Editing Built-in or Saved Strategies

A good way to learn how strategies work and how to create your own is to start by editing some of the built-in strategies. Follow the steps below to edit a built-in or saved strategy:

Open the Strategy Center from the Settings menu of your Strategy tool or the Tools menu of your Chart.

Click on a Strategy either in the Available Strategies or Selected Strategies list.

Click the Edit button.

TIP: If you want to preserve the original built-in or saved strategy but still build a new strategy based on the original, click Copy instead of Edit and a copy of the original strategy will open with a new name (you may want to change the name and Notes so they reflect the changes you are making to the strategy).

The Edit Strategy window will open and look something like this:

When you are finished editing the strategy, click OK. This will return you to the Strategy Center window.

EDIT STRATEGY FIELDS
Strategy Name	Edit or enter the strategy name
Notes	An optional field. What you type here will be what displays in the Notes field when you click on a strategy in the Strategy Center. This field can be used to document the description of the strategy.
Indicators	Lists the name(s) of the indicator(s) being used in the strategy and the Trade Action they are indicating. Click Add to apply another indicator to the strategy. You can edit the period, deviation and other indicator settings by clicking on the indicator and then clicking Edit. This is also where you can change how the trade indicators display in a chart. Refer to Editing an Indicator to learn about the fields in the Add/Edit Indicator window. Multiple Indicators While it may simplify analysis to use one indicator at a time (and then apply multiple strategies to the tool), you can have more than one indicator per strategy. When using multiple indicators, the indicator at the top of the list takes precedence over each one below it, the second highest takes precedence over the indicators below it and so forth. Change the order of the indicators by clicking on the indicator you wish to move and then clicking Move Up or Move Down to change its position in the list.
Money Management	Money Management tells the strategy to trigger a trade exit based on a pre-determined Profit Exit, Stop Loss and/or Trailing Stop percentage. If the Money Management criteria are met, a Long Exit or Short Exit will trigger and the strategy will start over by looking for Entry opportunities. Click Add Select Profit Exit, Stop Loss, or Trailing Stop Set the %Gain or %Loss, and Click OK. To add two or more Money Management indicators, repeat the steps above and select the remaining indicator. On Back Test Assume: This option is only available with the Trailing Stop Money Management indicator and allows you to determine whether the test is based on more conservative (Worst) or aggressive/positive (Best) back test results. More about On Back Test Assume Because only bar data is used in back testing (i.e. high/low/open/close) rather than tick data, the software doesn't know in what order the high and low occurred. So, to use the Trailing Stop Money Management function, the software looks at two price action scenarios: The Low occurs before the High The High occurs before the Low The software then labels the scenario that gives the most profitable result as "Best" and the other one "Worst".
Chart Settings	Connect Entry/Exit Points - A dashed line from the entry to the exit point of each trade is displayed when this is checked and the strategy is applied to a chart. - Click to change the color of the dashed line.

EDIT STRATEGY FIELDS

Strategy Name

Edit or enter the strategy name

Notes

An optional field. What you type here will be what displays in the Notes field when you click on a strategy in the Strategy Center. This field can be used to document the description of the strategy.

Indicators

Lists the name(s) of the indicator(s) being used in the strategy and the Trade Action they are indicating.

Click Add to apply another indicator to the strategy.
You can edit the period, deviation and other indicator settings by clicking on the indicator and then clicking Edit. This is also where you can change how the trade indicators display in a chart.
Refer to Editing an Indicator to learn about the fields in the Add/Edit Indicator window.

Multiple Indicators

While it may simplify analysis to use one indicator at a time (and then apply multiple strategies to the tool), you can have more than one indicator per strategy.
When using multiple indicators, the indicator at the top of the list takes precedence over each one below it, the second highest takes precedence over the indicators below it and so forth.
Change the order of the indicators by clicking on the indicator you wish to move and then clicking Move Up or Move Down to change its position in the list.

Money Management

Money Management tells the strategy to trigger a trade exit based on a pre-determined Profit Exit, Stop Loss and/or Trailing Stop percentage. If the Money Management criteria are met, a Long Exit or Short Exit will trigger and the strategy will start over by looking for Entry opportunities.

Click Add
Select Profit Exit, Stop Loss, or Trailing Stop
Set the %Gain or %Loss, and
Click OK.

To add two or more Money Management indicators, repeat the steps above and select the remaining indicator.

On Back Test Assume: This option is only available with the Trailing Stop Money Management indicator and allows you to determine whether the test is based on more conservative (Worst) or aggressive/positive (Best) back test results.

More about On Back Test Assume

Chart Settings

Connect Entry/Exit Points - A dashed line from the entry to the exit point of each trade is displayed when this is checked and the strategy is applied to a chart.

- Click to change the color of the dashed line.