Getting to Know Empty4 Inside Out

[garyfritz]

If you sent in an order INCLUDING the TP/SL to the crim, then yes, those orders are on the crim's books and they will execute them even if your laptop is off or you lose your net connection.

Some people worry that the crim will manipulate the price quotes to hit your resting SL order (and if you think your crim does that, IMHO you need to find a new crim IMMEDIATELY), so they don't send in TP/SL. This is sometimes called "stealth mode," hiding your exits from the crim. Their EA watches the price and sends in an exit order when the TP/SL price is hit.

If your EA does that, then no, those TP/SL orders won't get executed when your laptop is off. The crim doesn't have any order to execute, and your laptop is off so it doesn't send the order to the crim, so the position doesn't get closed. Your trade is "naked" with no stoploss protection against disastrous adverse moves.

Some stealth-mode EAs send in a "fake" resting SL that's some distance away from their real SL. That way the crim can't manipulate the price to hit your SL, because he doesn't know where your real SL is, and you have some protection against big moves against you. If you turn off the laptop, the fake SL is still in the market and will be executed, but that will be a larger SL than you wanted. Your real SL won't get executed unless your EA is running.

[instantpips]

If you sent in an order INCLUDING the TP/SL to the crim, then yes, those orders are on the crim's books and they will execute them even if your laptop is off or you lose your net connection.

Some people worry that the crim will manipulate the price quotes to hit your resting SL order (and if you think your crim does that, IMHO you need to find a new crim IMMEDIATELY), so they don't send in TP/SL. This is sometimes called "stealth mode," hiding your exits from the crim. Their EA watches the price and sends in an exit order when the TP/SL price is hit.

If your EA does that, then no, those TP/SL orders won't get executed when your laptop is off. The crim doesn't have any order to execute, and your laptop is off so it doesn't send the order to the crim, so the position doesn't get closed. Your trade is "naked" with no stoploss protection against disastrous adverse moves.

Some stealth-mode EAs send in a "fake" resting SL that's some distance away from their real SL. That way the crim can't manipulate the price to hit your SL, because he doesn't know where your real SL is, and you have some protection against big moves against you. If you turn off the laptop, the fake SL is still in the market and will be executed, but that will be a larger SL than you wanted. Your real SL won't get executed unless your EA is running.

Thanks garyfritz for your simple yet comprehensive explanation..

[wolfeman]

hey guys

In Empty4 versions past, one could "hide" a currency pair from market watch (right click on it and "hide") as I understand it, that would block the plat from having the info to trade a specific pair. I have used this feature to speed up the terminal in general, but not to block an EA from trading said pair. I have a few pairs I hate, and don't want scoobs bot to trade...So, I go to market watch, right click on AUSCAD when I click "hide" nothing happens. Is this a v419 issue? Something else?

Can I indeed block ONE pair from trading on scoob without blocking the entire currency in the scoob settings, for example?

[scalpz]

Spotted this post in the bug thread of scoobs forex robot forum at
http://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3 ... 902#p11902
Would like to track down the source references to confirm this. Will append here later.

There seems to be problems when using IsConnected(), IsTradeContextBusy(), IsTradeAllowed() with Empty4.

- If you are running a laptop and it returns from sleep/hibernation mode then the above can return the wrong value. Also according to the MQL4 website GetLastError() does not work properly when trying to trap these errors.

- Also, some criminals using the VDP module are able to manipulate these functions remotely, effectivley stopping, delaying or killing your EA's.

I placed this here as I believe Scoobs was using the above in his code. So, not his fault but rather the fault of Boston Technologies etc.

Hope this helps
Cybernet.

cheers scalpz

[rob2360]

hey guys

In Empty4 versions past, one could "hide" a currency pair from market watch (right click on it and "hide") as I understand it, that would block the plat from having the info to trade a specific pair. I have used this feature to speed up the terminal in general, but not to block an EA from trading said pair. I have a few pairs I hate, and don't want scoobs bot to trade...So, I go to market watch, right click on AUSCAD when I click "hide" nothing happens. Is this a v419 issue? Something else?

Can I indeed block ONE pair from trading on scoob without blocking the entire currency in the scoob settings, for example?

You can hide currencies by using market watch. Right mouse and hide, *but* you need to do this from start-up when you have no charts displayed. As soon as a chart is launched it stops working. What I do is remove charts, shutdown, re-start, prune out the unwanted currencies/assets and save as default profile. Then open up charts, splat on the EA's, save as default profile again and you are set,

[rob2360]

Spotted this post in the bug thread of scoobs forex robot forum at
http://www.stevehopwoodforex.com/phpBB3 ... 902#p11902
Would like to track down the source references to confirm this. Will append here later.
cheers scalpz

Well I can confirm I've had the problem with IsConnected() failing when connected. Only happens on live accounts, not demo - fancy that! Not sure there is much debugging you can do to resolve - as said before it could be brokerside set.

[rob2360]

I have a really basic (read: dumb) question about EA's on Empty4:
If you have an EA running on a laptop and you close or switch off the laptop - will the criminal execute TP/SL on open trades whil laptop is off?

Gaz has answered the question; my corollary would be (hopefully obvious) - don't trade with actual money off a laptop. You can get a decent W2008 server VPS for £12 a month and set it up so if it re-boots it all restarts, in a data centre, secure, UPS and access from anywhere in the world...

[Fx93]

I downloaded a range bar indicator that requires you put it on the 1M chart and then open up an offline 2M EUR/USD chart. That works fine.

What I don't know how to do is open up a range bar chart for other pairs, because Empty4 only offers the 2M chart for EUR/USD.

I also do not know how to have two different range bars open at the same time, say a 2pip and 10 pip.

Thanks for any replies.

[SteveHopwood]

I downloaded a range bar indicator that requires you put it on the 1M chart and then open up an offline 2M EUR/USD chart. That works fine.

What I don't know how to do is open up a range bar chart for other pairs, because Empty4 only offers the 2M chart for EUR/USD.

I also do not know how to have two different range bars open at the same time, say a 2pip and 10 pip.

Thanks for any replies.

My limited understanding of these things is that you have to load the indi onto every M1 chart that you want to trade, in order to generate the M2 chart to trade. The M2 chart then appears as if like magic.

Mind, I stand open to correction here, so try it and see.

[garyfritz]

Yup, that's my understanding too. The indicator on the M1 XXXYYY pair generates the offline M2 data, but only for the XXXYYY pair. You have to run it on an M1 chart for every pair you want the range-bar data for.

I don't know about the 2 pip vs. 10 pip question. I suspect it depends on the generator indicator. E.g. when you're creating offline minute-based charts, you tell it "I want an M10 chart or an M27 chart" and it generates that offline chart. Probably your range-bar generator has an input that specifies what pip-size to build in the offline chart. You'll have to run one M1 chart for 2 pip and one M1 chart for 10 pip, with the appropriately-configured generator indicator on each chart.

That's assuming your range-bar generator does it properly. If your 2pip range chart produces bars that are smaller than M1, I don't know if the generator is smart enough to do that. It should be -- it could wake up on each pip and decide when it needed to spit out a new range bar.