Getting to Know Empty4 Inside Out

[SteveHopwood]

Watch out for this doozy. I finished trading for the week and thought I'd stop the EA's from trading until Monday. Instead of closing down Empty4 altogether I just clicked on the EA disable button. To my shock, when I woke up in the morning a trade had been opened by the EA! I was running it on 20 pairs, and only one instance took a trade, not only did it open a trade, but it didn't set a TP or SL (2 stage criminal) and the EA didn't continue to function and close the trade at the point it should have. The moral of the story is don't trust it and shut down Empty4 completely over the weekend.

Ahh yes, the delightful Expert Advisors' button. I have not yet managed to work out why it works when it works and fails to work when it fails to work. I would be unsurprised to learn that the action of this button is controlled by a pseudo-random variable that allows it to work sometimes, but not others, just on the offchance that some combination or other will ruin the account.

[MichaelM]

Probably works when it should based on lunar cycles or planetary alignments

[SteveHopwood]

Probably works when it should based on lunar cycles or planetary alignments

[ednineball]

Why does Empty4 default to the color 255 255 255 when I use the color none?

Would you please tell me the fix for this....???????

It is a pain when I pull multiple indicators into 1 window, and the color for none is 255 255 255

[gaheitman]

Why does Empty4 default to the color 255 255 255 when I use the color none?

Would you please tell me the fix for this....???????

It is a pain when I pull multiple indicators into 1 window, and the color for none is 255 255 255

I don't think there is a valid RGB code for "not a color", so Empty4 is using the special constant 0xFFFFFFFF which is an invalid RGB code. I think the color picker in the dialog box (or something else) is stripping off the two most significant bytes, leaving us with 0xFFFFFF which is 255,255,255, or white.

Though I don't seem to have the problem. When do you see the issue, after using a template?

George

[MichaelM]

Not sure why it's a pain... can't you just use the predefined variable CLR_NONE?

[Alpenkorps]

Is is possible to use Empty4 only as a live trading terminal to transmit strategy signals generate by another software (say, MultiCharts, or Tradestation) :

And, if possible, what pit falls may lay ahead if one were to embark on such a course of action : :

Khalid

Of Course its possible. We can develop a bridge between two trading platform for both way communication. I am don't know if such program already exists (it may). We have seen in co-integration system using com bridge between R and Empty4. All you need an EA and a little library coding. There is another way, one platform can write signals in a text file, I believe Empty4 has the ability to read text files for signals/commands by Expert advisors. Shouldn't be much difficult for programmers.

But honestly, I highly doubt that you would be able to by pass Empty4's stupidity by this .. a stupid program is a stupid program, right?

[garyfritz]

Khalid, I would assume you want a reliable order-management facility.

If so, then why on earth would you want to let Empty4 anywhere near it!?

IMHO the only reason to use Empty4 at all is to tap into the fantastic creative community here and in a few other places. In general I think Empty4 is dangerous and should not be used with real money, at least not beyond the "play money" level. (That's one big reason why I haven't yet invested the effort to learn how to work around all of Empty4's evil little gotchas.)

There are other options, depending on where you want to trade. A few crims (e.g. MBtrading or IB) offer APIs of varying complexity but high reliability. You can also use NinjaTrader as a "bridge" to almost any crim you want to use. I know several people who use NT to place orders from Tradestation. TS only supports placing orders with the TS brokerage, but via the NT bridge these people generate orders in TS and execute them on IB.

Trading is serious business, if you're serious about it. I don't think you should rely on unreliable tools.

[garyfritz]

I have not personally worked with the "NinjaTrader bridge" approach, but I don't believe you have to do any (or any significant) programming in NT. You don't actually use NT as a charting or backtesting platform. NT purely acts as an order-placing platform for TS, or MC, or whatever. I suspect there are "canned" packages already available to do this -- it should be a pretty "plug and play" solution.

There's also http://www.tradebullet.com/. They don't list MC as one of their supported platforms but people are using it. You can lease it for only $35/mo and you just have to modify your strategy to write order details to a text file. Looks like most of the brokers they support (other than IB and MBT) are futures brokers, but the Patsystems J-Trader interface handles Forex.

There are probably other solutions but those are the only ones I know of. I know people using both of them.

[instantpips]

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?