Info 1: Definition of the process

Money:
The user deposits the amount of his investment into his own new bank account. The bank is not of his choice but as defined by the Clearing House/Broker of his choice, such that the transactions can be done fast and electronically. Each Clearing House/Broker partnering with StrategyBot provide the list of the Bank branches worldwide and the list of partnering banks if any. A user may add or remove money in this account as wished. If money is lacking to execute the trades, then an error will be generated on the program. Only one main user can run each copy of the StrategyBot software since only one bank account is identifying each user. StrategyBot Inc. and StrategyLand companies have no information about the amount of money deposited in these bank accounts. It remains private to the user. Each open trading day, each user will receive via E-mail the details of the trades and the status of this bank account according to the rate of the currencies used in the trades.

Activation of Contract(s) and Strategy(ies):
Each Clearing House has a defined broker allocated to the user’s account. This broker does not interfere with any of the trades. As shown in the picture, a broker is not in the process of each trade. The broker only needs to be informed by the user of which contract to be activated by the servers. The broker’s role is only to provide service to the user. An E-mail can be sent to the broker for any issues a user may have.

The servers:
StrategyBot needs a set of servers dedicated to its program. One server is used for real accounts, the other is used for paper accounts. Both are located at the Clearing House/Broker. The servers are loaded with the fully automated strategies from StrategyLand. The user’s fully automated strategies will be executed from these servers. The servers have direct access to the Futures exchanges listed on the right side of the picture above. The lapse of time from the decision by the servers to buy or to sell and the receipt at each Exchange is only a fraction of a second. No human being stands in between. No time is lost for execution. A set of 2 servers is needed per 100-150 users.

Reporting:
A user may watch on his own computer screen the results of the trades. The top right side shows in US$ the cumulated amount of the profit and loss (P&L) of all Contracts/Strategies for the day. This amount is a mixture of currencies if the selected contracts are of different worldwide exchanges. Example this shown amount might be including US Dollars, Euro, British Pound, Singapore Dollar, Hong Kong Dollar, Japanese Yen together. Next day’s E-mail report will differentiate the profit and loss by currency.

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Info 2: What influences the trading market

Professional Traders get major information from published data reporting on the state of the worldwide economy. Since the US market is an important factor of the world economy, certain of its data give clues in regards to the future direction of the trading markets. The economy is periodically measured with a non exhaustive list below of different factors :

• Size and Growth : of a country’s economy, or output of its goods and services, is measured by its “GNP” (Gross National Product) and its “GDP” (Gross Domestic Product). The “Industrial production” of a country is a published monthly report. The “Consumption” is another periodic indicator as well as “Consumer Confidence”. Trade figures show the Net Exports of the goods and relate on the health of the local economy.

• Inflation : it is measured with “Consumer price Index”.

• Unemployment : Published monthly affects the market deeply

• Currency : its value against major traded currencies.

• Balance of Payments : from supply and demand, or exports versus imports

• Interest Rates : the trading markets watch the “Fed funds rate”.

• Budget : or government spending.
  At the time, each of these above periodical factors are published, the Markets react and move immediately up or down depending not necessarily if the results are bad, but often enough on whether the results were expected or not. It is fairly similar as to what is happening with equity trading. A company may reports better earnings but its stock goes down because the earnings are not as high as expected!!! And vice versa, a company may report poor earnings and its stock does not move down, because the poor earnings were expected. Welcome to the speculative world of trading !!!

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Info 3: Avoid Trading Manually without?

If you are an Experienced Trader and know it all, please skip these 2 sections below.
1. Avoid Trading without
2. What to avoid while trading manually?

1. Avoid Trading without;

• Knowing how to place an order and how to secure its exit, (Go to How to use StrategyBot).

  • What not to do when placing your orders (only valid to Manual Traders)

    • Forgetting to set up an exit or forgetting to cover your Open Position with an exit, such as forgetting to set up Limit, Stop Loss, Auto Trailing Stop. The majority of the traders lose due to "not setting up an exit".

    • Setting your " Stop Loss " too close or too far . Too close would be within 10 ticks of that market (except for those Contracts for which the Point Value is greater than US$20). Too far would be above 40 ticks. In both cases low values of the Auto Trailing Stop parameters could not be effective.

