Having trouble closing

[Johnnysportster]

I'm totally new to forex trading [only one week], but enjoying it immensley.
I have a demo account with Metatrada4 and at the moment seem to be doing quite well by just following the trends and trading once a day. I've had a few losses, but at present I'm up by 1000 points. The problem is I'm having great difficulty closing my trades. It should be just a case of double clicking on the open trade to highlight it, and then clicking on close,but but the close trade box very rarely comes up. It seems to happen by luck more than anything else. I know I must be doing something wrong but can't figure out what. Can anyone help?

 

[shadowninja]

Double click on the entry price rather than just the trade line. Or right click.

 

[NetTecture]

Yeah. I was / am making a demo run with MetaTrade, too - simply because I am not going to risk money with an unknown platform.

I am NOT impressed by the UI. Or - doing software - I am, it is hard to make it that bad. I have repeatedly entered bad trades in the heat. Like opening "inverse" positions, instead of closing an open one (it should at least ask in this case). You really have to try around for some things to come. Order management is NOT handy.

Looking for another UI now Or I will write my own (for order entry and position management) - that part is not so much work, if your platform has an API

 

[shadowninja]

I've got no problems with it. Like trading, you have to learn to adapt.

 

[Johnnysportster]

Many thanks

Double click on the entry price rather than just the trade line. Or right click.

Thanks, your advice worked a treat. Back to some panic free practice trading.

 

[Johnnysportster]

Welcome any advice

Yeah. I was / am making a demo run with MetaTrade, too - simply because I am not going to risk money with an unknown platform.

I am NOT impressed by the UI. Or - doing software - I am, it is hard to make it that bad. I have repeatedly entered bad trades in the heat. Like opening "inverse" positions, instead of closing an open one (it should at least ask in this case). You really have to try around for some things to come. Order management is NOT handy.

Looking for another UI now Or I will write my own (for order entry and position management) - that part is not so much work, if your platform has an API

Yes, like you I am not overly impressed with MetaTrade's software, but it's fine to use until I'm ready to play with real money. I was introduced to forex by a good friend who's been trading very sucsessfully now for a couple of years. I've only been trading for a week now, using candlesticks as a guide. I suppose I'm making educated guesses at the moment, but over the last 5 days I've made over 1000 pips. As I say this mostly guesswork, and these kind of profits may take a tumble over the next few weeks. I would welcome any advice as to a more reliable system I can study up on and apply.

 

[NetTecture]

Well, trading system development is hard I have one that I now plan to automate (which basically goes), as well as some manual discretionary trades, but I like what Ninjar does, that you can predefine complete trading plans (enter here, stop loss here, moving profit target, protect from loss the moment you can set a stop that results in 0) and prepare everything.

During one month paper trade I had like 4-6 bad trades with MetaTrader SIMPLY because of API issues. Like opening counter-positions INSTEAD of closing an existing one (heck, could they ASK about that?), or accidentally closing a wrong position when I was closing 6 position (pyramid up) in one market. Some things are simply TOO damn complicated to do - in Ninja trader have the prepared trade plan, and it has - guess it - a CLOSE POSITION button that kills all open positions. Heck, it even has a "reverse" button.

That plus the automation I plan to do take me away from MetaTrader. I know I can write some automation here, but - sorry, I am a good programmer, used to C# and Visual Studio. I want my debugger, unit tests, integration into source control and issue tracking and stuff like that

For the actual strategy - there are some here, but in the end you ahve to find what works for you (psychologically).