ForexPhantom FAQs

ForexPhantom is an automated grid-based trading system that opens trades in both directions (buys and sells) based on configurable distances in points. It can scale lot sizes, trail profits, manage daily profit and loss, and use filters such as RSI and trend direction. It handles full “cycles” of trades per direction and can automatically close an entire basket when profit or loss conditions are met.

A cycle is a group of trades in a single direction (either buy or sell) that starts with the first trade in that direction and ends when all trades in that direction are closed. Cycle-level profit and loss is tracked and used by features like TakeProfitAmount, PhantomRecovery, and Cycle Max Loss.

You enter your License Key in the EA inputs. The EA periodically calls the ForexPhantom license server using your account number and EA name. If the license is valid, trading continues normally. If it’s denied or cannot be verified beyond the grace period, the EA stops opening new trades (and may show a “License: DENIED/ERROR” status on the dashboard).

Allow Buy = true → the EA is allowed to open buy cycles.
Allow Buy = false → no new buy trades or buy cycles are opened.

Allow Sell = true → the EA is allowed to open sell cycles.
Allow Sell = false → no new sell trades or sell cycles are opened.

Existing trades in that direction will still be managed (e.g. trailing, PhantomRecovery) unless you manually close them.

It is the minimum distance (in points, not pips) between the adverse extreme price of the current cycle and the next trade in that direction. Once price moves against your existing positions by at least this distance (adjusted by the Distance Step Multiplier, if used), the EA is allowed to open another trade in the same direction.

First Order Distance: When there are no trades open in a direction, this is the distance (in points) used to place the very first pending order for that new cycle.

Open Distance: For additional trades, once the grid spacing condition is met, the EA places a new pending order at this distance from current price so that the pending order “follows” price until it gets triggered.

Move Step (in points) controls how often a pending order is adjusted as price moves. As price trends away, the EA “chases” price with the pending order, keeping it at the configured distance. It only moves the pending order if price has moved at least MoveStep points since the last adjustment, which avoids excessive modifications.

This multiplier makes each additional trade further apart than the last. For example:

DistanceBetweenTrades = 1000
DistanceStepMultiplier = 2.0

Trade spacing becomes: 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000 points, etc.
A value of 1.0 means even spacing (classic grid). Larger than 1.0 spreads trades further apart and can reduce risk in extreme trends.

The initial trade in a cycle uses Order Lot Size (or the Auto Lots value, if enabled). Each subsequent trade multiplies the previous lot size by Multiply Lot Size.

Example: LotSize=0.01, Multiplier=2 → 0.01, 0.02, 0.04, 0.08, etc.

With Use Auto Lots = true, the EA ignores the fixed OrderLotSize and calculates lot size based on account balance:

Low risk: 0.01 lots per 1000 balance
Medium risk: 0.05 lots per 1000 balance
High risk: 0.10 lots per 1000 balance

This is recalculated before every new trade, so lot sizes can increase as the account grows. Multiply Lot Size still applies on top.

Take Profit Amount is a basket target in money for each direction. When Trailing Profit is off, the EA sums the floating profit of all trades in a direction; if it’s ≥ TakeProfitAmount, it closes all trades in that direction, ending the cycle and locking that profit.

Trailing Profit: Works on the first trade in a cycle. Once the first trade is in profit by at least TrailProfitActivatePoints, the EA places a trailing stop behind price by TrailProfitDistancePoints, effectively locking in and trailing overall cycle profit. When Trailing Profit is ON, the TakeProfitAmount basket target is ignored.

Trailing Stop: Applies to additional trades starting from a configurable trade number (e.g. trade #2 and onwards). Once an individual trade is in profit by TrailActivatePoints, the stop-loss is trailed behind price by TrailDistancePoints. This is mainly for capturing repeated profits in sideways motion on the later trades.

The EA monitors daily profit (closed + floating) for this symbol and this EA. When the net PnL for the day is ≥ DailyTargetAmount:

• All open trades and pendings are closed on that symbol for this EA.
• The EA stops opening new trades for the rest of that server day.
• The dashboard will show that daily target has been hit and trading is paused.

The EA also tracks daily net profit including floating loss. If the net PnL for the day falls to or below -MaxDailyLoss:

• All open trades and pending orders for this EA/symbol are closed.
• The EA stops trading for the rest of the day.

There is an option for Daily Loss to override minimum trade time so loss protection takes priority.

Cycle Max Loss: Limits the loss for a single directional cycle (buy or sell). If the combined floating + closed PnL for that cycle goes below -In_MaxCycleLoss, the EA closes all trades in that direction and ends the cycle. Other direction or new cycles can still trade until daily limits are hit.

Max Daily Loss: Applies to the whole day on that symbol for this EA. Once hit, all trading stops for the day, regardless of cycles. This lets you, for example, cap each cycle at -1000 while still allowing up to -3000 for the entire day.

When PhantomRecovery is enabled, the EA watches each direction’s cycle PnL. If:

• The number of trades in that direction ≥ PhantomRecovery_After_X_Trades, and
• The total (closed + floating) PnL for that cycle is ≥ PhantomRecovery_MinNetProfit

…then the EA will close all trades in that direction, even if individual trades are in loss, as long as the whole cycle is at breakeven or profit (according to your threshold). This is designed to “escape” messy grid situations by sacrificing small individual losses for a net-zero or small profit exit.

When Trade Market Trend Only is enabled, the EA uses a trend model (EMA-based in the latest build) to decide if the market is trending up, down, or ranging. Then:

• If trend is Up, it only opens buy cycles (assuming Allow Buy = true).
• If trend is Down, it only opens sell cycles (assuming Allow Sell = true).
• In range or unclear trend, it may pause new cycles depending on the logic.

PhantomRecovery can also use trend information to close the basket that’s currently trading against the trend, optionally accepting a controlled loss to realign with market direction.

The EA reads RSI over a configurable period:

Regular mode:
• Buys are only allowed when RSI is below the Buy Level (oversold).
• Sells are only allowed when RSI is above the Sell Level (overbought).

Inverted mode:
• Buys are only allowed when RSI is above the Buy Level.
• Sells are only allowed when RSI is below the Sell Level.

This lets you choose between a more contrarian style (buy low / sell high) or trend-following style (buy into strength / sell into weakness) based on RSI.

When enabled, the EA will only open one new trade per direction per candle. Even if conditions are met multiple times within the same bar, it won’t open additional trades until a new candle forms. This helps reduce over-trading on volatile lower timeframes.

Min Trade Time defines how long a trade must stay open before the EA can close it for normal reasons (basket TP, PhantomRecovery, trailing, etc.). Until that time has passed, the EA will not close the trade due to profit or trailing logic. The only exception (if enabled) is if Max Daily Loss is hit and the override is turned on, in which case trades can be closed immediately to protect equity.

Normally, ForexPhantom uses pending orders that follow price until triggered:

• Bypass Pending First Trade = true: The first trade in a new cycle is opened as a market order immediately when conditions are met instead of placing a pending order.
• Bypass Pending Subsequent Trades = true: Additional trades in the same direction will also be opened as market orders rather than pendings.

This can make the grid more aggressive and immediate, but you lose the benefit of “following” price to a better entry.

This setting caps the number of open positions per direction:

• 0 = unlimited (feature disabled).
• Any positive number N = the EA will not open more than N trades in that direction at the same time.

This is a hard cap on the size of the grid, useful if you want tighter control over maximum exposure per symbol.