Comments for https://ctrader.com/products/3308

Dear algo_expert,

Thank you for the thoughtful questions — and thanks for testing cBot.

On XAUUSD, a default volume of 10,000 units is overly aggressive for many “standard” test deposits. I generally recommend risking around 1% of your account balance per trade and I do not recommend going above that.

You can trade with any volume, I don't want to limit you, but please keep in mind the risks and the potential drawdown that your account equity must be able to withstand. As a practical starting point, you can try 0.1 lot (and later 1 lot) with a $10,000 account and compare the outcomes.

Also, please don’t treat the default settings as “universal.” There are no truly universal parameters: some traders prefer a more aggressive style, while others prefer a smoother equity curve with more predictable, risk-controlled performance. I intentionally do not hard-limit traders inside the robot.
To properly understand and control risk, you should focus on risk/quality metrics such as Sharpe ratio, Sortino ratio, maximum drawdown, expectancy, profit factor, etc. There are many metrics, and which ones matter most depends on your own objectives and risk tolerance.

Markets also change over time, and so do the parameter combinations that perform well or poorly — that is exactly why I built the genetic optimization workflow in the first place.
Answers to your questions:

1. Position sizing: by default, it is not automatically balance-adaptive. I recommend sizing at ~1% risk and selecting volume accordingly.

2. Internal safeguard: No, there is no internal safeguard that automatically prevents oversized positions relative to equity. I recommend reviewing each parameter individually in my dashboard and also the interactions between parameters. This helps you estimate what performance and risk profile you may get across different time periods.

3. Recommended starting point for XAUUSD: start with 0.1 lot on a $10,000 account, then test 1 lot. You can also use cTrader’s built-in optimization to see what works best for your environment, and then validate out-of-sample.

4. GA published assumptions / account size: the screenshot you saw was for NASDAQ 100. For that research run, I used an account balance of $100,000 and a traded volume of $15,000 (not lots — USD notional, to make comparisons across different assets easier). For the GA runs on XAUUSD, I used the same assumptions. For BTXUSDT, I used an account balance of $100,000 and a traded volume of $10,000.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.

Best wishes,

Alex