I Now Know That Forex Brokers Will Know When And How You Are Using Forex EA Robots

[B]
I now know that Forex brokers will know when and how you are using Forex EA Robots.

I was Ivybot since its inception using the Default Settings using a FXDD live user account.

I was down around $ 650.

When I spoke to FXDD customer service regarding my past trades, money balance, and margain levels, two people at two different FXDD departments stated that I was using IvyBot for some of my trades.

The FXDD people knew exactly which trades I had placed with the IvyBot Robot EA and which trades that I had placed manually.

They also stated that the system had certain variables and other items were in place when the Ivybot Robot EA was placing the trades.

I never said one word about Ivybot or any other Robot EA during the entire conversation.

This tells me that if you use any Robot EA that most or all Forex MT4 Brokers will know which EA’s that you are using, and will adjust their parameters and settings accordingly.

I have to admit now that the entire Forex EA Robots is a total scam and a waste of time, and that the only real way to trade Forex is to perform your own due dilligence, education, investigation, and research into Forex trading.

Jonathan[/B]
:mad:

is this true anyone can verify?

if it’s true, the problems should lie with the creator of MT4 in such a way that the MT system used by broker are able to view what EA you are using?

Sure they can know as IvyBot does “sign” its trades in “comments”…
Other EA do have a stealth mode… not sure if brokers will be able to detect them, except if many customers do have the same trades at the same time…

PS: Ivy did only one losing trade on USDJPY in 10 days for me… :confused:

Jonathan,

I have to say that I am somewhat surprised at your condemnation of automated trading.

I am making money using automated trading…it has only taken me a year and $15000 to get to this point, so yup, I am a little taken aback that last month you didn’t know what a magic number was but here you are today telling the world that it is all a scam.

There are EA scams out there but there are just as many scam manual trading systems(I believe more so in fact). When it comes to automated trading, there are only 2 kinds of traders…those that succeed and those that fail. It takes a rare man to admit the failure is actually his own lack of knowledge…much easier to blame it all on a scam.

Do yourself a favour and pop around to Myfxbook.com where you can see the performance of various traders & their systems…the automated ones outnumber the manual ones by 10 to 1.

Now onto some of your issues…

As tinom said, if you tell the broker what robot you are using via the comments column, they are going to know what robot you are using…DUH!

This tells me that if you use any Robot EA that most or all Forex MT4 Brokers will know which EA’s that you are using, and will adjust their parameters and settings accordingly.

What parameters and settings are they going to change? Either they take your trade at the price you want with an acceptable speed of execution or they don’t. If they are not giving you the fills and execution that you require then you change brokers…pure and simple. Do you check your trade logs regularly to determine what kind of execution you are getting? While we are on this issue, I can tell you I have used FXDD and I no longer use them…get my drift?

[B][/B]
I never said a word about any EA Robot but the customer service people at FXDD knew that it was used for some previous trades that I made.

They even mentioned to me the exact days and times that IvyBot made the Trades.

They stated that knew how to adjust their settings against IvyBot.

So here is another negative that unless a Forex EA Robot has some kind of stealth mode, that it is losing battle using these kind of EA Robots that show their hand eaxh time they make a trade.

Jonathan
[B][/B]
:confused:

Why Did you Leave FXDD?

Which Trades and EA Robots are you using now?

Jonathan:confused:

[B][/B]Why did you leave FXDD?

What Forex brokers are you using now and what EA Robots do you trade with?

Jonathan
[B][/B]
:confused:

I Never Said A Word About Any EA Robot But FXDD Knew

Sorry, I must have misunderstood when you stated the following :-

I have to admit now that the entire Forex EA Robots is a total scam and a waste of time, and that the only real way to trade Forex is to perform your own due dilligence, education, investigation, and research into Forex trading.

Forgive my tone, I am just lightly flaming you. I realise that you have probably just burned your fingers and are touchy about robots, nevertheless be carefull of broad condemnation.

First off, just because you are using robots does not mean that you can just do away with the second part of your sentence above…ie you still need the dilligence, education, investigation and research…in fact more so than with manual traders.

I don’t know what kind of idiot you were dealing with that outright admits they will tamper with your robots. What they can do is really limited and the answers are in your trade logs. I re-iterate…either they give you the execution that you require or they don’t. If not then move. I have had live accounts with at least 10 brokers and I have no compunction about moving at the drop of a hat.

I left FXDD for 2 main reasons. I do not believe that a fixed spread broker is a sustainable model. I have written elsewhere about it but basically fixed spreads are a fallacy…believe in them at your peril. Furthermore, as far as fixed spreads go, FXDD is uncompetitive. Why should I trade EURCHF with them at 5 or 7 pips(I can’t remember anymore) when I can trade it at 2.5 pips. Your choice of broker is going to be a critical factor in your success. I was fortunate enough to get in with The CollectiveFX before they stopped taking members. Look for something similar like JadeFX which offers 5 digit STP.

If you are looking for a good robot, try robominer. It is unglamorous but has been a consistent earner for 18 months now.

Do you have a forward statement of robominer trades by any chance? I’ve had terrible luck with backtesting it.

Robominer will have the exact results for everyone provided the backtest historical data is the “same data”

It trades the grid and as long as lot sizes and minimal account ballance is set at 2000.00 and the trades begin with .01 every test will have the exact same result.

