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Originally Posted by ApacheDan  Rick, I want to learn from others people's experiences in order to make my own system better. I read somewhere that all big losses start as a small loss. I also read that EA's are meant as tools, but you should still mantain control.
I think what I'm going to do is watch all open trades created by my EA's and manually stop all positions that are getting in the red...beyond my comfort zone. For example; I ended up the week with RSI Expert showing bal of 5866, equity of 5613. It takes gains around 30 pips a trade, but it was left with an open trade of (246). If my comfort level is around (250) I could stop this and still have a nice profit for the week and the peace of mind of pure equity....or run the risk of a large drawdown...and plenty of those can add up to a terrible position like you just experienced. I think that mantaining a healthy balance will give a better chance for the EA to recover and do its work. I think Robominer is not bad...it just needs some pampering.Does this logic make sense? 
Dan |
Dan,
The basic fact is that most people cannot manually trade. Their personal interpretation and emotions get in the way. Unless you have learned to manually trade and know you can do this, it is not a good idea to interfere with the EA's logic. Add to this that you would also need to be 100% aware and understand the EA's logic.
Us using EA's, we have a distinct advantage. We get to trade without any emotions or judgments getting in the way. Unless to know exactly what you are doing and have a plan for every possible contingency and you can trade manually without getting your personality involved, don't do it. I don't agree with the person that said that we should maintain control.
If the EA you are using is doing something that you are uncomfortable, I would say that you are using the wrong EA. The EA's that you use must exist in your comfort zone. I talk a lot about an EA's
dark side which can be defined as any behavior on the part of the EA that violates your comfort zone. This is why we should be putting the EA on a demo account for months before going live, to observe it's dark side and make sure we can live with it as well as the EA being profitable.
True, EA's are not perfect and cannot account for all market conditions but how an EA's reacts in adverse conditions is part of how the EA behaves. We can, to some extent, mitigate poor EA decisions by keeping the lot size down.
I know this is not exactly what you wanted to hear and some people may disagree with me. IMHO.
Rick