I have opened this thread to share our general considerations about our automated trading experiences, to share our opinions, advices, feelings not related to a single EA. Here we can also discuss about money managment and our portfolio approach, which are 2 fundamental aspect and which can make a huge difference in our results
I consider this thread very important and first i want to share my 2015 experiences with robots. I have divided my accounts in 2 categories:
- My 3 bigger accounts (at Activtrades, a UK FCA regulated broker and with offices in my country, and at IC Markets)
- Smaller accounts created to generate also rebates, where i am willing to accept more risk, and so i run there more EAs.
Currently my IC markets account had a very good performance thanks to new Eas i have added in it and so i have strongly increased the balance: currently running on it: Easy walker, Forex real profit EA, and also copy trades from some other EAs: so this account now is in the category of the “big ones” and so i select carefully what to run here
As other users here in March i was badly hurted on my smaller accounts by losses suffered at the same time by the following EAs:
Polygon
WSFR
Forex Diamond
I have reached a 50% DD, which is deadly, but fortunately almost recovered from it, and if i consider rebates earned i am at BE now.
Aftyer the DD what i have done? something wrong and something right
I had to remove Polygon from Hotforex (it was not working properly) and from IC markets (since i have decoded to run on it only selected strategies)
I have continued to run Forex Diamond on Thinkforex and Hotforex, and this was a very hard decision but at the end it was right since FD recovered a lot
Unfortunately i have stopped WSFR because it was replicating some FD trades and not generating rebates since it does not trade often, but it was not the right decision, since it has slightly recovered from losses (but less than FD)
Other decision that revealed to be right was to continue to run Monetizer, which at the moment is my 2nd best performer EA
Following a list on the EAs i am currently running on my accounts:
On my 2 Activtrades accounts:
- Cabex (imo the best commercial EA, but Bts shows that at default risk it can generate 40% DD, so i use slightly lower risk)
- Rayscalper V3 (very good EA)
- Monetizer (my second best performer after Cabex, a very good EA but it can be frustrating sometimes)
- IProfit (i am losing money on it but now running only thne best pair: EURUSD which is in very good gain, but my account is showing much better performance than the ref Fin FX account)
- Keltner PRO only EU and GU (while EU the best pair is losing money, GU is earning a lot, so overall in good gain)
- Megadroid at low risk
- Fe Combination: running this from 3 weeks and now is my 4th best performer, so if it continue like this can go also at 1st place; following a demo account which is having very close performance to my real Activtrades account:
Error | Myfxbook
Pls, note that there i am also running the breakout strategy from FRP EA on EU and GU
As for Ic Markets i run there EAs which needs special broker conditions:
- Easy Walker
- Forex real Profit EA
- Trades copyed from other eas
Look at the performnace in the last month:
Error | Myfxbook
On my Thinkforex account i run:
- Forex diamond
- Polygon
- Trades copyed from another ea
- Will add soon Wall street standard only EU and GU and Volatility factor only GU default settings
This account has strongly recovered this month from a deadly DD suffered in March
On my Hotforex:
- Forex Diamond
- Megadroid
- Trades copyed from other EAs
Onb my bigger accounts and also on IC Markets i run only EAs with the following characteristics:
- EAs which shows nice forward tests on real accounts for at least 1 year
- EAs which shows good results on long term Bts, where there is a good match rate between trades triggered in BT and trades triggered in real accounts
Whate are the EAs i like more?
Cabex
Rayscalper
Forex Real Profit EA (need special broker)
Easy Walker (need special broker)
Fe Combination (every broker not market maker with good spreads on EU)
For rebates the ones i like more are Forex Diamond, FE Combination, Easy Walker and Forex real profit EA. Polygon generate very high volumes but unfortunately i must say that is an unstable EA
Excellent thread. hope we can all keep it as informative as possible. Running the portfolios is an art and science. getting the right mix is really tough, and always seems easy at hind sight.
If I am running a set of EA’s and only of them makes 60% gain in one year it simply does not mean my account grew by 60%… it all depends on how much money that profitable EA was running and how much money was running the other EAs.
I have been basing my auto trading decisions with a very high weight age given to vendor rather than the robot or backtest or live tests… i am almost certain that the holy grail does not exist and its pointless to keep buying new bots all the while and burning money… not just cost of robot but the money lost in dd and time and curing the ulcers that are a side effect ;D
phibase did a portfolio of synergy+ray+cabex that showed some really fantastic results… but synergy bombed badly with a 40% drop and ray went down to 20%… so that destroyed my reason to do any backtest portfolio decisions…
i now use backtest only to set correct risk based on max dd seen… and nothing else.
my allocation is pretty unprofessional…not a myfxbook guy or the like. i dont have a full percent break up as yet… but i will just tell how i have been running it…
running cabex with alloc 10 and ray with alloc 10… iprofit risk is 2.4… turbit v2 is with risk 8… so overall higher risk used… i have mentioned the start cap at begining of last year (2014)… i usually allocate cap at begining of year and do not disturb…
mbt 15k cabex + ray … end of 2014 equity ~ 27750
mbt 10k iprofit … end of 2014 equity ~ 9015
icm 17k cabex + ray + turbit (set to use 5k)… . end of 2014 equity ~ 29450
icm 10k iprofit . end of 2014 equity ~ 9350
icm 3k bringer… almost blew acc… . end of 2014 equity 350 >:(
atc 5k wallstreet GU+EU only - . end of 2014 equity ~ 6200
atc 10k cabex… end of 2014 equity ~ 17150
atc 10k turbit… . end of 2014 equity ~ 5050
The stats above were taken during mid Dec 2014… so not the exact figures.
