Newbie: Need Help with "Buy Now" Money Mgmt

[DanZig55]

Hi Folks,

I am a total rookie in trading (never done a single live trade), but I think I found a strong passion already. Starting 2 weeks ago I got into the topic. By now (hundreds of YT videos and forums) later, I have a demo account and decided that EA is the way to go, as it eliminates emotions, and is scalable.

I am already working on an EA loosely based on the "Arty" trend-following strategy. I am however struggeling with one particular thing since the beginning: Money Management in "Buy Now".

Here is what I try to achieve: Being a serious trader, and a rookie at that, I want to play very conservative, risking only 1% of my equity per trade. So in plain English: My demo account is at about 1000 EUR. Based upon my stop-loss I want to risk 10 EUR per trade.

I created an example of what I mean: https://fxdreema.com/shared/2Uk474QBd

Now I export to MT4, compile and run it. You can see the expert properties below:

However, when I run it, this never adds up. In this example it trades roughly 5€ per trade (surprisingly making a profit overall).

What is it that I am missing in my understanding about the money management settings?
How can I set it up, so that it trades 1% (x%) of my equity per stop-loss size? Meaning I risk 50 pips here, so that should equilize 10 EUR if my account is 1000 EUR. If I change it to 20 pips stop-loss, it should resize the lot to make it worth again roughly 10 EUR.

I have been reading through a lot of articles, and tried nearly all options in the "Buy Now" block, but could not get a hang of it. I hope some of the wunderful people in this forum will help me out to grow.

Cheerz from Germany,
Dan

[l'andorrà]

@danzig55 The problem is the size of your balance. Try the same strategy on a € 100.000 balance and you will definitely see the difference. Your account is too low tor a 'real' 1% to be risked. This is why the backtesting is showing the minimum lot sieze the broker allows you to risk: 0.01.

[DanZig55]

Thank you. I was suspecting this somehow. So basically if I increase my account size in the backtest the percentage should work. I will give it a try.

[DanZig55]

@l-andorrà : Thank you for your fast response. I see you reply to almost everyone. That is amazing. Once I solved this mistery here, I will make sure to help out at least two others as well

Now on the case, I wanted to believe you, but somehow it does not make sense. In fact, I noticed, that the percentage is actually not at all taken into consideration. Instead trades are only based on the amout of the stop-loss. I changed the risk to 2% and it did not change the amount risked per trade. I even changed it to 30% with no difference. If I increase the account it does increase the amount per trade in the same ration.

For some reason, whatever I enter, the percentage is not taken into account at all. It is only depending on the stop-loss.

I dont understand what I am doing wrong here...
I would highly appreciate some help.

EDIT: the table shows the amout risked per trade.

EDIT2: I created another version with a fixed lot size
https://fxdreema.com/shared/0Vm59tXuc

Lot size should be 0,1. According to babypips 1% would be 0,2 lots

This one is now, not trading at all, saying, it is waiting for funds to appead....
Once I increased the account to 10k, it risked the 5 per trade in sync with the stopp-loss again. Seems to not matter what is in the EA, as the risked amount is always equal to the stop loss at 10k.
I am lost on this one. What could be the issue here?

I ran my test with 1000 USD:

[DanZig55]

I solved the mistery by research. My Demo account was running without leverage. So in most cases the EA traded the minimal lot 0.01. Topic closed

[l'andorrà]

@danzig55 Thank you for your kind words and thatk you for sharing your result.