FTMO Robot – Settings and Inputs

[Dion Burroughs]

I have run the strategy tester with the FTMO-Robot on at least 4 of the 7 pairs on an FTMO $50,000 demo account, and I either get $20 – $118 negative profit or $500 – $689 positive profit at the end of the test. I have changed the lot size lower from 1.0 to 0.8 and still bad results.  The relative drawdown is always around 2% to 3% but never reaching anywhere near the 10% profit target. Please advise.

 

[Alan Northam]

It looks like overall the FTMO robots are showing profit from how I read your comments. I recommend testing the robots with an FTMO Demo account over at least one month. Since the FTMO Demo account only last for 14 days you would have to do it twice. After one month review the results. I have been doing this since the first of August for the FTMO EURUSD EA version 4.1. You can review my results in the forum.

[Petko Aleksandrov]

The problem is that most people depend 100% on the MetaTrader backtester, which is not perfect, actually, it is far from being perfect.

Like Alan said, the best is to test the EAs on Demo, which is a realistic forward testing.

Also, the EAs created with FSB Pro are advanced for the MetaTrader backtester, and the results are often not realistic. So a Demo test it the best thing to be done.

[martin garstang]

Do you have to change the stop losses and take profits ? Or leave them as they are?

[Alan Northam]

The only change you need to make is to adjust the lot size based upon your account size to reduce risk!  The following recommendations limit risk to 1%.  You can adjust the recommended based upon your tolerance to risk.

200K Account: Amount for new position = 6.0 / Maximum position amount = 6.0
100K Account: Amount for new position = 3.0 / Maximum position amount = 3.0
50K Account: Amount for new position = 1.5 / Maximum position amount = 1.5
25K Account: Amount for new position = 0.75 / Maximum position amount = 0.75
10K Account: Amount for new position = 0.30 / Maximum position amount = 0.30

[Cristian Nembrini]

Hi, I recently purchased these 7 EA for FTMO but I don’t understand how I should set the “Amount to close on reduction” value.
If I have a $200k account, the 1% risk per trade based on the SL is 6.13 lots. I understood the meaning of the first three settings but I don’t understand the 4th. Can you help me? Thank you

[Alan Northam]

Here is how it works:  Lets say you are in a long position with a lot size of 6.13 lots.  Now you get signal to go short.  What will happen is your long position of 6.13 lots will be reduced by 6.13 lots.  This then would mean that your long position lot size is now equal to zero and your long position would be closed.  Now lets take another case.  Let’s say you have set the reduction lot size to 1.0.  Now when you get a signal to go short your long position would be reduced to 5.13 lots and you would still be in a long position instead of a short position because you still have a long position with a lot size of 5.13.  Now lets take another case.  Let’s say you have se the reduction lot size to 7.13 lots.  Now when you get a signal to go short your long long position of 6.13 lots would be reduced by 7.13 lots.  Since your long position only has 6.13 lots this would mean that your position will be changed to a short position with 1.0 lots.

[Cristian Nembrini]

THANKS VERY MUCH FOR THE EXPLANATION. YOU HAVE BEEN VERY HELPFUL TO ME!

[Sipho Bhiya]

 

[Diego Del Castillo]

Hi, i am planning to buy this robot but its not clear if it can be used for MT5! can it?

[Alan Northam]

Yes!  You will receive two EAs, one for MT4 and one for MT5.

[Cristian Nembrini]

Hi everyone! I would like to ask the community if on days with high volatility impact news it is better to stop the FTMO EA. Do any of you use them during news stories like no farms, CPI, etc? thank you

[Alan Northam]

It’s a personal choice.  I don’t stop trading during NFP or any other news event.  Sometimes it hurts my trading somewhat and sometimes it helps my trading.  It all averages out in the long run.  In my opinion, the purpose of auto-trading is to let the EAs do the trading.

You can follow my demo trading of FTMO.  The demo accounts only last for 14 days and then I have to restart them.  So I just combine all the results of all the 14 day periods to see how the FTMO is doing over the longer term.

FTMO DEMO

[Ethan Allen]

I thought these EAs had a trailing stop and magic number parameters, v 4.2.

Does v4,2 have Trailing Stop and Magic Number parameters?

Attached is a screen shot of a compiled GBPAUD EA, note the lack of Trailing Stop and Magic Number.

Please advise.

[Alan Northam]

Hi Ellen,

Petko doesn’t normally use trailing stops so the FTMO EAs do not use them.  He had tested trailing stops over a long period of time and did not see any benefit from using them.  Petko prefers to use a fixed Stop Loss and a fixed Take Profit.  In the FTMO EAs he has set the Stop Loss to 80 pips and the Take Profit to 45 pips.

