Forex Robots VS Manual Trading?

[automatedtrading]

I took long time for me to read all the messages here, and I have got some good advices. And in my opinion,just have a look in the trading robots and If there are a issue of trade you can change or fix all the error when robots created

[kennyhubbard]

I personally would find it important to develop the manual trading skills simply to understand the logic behind a trading robot.

Kenny, are you talking about programmers who have created their own forex robots, or commercially available robots out there? Did you program a robot you use for your own trading, and what are your returns like? I'd just like to put it into perspective.

Hi Bama,

I use both. I mix and match. I will sometimes use parts of a commercial robot that I like and integrate it with parts of another robot. I will sometimes use robots to simply to study the market (or a broker for that matter) in order to validate or disprove a theory.

MoneyChick is right to a certain extent. There is no blackbox out there that works by itself forever......to believe this is naive. As an automated trader, I work twice as hard as a manual trader. I have had to learn about trading, as well as about automation(specifically MQL4). This is often (ignorantly) mistaken for laziness and that I want to go to the beach while my robots trade. My robots are tools. The manual trader will call up MACD and I will call up a robot.

Unfortunately the robots lend themselves to abuse and people will get stung by their own naievity. I got stung many times the first year but looking back, I didn't know what I was doing. This brings me to my next point...."I tried a couple of robots once" is often the extent of many traders' experience and yet they will pronounce judgement like their opinion is now gospel.

Bama, performance is ok. Probably not earth shattering but suffice to say that I use 5% pm as a benchmark. Sometimes I do better sometimes not.

[johnnykanoo]

I suppose you are right. We all have beliefs, you can see this by reading this thread. I guess i dont like robots because a freind of mine got nailed by one.

I believe trading is a craft and a mind thing. i guess thats my opinion and everybody is just as entitled to theirs.

I agree everyone is intitled to their opinion and there really is no right or wrong. Only profitable or unprofitable.

As for money chick her problem is she can only see one way to trade. Actually I'm not picking on her its just what I observe in a lot of people who claim robots cannot be profitable.

The fact is robots trade differently than humans do

Humans make discretionary decisions in there trading all the time. In the majority of traders this is their downfall! Fear and greed cause us all to make poor choices and once you ad ego forget about it.

EA's trade differently. The ones that fail imho are the ones that get programmed to try and trade like a human. The better ones use there own style which relies heavily on math and numbers and complex alogorithms that take advantage of mathematical probablities. For example I am running an ea that is a "grid type system" It places buys and sells at different levels and uses a "maritingale" style money management. It would be impossible for me to try and trade like that.

Before I get flamed to death I would like to add that I do not recommend my ea to anyone especially if you are new. I am comfortable with it and its money management but if I were to get even a little greedy it could blow my account right up. I am aware that most people frown on martingales however I feel the risk is acceptable as long as you have a small enough starting point and you are willing to cut all your losses at a certain point if necessary. I have yet to earn less than 10% a month and sometimes earn 10% a week.

Finally I would like to say look at professional money managers. How many of them are using algorithmic trading? All of them? most for sure.

[SDC]

The other side of it is that most manualy traded methods only have real time experience, it is close to an impossible task to accurately test a trading strategy manually over historical chart data for any length of time, this leads many to believe their strategy works profitably when over the long term it will fail due to changing market conditions.
As any EA programmer already knows, many of the trading strategies based on indicators commonly in use, fail miserably during testing when written into an EA for the simple reason, the programmer can test that strategy over years of historical chart data in just a few minutes, and by doing so will discover it is very difficult to find a strategy that trades profitably over an extended time period this is one of the reasons why many believe EA's do not work.
It is not because EA's cannot be made to replicate human decision making it is because so many of the prescribed trading methods that programmers try to run in an EA are inherently flawed in the first place.

[sophieolivia]

I am amazed by the sharing from our friends here since I started this thread...

Can see so many different perspectives & useful information

Thanks everyone

[moryak]

What is behind market?
People.
In big financial institution in banks -no matter.
People.
Can computer write music, books?
No.
You can use your EA's as a part of analysis. But trust them?
If some Ea really gonna work then market disappear.
No more financialproblems for governments-just put good ea to work?

[chizzenpips]

I'm yet to see a robot clocking 100% or even consistent 50% trading precisions (winrate) whereas traders hit that all the time. However, traders cant handle the number of trades boxes make unemotionally & not counting effort involved, and most traders make negative anyway. Really robots work, but for true traders who can weave mt4code too. Bottom line a profitable trader can beat any EA quite easily.

The site there shows what I think is realistic return on cap for robots though it would be more authentic if there was a public forum like where peeps come with their toys to race, or something like the past Automated Trading Championship hosted by mt4commune.

That said I think the Lewinsky thingie should be forgotten and forgiven by now, dont hate the player, & its really a great game! Hate the painting not the artist - he jus provided something for you to google in your continuous quest for the truth, and if hes scamming hes quite moderate about it, lol (<-insert wooaaah! & keep tha course).

[CodeMeister]

Another guy started this thread a few days ago.

Robots??