EAs not behaving as expected?

[SteveM2030]

Good morning Petko, could you help me with a query please? I am experimenting with a 1R:1R strategy, and have generated a number of EAs with 18 pip SL and 18 pip TP (I selected “Do not Exit”, when creating the EAs)  that have win rates in excess of 70%.

 

However when i have loaded them into my MT4 account, they do not seem to be setting the SL and TPs correctly. I have a raw account with IC markets. I have a feeling the EA behaves differently over night but I am not sure. I have attached screenshots so you can see what i mean – the SL and TP values should be an equal 18 pip distance away from the open price,  but TP is 3 pips away and SL is 35 pips away.

 

Ive loaded the EA back into Forex Studio and checked the journal with my broker and all the trades / SLs / TPs there seem to be placed and concluded correctly.

 

Any advice you can offer would be much appreciated. thanks

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hey Steve,

Glad to hear from you. There is no problem with the EA, but the issue comes from your broker, and I will tell you why.

If you look at the SL and the TP, they are exactly where they should be. The TP – SL = 36pips.

The issue is your entry price. With the first trade, it should be at 1.09632. This is where the EA wanted to open the trade, but your broker executed the trade at a different price and later! It was executed at 00:10:28 at not at 00:10:00 (which is 28 seconds later). Remember, the EAs work on the opening of the bar.

Now, most of the brokers make a break at midnight, and since you are trading on M5, it might happen that the broker does not offer quotes at that time.

A solution could be to pause the EAs 1 hour before and after midnight. You can do that from the working hours in EA Studio settings and export the EAs again to generate new ones with these settings.

If this happens during normal trading hours, then you better look for a different broker.

 

[SteveM2030]

Thanks Petko, this makes sense. It looks like the spreads widen significantly at this time? When the NY session closes? I have done some further analysis and I am only getting this problem between 10pm and 11pm GMT, at all other times the same EA is setting up the trade correctly, and the open price is on bar open and 18 pips away from SL and TP.

This is a real shame, as the best 1R:1R strategies i have developed seem to have the majority of their trades open in this hour. Is there anyway around this? Could I adjust the EA SL / TP in some way to account for the wider spread in this hour? I thought a fixed spread broker might be the answer, but I haven’t been able to find one that offers fixed spreads 24 hours a day, do you know of any?

Thanks in advance for your help

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hey Steve,

The solution is to create the EAs again via EA Studio but use the Trading session hours.

Set them to Trade from 01:00 to 23:00. So they will not open trades in these hours when the broker does the break.

[SteveM2030]

Ok thanks Petko, I will do that

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