AutoCash
Robot User
Manual
Copyright Information
REPRODUCTION AND OR TRANSLATION OF ANY PART OF THIS WORK BY
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Author
: John Burroughs
Website : forex-autocash-robot.com
Publisher : Accura-FX Limited
Trading any financial market involves risk. The content of this e-book, its
various associated websites and all related correspondence are neither a
solicitation nor an offer to purchase of sell any financial instrument.
Although every attempt has been made to assure accuracy, we do not give
any express or implied warranty as to its accuracy. We do not accept any
liability for error or omission. Examples are provided for illustrative and
educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment
advice or strategy.
No representation is being made that any account or trader will or is likely
to achieve profits or losses similar to those discussed in this e-book. Past
performance is not indicative of future results.
By purchasing the software, subscribing to our mailing list or using the
website you will be deemed to have accepted these terms in full.
John Burroughs (author), Accura-FX Limited (publisher), their
representatives and associates do not and cannot give investment advice.
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The information provided in this e-book is not intended for distribution to,
or for 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 us 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.
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are copyright and may not be copied or reproduced.
Description
The Forex AutoCash and AutoCashWB Robots have been created to assist
you in trading the Forex AutoCash strategy which is based upon a
proprietary methodology.
In essence, the robot automatically monitors the market and identifies
periods of time where price should move in its favour these moments in
time are what I named Price Reversal Time Intervals PRTI for short.
The catalyst for this process is a specific price pattern which occurs on
most trading days and, once the robot has identified this pattern, it will
begin to look for trading opportunities.
Once a trade entry has been taken, the market will normally move in the
required direction quite quickly, allowing the trade to be closed a
profit grab but, occasionally, the market will move in the opposite
direction before the profit grab can take place. How long this situation
lasts can vary but the market has invariably retraced and allowed the
profit grab to take place. A small bonus is that trades which remain
open overnight attract interest, which is added to your account along
with the profit achieved when the trade is finally closed.
Installation
Important: Read the following very carefully before proceeding!
This manual covers installation of a revised version of the Forex AutoCash
and AutoCashWB Robots. The robots should be installed using the
Upgrade method explained below. The installation set is simply
comprised of the new Forex AutoCash Robot files and is intended for
upgrading old versions of the robots and/or installing the robots into
existing installations of MetaTrader provided by other brokers.
Upgrade Installation
Having either clicked the download link or pasted the link into the address
bar of your web browser, please save the file to your Windows Desktop so
that it is easy to locate.
This will open a new dialog box looking like this...
...or this...
Simply select your Windows Desktop as the destination to save the file
then click the Save button.
To specify the correct location for your system, you basically have two
choices:
a) type the new location in the Destination folder field, or
b) click the Browse button to locate somewhere suitable
If you decide to browse to locate the correct folder then a window similar
to the following will appear:
If, on the other hand, you wish to extract the robot files elsewhere, you
can use the Make New Folder option and a new folder will be created
which you can optionally rename before selecting it.
If you wish to keep a set of the upgrade files easily to hand then you can
simply select Desktop and click the OK button.
Once you have either located or created the Destination folder, select the
folder by left-clicking it in the folder list, then click the OK button and the
Destination folder field will be updated.
Alternatively, click the Cancel button to abandon your choice.
If everything is ready then click the Install button the process is very
fast. If you selected Desktop as the destination then you will find a newly
created folder called experts containing the ForexAutoCash.ex4 and the
ForexAutoCashWB.ex4 files.
If you chose the default installation folder then you will need to browse to
the Program Files folder which is under:
My Computer Local Disk (C:) for Windows XP, and
Desktop Computer ???? (C:) (where ???? is the drive name) on
Windows Vista
The next thing to do is expand out the Program Files folder by clicking
the small [+] (Windows XP), or small arrow (Windows Vista) to the left of
it...
Now, scroll through the list of folders to locate the installation folder for
MetaTrader and expand that too, followed by the experts folder:
When the properties dialog window opens, it will hopefully look similar to
the following example:
...then click the Unblock button followed by the Apply and OK buttons.
There is a far greater chance that the AutoCash.dll file has been flagged as
a potential security threat due to the type of file that it is so please do not
overlook this stage.
If the file has been blocked then the expert advisor will be prevented from
accessing it and this can result in the expert simply freezing with the
Waiting for tick data... message.
Once the files have been checked and unblocked as necessary, the system
should be ready to go so just close the file browser and move to the next
step in the process Getting Started.
VERY IMPORTANT: Under NO circumstances should you rename the
DLL file this will prevent the expert advisor from functioning.
