MT4 Algo

Expert Advisor

Purpose:
To maintain a trailing stop by moving the stop loss based on
nearby fractals.

Uptrend to flat, to Downtrend showing fractal-based stop levels

Inputs:

• BarsEitherSide – The number of bars on either side of a High bar that must have a lower high price or on either side of a Low bar that must have a higher low price.
• FrctlBufferPips – The number of pips above a High fractal to place a trailing stop for a Sell trade or the number of pips below a Low fractal to place a trailing stop for a Buy trade.
• UseStealthSL – if true, the stop will not be sent to the broker and will be kept internally.

User Notes:

This EA maintains a trailing stop by moving the stop loss based on
nearby fractals.

This gives you trailing stop adjustments that are more meaningful
than the usual fixed distance trailing stop.

By using Fractals your stop is being moved to nearby albeit short
term natural support and resistance levels where price recently
changed directions.

Stops will be adjusted* to just below the pivots in an uptrend and
just above the pivots in a downtrend.

By adjusting your stops for you, the EA frees you from having to
monitor your trades and their stops.

There is much written about using Fractals to identify short term reveral points. For example,  A Trader’s Guide to using Fractals

Many recognize that these short term support and resistance congestion points make sensible places to adjust a Trailing stop to. Especially in the context of a longer term trend. See the article from
Mark Thomas “A Fractal-Based Trailing Stop EA-Designing One“.

The idea is that when a buy trade is open during an uptrend and the
price exceeds the last bearish fractal, the Stop is adjusted to the
most recent bullish fractal minus a specified number of pips (see
FrctlBufferPips input),

Alternatively when a sell trade is open and the price exceeds the
most recent bullish fractal, the stop is adjusted* to the most recent
bearish fractal plus a specified number of pips.

In addition, usually near the end of the trend, if the most recent
fractal is not exceeded an adjustment* to the most recent fractal
will still occur.

*It is still a trailing stop so stops to the nearest fractal may only happen if it is at a higher price for a Buy trade or a lower price for a Sell trade.

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Input Notes:

FrctlBufferPips input – The FrctlBufferPips input lets you control
how far above or below the Fractal pivot points your stops will be
placed. This lets you compensate for a varying amount of volatility
or noise associated with the different currency crosses or
commodities and/or indexes traded.

BarsEitherSide input – The EA calculates the fractals in a more
flexible way than the Metatrader platforms built-in Bill Williams
Fractal indicator.

The Bill Williams/Metatrader Fractal indicator only considers the
fractal bar itself and 1 bar on either side of that bar. This is a
very low bar ( no pun intended ) for identifying a fractal point.

The BarsEitherSide input allows you to control the number of bars on
either side of the fractal bar that must be lower for a high point
fractal or that must be higher for a low point fractal.
As a result the BarsEitherSide input lets you increase or decrease
how significant the fractal turning point is.
The larger the BarsEitherSide input, the less common but more
significant are the fractals that get recognized.

UseStealthSL input – There are many that feel their broker is betting against them and prefer a hidden stop that the broker does not see.
To accommodate this an optional Stealth mode that hides the stop from
the broker has been added. In stealth mode, the EA monitors where
the Trailing stop is and puts a hash mark on the chart that only the
user sees on his individual chart.

CAUTION: Anyone using stops that are hidden from the broker and monitored internally within an EA, runs the risk of having an open trade with no stop. In the event that the internet connection between the computer or server running the EA and the brokers server
is ever lost, any currently open trade(s) will have “nothing” to stop them out if the price moves against them.

System Requirements
This EA is only usable on a Metatrader 4 chart. To run Metatrader 4 you should be using Windows 2000 or later, with a 2.0 GHz or faster CPU, and at least 512 MB RAM (although 1 GB is recommended). You should have a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 or higher, and an internet connection speed of 56 kbps or faster.