|
|
|
|
Authorised by the
Financial Services Board of
South-Africa
as an
approved
Financial Services
Provider
CBI
FSP 21606
Key Individual
(Cat. 1.15 and 2.12)
Also registered at
PIC
FSP 20878
(Cat. 1.8)
FPI
AFP 200200549
FOREX ROBOTS
(Automated Trading)
You read about it and you are very interested in getting a Forex Robot - a computer program that will trade for you 24 / 5 and will make lots and lots of money for you!
But wait!
Before you spend your hard earned money, please read below:
Please do not believe in the hype nowadays of Forex Robots or Automated Trading Systems or Expert Advisors (EA's) (software you install on your computer that does Forex trades for you, that can 'sense' whether the market goes up or down, programs that can adapt to new market conditions and makes profitable trades accordingly) which will make you huge amounts of profit.
Nothing can be further from the truth.
Think about it, if these 'robots' were so phenomenal wouldn't every investment firm use them and post an annual return of 128% (which they claim to be) instead of the usual average 16%?
No robot can predict the way the market is going to go, not version 3 or version 4 or version 5 with a gold membership!
The only one that will get richer is the company offering this product!
They do not even make their profits
by trading with their own robot,
but by selling it!
If it really is such a fantastic program, why don't they use it to trade with?
Unfortunately many of the strategies programmed into these trading systems are very risky. I have tested many over the past few years and to tell the truth, there is not even one that I will use to trade my own money with.
There are some systems that will do well for a time, and then suddenly it can empty your account!
Here is a typical example of what I am talking about. This is the graph of a live trading account where the poor guy lost $53,828.67 as at 2009/09/10!
Click on the picture to go to the website where this result was originally published.
I have also found that some of the websites advertising these systems are lying about their products.
|
For example:
The Forex Maestro Robot which was advertised and sold a while ago as being the result of 6 years of intensive research, based upon neural networks and worked with a 90% and higher success-rate, was nothing else than an EA (Expert Advisor) that was available for free on the internet! |
 |
From: www.forex-tsd.com
Claims made on the Maestro website:
False Claim 1:
What is an Artificial Intelligence Neural Network?
It is the ability of a program not only to look at the current currency combination that it is trading, but also to look at other currency combinations and other factors that may have an impact on the markets. It will then take all this information into consideration and make a decision to trade or not to trade.
Here is an example of what a neural network may look like:
The strategy upon which this EA was based, had nothing to do with Neural Networks.
False Claim 2:
The person selling the new robot, found an EA (Expert Advisor) that was available for free on the internet!
Download the Firebird EA for free from here!
After testing it and realizing that it had some potential, he renamed the old program "Firebird" and gave it a new name "Maestro".
How long does it take to rename a file? Only a few seconds. Certainly not 6 years!
How did I know that it was Firebird and not the other program which I bought?
If you move the mouse arrow over a trade in the Account History (in the Terminal Window of Metatrader), a pop-up will appear showing the name that was programmed into the EA.
They did not even took the effort to change the name programmed into the EA!
False Claim 3:
The advertised success rate of 90% sounds fantastic, but when you look at the money management programmed into the EA, you realize that it just cannot work.
If it trades with a 90% success-rate, it implicates that 9 out of every 10 trades will be successful, and 1 will be a losing trade.
-
The EA was programmed to take profit at 30 pips.
-
It was also programmed to put the stop at 300 pips.
-
Now, let's calculate:
-
9 trades x 30 pips profit = 270 pips (profit)
-
1 trade x 300 pips loss = -300 pips (loss)
-
Total : 270 pips profit - 300 pips loss = 30 pips loss for every 10 trades.
-
The results from running the Forex Maestro on a demo-trading account over a period of 30 days:
The truth about this EA is:
-
The person selling the EA did not do 6 years of research as he claimed in the advertisement. He found a free EA on the internet and renamed it.
-
This EA was not based upon neural networks at all as he claimed.
-
It also did not trade with a 90% success rate as claimed.
A huge problem when trading with a robot like this is that you do not know when the robot is going to take a dive and when is a good time to take your profits.
Result: The scammers made money and I lost money and wasted time to test a useless program. I am upset and very frustrated because I paid a lot of money for an EA that is totally unusable.
Here is another example of a free EA that was renamed and sold as a new robot:
|
Magic Machine EA
Warning, for information there is someone that is selling an EA named Magic Machine EA, it is a copy of the vForce like EA ! and a Magic Machine EA platinum version, it is a copy of the vForce like EA v2 ! two free EA available on this board !
From: www.tradingsystemforex.com
|
Unfortunately this is the situation we have to cope with in the world of Forex Trading Robots at this time.
Please understand that I am not against automated trading and therefore reject all EA's as being unusable! I am just telling you to be careful when you consider it to buy an EA.
|
Still not convinced?
Here is the typical reaction from people who wasted money on EA's:
2010-03-09
Hi
Guys,
2010-02-11
I bought the EA two months ago and used it both on FXCM's demo and real account. It turned out that it generally worked better on demo than real.
