The author argues that this EA is perfect for the lovers of quiet-term trading. Hence the name of the expert advisor – the trader will have to be patient and behave like a spider waiting for their prey for hours.

As for the algorithm, the exact method of the market analysis is unknown. Some "harmonic oscillations" are only casually mentioned, which the HE Spider takes into account in transactions. In plain English, the EA uses both corrective movements and the continuation of the trend in trading.

At that, it uses elements of wave analysis, in particular it is assumed that the basic movement has a 5-wave structure, and correction is limited to 3 waves. Selecting a timeframe as possible due to the need to eliminate "noise", while maintaining sufficient intensity of trading.

It is recommended to trade only on the h4 timeframe and only on the EUR/USD currency pair, other currencies failed to achieve sustainable results. As for the starting capital, the author recommends to have at least $20 for cent accounts (or $2,000 for an ordinary account).

How to configure the HE Spider expert advisor

All settings of the expert advisor can be divided into 3 parts: lot settings, Scanner settings (with their help, you can try to optimize the trading robot), and setting governing the trading process (Trade block). You can try to change the following settings:

• LotsStep – the step at which the lot will vary with changes in the deposit;
• BalanceStep – the step of the change in the deposit is set, only works with the enabled LotStep;
• UseMM – true value enables the calculation of the deposit based on the size of the lot;
• Min/MaxLots – boundary values of the fixed lot, you need to disable UseMM to trade with a fixed lot;
• Recovery – when you activate this function, the lot increases after each profit. If the SL was triggered, the lot does not change;
• MaxTP/SL – the value of orders to take profits/losses is set;
• Filter/Landa/teta – parameters responsible for the wave analysis;
• UpdateHud and EAcomment – do not affect trading, responsible respectively for the enabling of the information window and adding comments to the deals made;
• MagicNumber – this parameter is responsible for the EA being able to distinguish orders opened manually and by the EA;
• FakeSL/HideSL – a kind of protection against "unfair" brokers. The EA is able to "hide" the protective orders.

HE expert advisor, as well as other expert advisors with closed source and unknown algorithm of work, is fairly limited in settings. This is not a benefit – on the contrary, it reduces the possibility of optimizing the MTS.

Testing of the "spider"

Trading is conducted on a large timeframe, so testing was carried out since 2010 onwards. We used the standard settings for MTS. Just in case, the initial deposit has been increased to $50,000 – even in the event of an unforeseen drawdown, the test wouldn’t have been completed prematurely.

The results are broadly consistent with expectations and the words of the author. Trading robot really trades profits and not very often. Thus, for the nearly 5-year testing period, the profit was $201,868.4, i.e. the initial capital was increased by 5 times. Moreover, 2014 can’t be called too good – most of the time the deposit was reduced from a peak of $367,557 in 2013.

Claims can be made against a too big loss – after all, a drawdown of about 40% is too much for a robot that does not use Martingale. As for profitability, the overall percentage of losing trades (42.08%) is relatively high, and the HE Spider expert advisor wins mainly due to the ratio of SL and TP.

The worst situation is with the stability of trading. The chart clearly shows that most of the time the advisor simply trades around 0. In particular, 2013 ended with an approximately zero performance, and 2014 was an unlucky streak. MTS is clearly in need of optimization.

Optimization of the HE Spider expert advisor

The expert advisor has no problem with profitability, so the main thing to pay attention to was a high drawdown. The trader’s hands are literally tied at optimization – you can only change the auxiliary parameters, such as SL and TP levels or a step of change in the deposit.

Actually, it is the change of the lot at trading that caused the most problems. Default parameters LotsStep and BalanceStep are equal to 0.01 and 80, and this means that when calculating the lot, the HE Spider expert advisor considers the volume of 0.01 for every $80 of the initial capital. It makes sense to increase BalanceStep, especially given the high percentage of losing trades.

BalanceStep value was increased to 280 in increments of 40. Optimizing time should also be mentioned: when you add the 2nd and 3rd parameters, it is stretched to several hours, so it is better to restrict the experiments to one EA parameter.

The attempts of optimization brought no results, however, it was expected, because the trader cannot affect the algorithm to assess the situation on the market. This can be attributed to the significant shortcomings of MTS.

Summing-up

In general, HE Spider expert advisor lives up to its name – it will only fit for patient traders. Thrill seekers, adrenaline and dozens of risky transactions for 1 day will be disappointed in the trading robot, because it has on average 1 transaction every 4-6 days, and the periods of drawdown or trading around 0 can last for months.

The first noticeable results when using this advisor will, at best, be in 1-3 months (depending on market conditions). In this case, the deposit shall be of such size that the drawdown of 40-50% didn’t become fatal for it.

In general, the expert advisor can be recommended for using on a real account. Just do not wait for fantastic results at once, this trading robot is one of those "workhorses", which, although don’t shine with maximum results, rely on the stability of the results.

In favor of the "spider" is also the fact that trading is conducted without the use of Martingale or averaging. At that, trading can be made safer by increasing the BalanceStep parameter – in the meantime, the working lot will change more slowly.