Trading bot guides & glossary

24 free guides: how to install, test and run a trading bot, plus plain-language explainers on positioning, seasonality, risk and market structure.

Trading bots

Expert Advisor (EA) — What an Expert Advisor is, how a trading bot runs inside MetaTrader, and what to check before you trust one with money.
How to Install an EA in MT5 — Step-by-step: copy an Expert Advisor into MetaTrader 5, compile it, attach it to a chart and switch on Algo Trading.
How to Install an EA in MT4 — Step-by-step: copy an Expert Advisor into MetaTrader 4, compile it, attach it to a chart and switch on AutoTrading.
How to Backtest an EA in the Strategy Tester — How to test a trading bot on years of past prices in MetaTrader's Strategy Tester, and which numbers to read in the report.
Testing a Bot on a Demo Account — Why every trading bot should run on a demo account before real money, and how to set one up in MetaTrader.
Running a Trading Bot on a VPS — Why a trading bot needs MetaTrader running 24/5, and how a VPS keeps it online when your computer is off.
MT4 vs MT5 for Trading Bots — The practical differences between MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 for running Expert Advisors, and how to choose.

COT — Weekly CFTC report showing how commercials, large specs, and small traders are positioned in futures markets.
COT Index — Where commercial traders' net position sits within its own 3-year range, from 0 (most net-short) to 100 (most net-long).
Commercial Traders — Producers, merchants, and end-users who hedge with futures — often treated as informed “smart money.”
Non-Commercial Traders — Large specs and money managers who trade futures for profit rather than physical hedging.
Small Traders — Non-reportable retail-sized futures positions — often used as a soft contrarian crowd gauge.
Open Interest — Outstanding futures contracts that have not been settled — a gauge of participation and liquidity.
Smart Money — Shorthand for better-informed participants — often mapped to commercial hedgers in COT analysis.

Seasonality — Recurring calendar tendencies in prices driven by weather, demand cycles, and market structure.
Market Regime — Whether a market is trending up, trending down, or consolidating — based on trend and volatility indicators.
Sentiment Analysis — Measuring crowd mood from news, votes, and positioning — useful as context and sometimes as a contrarian cue.

Position Sizing — How much capital to risk on a trade — the bridge between a signal and account survival.
Risk Management — Rules that protect capital: stops, total exposure limits, and positive expectancy habits.

Contrarian Indicator — Signals that suggest fading the crowd when positioning or sentiment reaches an extreme.
Technical Analysis — Studying price, volume, and indicators to time entries and manage risk around a directional bias.
Fundamental Analysis — Evaluating supply, demand, inventories, and macro drivers that shape a commodity’s fair value path.

Free vs Pro Data — What you can browse publicly, what free sign-in unlocks, and what Pro and Quant add.
Reading Regimes on PositionAlpha — How to interpret trending versus consolidating regime tiles next to COT and seasonality.