As I continued to process the effects of the recent gold losses, I knew I had no choice but to get back on the tractor. When I logged into my VPS to check on my gold bot Monday morning, the gold chart had disappeared in embarrassment. I apologized for my aggressive lot sizes, and we came to a working agreement. He (again, the male pronoun for badly behaved bots) decided to come out and work for me again. I did have to promise to abide by a couple of ground rules. The following bullet points are the specific setting he required to minimize any further upset stomachs–for either of us.

• Lot Sizes: I was running lot sizes of .01/$2,250. This had me at .07. This is great when gold is going in the right direction. When it is not, all that popping of the clutch on the tractor was upsetting to both of us. To keep the account conservative for the Precision bot, the recommendation is .01/$5,000. I will agree to do this in the future. Greedy = BAD!
• Trading Window: While I toyed with changing the trading window to include the New York session, I have decided this falls into the “greedy” category. Trust the bot to do what she does well. Of the 10 days I have used the bot, there has been one losing trading session. I will trust the recommendations.
• Number of trades the bot will open at a given time: This is a variable I can control, but we agreed to leave this one open to further negotiation. When a scalper gets going, it is laying down LOTS of trades. The bot keeps adjusting the selling price based on how gold is moving. When it closes its trading window, it closes all open trades. It ideally will have more trades that are up than down. Since it has some trading smarts, I will give it the necessary latitude.
• Be aware of gold-related news: The bot can be instructed to adjust trading based on news. If I don’t trust the settings, I can turn trading off. This is another point we have agreed to review at a future date.

I peaked at the bots trades this morning and before bed last night. I admit to a bit of concern. Would it have been better to wait a couple of days after the loss to get back on the tractor? No, I am glad I pulled the Band-Aid. I regrouped, and I started recouping my losses. It’s what bot-farmers do, right?