Can a grid trader survive?

Grid trading is good for start observing a behavior of the market. The key to survive is "not lose your money" even though the market will collapse.

I am quite skeptical about this whole Grid thing. Some of my friends adopted multiple variations of this strategy and none of them got positive results in the long run.

With due respect, you are wrong... If you failed, doesn't mean that strategy failed. A grid trade can survive for life time and with good profits.

Best Answer!

I enjoyed reading all the posts in this thread. I have been trying to assess grid trading and I am manually testing it. Whatever I mention here is only for educational and informational reasons only and it is not to be considered as financial advice. You can choose unidirectional or dual directional approach. Recommended amount is 10,000 USD on demo. Choose a sideways or ranging pair like USDCHF, EURGBP or USDCAD. Stick to one only! Place Pending orders of 0.01 lots every 10 or 20 pips with no SL and No TP. Upon Closing profitable positions, immediately place the pending orders again at same prices where you started from and let the account keep rolling. on 10000 USD, you can place 0.01 lots 100 times or 0.02 50 times up and down. My philosophy is these pairs dont move 1000 pips to blow your account. You have to know where you will lose everything. I am averaging on cent account every 5 pips of USDCAD. So far its working since December.

Imo grid trading is a perfect method when you are 100% sure of the direction of the market, but it is quite paradoxical: why to use grid if you know the direction?

Answer is flat out NO. I've run and watched others run grids for 15+ years of varying kinds, with dynamic self-adapting indicators and all sorts of things, but in the long run all grids will get stopped out. I saw one grid about 13 levels into a trade that was stopped out realized a 30% loss, it was literally 4 pips over the stop, and then GBP retraced 1000 pips over a few months. No, grids are for market makers (the sell side) not for traders. Be warned!

I think grid trading helps traders to understand and evaluate the complex inner dealings of the market and helps in forecasting the changes that are going to take place in the global market.

It all comes down to knowing where to put your limit orders and when to get out.

try using 0.01 lot size buy and sell on a demo account with 50 pip space and tp also 50 pips. replace order at same price when closed. demo acct should be 2000$. pair is usdchf only.

Too risky to keep so many positions open. Only recommend to someone who knows how to manage their time properly and identifies the right moment to open and close positions.

I find this Grid EA, called PZ Grid Trading EA, is very flexbile and I trade this EA manually even though that sounds oxymoronic. Almost 10% a week but tested for 2 weeks only.

I use simple price action as a guide and a daily and weekly target to aim for. Once hit I will close the profitable grids and for the non profitable ones I'll either reduce the grid levels so it automatically gets closed out at an acceptable net loss or use the averaging function to average out.

https://www.mql5.com/en/blogs/post/729097

Would love to hear what Grid trading strategies others have tried or are using. I find a bidirectional/hedging grid is great for a ranging market and am seeing good results with it and a single direction for trending markets.

Anyone?

Yes grid trader can survive but stops are more important in this trading style than in any other! Basically money management is the key because you open and hold a lot of positions and because of that transaction costs eat good part of your profit (add to loss), so you have to be careful about proper choice of lot sizes as well as stop loss.

The premise of this question is wrong. Why are you asking if a grid trader can survive? Is your goal surviving or making it? For me those two things are very different.


A grid strategy that is probably the best is Blackwave. Its been around for 5+ years. That is about as good as it gets if you want relative safety. Still, it doesnt come even close to what a proper swing or trend following strategy can do both in terms of profit and risk.

Grids are the simplest strategies that anyone can try but I would not recommend it to anybody. A small mistake in MM and it will wipe out the account in a matter of hours.