Note: Always ensure that you have the latest version of the expert advisor
installed the version number is shown in the top-left of the chart you.
Getting Started
When you launch MT4, you will see the standard interface looking
something like this:
If this is the first time you have used the software then a registration
window will appear:
Fill in your details and pay special attention to the entries circled in red.
As most trading accounts are denominated in US$, it makes sense to
select a US$ demo account as the account type.
It is also sensible to keep leverage reasonably low 1:100 is a good
compromise.
Finally, for demo accounts with ForexMeta and FXDD, use a $10,000
deposit and for Varengold, use $20,000. This is because their demo
accounts default to a larger minimum order sizes than some other brokers
(0.1 for ForexMeta & FXDD and 0.2 for Varengold, compared to 0.01 with
other brokers) and the larger deposit makes it possible to trade without
over-leveraging.
After clicking the Next button, the window will change and list the
available servers for the broker concerned...
If this is the first time that you have used the installed copy of MetaTrader
then there is a very good chance that the LiveUpdate window will appear:
Select the Expert Advisors tab and ensure that the highlighted options
are set exactly as shown below:
You may also wish to uncheck Disable experts when the account has been
changed and Disable experts when the profile has been changed options
though this is more of a convenience rather than a requirement.
Click OK to continue.
Next, click the small [+] to the left of Expert Advisors in the Navigator
pane.
This will expand out the Expert Advisors section to display the available
experts (robots):
If everything is correct then you should be able to see that the list
contains our ForexAutoCash robot along with any other expert advisors
that are provided with MetaTrader 4.
Please note that the ForexAutoCash icon is grey whilst other icons in the
list are colored this is perfectly normal.
A colored icon means that you can change and adapt the behaviour of the
expert i.e. the instructions that tell the expert how to trade, a grey icon
means that you cannot.
It is very important that all three of the settings circled in red match the
image above or the expert advisor will not be able to function.
Now, on to the Inputs tab:
As you can see, the Inputs tab lists a number of adjustable settings which
are explained on the next page. To change the value of any setting,
double left-click in the Value column for the setting you wish to edit.
For example, to change the RiskLevel setting, simply activate the
property editor by double-clicking the value area (the right portion of the
parameter line) as shown below and the property editor will activate.
Once the new settings are entered, click the OK button to restart the
expert advisor.
Inputs An Explanation
StealthMode:
Most systems (and manuals traders) open orders with set Stop Loss (SL)
and Take Profit (TP) levels set. Some brokerages and I stress the word
some - are rather unscrupulous and, if they can see where your SL is
(and it is within striking distance) they will sometimes manipulate prices
so that your Stop Loss is hit. By the same token, if they know where your
TP is, they can drive price away from it.
The idea behind StealthMode is that the expert advisor hides the TP level
from the broker, simply issuing an order to close the trade when a profitgrab is warranted.
By default, this setting is enabled (true) but you can disable the feature by
changing the setting to false.
RiskLevel:
Many people starting out in trading have difficulty with the principles of
Money and Risk Management. In an effort to simplify this element of
trading, the expert advisor can calculate everything for you and increase
the size of your trades as profits build up all the while respecting your
tolerance for risk.
Let us look at an example:
Assume that you have a $3,000 micro trading account - that means that
the minimum lot size is 0.01 and each pip (the minimum price move) is
worth $0.10. Let us also assume that you are prepared to risk 10% of
your account on each trade.
$3,000 x 10% = $300 risk capital
Now, using the default Stop Loss distance of 650 pips, we get the
following:
< 0 result in fixed lots where you are responsible for your own risk
calculations
StopLoss:
This specifies the maximum distance (in pips) that the market can move
against you before the trade should be closed at a loss.
You are free to adjust this value either higher or lower however, the
default value (650) produces optimal results.
Important: If your broker offers Fractional Pricing i.e. prices run to 5
decimal places, do not adjust the Stop Loss the expert advisor will
adjust for the extra decimal place internally.
MaximumLots:
This specifies the maximum number of lots that will be traded when using
scaled lots. With the default value (zero), the expert advisor will restrict
the maximum lot size to whatever the broker specifies (usually 100.00
lots). Obviously, reaching 100 lot trades is not going to happen overnight
but trade sizes can quite quickly reach the 1 10 lot size range.
You may decide that you are content to restrict trading to a maximum of 5
lots, in which case, set the MaximumLots value to 5.
Slippage:
When an order is placed into the market, it is not always possible to open
or close that order at exactly the price requested. The Slippage value
tells the brokerage how far the price can be from the requested price and
still be acceptable.
