Manual for Range Breakout Day Trader

This page contains the manual and set-files of the Range Breakout Day Trader.

Before you use this Expert Advisor, you first have to add this URL: "nfs.faireconomy.media" in the allow webrequests which you can find in the Meta Trader menu in 'Tools/Options/Expert Advisors'.

This will allow the EA to get news data from the forex factory website. This news data is used by the news filter which will close any open position at a certain time before the high/medium impact news release. In the EA settings you select the country currencies which are used in the currency pair which you are trading. Avoiding financial news releases is important to prevent possible big losses, especially if you are managing a prop firm account. Some prop firms also don't allow trading during high impact financial news releases. 

In the MT5 version you can also choose to use the built in calendar of MT5 instead of the Forex Factory calendar. When the news filter is turned on, you can set the amount of minutes it will close any open positions/orders before the news is released. 

Another advantage of this EA is that it can also do back testing with the news filter on (this is only possible for the MT5 version because it can handle big news databases by using SQLite which is not possible in the MT4 version). Doing back tests with avoiding high impact news releases will give more realistic results, because your strategy will not be effected by the volatility during news releases which can effect the results in a negative or overoptimized way. Without a news filter in the back test your strategy's performance rely more on chance during volatile news events than on proper statistics. And there is the problem that you might pick only the optimized results which were profitable during these news events.

Important!

To be able to do back tests with news events, you will first have to download this news.csv file with news data from 01.01.2021 to 31.12.2024 and place it in the following directory: 

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\MetaQuotes\Terminal\Common\Files

In the comments section there is also a news.csv file with data from 2018 till 2024, but make sure that you don't use more than 4 years of data (delete the other years from the CSV file) or it might be too much data to be able to converted into the SQLite data base.

Time settings:

• Set start hour and minutes of the range
• Set end hour and minutes of the range
• Close position at predefined time  (on/off)
• Set hour and minutes at which the position will be closed
• Set expiry time of pending stop order (in amount of hours)
• Set expiry time of pending limit order after retest (in amount of hours)
• Only do retests till time (time in 24h)
• Set time offset in hours to correct time from GMT/UTC+2
• Allowed trading days: turn on/off the days where trading is allowed by the EA

Trade settings:

• Magic number: EA identification number
• Maximum spread size: If the current spread is higher than the predefined spread size the position or order will not be opened
• Lot mode: choose to set lot size according to the risk percentage or a fixed lot size
• Risk percentage: The risk percentage at which the lot size will be calculated
• Fixed lot size: The value of the lot size if a fixed lot size is set in the lot mode
• Stop loss: Set the stop loss in points or if you fill in 0, it uses the range distance as your stop loss distance
• Stop Loss based on ATR value (on/off)
• ATR multiplier
• ATR period
• Amount of points above/below the range to place pending orders
• *Maximum equity drawdown (on/off)
• Loss percentage (equity drawdown) at which the position will automatically be closed
  
• Close at predefined take profit percentage: predefined profit percentage at which the position will automatically be closed (on/off)
• Profit percentage at which a notification/email is send: predefined percentage at which the EA sends a notification or email
• Set hour or minutes after which the notification/email will not be send
• Send notification when predefined profit percentage is reached (on/off)
• Send email when predefined profit percentage is reached (on/off)
• Open early position before the range price at range time end (on/off)
• Amount of points position is opened before the range price
• Only open trade after retest of the breakout (on/off)
• Amount of points after breakout to start retest
• Combine breakout with retest entries (on/off)
• Automatically adjust the take profit and trailingstop start
• Ratio (Risk) : (Take Profit)
• Ratio (Risk) : (Trailingstop Start)
• Ratio (Risk) : (Max. Equity Drawdown)

• Turn on trailing stop (on/off) 
• Profit percentage at which the trailing stop starts
• ATR multiplier: Value which will be multiplied with the ATR value (to set the trailing stop distance)
• ATR period: The period used for calculating the ATR (average true range)

• Turn on trend filter (on/off) If turned on the trend filter will only place buy stop or sell stop orders in the direction of the trend
• Turn on OCO (One-Cancels-the-Other) pending orders if trend filter is turned off
• Time frame used for trend filter
• Signal period used for trend filter

*Note: If you use the maximum equity drawdown, it needs to be checked with the stop loss setting. If the percentage max. equity drawdown is too low, your positions might get closed before it reaches the stop loss order and might increase your losses.

**Note: If you want to use the news filter in back testing, you have to save the MT5 economic calendar as a CSV-file in the Common/Files directory for the time period you want to test. Here you can find the script for creating the CSV-file: MT5 Economic Calendar CSV exporter.

Or use the CSV-file with economical news from 2021.01.01 to 2024.12.31 which you can download here.

***Note: Add this URL: "nfs.faireconomy.media/ff_calendar_thisweek.xml" in the 'Allow webrequest' in menu: 'Tools/Options/Expert Advisors' to be able to use the Forex Factory calendar.

Prop Firm (Proprietary Firm) settings

The LOW RISK and EXTRA LOW RISK settings of this EA are suitable for prop firm challenges. Make sure that the max. equity drawdown percentage is lower than the daily allowed drawdown for the challenge. And importantly avoid days with news events like interest rate decisions, because the volatility during these news events cause slippage which can result in bigger equity drawdowns than what is set as maximum in the EA. Also it's recommended to start with the EXTRA LOW RISK settings and switch to the LOW RISK once the balance has grown enough. But once the profit drops below zero, then make sure to switch back to the EXTRA LOW RISK settings. If you want to keep it safe, it's best to use only the EXTRA LOW RISK settings. If you want to use even lower risk levels, let me know and I will setup the right set-file for you.

To show that this EA has successfully completed prop firm challenges, you can view my completed prop firm accounts at FTMO:

• FTMO Challenge
• Verification

• FTMO Account