80k equity was actually close to 109k… that is just about 36% return… close enough to my target of 40% per year… my aim is to beat my personal fund managers… 
if i can do it for 2 more years then i can sack them and use more funds for trading on my own ;D
ofcourse i could have done much better if i had more money allocated to cabex… but it did not appear it will go this way when we started out 2014 
I have very similar allocation for 2015. So far CabEX and Ray are running neck and neck with about 30+ % gains. Getting the right allocation and portfolio mix is crucial. Having confidence in the robots I run is even more important than anything else.
My two cents.
Mike, u had excellent results. U believe in Phibase vendor (which i think is one of the best) and so u have runned their strategy and in bad periods u never gave up. This is the right attitude: u have to run only strategy u believe in strongly and never give up in bad moments. Mark Douglas in his Trading in the zone explaine this very well. I Also agree with u on the fact that adding a new EA to the portfolio can be very dangerous for the DD it can generate. I have Made many mistakes in 2014 and beginning 2015, which has generated huge DDs up to 60% Also on not so small accounts. Fortunately i never give up and recovered on almost all of the accounts and on many of them i am in green and earning nice rebates every month.Now i have changed my portfolio attitude: while on the smaller accounts i accept more risk, on my bigger accounts EAs need to comply to strict rules:
Good forward tests for at least 1 year
Very good Long term BT results, where trades on the BT match with trades triggered on real accounts
I Also look for reliable vendors
Currently some accounts are up 50% only in the last 2 weeks thanks to the very good performance of my BOs. Also introduced some very good scalpers.
Anyway i see some flaws in my portfolio: almost allmyeas requires trending markets (Also Cabex and Ray). Also BOs sometimes open position at the same time. But from my BTs on the risk level i am using DD should be moderate. Let see how develope 2015
yes mike. excellent. i wish i could hold my hands from my accounts when they are in dd. haha
but ray and cabex are the next eas i will let run for a year like you do. thats the only way.
wouldnt it be better you skip iprofit and turbit? they are going nowhere and i removed them both from my accounts. think ray and cabex are enough for one account. Btw: i had email contact with vendor today and asked about new synergy version. they target august 2015. They have to rewrite the whole ea because of some major problems with the pattern recognition. synergy was a real nice approach and i cant wait to get the new version. maybe its also an winner then
Experiencing that many EAs including BOs are broker sensitive: on FE Combo, my Activtrades real account is outperforming the tickmill real ref account and also my Tickmill demo
Activtrades is also outperforming on Monetizer and IProfit
IC Markets overall seems to be the best broker for many EAs, followed by Activtrades
Of course i am not using all the available brokers, and out there there are hundreds of good brokers. I am tempted to try Darwinex
Agree that dd are tough to handle… that is why I add the max DD expected into cost of EA :51: That way, I am not bothered by the 10% or 15% dd that is normally seen during course of trading. Using this method I have mentally been able to ride thru dd periods. When the DD crosses my EA cost + Max DD that is when I get worried and discuss with developer… like in case of Synergy and now TurBit. Phibase had the balls to admit that Synergy was failing in mid 2013 and had crossed worst case and advised to suspend or minimize trading lot size. That was fair enough for me since they tried to improve v2 based on asikruky methods and it backfired… everything during that time which got fmonera’s approval failed badly… including robin, FFB, Blackbelt and FGB.
iprofit i still trust since I have been in touch with vendor as well as like the trading strategy. If you notice from the back tests, the equity has been flat on all pairs since 2012. Most of the gains seen was between 2009 to mid 2012. Gold is highest gainer in back tests followed by EU and GU, AU and EJ in that order.
As per phibase, the period between 2012 till now is a phase of low/negligible interest rate differential between currencies. they feel that as the interest rate differences come into the picture, with UK and US likely to get started this year, we should see pre 2012 kind of gains on iprofit.
phibase guys are not getting fazed or disheartened seeing the iprofit equity curve not moving up at all and being rather flat… since they have been seeing similar performance since 2012. If they say if the ea is modified for this period, the EA will start to fail when market changes shortly. i feel this is very forward looking and the flattish equity of iprofit is actually showing that it has been able to survive if not gain for almost 2/3 years of non supportive market condition for its style.
