Description of GRID settings – Other – 15 May 2023

In fact, the basic strategy can be considered as automatic reopening of pending orders, after closing their market positions (by take profit, stop loss or manually). However, the more functional an EA is, the more actions it can perform additionally.

A grid of pending orders has the advantage over the virtual orders, because the pending orders can open market positions as quickly as possible and can do so even when the terminal is off. In this case, when the terminal is turned on, the Expert Advisor quickly regains control of the situation, giving a report on the events that have occurred. 

General additional information: 

For all versions of EAs above the Magic Grid level, an overall report is generated after changing any settings.

>>    Initial price for BUY orders  (common setting for BuyUp and BuyDOWN grids) 

 General description: Initial price (reacting to market Ask) to create a grid with BUY orders    

For a grid with SELL orders, the initial price will be the price reacting to the market Bid  

Common features for all advisers:

Pending orders are placed in set increments from the initial price and can be entered manually or generated automatically (once at the start of the trade).

If the value is 0, the starting price will be selected automatically. In this case, this price will be considered as the starting price until the trade is completed or another value is manually set. The automatic selection is based on the minimum tolerance values (from the current market prices) for pending orders (at the start of the trade).

Note: Changing the starting price after you start trading will rebuild the entire grid. For the Magic Grid, orders and positions which have become out of grid will not be deleted, only new ones will be added. Outdated pending orders will be deleted for all other EAs, and separate accounting and separate management will be available for obsolete market positions. 

After the first start, the Expert Advisor will generate a separate report on the success of the operations performed.

General description (for settings Quantity of BuyUP price levels and Quantity of BuyDOWN price levels):

Above the current market Ask price pending orders of BuyStop type are placed
Under the current market Ask price pending orders of BuyLimit type are placed

The concept of order placement for SELL grids:
Above the current market Bid price pending orders of SellLimit type are placed
Under the current market Bid price pending orders of SellStop type are placed

Common features of these settings: 

If when placing a pending order its location is too close to the current market price (falls within the broker’s freeze range), the order will NOT be placed immediately. The Expert Advisor will display a warning about this situation and will only place this order when the market price moves out of the freezing range. This will happen automatically, and once all orders have been placed, the Expert Advisor will generate a report about it.

The location of already placed pending orders can be changed manually (by simply dragging and dropping them on the chart, or by editing their properties). The Expert Advisor will not try to move the pending order back or replace it with a new one (at a given price level) and will retain all other control over it.  This can be used to make any tactical changes to the chosen strategy and actually set up a grid of any configuration, but the new orders will be placed according to the current settings.

Additional information: If the value for UP orders is greater than zero, then the countdown for DOWN orders will only start from the second price level. This is done to make sure that the total value of all the set orders is equal to their real number. Otherwise the initial order for both grids (up and down) will be considered common, and the total amount of orders will be lower than the stated amount. If the value for an up order is equal to zero, then the countdown for an order down will start from the initial price, as it should be.

Table of differences between different EAs: 
(for Quantity of BuyUP price levels and Quantity of BuyDOWN price levels)

>>   Grid Step for BUY orders   (common setting for BuyUp and BuyDOWN grids) 

General description: Grid step between orders of BUY type for the current grid (calculated in points for the selected instrument)
For the grid with SELL orders, the step is selected in exactly the same way

Table of differences between different EAs for this setting:

>>   Take-Profit for each BUY order   (common setting for BuyUp and BuyDOWN grids) 

General description: Take-Profit value for each pending order or BUY position (can be zero, calculated in points)
For the grid with SELL orders and positions, Take-Profit is set in the same way

Table of differences between different EAs for this setting:

>>   Take-Profits CONTROL for BUY Grid  (common setting for BuyUp and BuyDOWN grids) 

General description: Enabling Take-Profit control for each pending order or BUY position
For the grid with SELL orders and positions, this permission works in the same way

Table of differences between different EAs for this setting:

>>   Stop-Loss for each BUY order   (common setting for BuyUp and BuyDOWN grids) 

General description: Stop-Loss value for each pending order or BUY position (can be zero, calculated in points)
For the grid with SELL orders and positions, Stop-Loss is set in the same way

Table of differences between different EAs for this setting:

>>   Stop-Losses CONTROL for BUY Grid  (common setting for BuyUp and BuyDOWN grids) 

General description: Enabling Stop-Loss control for each pending order or BUY position
For the grid with SELL orders and positions, this permission works in the same way

Table of differences between different EAs for this setting:

>>   Lot size for each BUY order  (common setting for BuyUp and BuyDOWN grids) 

General description: Lot size for each individual BUY pending order
For the grid with orders and positions of the SELL type, the lot size is configured in the same way

Table of differences between different EAs for this setting:

For SellUp, SellDown grids, the relevant settings work on the same principle

Table of differences between different EAs for this setting:

>>   Restore BUY orders after closing their market positions  (common setting for BuyUp and BuyDOWN grids) 

For the grid with SELL orders and positions, this setting works identically

This setting is available for all grid EAs except Magic Grid (MT4)

General description: Enable or disable automatic restoring of pending orders at specified price levels (after closing their market positions by Take-Profit, Stop-Loss or manually). 

