stop loss

Trailing stops in MQL5: how to lock in profit without choking your winners

Jun

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MQL5 Coding, Strategy Designalgorithmic trading, ATR, exit strategy, Expert Advisor, forex trading, metatrader 5, money management, mql5, risk management, stop loss, trade management, trailing stop

Trailing stops in MQL5: how to lock in profit without choking your winners

I once had a long on GBPJPY that was up about 70 pips. Nice trade. I'd bolted on a trailing stop the night before, set it to follow 12 pips behind price, and went to bed feeling clever. By morning the position was closed for a 9-pip gain, and the pair had run another 180 pips in my direction without me. The trailing stop did exactly what I told it to: it strangled the trade on the first pullback. That's the whole problem with trailing stops in one story - set them too tight and they turn your best trades…

Risk management in MQL5: position sizing and stops that survive a losing streak

Jun

By Forex Real Trader

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MQL5 Coding, Strategy Designalgorithmic trading, ATR, Expert Advisor, forex trading, lot size calculation, metatrader 5, money management, mql5, position sizing, risk management, stop loss, Strategy Tester

Risk management in MQL5: position sizing and stops that survive a losing streak

A few years back I had an EA with a 68% win rate in the tester. It looked fantastic. I dropped it on a small live account at a flat 0.20 lots per trade, left it running, and came back a week later to a 41% drawdown. The signals had behaved - roughly what the backtest promised. What drained the account was that I'd hard-coded the lot size and paid no attention to how far the stop sat from entry. A few wide-stop losers in a row, every one of them sized exactly like the tight-stop winners, and the arithmetic…