This is why i am persisting with iprofit inspite of it gaining-losing-gaining-losing episodes and not going anywhere :49: it is tough on me sometimes, but some thing tell me it will pay off… I remember the that most of my friends threw in the towel with cabex in march 2014… since then this ea has double the money… Phibase guys were very confident that this ea would do well and they even did not update the EA since they felt the update that would affect future performance - although it would have done better comparitively in 2013-2014 backtest. This is a good thing to look for in a vendor.
turbit is a whole different story… they failed miserably with v1 and cost me lot of money. now they exceeded the tight max dd they set for themselves… but v2 is been much better in terms of risk and trade management…these guys have been trying to cook up a system that can make monthly gains… this was a very promising attempt and i really like the trading style. But sometimes, they seem to be under estimating the market sentiments and end up trying to catch the falling or flying knife… They have assured me that things are under control and that the equity will be right back up… again, it is a matter of trust and confidence you develop on a vendor… :51: god help me!
pretty long post! just feels good sharing my thoughts… i guess it helps me rethink and reassure myself about what i am doing…
Mike, nice post. Is good to write down our toughts in this thread, it help us to keep well in mind our trading projects and goals and to stay focused. I have heard that Phibase will start new ref accounts at darwinex (which i consider a good broker and next months will open an account there). I will evaluate the new Synergy EA too
As for today a great day for Cabex and all my BOs.
Look at this demo account:
https://www.myfxbook.com/portfolio/fe-combo/1221198
Running on my bigger account the same strategies (with small manual interventions and overall slightly better results on my bigger account) togheter with Cabex, Ray, Iprofit, Monetizer and Keltner
Look also this other one:
https://www.myfxbook.com/portfolio/ic-markets-rebates-generator-3/1137101
Is up 43% in less than 20 days and is not a demo
This month is my best month ever from when i have started trading forex. Some accounts are up almost 60%
Volatiltiy rises and BOs makes a lot of money
My dear friends, at the beginning of 2015 i suffered heavy losses on my 2 bigger accounts on Activtrades and then huge losses in March on my 3 rebates accounts up to 60% DD and i was thinking that to recover, it was needed at least 2 years and of course completely changing my EAs portfolio. Of course i have drastically changed my Portfolio and now running only EAs with good forward tests for at least 1 year and very good long term backtests (at least on my 2 bigger accounts).
OK, but as for today i have not only recovered, but in strong gain on all my accounts :53::53::53::
I am up in 22 days of May from 44% to 93% on all my accounts.
Running many Breakouts: Keltner, Fe Combo (which has the Vola and Fibo startegy which are BOs), Forex Real Profit EA (which has a very goo BO startegy), Monetizer and all of them earned a lot today 
Attached a pic of my Thinkforex rebates account which has gained in 26 days of May more than 112% completely recovering from a massive 60% DD. The lesson: if things goes wrong, keep calm, reconsider your strategies, if there is something wrong make the due adjustemnts, keep confidence and go ahead. Of course there is no guarantee that it will work, but i do not see any other way to better deal with such bad situations
OT, posted in the right thread
OT, posted in the right thread
Hi guys, I was wondering if you could throw me a link to that trueprofit EA. When I go there it says there is 7 different true profits.
What is true profit? u mean forex real profit ea?
Hi Guys,
I have definately learned a tonne like you guys about what to run and what not to run
on my main account now I’m running:
EasyWalker
Best Scalper
Wall Street Asia
Smart Tech EURCAD + EURGBP
Vol Factor
Fx Diamond
WSR
WSR Recovery
Gold Bull
FX Monetiser
Basically what I do now is Set a 4% Profit Target a week and when that hits I turn off the EA"s till the next week… and start over.
On my Cent Accounts I run all the same stuff I used to run - but at smaller lot sizes - since those EA"s get caught in trends and can be messy.
I want to buy Cabex + maybe one more EA + a couple USD Drive Licences.
Pretty much feel like I have the hang of it now + what to do and what not to do given we have seen a real volatile market and the strengths + weaknesses have come out.
Also bit XXXXXX by all the changes where we used to hang out – but glad to see you guys here and posting.
Best of Luck for the rest of the year
DB2
Hi Donbon, is a pleasure to see you posting here. We must be always in contact to share our experiences.
I am using also almost your same eas (not all anyway) but plus:
Cabex
Rayscalper
Iprofit only eurusd
Zamolxis
Forex realprofit ea
Fe Combination
Keltner
Me and other friends are also considering to buy PA trade: is expensive but looks very good; u can find info on these threads:
http://forums.babypips.com/expert-advisors-automated-trading/72658-alright-guys-no-bs-has-anyone-ever-bought-ea-made-good-money-8.html#post704319
http://forums.babypips.com/expert-advisors-automated-trading/74140-pa-trade.html
We are trying to reach a number of buyers to have a discount: if u like it and want to buy let us know
Cabex, Forex real profit ea and Fe combination are good option too
Is anyone else experiencing issues with MT4 builds 825/830? MT4 either randomly disconnects or just freezes and the EAs can’t trade, or even worse, they can’t control the open trades anymore.