For instance, if the last price for EUR/USD was 1.4210 and the expert
advisor requests a long (buy) order at the same price, the brokerage will
attempt to fill that order. When they do, the available price might be
1.4213 with a Slippage value of 5, the brokerage would know that the
available price was acceptable and you would be in the market. If,
however, the available price was 1.4216, the brokerage would not open
the position.
As with the StopLoss, you are free to adjust this value either higher or
lower however, the default value (5) works well with most brokers.
CloseDelay:
Some brokers insist that a trade remains open for a minimum period of
time trades opened and closed within this time limit are considered
scalping and may not be permitted. This parameter allows you to
adhere to your brokers terms by ensuring that trades are held open for
the minimum period of time specified by your broker.
Most brokers simply require trades to be open for a short period of time
(i.e. around 1 minute) whereas other brokers stipulate up to 10 minutes.
Whatever period your broker requires can be specified (in seconds) i.e. if
your broker requires trades to remain open for at least 2 minutes then you
would set CloseDelay to 120.
GMTOffset:
This parameter is only used during back-testing in the Strategy Tester. In
order to achieve realistic results, it is important that the correct value is
used. Obtaining the correct value is covered later under Strategy Testing.
Reference:
This parameter is used by expert advisors to identify which open orders
they should be controlling.You can change this value to almost anything
you wish but do not change it while a trade is open or the expert will stop
managing the trade (and may open an additional trade).
AuthentiCode:
Please enter your purchase receipt number into this field. Failure to do so
will cause the expert advisor to disable itself. Do Not Overlook This
Point.
As you paid via ClickBank (even if you used PayPal as your funding option)
then you need to enter the ClickBank receipt code from their purchase
confirmation e-mail.
Without the correct code, the expert advisor will be unable to
authenticate with our server and will simply not function.
You should only need to do this once if the code has been entered and
accepted then it will be remembered each time you add the expert advisor
to a new chart.
Important: Authentication with our server will not occur if the markets
are closed i.e. at weekends.
Okay... everything has been set up, all of the parameters have been set
and there is now nothing left to do but click the OK button to start the
expert advisor trading!
If all is well then you should see a smiley face in the top-right corner of
the chart (if not, either the Allow live trading setting is unchecked and a
frowning face will be showing or Expert Advisors have been disabled and
an X will be displayed along with an on-chart message)...
As you can see, there are three times displayed two with offsets.
Working from right to left, they represent:
GMT:
Server:
This is the chart time and varies between brokerages so, the
offset (GMT+?) displayed will vary dependent upon which
broker supplied your copy of MetaTrader
Local:
- the message will disappear and the expert advisor will begin trading.
Finally, the only other standard message that you should see is this:
Currently over-leveraged due to minimum trade size restrictions!
Optimal order size: x.xx
Actual order size: x.xx
This message occurs due to a combination of low RiskLevel setting
combined with high minimum lot size and StopLoss distance.
For example: Assume that you have a $1,000 micro trading account that means that the minimum lot size is 0.01 and each pip (the minimum
price move) is worth $0.10. Let us also assume that you are prepared to
risk 5% of your account on each trade.
$1,000 x 5% = $50 risk capital
Now, using the default Stop Loss distance of 650 pips, we get the
following:
$50.00 / 650 = $0.07 maximum risk per pip
Since the minimum lot size for micro account is 0.01 and a pip is worth
$0.10, the expert advisor would want to open a trade of 0.007 lots.
This, however, is smaller than the minimum lot size permitted.
Therefore, your maximum actual risk would be:
1 * $0.10 pip value * 650 pip Stop Loss distance = $65
Based on this calculation, the expert advisor concludes that you are
trading in an over-leveraged fashion meaning that the requested
RiskLevel cannot be maintained.
This is a purely informational message and will not prevent trades from
being taken.
Stopping Trading
There are four ways to stop the Forex AutoCash Robot from trading:
1) Click the green Expert Advisors button in the toolbar please be
aware that this will also stop any other expert advisors that you may
be running.
3) Click the EUR/USD chart then press the F7 key to open the
properties dialog window. You can also right-click the smiley face in
the top-right of the chart window and from the context menu select
Expert Advisors => Properties. Once the properties dialog
window is open, switch to the Common tab and un-check the
Allow live trading option before clicking the OK button.
4) Last, but not least, simply close the chart by clicking the red X
button in the top-right of the chart window.
Strategy Testing
If you intend to perform strategy testing then you will need data to test
against. When installed, MetaTrader contains no historical data at all so it
must be downloaded.
