Free Grid EA Ikarus - From zero to hero

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Hello,

I am trading since the year of 2000. I do use different strategies and styles, but some years ago I fall in love with grid trading. Yes, I – and hopefully you – know, it is high risk, and when you try like me to gain performance 100% + a year at some point you will always hit the doomsday drawdown and blow your account. Non or less, my heartbeat goes up when thinking of the grid and many nights I swapped my sleep for intense back testing.

Some years ago, I found the EA “Super Money Grid” at the internet. I started testing it and after a while it went live with some real money. After 2 years I had many ideas how to optimize this strategy. A friend of mine is a coder and wanted to learn MQL 4. We teamed up, I explained him my ideas and he put them into the code. After 6 months we had a brand-new version of the EA with many cool features, we called it BlackMamba Ikarus.

So if you wonder about the name, well, the story of Icarus was for me always the perfect picture one should keep in mind when using a grid style trading approach: You will fly, but do not go to high, because the sun will burn your wings and your account will crash down.

When using I highly recommend starting on a demo account, only use with real money when you can handle the EA and are aware of the extreme risks involved in this trading style.



Settings:

Attached Image

magic: Magic Number if you want to run EA on different instruments on in one account
grid_size: Distance between the order of one cycle
gs_progession: Factor to expand grid_size

1. 0 = Disabled, all orders will have the same distance
2. 1 = Distance between orders will grow 1/2/3/4/5… (D’Alembert)
3. 2 = Distance between orders will grow 1/2/4/8/16…(Martingale)
4. 3 = Distance between orders will grow 1/1/2/3/5…(Fibonacci)

take_profit: Setting for securing profit of the cycle with a trailing stop.
profit_lock: Percentage of profit secured by trailing stop.
min_lot: Volume to start a new cycle.
equity_warning: Drawdown alert, when active will stop auto opening of orders.
account_risk: Stop Loss on account base, when reached all orders will be closed an EA will stop trading.
progression: Setting for volume progression within one cycle.

1. 0 = Disabled, all orders will have the same volume
2. 1 = Volume will grow within a cycle 1/2/3/4/5 based on min_lot… (D’Alembert)
3. 2 = Volume will grow within a cycle 1/2/4/8/16 based on min_lot …(Martingale)
4. 3 = Volume will grow within a cycle 1/1/2/3/5 based on min_lot …(Fibonacci)

max_possitions: Setting for maximal positions per cycle.
unbalance_control: Hedging function

1. A new cycle (e.g. buy) will be opened with the 3. Last volume of the unclosed cycle (e.g. sell).
2. This will cause ETREME RISK and can blow your account easily.

max_spread: Setting to avoid big spreads when opening positions. Enter MT4 points here, 1 pip = 10.
show_forecast: Enables graphic elements in the chart.

How it will trade:

The EA is working on FX Pairs, I personally trade it on majors (EURUSD, USDCHF, GBPUSD % USDJPY) and bigger minors (e.g.EURGBP or EURJPY). All orders will be executed as market order, the trailing stop is handled by the EA. Therefore I highly recommend running it on MT4 hosted on a remote server.

Timeframe is not relevant because this version is using no indicators.

When started the EA will open immediately two cycles with one buy and one sell order. If the market goes north, the buy cycle will be locked with a trailing stop while the sell cycle will open the next order to average the sell cycle price. As soon as the trailing stop is hit and a cycle is closed in profits, a new cycle will be started. The EA is including commissions and swaps in the take profit calculation.

Take profit and the next price where orders will be added are shown in the chart as indication. On the right side of the chart, you have an info panel giving you an overview on spread, account and both cycles. On the left side of the chart, you will see information on both cycles and your settings. You can hide this information and the button when clicking “Show/Hide Comments”.

The EA has some hot buttons so you can manage the action with one click:

 

1. Stop Next Cycle: After a cycle is closed in profit the new cycle will not be started.
2. Rest & Realize: The EA will not add any new positions, when the take profit is reached it will use the trailing stop to secure and realize the cycle profit
3. Stop & Close: All positions will be closed immediately, and the EA will not open new cycles

When a cycle has reached the number of positions you set in max_possition the manual mode hot buttons will be activated (Buttons will show yellow colour, Yellow Alert). The modus is also activated when equity drawdown is higher than the setting under equity_warning (Buttons will show red colour, Red Alert).

Hot buttons while in Alter Yellow or Red:

 

1. Buy / Sell: Open manual the next order, volume will be based on EA setting
2. Cl. Last B / Cl. Last S: The last order of the cycle will be closed.
3. Cl. All Bs / Cl. All Ss: Close all order of a cycle

When the EA is in Alarm Yellow or Red, it will not automatically open new position to the cycle which is in drawdown, but will close a cycle with the trailing stop function when take profit is reached.

 

1. During alert modus max. equity and current drawdown will be shown on the left side of your screen.
2. During alert modus a line indicates, where the new take profit will be, when a position is manual added when using the Buy / Sell button.
3. During alert modus a line in the chart indicates where the account will hit margin call.