2010-02-05
2010-01-17
For more than 10 months I thought that better I keep my mouth shut but I can't hold any more. I did trade with Fapturbo for 10 months with live account, all I can say is stay away from this c**p. If you think that this software is worthless you r wrong, this c**p will wipe your account in no time. Some will tell you about settings and parameters, its all nonsense, I tried all. The Robot Don't Work, Period. And now for Donna or Fapturbo support, if you are sure that this Software is so successful how is that that you bombard all your costumers with all kind of emails to sell more useless c**p? Way don't you send costumers any emails with new settings and explanations on how people can improve their Robot performance. You try to exploit people to the extreme limit that's what you doing.
All the best to all FPA members. learn to trade and they can't sell their c**p no more!!!
Source: Forexpeacearmy.com
|
Good News:
You do not need to go an buy every EA there is in order to test them.
There are websites that will test and rate some of these systems for you.
Before you follow a recommendation to buy a certain Robot, ask yourself: Are the owners of this website making any money or commission out of the sales?
-
If the answer is "Yes", it may be that they are biased in their evaluation in order to make money out of the sale of that particular robot. Stay away.
-
If the answer is "No", then maybe you can trust the evaluation.
www.forex-robot-testing.com is a new website where the aim is to test as many as possible of the EA's to find the best of the best. Alf is one of my clients and he is very serious about Automated Trading.
|
Forex Training
Learning to trade forex can be a memorable experience or a waste of money and time. To learn forex trading properly you must choose a good reputable forex training course.
Paulo and myself have done many. Need I say how much money has been wasted on courses that promise to teach you exactly how to make pips and in the end it's just the same once again.
Approximately 2 - 5% of all people that do forex training will make money on the markets.
There is many courses out there from scalping to day trading. Depending on your personality and trading style, but most teach both and even have their own forex trading strategies, some supply forex signals and their own forex software.
Things that I see as important in any course is the Sociology factor and money management as if you have a good sound money management principals and you implement it, it will save you from losing your entire account. Secondly you yourself will become your greatest obstacle in trading the fear of losing the emotions that go along with it, you must be able to control it as draw downs is part of trading they will be there and you are going to experience them.
Even if you are going to trade with expert advisor's you still need good basic's. Its important
The 2 courses that made a great difference to my trading is Rob Booker and Johan van As.
What Rob Booker taught me was excellent even his strategy worked very good. I traded it for a long time with good results.
But we wanted a second method as we just do not want to count on only one trading strategy (spread your risk) so we came across Johan van As. Now this guy gave us references and telephone numbers of people he had trained. We contacted every one of them. Out of 20 only 1 person was not happy. So we did his course. To be very honest he taught us a strategy that not only changed the way we saw the markets but also changed our trading style. We have traded this strategy with great success for over 2 years.
The only reason I have stopped using it is I prefer using a good expert advisor. Just so much simpler.
Alf
http://www.forex-robot-testing.com/forex-training.html
|
You can also look at:
http://forex-systems-reviews.com
Robots (EA's) to look at:
If you are really serious about trading with the help of a robot, then I will recommend the robots of Don Steinitz:
Don Steinitz of Forex Robot Trader wrote regarding the Forex Fractal Robot:
This is the exact software that we used personally
to double our account balance 13 months in a row in less then 30 days!
Everything is documented. We even have plenty of actual customers MT4 broker statements with similar results posted on the website for everyone to witness.
The price tag for the software is $249. This website offers multiple free gifts and we are throwing in a $49 pre-recorded webinar as part of the sales price.
Click on the banner above to go to the Fractal Breakout website.
Also from Don Steinitz: The No Loss Robot -
This robot has been profitable ever since the launch date of January 2005.
The No Loss Robot is one of the hottest Forex Robots on the market today.
It uses multiple time frames, advanced trend detection, and advanced money management techniques to automatically trade with no losses! Because of its advanced features and tremendous performance, customers looking for automated trading solutions will instantly be attracted to The No Loss Robot.
Click on the No Loss Robot banner above to go to the website.
In my opinion:
The development of Automated Trading Systems or Forex Trading Robots is still in it's baby shoes and there still is a long way to go to get to the stage where we can use them safely and comfortably.
The best way to trade Forex still is to do it either through a professional brokerage company (where professional traders will trade for you = managed accounts) or you can do it yourself!
|
If you would like a professional brokerage company to trade for you, please go here for more information.
|
Note: We are busy working on the development of an automated trading system and have been working on it since 2004. This exercise taught me that programming a successful EA is not an easy task!
If you find a robot that really is good, please send me the info on that robot! We can make the info available to other people and help them this way.
Johan
Risk Disclosure: Trading foreign exchange on margin carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. The high degree of leverage can work against you as well as for you. Before deciding to invest in foreign exchange you should carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite. The possibility exists that you could sustain a loss of some or all of your initial investment and therefore you should not invest money that you cannot afford to lose. You should be aware of all the risks associated with foreign exchange trading, and seek advice from an independent financial advisor if you have any doubts.