The article was written by John, a FX junkie who in his spare time writes for the forexbrokershub.com resource where you can find in-depth reviews of top FX brokers.
Metatrader is the most popular trader platform available to the retail trader and as a consequence it is being offered by most of the brokers. There is a huge trading community associated with the Metatrader (mql) and the platform offers the possibility of automatic trading as well.
The first condition to start trading with your own expert advisor on a Metatrader platform is to have one developed and uploaded on the platform. To make sure it is there, just install the platform on your computer and then from the desktop icon just make a right-click and choose “Open File Location” and on the expert advisors tab there put your robot.
The next thing to do is to close the trading platform and open it again and open the currency pair and the time frame to put the expert advisor on. By clicking the Navigator tab and choosing the Expert Advisors tab that comes on the left of your screen the EA can be found as being already available on your trading platform. The image below shows you where these tabs are located on the Metatrader platform.
Once the EA (expert advisor) is identified simply click and drag it over the chart you open. Make sure that under the Common tab you have the “Allow Live Trades” and “Allow DLL Imports” activated as well as the Expert Advisors tab on the platform like the image below shows.
By clicking ok and making sure all the above are respected, he EA is set up and runs on you trading platform and in order to know it is functioning ok you should look on the top right of the screen as there will be a smiling emoticon if all is ok.
Applying an EA (expert advisor) to the Metatrader platform is a simple process and can be done by anybody, without this to require advanced knowledge. From the moment the EA is installed the only things that can stay between a trader and his/her profits are the strategy in itself and the broker.
The explanation comes from the fact that a trading strategy can be profitable but when back testing it to see if it is worthing the trouble of programming results may be conflicting. This is highly influenced by the period taking into consideration and the type of the EA is used (trending, scalping, swinging, etc.). Broker has a lot to do with the profitability in the sense that if the EA is one made for scalping then prompt execution is a must and the same EA may have excellent results when used on one broker and poor results when used on another one.
Regardless of the above, the steps to install an EA to a Metatrader platform are the same and the purpose is to allow retail traders to have access to automatic trading as well.