I have shown the magic number in the red rectangle in the image below.  You will find it in the Experts Settings section:

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Yes, Alan answered precisely about the Trailing Stop Loss.

Regarding the Magic Number, it is available on MT4 but not on MT5.

Cheers,

[Alashea Raa]

Hello,

I have a question about the new entry time feature in v3. For what time zone are the default settings based? I place my trade entries based on New York time.

[Alan Northam]

Hi Alashea,

It is 1 hour after the market opens for the day.  It is 4PM here in Texas and in NY it should be 6PM I think.

Kind Regards,
Alan

[kamil]

Hello Petko!!!! I want to buy these FTMO robots from you. I am a licensed user of FSB Pro. And I have a question. Have these robots passed the MONTE CARLO test!!?? Yes or no. I just have similar robots and they do not pass the MONTE CARLO test!!! Please answer

[dreamtreeorigins]

Hi,

I keep getting this msg in the journal. Can you tell me how to solve?

2023.10.18 10:16:09.121 ‘83809579’: order buy 1.00 EURUSD opening at market sl: 1.05251 tp: 1.06151 failed [Trade is disabled]

Spread level is set at 30.

M1 – Robot Smiley is also on, but not able to figure out the issue.

 

[Alan Northam]

This error message usually occurs when there is an issue with your broker.
What is your account size?
Try to place a small trade manually, such as 0.01 lots, to see if your broker will accept this trade.  You can then close the trade.
If you can place a small manual trade then try a small lot size with the EA.
If you still cannot place a trade contact your broker on why you are not able to place a trade.

Alan,

[Aleksander Kahriman]

Hello,

I got this message and I do not know what that mean?

 

2023.10.20 15:35:26.843 GBPCAD M1 FTMO Filter M30 (7) (AUDUSD,M1) Error with OrderCheck: Trade disabled

 

Please help,

Regards,

Aleksander

[Alan Northam]

This means that you cannot place any orders, including market orders and pending orders. If this is the reason why you are receiving the trade is disabled error message in MT4, the solution to this problem is simple. Just wait for the market to open and try to execute your trade again.

Alan,

[Aleksander Kahriman]

Thank you for your answer.

I got this message on MT5 and I can open order manually but not with EA

Regards,

Aleksander

[Alan Northam]

Do you get the same error message for all EAs?

[Aleksander Kahriman]

I can’t say because I don’t use all, just three if them. They don’t open trade today.

[Alan Northam]

Since GBPCAD is getting an Error message saying trade is disabled this normally occurs when the broker will not allow trades to be taken.  Since you can manually open trades it leads me to believe your broker does not allow auto-trading.  Further since the other two EAs are also not taking trades makes me wonder if they too are getting the trading disabled message.  However, if the other two EAs has not been active long enough it could be that the EAs have not yet tried to take a trade.  This then makes me wonder if when these two EAs do try to take a trade will they then have their trades disabled by your broker.  Right now it is my opinion your broker could be blocking auto trading.  I recommend you contact your broker to verify if they allow trading with Expert Advisors.

Alan,

[Gary Wenger]

Is there a way to remove all references to FTMO in the EA, so that the FTMO never comes up when placing trades or leaving any journal entries??? There are many Prop Firms that look for this information when they review a successful challenge. Some Prop Firms will even disqualify the challenge and force you to start over again.

[Alan Northam]

Rename the EA.

[Dylan Mueller]

Hi guys i am confused about what level i should be keeping spread protection at, If i want to avoid news but allow my bots to reverse trades whenever needed is there a good level for ftmo servers?

[Petko Aleksandrov]

Hey Dylan,

I keep it at the default value. Because if you increase it a lot, you will avoid a lot of the entries when there is no news.

Cheers,

[Dylan Mueller]

Thank you for your reply Petko, however i am still a little confused. The way i currently understand is if i have spread protection set to default at 30 points then the bot will not open or reverse trades if the spread is greater then 3 pips? Is that correct? Because the AUDNZD pair very rarely has a spread that low for me.

[Alan Northam]

Hi Dylan,

With respect to AUDNZD or any other asset you should adjust the spread protection appropriately.  The idea is to keep an asset from trading when the spread is too wide.  Wide spreads reduces potential profit and increases potential loss!

Alan,

[Ahmad Ahmad]

Hello I just added 3 robots on 3 different pairs and kept the algo on the whole day and it did not take any trades I dont know what is the problem? can someone helpme

[vinnysvinyl]

*** TURNING OFF FOR NEWS ***

I just purchased V.5 of the FTMO EA> Looking forward to getting going. I heard someone on YouTube say that Petko manages the EA’s to avoid red news events. Is that right? If so, could you please give some guidance on specifics?

