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For those of you who have read our strategy entitled “Using Copper To Trade Aussie Dollars“, and are wondering how to execute this trade on your MT4 platform, this article is for you.

We needed to compare Copper Futures price action and execute trades on AUDUSD. So we live chatted with our friends at Forex.com:

Tommy: It is based on an underlying futures contract. The current underlying futures contract is based off of March futures.
gho: and we are trading the CFD correct?
gho: how frequently is price data updated?
Tommy: The price data is real time.
Tommy: You are trading a CFD based on underlying futures.
Tommy: We receive roughly 3 rates per second.
gho: what if we switch to daily charts
gho: it will be once a day
gho: do u know what time?
Tommy: Each new candle starts at 22:00 GMT.
Tommy: If you are holding the position at the time of expiry, you will be closed at the prevailing market rate at the time of expiry.
Tommy: Then, you would be able to manually enter a new position in the next contract month at your discretion if you wish.

So Forex.com provides live prices for copper CFDs based on the underlying copper futures. We compared this with Bloomberg using the function HG1 Comdity – the copper charts on Forex.com’s MT4 displayed similar chart patterns with the copper futures chart on Bloomberg.

There you go, Forex.com will be a convenient MT4 platform for this strategy.

As we were researching trading strategies and programming them for MT4, we came across 2 common trading scenarios:

Trading Scenario 1: If we are trading an expert advisor, it enters trades based on forex trading signals. Depending on your strategy, you may have to hold both long and short positions on the same pair concurrently – this is known as hedging on MT4. Make sure your broker allows this if not your strategy will not execute as planned.

Trading Scenario 2: One common exit strategy for forex trading is to take profit along the way by closing part of our position, for example closing off half of the existing position to realize half the profits first. Again, make sure your broker allows this, because not all of them do.

To make sure our MT4 platform caters to the above, we initiated live chats with OANDA first, followed by Forex.com. It is very clear which broker we will use for trade execution. Hopefully this serves as an up to date review for all of you forex traders.

LIVE CHAT WITH OANDA:

Huiling: Thank you for choosing OANDA. How may I help you?
gho: on mt4, lets say im long 10,000, and I would like to take profit by closing half my position. how do i do that?
Huiling: please hold
Huiling: as MT4 platform does not allow hedging, you will need to place an opposite trade in our fxtrade platform
gho: meaning i will have 2 positions open
Huiling: no, as OANDA does not allow hedging within the same account, your existing position will either be reduced or net off due to the opposite trade place
Huiling: for instance, you have a BUY 1000, and you place a SELL 500
Huiling: it will leave you with a BUY 500
gho: yup
gho: that seems to be the solution to my initial question
gho: so im confused
gho: so to confirm
gho: i simply have to place a sell order for 5000
gho: is this correct?
Huiling: yes if you would like to leave with a BUY 5000
Huiling: however MT4 platform will not allow you to do so
Huiling: hence please login to your fxtrade platform
gho: so on oanda mt4
gho: if i have 10,000 long
gho: i am unable to short 5000
gho: i have to close the position
gho: and enter a new one
Huiling: yes

LIVE CHAT WITH FOREX.COM

Dennis: Hello gho, and welcome to FOREX.com UK. May I have your User ID (Account Number) or email address to better assist you?
gho: on mt4, lets say im long 10,000, and I would like to take profit by closing half my position. how do i do that?
gho: i simply have to place a sell order for 5000 is this correct?
Dennis: One moment please.
Dennis: To partially close a position, double click on it, select the volume (10000 = 0.1) to 0.5 and click close position.
Dennis: If you place an opposing order, you will see another position – short 5000.
gho: i was told mt4 does not allow that?
gho: oh
gho: so do not place an opposing order
gho: but rather
gho: CLOSE half of it
Dennis: Yes.
Dennis: Hedging is allowed on UK MetaTrader 4 accounts, so you can be long a short at the same time.

To be honest, we were not only confused by the OANDA live rep’s explanation, but disappointed with OANDA’s execution capabilities. On the other hand, Forex.com’s answer was straight to the point, and their MT4 platform allows hedging as well as profit taking – exactly what we need for the 2 trading scenarios above.

So make sure you check that your broker allows you the above 2 functions if they are part of your forex trading strategy.

The Singapore Dollar has experienced a strong 6% gain in less than a year against the USD since June 2012. Prices have bounced along the red diagonal trend line, and the bullish trade was well above the kumo the whole time.

In November 2012 we saw a break below the red trend line, followed by a kumo break to the downside in January 2013. Prices have been consolidating in the green rectangle since September 2012 and we see the future kumo clouds thin and twisting. The base of the green rectangle also coincides with the kumo shadow support and we saw prices bounce off this level at around 0.81.

The down trend will likely resume if we see a break below the green rectangle. Chikou (Lagging) Span (the faint gray line) is currently hovering inside the kumo cloud. Once Chikou Span breaks below the kumo, it will be further confirmation of a bearish move ahead.