I am trading with the EA on a live account (1:200). I consider this to be a “fun” account, so it is much smaller than my regular accounts. Therefore, I try to push hard and this year was quite good so far. On the account I am using a beta version of Ikarus which I unfortunately cannot post here, main difference is the opening of a cycle will be done on an indicator base, the rest of the cycle is handled the same way than the EA you can download here. For entries I am using a combination of BollingerBands and Stochastik or RSI indicator.

I have many ideas how to improve the EA further, unfortunately my old coder is to busy nowadays, and I am not a coder but a trader. So, if someone is interested and blessed with MQL4 skills, I would be more than happy to use this thread for improving this EA together with you.

CODERS, PLease check post 213 for my current ideas to improve Icarus, your support is highly appreciated!

For the case you are nor familiar with the story of Icarus and his father Daedalus you can build up your knowledge on greek mythology with this youtube video.

If you have questions on the attached version of the EA or you want to discuss possible improvements you are more than welcome to post here

Green pips to all of us, Cheers

great! hope you don't mind I put it for tick backtesting though it is not trustworthy

You are more than welcome to do so. Most likewise you gonna find out that - depending on the used settings . there will be a doomsday drawdown from time to time. Griding is risky - when your yearly goal is higher than 10 %.

So my answer to this is to have a payout-schedule prepared. At the moment I am doing this on my live account like this:

1K --> 2K (1K are taken out of the account)
1K --> 3K (1K are taken out of the account)
2K --> 5K (2K are taken out of the account) At the moment I am 740 € away from this step
3K --> 8K (3K are taken out of the account)

LoL, gues you found out allready I am a big fan of fibonacci numbers

How long has it taken for you to reach that level and which pairs have you been trading?

Hi, I have started trading on this account begin of 2021, so far I was just trading EURUSD, today I added EURGBP as second pair...Cheers

Mapi,first of all thanks for useful tool.İ have an idea for it.Can we add center of gravity order indicator as to open orders on extremities and go on with thinner grids.Just an idea.

Falanca, thank you for your idea. Center of gravity is a valid option, I am not sure if it will perform better than BollingerBands, but the effect will be we are able to use much smaller grids. Also CoG Stachastik would be an interesting option.

I would like to wait for some days to see what kind of feedback is coming and than start the brainstorming on new features, counting on you!

Cheers

it looks like you add to losing positions, but do not add to profitable positions....do you think floating profits and losses would more likely to even out if you add to winning positions as well?....of course you would not need to limit the amount of orders added to the winning side....

If the Mt4 platform gets disconnected does the EA run where it left off when it reconnects?

Goodnight
Thanks for the work MaPi

Quoting TraderTero

Disliked

{quote} How long has it taken for you to reach that level and which pairs have you been trading?

Ignored

Tero, just release a new 1k account each next week/month? Those who do survive, will make it big...

1K --> 2K (1K are taken out of the account)
1K --> 3K (1K are taken out of the account)
2K --> 5K (2K are taken out of the account)
3K --> 8K (3K are taken out of the account)

This is a common mistake made by the creators of the grid system. Of course, it is safer to add only in the direction of profit (the attached picture shows the course of the test with a similar EA, when it is added only in the direction of profit, with an initial deposit of 3000 USD, status after about 5 months). I trade the same EA on Live. What is most important - choosing the right pair and in connection with it other necessary parameters. Anyway good work.

Hi MaPi. It looks interesting. Running it now on demo. Thanks for sharing.

Subscribed

Thank you, I forgotten to metion on this topic. The EA is quite stable when it comes to this. So yes, if it is interrupted and you start it again it will will run again and handle the logic from your settings...

Hey Yonnie, welcome on board. Let´s keep this in our backhead when we start talking about improvement. Without having much time to think about your point my first answer is, that this would change the hole concept of the EA. By setting the take profit we can set the target higher, but adding positions on a winning cycle would need a complete new logic including how to make sure the cycle is trailed in profit even if positions are added.

The Unbalance Mode of the EA is doing this by the way, but without having a protection (which is making this mode so dangerous), so at the moment let´s keep it on the list, but again, it would change the logic behind...

Thank you for your input!

Hi, good to have you here

I tried in the past different options when it comes to pay out. From my experience a payout strategy is defenitly needed, when you are trading a aggressiv grid. When you open up every new month a new account with 1K out of winning, but still trading the same pair, you could risk all accounts on a doomsday drawdown.

And even when trading different pairs one account could go high and than you loose it all on one bad cycle.

So either you use the stop out function of the EA or you have a payout scheme. The first goal on griding should always be to get yout own money out and try to rise sponsored by your broker

Cheers

Hi Lopuch

You nailed the point, most important is the right pair and a good broker. I trade this on a pro account 1:200 (maybe I will raise to 1:400 soon), the avg. spread on EURUSD is 0.2 pips and I am charged 6 USD roundturn per Lot comission, so in total I have around 0.8 pips. Also you need a broker with good swap rates, and - if you find one - it is a huge plus if your broker offers you zero margin on hedges, when you want to fly high with Ikarus.

Hi Mapi
I'm going to test it to understand a bit how it operates.
Thanks for sharing

Cool, looking forwar to your feedback, Cheers