• knowing the trading terms, (Go to our Glossary)

• knowing how to use StrategyBot, (Go to 1st time using StrategyBot ). Using StrategyBot paper version (available at minimum fee monthly) intensively by trying all options of StrategyBot provided is the best solution. It may take a few months for a user to fully control all the power of the StrategyBot program and take full advantage of each fancy features, its technical indicators etc…

• knowing the trading fees from your Clearing House/Broker. The fees may be different between Manual traders and users of Automated Strategies. Some brokers do offer lower fees for users of Automated Strategies since the majority of Manual traders lose, then go away sometimes for ever. However the fees offered to you might depend on how many trades you do monthly. Upon reaching several hundreds or several thousands trades monthly you should negotiate lower fees with your broker.

• knowing the Point value of each Contract (the value is standard worldwide per Contract) and of course in which currency the Contract trades. (Go to Contract Info)

• knowing the Margin amount of each Contract (to ensure you have enough capital to trade on some Contracts). The margins are different per Clearing House/Broker even if you trade on the same Contracts. Consult your broker or go to its website.

• Knowing the Opening and Closing Hours of the Exchange you wish to trade its Contracts. The Exchanges are not Open on holidays and weekends !! (Go to the bottom of Steps to Start).

• Knowing daily at what time the servers dedicated to StrategyBot are Online and ready to accept your orders or ready to process your exits. So check the closing times of the servers of your Broker. (Go to Contract Info)

• Always knowing how far you are from getting a Margin Call. Remain always within the limits of your investment leaving at least 25% for security, so know the margin amount required for each Contract and number of lots you wish to trade. Place your Stop Loss at a point where you know for sure you will not reach a Margin Call.

2. What to avoid while trading manually?

• Trade without being trained on Futures and the use of this powerful StrategyBot program.

• Trade when you are emotionally weak that day to initiate such risk. A trader must be in a strong, confident mind instead.

• Try to avoid "Panic, Fear and Hope". Basically limit your stress. There are the 3 worst enemies of trading.

• Discard the risks you take.

• Trade without following the rules, without discipline.

• Overtrading. The most famous trader worldwide was askded a simple question "what to avoid in order to avoid losing" . He simply replied "Overtrading".

• Insist about trading when you shall stop instead. Some days are not favorable days for trading the Contracts that you wish to trade . So walk out during those days. Our fully automated Strategies would not trade during those days. If you insist on trading, you may end up winning little as Gross value but end up a loser with Net values. Meaning you may do a lot of trades where fees will eat up your gains. If you lose on e day, you may wait for the next day to recover, you may not sleep well that night but at least you will know the next day(s) what solution (s) to take to recover what you lost the day(s) before.

• Trade without getting help, such as consulting the Intraday and Historical Charting prepared for you with technical analysis. The solution is to always consult technical indicators before Buying or Selling. Some Technical Indicators are difficult to understand. Read our information in this website or got to www.google.com type the name of the indicator and read some of the write ups provide online.

• Trade on too many Contracts at the same time. Unless you have many computer screens connected to your computer to check each Contract separately, one trader does not have the time to check all market movements of different Contracts except if the trader had automated all of his trades prior to place orders. This is where our Automated Stategies offer better solution in a sense that they can operate without the trader to watch. Many expert traders would only trade one or 2 Contracts that they know well and may anticipate their moves.

• Trade too many lots on the same Contract. If you win, then of course you will win more, but if you lose you will regret it. The solution is to wait until very favorable days to increase the number of lots. There are usually a few days in a month to increase the lot size. Setting more than one lot shall remain the responsibility of an experienced trader. Some expert traders initiate hundred(s) of lots to gain just a few points at a time. They minimize their risks that way. As an example, you may calculate what 1,000 lot orders of the same Contract with a Limit of 2 points only would create as an ROI if you do it 5 to 10 times daily. Of course the margin amount required to place an order of 1,000 lots is huge. So all fully automated trading strategies possible are relative to the deposited investment. The strategy of each trader should be to get a Return On Investment of no more than up to 5% per day. Trying more would be considered extremely risky and would probably not be achievable every day. Basically, you invest US$20,000, you make US$1,000 that day, be happy. If you are lucky enough to secure that US$1,000 profit daily, in one month you double your initial investment. Many of our conservative customers only wish to make US$50 up to US$200 per day. That seems to be an achievable strategy. Bypassing the daily 5% ROI expectation, often enough triggers higher risks then subsequent losses.

• Avoid rushing by joining a trend too late. Placing an order to Buy or to Sell upon discovering the market has moved a lot in one direction might be too late. It might be better to wait until it counter reacts in the opposite direction. Upon watching a huge rise or fall happening, of course may other traders will decide to take profit and the market will consequently change direction, that will be time to maximize your gains too, not necessarily joining the initial rise or fall. Rushing is not wise!!! Being disciplined is wise.

• Overnight positions can be listed as Risky trading. Even more if there are many lots involved.