• Does he close open trades before RED FOLDER news relevant to currency? e.g. USD
• How much time either side of the red news does he allow? 60 mins? 90 mins?
• Does he turn them all off for NFP? For the whole day?

Thank you!

[Dylan Mueller]

Hey guys what is the correct way to increase lot size without messing with the reversing system in the bots? can i just increase lot size for a trade and a reversal and the bot will only trade the max size allocated size that is set? or is it best to open a new chart and place the bot on there with the increased size?

[Alan Northam]

Hi Dylan,

If you want to increase new position size then you will need to increase max position size so that it is equal to the new position size.

Alan,

[robert finn]

I went through the passing  the FTMO course and have the FTMO robot installed and ready to go.  I just have 1 question.  Do I need to adjust the time settings for when it runs with my brokers time on MT4?  If so, how?   Thanks

[Alan Northam]

Hi Robert,

No you do not need to adjust the time frame of the robot.  As long as there is a smiley face in the upper right corner of the chart you are good to go!

Alan,

[robert finn]

Thank you Alan, much appreciated!

[Eric Culla]

Hi! Is there a live FTMO Robot running in MyFxBook that we can check which are the top performing pairs in the current market condition?

[Alan Northam]

Hi Eric,

Which version of the FTMO robots are you wanting to know which robots are top performing?

Alan,

[Alan Northam]

Hi Eric,

Which version of the FTMO robots are you wanting to know which robots are top performing?

Alan,

[Eric Culla]

Hi Alan,

I’m talking about the FTMO robot, the one that Petko used to pass the FTMO challenge.

Thanks,

Eric.

[Alan Northam]

[Eric Culla]

Hi Alan,

Thanks for sharing, how long do we need to try it on demo before using it on live/funded account? Also, my prop firm doesn’t have a demo acct, what can you suggest?

[Alan Northam]

Hi Eric,

The charts I shared are the backtest over the last 6 months using FTMO historical data.  I like to backtest for at least 1 month before moving to a live account.  However, you can use the amount of backtesting time that works best for you.  It is my opinion that the longer you backtest the more accurate the backtest but using too long a backtest period can cause the market conditions to change while you are backtesting.  This is why I choose 1 month for my backtesting.

It is my opinion that the best way to backtest is to use the same prop firm as you are going to use in live trading so the historical data is the same.  Using other brokers for backtesting will give different results because their spreads will be different and they may or may not charge commissions and the commissions could be different.  So what I do is to use the lowest cost live prop firm account to do my demo testing and I use the smallest lot size for the robots (0.01 lots) I am testing so not to have much drawdown.

Alan,

 

[Eric Culla]

Hi Alan,

Very nice idea, thanks for sharing!

Do you know how many acct I can use if I purchase the “FTMO ROBOT” ?

Eric

[Alan Northam]

Hi Eric,

As many as you like :o)

Alan,

[Eric Culla]

Hi Alan,

Thanks for the info. 🙂

Eric

[Wouter van Wyk]

Hi there,

 

Can I use an account with a 1:1000 leverage?

Thank you

 

[kcy001]

Hi could admin please check if my settings where wrong or something. I’ve followed the PDF instructions saying turn on AutoTrading first then only apply the EAs. At first default settings are taking trades and after adding few pips to TP SL, MA & Deviation the bot stops taking trades for a week. there’s no trade.

 

[0xBitpool]

I don’t see anything wrong here. Maybe it comes from the broker? Who is it?

[kcy001]

NovaFunding

broker

ForeignExchangeClearingHouse-Live

 

previously with default settings bots was taking trades until I made these tweaks into it. Then it stops

[0xBitpool]

Do you have logs / errors in the info tab? Is trading allowed by the broker? (If you hover a pair in the market watch, you should see something like “trading: full”)

How is the spread? Compare that to your minimum spread setting.

Does the prop firm allow EAs?

 

just a few leads

[kcy001]

Journals section, all seems alright no error logs or anything weird.
the prop allows EA, previously with default settings it taking trades on the same account.
somehow once value added abit according to the pdf to make unique trades it didn’t take trades since then.

[kcy001]

The journal logs all seems ok, no errors or loading failed indicated. The prop allows EA previously the bot was taking trades in default settings. Since changing to unique settings according to the pdf the bot stops trading for a week or so. Humm

[Alan Northam]

Hi kcy001,

The setting in the image you show above are correct for an account of $50K or greater. I think I understand with these settings your account is able to take trades. However, once you change these default parameters your account stops trading. Can you show me a screenshot of the EA properties box after you change the default settings so I can see what you are doing? Also what is the size of your account in dollars? Also are you using the FTMO demo account?

Alan,

[Author]

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