Good EA for a mini account?

JCat · (#1 (**permalink**))

can anyone recommend a good EA for a mini account? I have found that most EAs have too large of a draw down for a mini account to handle. It seems like i do great for 2 - 3 weeks at a time, and then my account gets smashed with a stop loss. If anyone can point me in the right direction i would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

Cyclon · (#2 (**permalink**))

Direction to point you in - Away

2 Fatal Mistakes To Avoid

Fatal Fx #1

Getting in too late! - Volatility on the Chase gets you Stopped Out.

Fatal Fx #2

Getting out too early! - Whether you got stopped out from Fatal Fx #1 or whether you thought the move was over now you're chasing again. Yep - Go directly to Fatal Fx #1 - Do not Pass GO...

[Indicators and EA's have both built in]

Seen the Dennis Hopper ads?

You can't start this journey without knowin' where you're goin'. You my friend, you need a plan. ...

8- )

Cheers,
Cyclon

JCat · (#3 (**permalink**))

So are you saying stay away for EAs until im more experienced?

ernest8fingers · (#4 (**permalink**))

I dont recommend an EA for any mini account w/less than 1000. min. EA's have notorious drawdowns. I would suggest manual trading w/Broker that offers nano lot trading(penny trades) run an EA on small account.Dont ever let anyone tell u "DONT or U CANT DO THAT". I manually trade a mini all day long w/100. min account balance. 3-5 withdrawals per week and almost never have to refund account- to date I have withdrawn about 5 times my total deposits. This is my "play" account and I use it mainly for Charting to place trades on my Standard account. Good luck, as the mini account was invented to tap the wallet of the "regular non-professional " trader. I dont use EA's on my mini(account balance to small) and my Standard Broker doesnt offer auto trading(or mt4).

Pharaoh · (#5 (**permalink**))

EAs trade with zero emotion. This can be good, but if the market turns against the strategy the EA uses, almost all of them will continue to try to trade as if the market was still behaving the way they were optimized for.

Spend some time watching some movies on the SciFi channel about robots turning on their masters and attacking them due to some tiny flaw in programming. There are a lot of stories in the reviews area telling of good EAs that suddenly went bad and killed account balances.

Does this mean you should give up on the whole EA concept? Maybe, but maybe not. An EA that uses a reasonable stoploss, good risk/reward ratios, and that stops trading after several losses in a row or if drawdown exceeds a predefined limit would be reasonably safe to take for a test drive on a live account after a few weeks of successful demo testing.

Codezilla · (#6 (**permalink**))

I am a huge advocate for the use of Expert Advisors. But like Pharoah pointed out, it is a beast that can easily betray you. For example, using the current candle to make trading decisions could exhaust your entire account in minutes or even seconds. Lesson learned: always use closed candles to make your trading triggers.
The biggest piece of advice I could give you is to DEMO trade your EA until you are 100.1% sure that it is working the way it's suppose to. DEMO trade until you're blue in the face, and then DEMO trade some more. And after you think you got it, DEMO trade for two more months.
MT4 has a tool called the strategy tester. It tests your EA based on historical prices. Honestly, I don't like it that much, but nonetheless it is another tool to guide you in the right direction.