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ATR Trailer Expert Advisor

ATR Trailer Forex expert advisor is a simple EA that trades without any particular entry rules but rather relies on the trailing stop mechanism to capture huge market movements. The trailing stop is based on the ATR (Average True Range) indicator. The direction of its initial position is controlled via the input parameter; each next direction is opposite to the previous one. When the trailing stop is hit, the position is closed automatically and a new one is opened. With the default ATR settings (period = 24 and multiplier = 3) and the optimal timeframe (H1), the trailing stop is set to cover up 99.73% of the daily fluctuation, considering the normal distribution of the price change (which, of course, isn't always so in real market).

Warning! The latest backtest of this expert advisor on the period from 2013-01-01 through 2022-04-14 has shown a complete account wipeout. Do not run this EA on a live account! Use it for educational purpose only. The backtest results presented below are outdated.

The forward-test of the ATR Trailer MetaTrader expert advisor on the 8-month period showed ~15.3% profit with ~5.8% maximum drawdown. The used position's volume was set to 0.1 standard lots. The EA made 200 trades, of which 39.50% were profitable. The default settings were used in this forward demo test on EUR/USD H1 chart.


MiniFAQ

What are the stop-loss and take-profit used by this EA?

This EA doesn't use any fixed stop-loss or take-profit levels, instead, it utilizes trailing stop both for limiting the losses and for profit taking.

How often does it trade?

On 1-hour EUR/USD chart (the forward-test settings) this EA will trade once every day on average.

What specific input parameters does it use?

The following input parameters can be used for optimization:

  • ATR_Period (default = 24) — the period of the ATR indicator, which is used for trailing stop.
  • ATR_Multiplier (default = 3) — a value, by which the ATR indicator value will be multiplied.
  • StartWith (default = 1) — determines the direction of the first position — 1 means short, 2 means long.

This EA is ECN-compatible. You must set ECN_Mode input parameter to true in order to enable ECN-compatibility for this expert advisor. Otherwise, you will most likely be seeing OrderSend Error 130 messages when EA will be trying to open positions. This is because, if you are trading with an ECN broker (with market execution for orders), you cannot set SL/TP on position opening. You have to open a position first without SL/TP and only then modify it, adding stop-loss and/or take-profit level.



Discussion

Warning! Before you ask basic questions regarding installation of the expert advisors, please, read this MT4 Expert Advisors Tutorial to get the elementary knowledge on handling them.


Do you have your own trading results or any other remarks regarding this expert advisor?

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