automated trading strategies with a particular emphasis on MetaTrader.