In any forward or backtest it never looses… not once, not ever. It does experience drawdowns but thats its nature and part of its plan, It really is in my opinion a robot trader, it doesn’t guess doesnt try to figure out trends it buys and sells in specific areas its an awesome robot, not very sexy, not very exciting but marches along with its distinct plan.

I trade it live but I wouldn’t provide my statments as there are other robots trading my account.

Have a look at pipcop.com they have some live tests.

Not sure what you mean by having bad luck backtesting it? Did it give poor results or could you not get it to work?

The creator recommends trading 0.01 lots per $2000 equity.

I started trading with this EA about 9 months ago but got bored with it after a couple of weeks. I believe this was a big mistake, as I seriously under-estimated the value of its consistent performance.

I’ve been trying to test it on an alpari US demo. It kept throwing fits about a 1 decimal issue, but after further research and tinkering with it today it appears to be testing well finally…though last month there was a major drawdown issue.

It acts alot like the blessing EA, only less pairs. I’m currently forward testing it now.

My biggest problem is that I’m still learning to manually trade (having fun with the cowabunga system and trying but failing miserably to learn the s90 crossover system) and I have very low starting capital (about 3k) so I’m terrified to go live with anything right now.

You will have to find a broker that allows 0.01 lots. Forex.com UK is alright…I use them amongst others. Unfortunately a good ECN/STP broker will only permit 0.1 lots and you will need at least $10 000 for that.

I would suggest you place it on an account with 0.02 lots for your $3000 and you will not regret it. You should only be trading the AUDNZD with this. You can trade EURCHF but I would wait with that until you get more money and you better understand the trading pattern.

I ran a year long backtest (a few actually) with an alpari US demo and found that it burnt the account through floating loses and eventually a margin call.

Is there a better demo platform to use for EAs since alpari and FIFO have been sticking it to the EAs?

Hi,

Didi you hit a margin call using 0.01 lots per $2000? That seems strange?

The new robominer is FIFO compliant but I don’t believe it will be as profitable. I think that retail forex in the US is dying and you would do well to find an offshore broker. The choice of broker is often a compromise. If you can afford it, an ECN or STP is the way to go, like TheCollectiveFX or JadeFX. You will need at least $10 000 to trade there as their minimum lot size is 0.1.

Forex.com UK is ok and, in fact, robominer will also work at FXDD as execution is not critical like with scalping.

Developing your own profitable trading system[B]s[/B] [note the plural] is the ultimate goal in my view. In order to archieve that you need to start with the basics. Every good craftsman who knows what he is doing started with the basics.

That applies to trading in general regardless what method is used.

You gain knowledge through learning, understanding, making mistakes, contemplation, exchange of ideas with fellow traders and adjustments in what went wrong.

Therefore it is my view that you need to understand what your automated trading is actually doing and knowing the underlying logic.
[B]
Otherwise you are not in charge but your automated trading is.[/B]

And I don’t like that idea.

Well, that sounds like a sales pitch to me…:smiley:

Sales pitch…lol. Truth hurts.

Thanks for the advice mate :wink: I’ll look into it over this weekend and get a forward test started.

Outside of megadroid and robominer, are there any other EA’s I should look into or avoid? (the avoid list is probably a mile long I’m sure)

I went through the few reviews up on pipcop.com, nothing really promissing there except maybe GT shadow. Which ones do you use? If you don’t mind my being nosey.

Hi there,

Yup, there is a long list indeed. I am constantly assessing and re-assessing various EA’s.

Robo is an excellent long term robot and is probably all you need. If you want to use megadroid, look at megadroid pro…there is a version floating around that you can use on EURGBP, EURCHF, EURUSD. Megadroid is a scalper so you should actually look at getting a decent broker. Most retail brokers filter their feeds and this, combined with spreads & liquidity(read : trade execution), are the most important factors in your success.

A further factor you need to consider if you want to scalp is your VPS provider and the latency to your broker.

Whenever you come across a robot you need to try and analyse what strategy it uses and this is where your backtesting comes in useful. Try and avoid progressive type strategies as they tend to blow your account eventually. Robo is the only exception I have ever come across to this. I went through a phase when I was really into mechanical/grid type strategies in the belief that this a no lose type of system. Just remember that hedging strategies make no sense…ever. The NFA banned it for good reason as the only winner is the broker. The NFA simply screwed up by introducing the FIFO system.

I like my asian session scalpers and probably have a dozen of them floating around. The flavour of the month changes for me from time to time, so I won’t go into what my current favourite is. Just try them all out…but get a decent broker first…I can’t emphasize this enough. Many of these scalpers are a variation of “your_lucky_EURGBP”

Hope it helps

Thanks for all the advice man, it’s really appreciated. As it turns out, I have a copy of your lucky as well as dragonpips, and I’ve been playing with EvolutionX. I’ve found them to be entertaining as far as the profit amounts they pull down, but have a hard time believing they can produce those results on a real account. Should I even dare fire up either one on a live account?

Do you actively scalp on forex UK, or no? Would they constitute a decent broker, or should I be shooting for something more like JadeFX? So far, I’ve come across Forex Open, FXpro, and FS metatrader, but I’ve been apprehensive about trusting any reviews I read on the web.

I personally am still new enough to the game that the idea of scalping vs anything else hasn’t really pulled me one way or another yet. I very much wish to learn how to trade manually and trade well, but while I learn I figure I’ll let some of these EA’s finance my education so to speak, lol