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First:
Begin with a FREE AutoTrader Demo Account
We highly recommend you practice
trading with a Free Demo Account
for at least 2 weeks before you begin trading with real money
so you can become familiar with all the functions of the software
and the trading behavior of the systems you select
for your portfolio.
Two very important things you are learning before trading
a real money account:
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1.
How to select what we believe to be the best systems to meet your investment criteria.
2. How to manage your risk by using proper leverage.*
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We will show you how to
do both of these.
Second: Select Your Systems
Once you are logged into
the AutoTrader platform you will have access to the historical
performance of 100's of live Trading Systems. By going to
the Performance Tab you can sort by clicking on any
of the column titles and evaluate the historical performance
of the systems.
Leaning how to evaluate and
choose trading systems for your portfolio takes a little study
and practice. According to our statistics, the best way to
choose systems for your portfolio may be very different from
what you would expect. For our recommendations please visit
our "Selecting Systems"
page.
Third. Build Your Portfolio
Once you have an idea of
which Systems you would like to trade select the Portfolio
tab to select a combination of trading systems from the list
of signal providers.
Steps to adding Systems to
your Portfolio:
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1. Select the Systems
to add:
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a. Click on the Add
New System link at the top of the page.
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b. Sort by System,
Pips or any other column by clicking on the title
of the column.
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c. Select the check
box next to the System you want to add to your portfolio.
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2. Set the number of
Lots Per Trade (Leverage) in one of the following ways:
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a. Click the Add
Multi link and selecting the leverage for all the
Systems you selected OR
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b. Click anywhere on
row of the System you will add to your portfolio to
set the leverage individually for each System.
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c. Note: Demo
Accounts can only use the Fixed Lots option.
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d. See below for how
to set your leverage.
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3. Check your Equity
Curve
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a. Beneath the list
of Systems there is a PE Curve button.
Click this button and the Equity Curve window will appear.
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b. Enter your "Start
Amount" and "Start Date" and then click
the PE Curve button and the Equity Curve of your
portfolio will match that date range.
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c. After seeing your
equity curve, close that window.
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4. Add Systems to your
Portfolio
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a. If you are satisfied
with the past-performance of the systems you selected
click the Apply button to add to your portfolio.
This will save your settings to our remote server so
it will keep your settings the same every time you open
your AutoTrader platform.
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b. Systems that
have been "Applied" to your Portfolio
are now active for trading and appear in a list on your
Portfolio tab.
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c. Once you have applied
your systems, you can then remove your saved portfolio
and experiment with building other portfolios and equity
curves with new combinations of Systems without effecting
your "Applied" portfolio and settings. But
once you click on "APPLY" again, it will overwrite
your old settings and save your new ones. Your already opened positions will not be closed, if you need to, please close them manually. So be careful not to hit "Apply"
when testing other portfolios. As a precaution, we recommend
that you take a note of the systems in your live trading
portfolio and for future reference. This will enable
you to quickly restore your live portfolio in case you
accidentally replace it with an experimental portfolio.
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Fourth. Setting your Leverage*
The Platform offers three
methods for setting your leverage; Fixed Lots, Fixed
Ratio and Fixed Fractional.
1. Fixed Lots
The simplest of all available money management options. We recommend this option to anyone who is new to Forex or Money Management.
With this Money Management option, you set how many lots you would like to trade for each strategy. No matter how much your investment decreases or increases you will still trade this fixed number of lots.
Example: Let's suppose that you have $10,000 in your account and you want to trade 3 mini lots on each trade/signal, this simply means, that each time a new signal is generated/new trade is placed we will use only 3 lots.
PRO’s: Easy to set-up and understand, client has consistent lot size.
CON’s: Does not fix the risk in $ terms, only pip terms
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2. Fixed Ratio
This is more complicated and flexible Money Management technique. We recommend using this option only to advanced traders.
With this option you set how many lots you would like to trade for every x amount in your brokerage account. This simply means that you will be able to increase or decrease the lot size in accordance with your account performance (profits or losses)
Example: $10,000 and wishes to increase the lot size by 10k every time the account shows a $2000 profit. So when the balance reaches $12,000 the lot size changes to 0.2 (20K) and so on.
PRO’s: Excellent for large account trading multiple and complex strategies whereby the account is prone to adverse and volatile balance swings.
CON’s: Not suitable for smaller accounts trading small number of pairs, client can manage positions and leverage* more efficiently through Fixed Lot method
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3. Fixed Fractional
Fixed Fractional method is another advanced Money Management option. This is a complicated method for beginners, so we advise using it with caution.
Fixed Fractional technique allocates a percentage of available account balance that could be risked on any particular trade.
Important Note: The stop loss of the trade needs to be predetermined for the software to calculate the lot size to apply to the trade.
Example: The Fixed Fractional setting only calculates the leverage* based on the stop-loss you enter for each trade but it does not account for the max number of positions. Therefore, if the strategy has a Max Position of 4 with a 100 pip stop and you want to risk a max of 1% per trade with all 4 positions open, you will need to enter 400 as the stop-loss for the proper calculation. That way you are only risking .25% per position but 1% when all 4 positions are open.
PRO’s: Gives more flexibility of managing available balance compared to Fixed Lots technique.
CON’s: Needs to have predetermined stop-loss and does not account for the max number of positions.
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Note: The demo accounts
only offer 1 type of money management strategy, which is Fixed
Lots. When trading on a live account with real money,
you will have all 3 money management strategies to choose
from.
Fifth. Watch and Wait!
Once you have added
systems to your portfolio the trading platform
will now automatically execute trades according to the systems
you selected. Realize this does not mean the minute you apply
a strategy you will be in a trade. You must wait for
the next open position to occur, which could be several hours
or several days depending on the system(s) you have
selected and what positions those Systems are currently in.
The next time any of the systems you have applied to
your portfolio trigger a new buy or sell signal this
position will be opened in your Brokerage Account.
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Risk Disclosure: Hypothetical or simulated performance results have certain
limitations. Unlike an actual performance record, simulated
results do not represent actual trading. Also, since
the trades have not actually been executed, the results
may have under or over-compensated for the impact, if
any, of certain market factors such as lack of liquidity.
Hypothetical trading programs in general are benefit
of hindsight. No representation is being made that any
account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses
similar to those shown. Substantial risk is involved.
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Forex trading has large potential rewards, but also
large potential risk. You must be aware of the risks
and be willing to accept them in order to invest in
the forex markets. Don't trade with money you can't
afford to lose. Nothing in our course or website shall
be deemed a solicitation or an offer to Buy/sell futures
and/or options. No representation is being made that
any account will or is likely to achieve profits or
losses similar to those discussed on our site. Also,
the past performance of any trading methodology is not
necessarily indicative of futures results. Day trading
involves high risks and you can lose a lot of money.
*Without proper risk management, this high degree of leverage can lead to large losses as well as gains. |
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