1.1Purpose of document

This document describes the P/L Manager expert advisor (EA) for MetaTrader 4.

The EA is a simple tool for managing the profitability of orders in MT4. It does not place any orders itself. Instead, when the combined profit/loss on open positions hits a defined target, P/L Manager closes all the open positions and deletes all pending orders. You can specify both high and low triggers: i.e. a take-profit level and a stop-loss level.

P/L Manager can either be applied to a single symbol (e.g. EURUSD), or to all open positions on all symbols. It can also be restricted so that it only examines orders with a specific magic number (i.e. created by a particular expert advisor).

When P/L Manager's trigger is hit and positions are closed down, the EA can issue an alert on screen and/or by email. You can also configure the EA to shut down MetaTrader 4 in order to prevent further trading by automated systems. In addition to high and low triggers at which orders are closed, you can also define triggers at which alerts are sent (but no action is taken).

You can also choose to terminate all positions manually, by setting the ImmediateOrderClose property. In other words, P/L Manager can be used as a simple close-all script.

One further point: you can run a normal EA (i.e. which places automated orders) on one chart, and run P/L Manager on another chart for the same symbol. P/L Manager can then act as a fail-safe for the EA, closing out its positions if the EA misbehaves in some way and exceeds a profit target or stop-loss. Alternatively, P/L Manager can be used to provide alerting on another EA, sending out messages if its profitability goes outside certain bounds.

1.2Licence

Unless otherwise specified in writing by FX Blue, this software is licensed for personal use only. You are not allowed to distribute it to other people, regardless of whether or not money is changing hands. You only have a licence to use the software if you, personally, downloaded it from our website.

The software is provided entirely at the user's risk, and you should check it thoroughly before deploying it on computers trading real money. FX Blue accepts no responsibility whatsoever for any loss of any kind caused by installation or use of the software.

2Starting, stopping, and running P/L Manager

2.1Installation of P/L Manager

P/L Manager is installed in the usual MetaTrader 4 fashion: the EX4 file needs to be copied into the experts directory of the MetaTrader installation.

There are some other steps which users may want to take at the time of installation:

• Configure email details for the EA to use (on a global basis, across all EAs).
• Turn the "Allow live trading" setting on by default for all EAs.
• If you want to use P/L Manager to shut down MetaTrader 4 when its target is hit, you must turn on the "Allow DLL imports" setting.

2.2Starting P/L Manager

You start P/L Manager by attaching the EA to a chart in MetaTrader. The EA's "Allow live trading" setting must be turned on before starting. The "Allow DLL imports" setting must also be turned on if you want to shut down MT4 when the target is hit.

You can use P/L Manager in either of two ways:

• If you want P/L Manager to handle the orders for a single symbol (e.g. EURUSD), then attach it to a chart for that symbol, and leave its "ApplyToAllSymbols" setting set to false.
• If you want P/L Manager to handle all orders for all instruments, then attach it to any chart, and set its "ApplyToAllSymbols" setting set to true. (If the EA is to manage all orders, then it does not matter which chart the EA is attached to.)

You can also choose to restrict the EA so that it only looks at orders which have a specific "magic number". This is designed to allow it to manage the orders created by a particular expert advisor.

Finally, before starting you will usually want to do one of the following:

• Set the high and low triggers at which P/L Manager should close orders: the CloseAboveUpperPnL and CloseBelowLowerPnL parameters. These can be also be changed while P/L Manager is running, but please note that MetaTrader disables an EA while its properties window is open. Try to keep the window open for as short a time as possible when altering settings.
• Set the ImmediateOrderClose parametr. Instead of watching for particular triggers, P/L Manager simply closes all applicable orders as soon as the first market tick is received from the broker. In other words, it acts as a simple close-all script.

2.3Stopping P/L Manager

You can stop P/L Manager simply by removing it from its chart.

2.4P/L Manager's status indicator

While it is running, P/L Manager displays a series of status indicators in the top left corner of its chart (though the position can be altered, using EA settings, to minimise overlay on other graph elements).

P/L Manager displays the following information:

• Its current status (usually "Monitoring P/L").
• The current P/L for the selected orders (either for a specific symbol, or for all symbols)
• The high and low triggers at which orders will be closed.