Why do you want/need a VPS (Virtual Private Server) for trading?

The purpose of having a VPS server is because when you are running MT4/MT5 program on your computer as soon as you close the program, sleep your computer, or turn off your computer, any automatic trading methods will no longer work.

This part of MT4/MT5 is called a EA(Expert Advisor) which in my opinion should be called something like automated trading robot since this is exactly what they do!

The first time I realized that if you have an EA installed it would stop working as soon as your computer went to sleep is when I was using an EA that automatically moved my stop loss to break even after a certain amount of pips. As soon as I went to check on the trade on my computer I noticed the EA did not move my stop loss to break even. I was like what the heck is going on here.

Ooooohhh…. So MT4/MT5 stop working as soon as your computer is off or asleep. Oh geez I thought, so some people keep their computers on all day. The answer is some people yes, they keep the computer going all day everyday but the other option is a VPS.

What is that?

It is like having a windows computer running in the cloud that never turns off and you just open it up like a window browser on either your windows computer or mac.

That is the way to keep running an EA (Expert Advisor) all day everyday on MT4/MT5 and not having to worry about your computer. It is running up the cloud and can be accessed whenever you want.

But why would you want this and what is an EA?

Essentially the vision of the founders of MT4/MT5 were for us to not manually trade on the software but essentially automate our trading strategies and create automated trading robots which they have named expert advisors(EAs).

So maybe everyone out there is doing their trading manually because you have been taught this way but wouldn’t it be better if your entire trading method was automated and then you didn’t have to do anything.

Of course it is a better way and less likely for human error and eliminate bad trading human intervention or what they call, the psychology of trading.

(I am going to show you how to do this part later using quantitative software to do the backtesting and strategy creation and have a MT4 or MT5 EA to use)

SO exactly what reasons would you want to make a VPS?

Two main reasons,

  • You want to use an EA and have that trading for you all day everyday, the computer must stay on to run MT4 or MT5.
  • You have a MAC and you cannot run MT4/MT5 on it. So you get a VPS and download this item called Remote Desktop in the App store. Now you have a virtual windows program and you can use it on your MAC. You can use MT4 or MT5 flawlessly.

After I figured out exactly how a VPS works I was a bit overwhelmed on which one to get. There are way too many companies. SO which one to get?

Here is the run down. The monthly price is 12USD w/ www.accuwebhosting.com

They are located in USA, 18 years in business, and ready to set-up promptly!

This one is the best because you can run up to 4 separate MT4/MT5 terminals.That means up to 4 strategies at once.

If you see a company offering anything VPS free, it means they are going to charge you 50USD per month after the trial using a data plan.

If you see a company offering anything for 5USD per month. It is going to be in Eurozone – Amsterdam, Russia, Estonia or Bulgaria. It will be sketchy, brown-out power off resets which turns off the EA, or hacking and getting all your account information stolen.

I looked at them all w/ www.accuwebhosting.com you get quality at what I think is a cheap as they can make it.

I hope this research helps you out and lets you understand VPS servers for trading on MT4/MT5 and using an Expert Advisor that will let you trade without doing any of the manual trading work or just being able to use your Mac computer to run MT4/MT5. I wish I learned this earlier.

By Dave

I'm Dave. I help inspire traders to become professional and trade for a living.