This setting can be changed at any time, both at the beginning of trading and during it. For example, you can deploy the entire grid with auto-restoring of orders disabled, and then the Expert Advisor will work in script mode. If some orders (positions) are then deleted (closed) and Autorun is enabled afterwards, the Expert Advisor will fill all set price levels with orders again.

TOP Panel Settings

The panel also displays information about how many orders have already been placed out of their total allowed (by the broker) number:

for MT5 versions – this is the limit of the total number of only pending orders for the entire account
for MT4 versions – this is a limit on the total number of pending and market (!) orders for the entire account

This data can be important in the overall planning of the strategy. For example, the EA will not even start trading if the total number of its price levels in the settings exceeds the specified limit. At the same time, it is important to remember that these restrictions are created by the broker, and not by the adviser!

In versions above Magic Grid, a special checkmark is displayed on the panel, which serves to reset the location of all other possible panels and buttons to their default values. There are simply no other panels for Magic Grid.

Panel color settings can be used to quickly visually separate a running Expert Advisor while using it on different charts at the same time.

Separate description of panel settings:

>>   Enable Top Panel

Enable or disable the display of the Top Panel on the chart

>>   Top Panel scale

Top Panel scaling (increase or decrease)

>>   Text color

The default text colour of the Top Panel

>>   Background color 

The default background colour of the Top Panel

MAIN Panel Settings 

The panel has its own colour indicator for different events, which also serves as a button to minimise and maximise the panel. The panel can be easily moved around the graph by simply dragging it with the mouse, and once the panel is minimised, the remaining indicator button can be placed wherever you like, for example on the top panel. Shift + Left Mouse Click can always bring the panel (or its button) to the foreground. 

Separate description of panel settings:

>>   Enable Main Panel

Enable or disable the display of the Main Panel on the chart

>>   Main Panel scale

Main Panel scaling (increase or decrease)

>>   Titles text color

Text color of various headings in the main panel

>>   Basic text color

The colour of the plain text within the main panel 

>>   Text color for recounting positions

Text color for lines related to calculations of the number of market positions

>>   Background color

Background colour of the main information panel

Settings for Old-Grid expert positions

General description:  

This group of settings is available for all versions of Expert Advisors above the Magic Grid level. Using them, you can control the properties of market positions that could remain after changing the grid spacing, the number of price levels, or the original prices. With such changes, only pending orders are automatically replaced, but the EA does not delete market positions (which cease to correspond to the settings), leaving the decision on them to the trader.

This is done so that the trader retains the most complete control over the situation. These positions will be considered obsolete, and if the trader wants to, he can manually delete these positions individually or do it in bulk using a special button that will appear on the chart if the display of the button for closing market positions is enabled in the EA settings.

And in order to massively change the take profit or stop loss for outdated positions, this section was created. Its settings are also important because they can be used to visually highlight in the general list of market positions which of them are relevant and which are no longer. To do this, for example, you can reset the take profit for outdated market positions of the selected type.

Also, if the main information panel is enabled and obsolete market positions appear, a special button panel is automatically created for them on the chart, which displays the total number of remaining obsolete positions. Clicking on this panel will generate a separate report with a complete list of these positions and their properties. This panel-button can be separately moved by the mouse on the chart.

Important note: if you also change the magic number in the settings, then orders and positions with the old magic number will be considered completely foreign! That is, they WILL NOT be considered either relevant or obsolete, and in this case, the adviser will simply deploy a completely new network according to the specified settings.

These settings are in no way related to the actual grid (which corresponds to the current settings).

Separate description of the settings in this section:

>>   Old-Grid positions management 

Activating the ability to change the properties of obsolete market positions

>>   Take-Profit for each BUY old-grid position 

For MT5 EAs above the Magic Grid version, there is an additional option to disable take profit control separately, even when the overall management of all old positions is active. To do this, you need to set the value to -1 in this setting, and then you can set a different TP for these positions manually.