From the MetaTrader menu, click the Tools option, then select History
Center (alternatively, simply press the F2 key) and the following window
will appear:
The layout of the left-hand panel varies between brokers but the operation
is the same.
Start by clicking the small [x] to the left of Forex to open out the list of
available currency pairs.
Next, locate the EUR/USD entry and double left-click it to expand out the
data timeframes.
Now double left-click on the 1 minute (M1) tag which loads a few
recent data records.
The last thing to do is click the Download button which will trigger the
download warning window...
Click the OK button to begin downloading the process can take several
minutes so be patient.
One annoying issue with the data that can be downloaded is that it
includes a number of errors. It is certainly possible to purchase excellent
quality data from commercial data providers but, sadly, the cost is
prohibitive usually in excess of $200 per currency pair and only for a
limited historical period (approximately 2 years).
Fortunately, it is possible to repair the most glaring errors in the free
data provided by MetaQuotes.
As soon as the download has completed, click the Download button
again. The download warning window will appear again and, a few
seconds after clicking the OK button, a new window will open, explaining
that no new data is available and offering you the option of recalculating
all timeframes.
Choose Yes.
After a brief period, the recalculation will be complete and your data will
be of significantly better quality.
If you find that strategy test reports mention a number of Mismatched
data records then you may wish to repeat this process one or more times.
Click the Close button to close the History Center window.
You will need the Server time offset displayed on the chart when the
Forex AutoCash Robot is running. As you can see, in this case, the
required value is +3.
There are well over 100 brokerages offering MetaTrader so it I cannot list
them all, however, here are the values for a few well known brokerages:
ForexMeta
+3
FXDD
+3
Alpari
+2
IBFX
+0
...to display the Strategy Tester panel at the bottom of the MetaTrader
window.
Click here to select the expert advisor...
...here to select the currency...
...and here to select the 1-hr (H1) timeframe
Once everything has been set, the Strategy Tester panel should look like
this:
The last task is to click the Expert Properties button which opens a
dialog window similar to the usual properties dialog covered earlier:
For the purposes of this test, you can select a $10,000 initial deposit, then
click the Inputs tab.
The Inputs tab lists the same parameters as the normal properties
window covered earlier but has some additional columns.
As this is the first time running a test with the Forex AutoCash Robot,
some values will require changing (only update the Value column):
RiskLevel:
GMTOffset:
AuthentiCode:
If any MetaTrader or parameter settings are incorrect then you will see the
relevant message (covered earlier in this manual) displayed on the chart.
If a warning message does appear, simply click the Stop button (which
was the Start button earlier), resolve the issue then click the Start button
again.
Assuming that there are no warnings to resolve, you will notice that the
time and price information displayed in the top-left of the chart window is
slightly different to the details displayed on a live chart...
During testing, you may switch between the various tabs at the bottom of
the Strategy Tester window. The most interesting will be the Results tab
...which shows each trade, its profit (or loss) and a running balance, and
the Graph tab which shows the trading results in graphical format:
I am sure that you are now shocked to see a losing trade from the Forex
AutoCash Robot but... all is not as it seems!
If you look at the comment just to the left in the results list...
...you will notice the phrase close at stop. That does not mean what I
am sure you assume it does! As you can see in the following screen shot,
the Stop Loss did not get hit at all.
The order was closed at 1.3770 yet the Stop Loss was at 1.3635 135
pips away! What actually happened is that the Strategy Tester reached
the end of the test period and still had that order open, so it was simply
closed.
That is an aspect of strategy testing that you always need to be mindful of.
The Strategy Tester can only do the best it can and sometimes that can
result in misleading information if you are not aware of how things work.
Once the test has concluded, you will want to review the Report tab
which provides a summary of the test results.
As mentioned before, one thing to watch for are Mismatched chart errors
which are shown in the top left of the report if the number is more than
2 or 3 then you should try cleaning the data again.
8) Now click on the tab labeled Data Execution Prevention in the top
right-hand corner:
9) After clicking it, the tab will become active and you will see the
following in the window:
10) If your system is set to option #2, like above, Turn on DEP for all
programs and services except those I select, that is very likely to be the
cause of MT4 crashing so please select the top option instead:
The red arrow shows the option that SHOULD BE SELECTED in order to
avoid MetaTrader crashing on Windows Vista systems. Once again, if the
bottom option is selected, please select the top option indicated by the red
arrow.
11) After selecting the correct option, click the Apply button. You will be
asked if you want to restart your computer. Click the Yes button. If it does
not restart automatically then restart it manually.
Knowledge Base