Aug 14, 2012: Lets talk Oanda and Java MT4 Part 1

RSS Archive

The thoughts and techniques of trading, as learned through a student. Currently only trading currencies:

Welcome! This is my 2012-2013 daily journal/blog to see if, and to what extent, trading can really be done for the average Joe; Without the fancy automated trading systems, spending thousands of dollars on books and seminars, and quad monitor business. Everything I have learned is through the internet and free e-books.

Link to Live trading account:

All equity charts are presented using Charles Schwab's Street Smart Pro. All forex charts are presented using Oanda's Metatrader 4 Java edition.

The following are my most recommended (and lengthy) posts:

Reading and using the Metatrader 4 platform:
Part 1 part 2
The beginnings of analysis
Compilation of Bearish Reversal candlestick patterns
Compilation of Bullish Reversal candle stick patterns
Blog list for the year

This is meant to be a learning experience above all. If you have a question, ask! Ask me anything

August 14, 2012

Since this blog isn’t just about trading strategies but rather the whole experience, I thought I’d write a bit about what I’ve learned so far about my demo broker, and MT4. Again, I don’t use the actual application, just the Java launch.

First, the hours. Oanda offers trading from about Sunday 3pm to Friday 5pm, EST.

How I have my MT4 set up:

1. The first thing I did was get rid of the weekend data. Flat lines with no data just makes longer time frames really choppy. So I went to Tools, User Preferences, and I have checked “Ignore weekend data” “Hide and Ignore Weekend Data” Under Weekend start I put 17:00 Friday, and under Weekend end I put 15:00 Sunday, Corresponding to times above.

2. The second thing to check was my platform time. Remember that issue I had with one thing telling me it was the 8th and the other thing telling me it was the 9th? That turns out to be because I have some inconsistencies between the platform time and my time. To fix this I just operate on NY time, so I set my time zone to GMT-5

3. The next very important thing is the quote list. By default it just gives you a ton of currency pairs sorted alphabetically. I removed everything, and then started adding one by one. It makes most sense to trade your own currency pairs, so for me, I have most of the USD pairs. While the TT system allows one to trade any pair, I’m more comfortable trading a pair I’ve looked at a ton. This also goes back to the idea of specializing: most people I talk to say it’s best to trade 1 or 2 pairs. Maybe 4 tops depending on style. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having a ton of pairs on the quote list if that’s what you want. The nice thing is you can even move pairs up and down the quote list, so I put my 2 pairs that I’m looking to trade a lot, AUD/USD and EUR/USD right at the top, with the rest of the USD pairs below it.

One last small thing to do, which I believe you have to do every time you boot it up, is to click this little button which gives the little pop down for “units” so you can make trades without having to open a new window on top: