Expert Advisors

Expert Advisors South Africa

What are Expert Advisors?

Expert Advisors (EA) are programmes that enable hands-free trading; i.e. automated trading on MetaTrader4 OR MetaTrader 5. Each Expert Advisor is unique, and built to the individual user’s taste preferences. The possibility to use robots with analytical abilities in order to trade is a unique feature of the MT4 platform. In order to start using an EA the user can choose one of two options; he can purchase one on the MetaTrader4 market, or he can choose to create his own. To produce the robot, each trader can develop, program and compile it on the MQL MetaEditor. Using past trading experience, traders can define which market conditions, based on various indicators and technical analysis elements, will result in trade opening, or will close positions. Traders do not have to be master programmers or experienced traders to use EAs when trading. Free and paid Expert Advisors are available on the Internet as well as in the MetaTrader Market, where traders can also download a demo version of the desired EA and try it before buying or renting it.

See this video and learn how to search and find EAs in the MetaTrader market:

MetaTrader Market

The MetaTrader Market presents the largest collection of free and paid Expert Advisors, Indicators, as well as trading and financial magazines and books. The Market enables various search options according to categories, offering all information regarding the products, including screenshots and user reviews. It is possible to test all products on demo versions and preview first pages of all books and magazines before buying them. Products can be bought or rented for a period of up to one year, and each product can be activated on at least four devices, giving you the freedom to trade your own way.

When viewing the EAs list on the MT4 market, it is important to select carefully and not choose based sole on price, rental period or other factors. Many indicators may seem promising, but when they stand to test they may fail. Therefore, once choosing an EA to review the trader can check the next parameters that need to be defined – risk percent, market orders, spreads, hedging, define pips, target profit and many more. Some advisors will have many categories and details, while others will only have a few. While occasionally it might be easier to use a “simple” one, it is important not to neglect all these important factors. To optimise the use of EAs, comparing a few is always better than simply selecting one at random.

Try Your Expert Advisors

Every EA, bought or developed, is different and built to be customised as per each trader’s needs. Therefore, it is important to test them before employing them on the trading account. The next video explains in details how to test EAs before using them, at no charge and no risk:

How to Upload Your Expert Advisors?

Once the Expert Advisor has been purchased or developed, properly tested and ready, it’s time to upload it to the trading platform and start enjoying its benefits. However, in order to avoid any mistakes, it is important to make sure the EA is correctly installed.

Step 1: Create folders

  1. After downloading or creating the Expert Advisor, remember the location of the saved files.
  2. Highlight to select the specific files which are needed to install and copy them.
  3. Paste the selected files into the MetaTrader4 folder, usually located in C:.

Step 2: Upload the EA to MT4

  1. Login to MetaTrader4.
  2. Go to “Navigation” and select “Expert Advisors”. Your EA can be found under the “+” sign.
  3. Drag the selected Expert Advisor to the trading charts on the platform.

Step 3: Define EA’s settings

  1. Adjust the EA’s settings on the pop-up box as you wish.
  2. Once making sure all the settings are correct – click “Ok” and start trading.

Often traders choose to upload the EA onto a virtual private server (VPS), which allows more fluent trading. This video shows the right way to upload the EA to the platform:

Expert Advisors with AvaTrade

Alongside allowing the EAs to trade, it is still crucial to know and understand the market. Therefore it is always to the benefit of the trader to expand his knowledge, and trade with a broker who can supply the tools to achieve that. As a leading broker, AvaTrade caters to a large selection of educational trading materials,, webinars, account managers and other services that will help you grasp a better knowledge of the market, hence allowing you to trade side-by-side with your Expert Advisor.

Expert Advisors FAQ

  • Do Expert Advisors really work?

    Many traders do report that Expert Advisors work for them, although with the caveat that you must choose the proper Expert Advisor. There are many Expert Advisors available and some are inferior, while others do exactly what they are supposed to do. One of the great benefits of using these programmed tools is they will take all the emotion out of your trading. One of the downsides is that changing market conditions can break an Expert Advisor, changing it from a profitable tool to a money draining liability.

     
  • What is the best Expert Advisor to use?

    There are many different Expert Advisors available and each is designed to do something different. There are also free and paid Expert Advisors available. So, the best Expert Advisor will depend on your own needs and expectations. We could probably look at free and paid tools separately too because let’s face it, we all expect more from a tool that we pay for versus one that’s free. And yet there are some very valuable free Expert Advisors available from the MetaTrader 4 community.

     
  • Do all Expert Advisors run 24/7?

    While there are some Expert Advisors that are designed to run 24/7 and always remain in the market, others are not so pervasive and aggressive. For example, there are a number of Expert Advisors that were developed specifically to work around news releases such as central bank monetary policy releases, GDP and CPI releases, or unemployment data releases. These Expert Advisors might only run for 10 days out of the entire year. Other Expert Advisors have a broader perspective on the markets and these do run 24/7 for as long as they remain relevant in their given market.