How to Use the ForexTester Easy Order Entry Script

This article is a practical guide for users of the Easy Order Entry ForexTester Script. For a review of the ForexTester back-tester software see here. For installation instructions for the EOE script, see here.
Having installed your EOE software, how do you go about using it? This is a guide to setting up and using the strategy once it has been installed

Script Input Parameters

To bring up the script dialog box, right-click on one of the two Easy Order Entry scripts in the script window and select Edit Script Properties.

There are a number of input parameters to go through here.

1, Hot Key
This allows you to specify a key combination for executing the script. There are a number of options available in the drop-down so simply select an appropriate one.

2. Currency Pair
You must set this to the pair that you are trading. Otherwise you’ll be scratching your head and wondering why nothing is happening when you apply the script.

3. Time-frame
Likewise, you must set this to same time-frame as the chart that you are working on, otherwise nothing will happen

4. Entry Method
There are two options here: Bracket Bar and Use pending order levels

In Bracket Bar mode, when the script is applied it takes the last bar on the chart and places the order and stop loss at either end of the bar (with appropriate offset, see below).
 
In Use pending order levels mode, when the script is applied it searches for pre-existing entry and stop-loss orders already on the chart. In this case the script will delete these orders and replace them with ones at the same level but with the desired risk sizing.

5. Trade Direction
This will either be long or short. For your convenience, two versions of the script are supplied, one with the default set to long and one to short. This way you can simply use whichever one you want without having to change settings on every trade

6. Entry Offset
This is the offset in points (the smallest allowable fluctuation in the price) from either end of the bar for the entry stop order and stop loss. Note, the spread will be correctly accounted for as well at the high of the bar.

7. Risk Definition
This is one of two options: specific $ value or Pct of equity balance

For specific $ value then you specify the fixed USD amount from which you want your risk percentage to be taken. In other words, this is as if you have a fixed account size of this amount so no compounding will occur.

For Pct of equity balance then the current equity account value is used for risk calculations. This means that your account trades will be compounded.

8. Act pct to risk
This is the percentage of the risk definition amount that is risked on each trade

9. Take Profit Type
This is either Reward to Risk or Fixed Points

With Reward to Risk then the Take Profit level is set to a fixed multiple of the initial risk amount. So with a value of 2.0 then you would make twice what you risked if your take profit level is reached

With Fixed Points then the take profit level is a fixed number of points (the minimum price fluctuation).

10. FX Conversion Rate
This is where you can set your FX conversion rate for pairs where the profits are not in USD. It is also possible to load in the appropriate conversion rate data in which case it will use that but it’s often more convenient (and quicker as you don’t have two sets of data to update) to set the figure here. A bit of trial and error will usually work out what figure to use here. Obviously for XXXUSD pairs this should be set to 1.0 but as a rule of thumb for XXXJPY pairs then 0.01 works reasonably well.

 

Using The Script

Once the input parameters have been set up correctly then you can apply the script to the chart any time that you want to make a trade either by using the Hot-key combination, or by double-clicking on the script in the Scripts Window.