Just wondering if is anyone out there thats trusting EAs and why? What`s your experience using one?
I trust EA’s - I don’t trust people who write them 
EA is an application, which manages your hard earned money and developers are free from any responsibility in case of errors/issues etc. So, if I would like to leave my money in someones hands - it would be a regulated fund manager.
I won’t use any EA which I have not written myself (or at least have view into source code to review how EXACTLY it works and, if there are any blind spots/errors/traps).
Would you buy a car built in someones backyard and put your kids on the backseat? 
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My sentiments exactly. One of the most fundamental reasons I have a big interest in Forex is because I don’t want the cop out of “blaming someone else” for my misfortunes. I may not be as clever as those who have studied the subject of investment far more than I, but I do believe that true wealth can only come to those who create and maintain it themselves. As my wife has often said, the only person she really trusts is herself, and even then, not 100%. Love her to death.
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I was a new trader back then, I bought a lot of EAs but now I have given up and only have one left to use. I feel it’s a waste of money
I personally haven’t used EA’s in my trading. 
But I’ve seen them work for some people here so I guess I don’t completely distrust them. Just have to be very careful with the EAs you decide to use though.
It’s a bit simplistic to be distrustful of ALL Algorithm developers, but it’s the sentiment I would expect in a beginners forum.
EA Developers (Sellers) that supply a product with a set logic know full well that it will only work until… it doesn’t. As long as the average easy come easy go joe continues his quest for the Holy Grail they have a market to sell into.
I code, so I design my own EA’s and Indicators…. Many which I have displayed along with the strategies behind them in BP over the last few years.
EA’s are generally not for the lazy trader because the successful algorithms are not set and forget like most traders are lead to believe.
A profitable “safe” EA needs to developed, tweaked and constantly adjusted to market conditions on a regular basis, just as market behaviour is constantly evolving.
Trending logic will not be successful in a ranging market, same as a ranging algorithm will destroy an account in a trending environment.
So, you either run multiple EA’s that detect market behaviour and stop and start (usually triggered by volatility, ATR etc.) depending on the condition the traded instrument is applied to.
Just buying an EA and letting it lose on a live account is a guaranteed recipe for disaster.
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Or maybe set and forget strategies/algos are very difficult to endure,
like staying under highs for many months/years.
EA that you can buy are designed to impress noobs with smooth backtests.
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Back then, I also bought a lot of EAs, these EAs all had to pay with money. I thought with money I would get a good EA, but no it didn’t bring me any profit. It’s a waste to think about it
EAs were my route into forex and I’ve since stopped using them in favour of trading myself and found personally I do better trading that way. My experience of EAs is that I had to constantly tinker with risk settings and the time being spent could have been spent trading manually.
Unfortunately, other than signals or courses, they are one of the only products really sellable on mass in this industry…
I don’t believe (most) vendors deliberately try to sell a rubbish EA… Strategies and Algos just have a shelf life in these Markets. Some EA’s take months of development and they do prove reasonably successful. Some even after months of coding, tweaking and backtesting just hit a brick wall and you realise it’s not wasting more time and resources on… No different to any product development.
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Using EAs is better than discretionary trading IMO, but it is hard and I would advise coding your own EA.
However, the problem is that most people don’t know what they’re doing. They mash indicators together or trade PA or something, but they don’t know why. Most people don’t know why something is working or not. They don’t know their edge or if they have it. They don’t know what about markets they’re trying to exploit. Is it trend trading, seasonality, daily bias, weekly bias, mean reversion, overnight gaps? First you need to have an idea what you’re trying to achive.
And then we come to the second problem. ALL STRATEGIES FAIL sooner or later. And some come back and start working again. What you should do is test if your strategy works on other markets and then trade it on those markets at the same time. Preferably on markets that aren’t correlated. Then you need to make more uncorrelated strategies and trade it on even more markets so that you make a portfolio of multiple strategies across different symbols. So that when some strategies fail, others protect you from dd.
And don’t overcomplicate it, High[1]>High[3] and the sort are simple but effective strategies. Add a regime filter and you’re golden.
People need to take trading seriously, read as many books about it as you can, get ideas from everywhere and maybe, just maybe, you will make it. Otherwise you will find nothing but despair.
Yes, I trust EAs! Especially those I wrote and which I have tested thoroughly.
Before that, I bought EAs, and it feels more like searching for the white sheep among the black ones. Or find the hay in a bunch of needles! 
Most people are disappointed about EAs, because they only ran 1 EA. And normally EAs make loss and profit (don’t take EAs with a straight curve up to the millions account! They’re faked!) ! When you start in a period where you’re EA makes loss, then you’re understandably disappointed and throw away this thing… but it might make profit next month when the conditions are better for this EA.
So, what can you do to compensate the frustrating periods? Build a portfolio of 5, 10, 20 or even 30 EAs! If one or two EAs of this bunch have a loosing condition, the other EAs support with their profit.
That’s the strategy with running EAs. More diversification between your EAs (different strategies, different timeframes, different pairs).
So, as you can see: Yes, I trust EAs. Strict logic, no emotions!
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yeah, I totally agree with u. when lost by EA ppl become disappointed, like that they never lose money in forex. but have to understood loss is part of the job. The manual trader can be emotional or greedy but Ea never. just proper setup & EA like to do what’s its need to do.
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Hello, It actually depends on how ea works (strategy and acccount management) and who’s the developer behind it. If you want to use some EA, make sure you have a contact with him/her. And always ask for a Backtest of atleast one year with a modelling quality of 99.9% for mo accurate data.
By the way, I am also a developer. If you don’t mind you can check mine. FX Prime EA.
Currently my ea has a setup of M15 Timeframe in GBP/USD Pair.
I will attached below the backtest result.
And if you think some EA’s are shady or you don’t know for sure…test them multiple times on demo’s.
Holy sh…77% Drawdown??? Lol
I would never touch this EA! Looks like a Martingale-Strategy? Never take EAs with Martingale-Strategy.
Martingale is just a nice theory.
Maximal Drawdown is 52.56%
I’m sorry but the Relative Drawdown is relevant.
And an EA is good when the drawndown is smaller than 20 to 25%.
No one wants to wake up in the morning an get shocked because the account is 77% smaller or got killed.
Bro I understand. However, relative drawdown is not so meaningful.
Here is why.
Relative Drawdown in MT4’s report is calculated as a percentage of the difference of the historical equity high and equity low , against the equity high.
Calculate a drawdown as the amount going below the Balance(at the start of a trade) instead of the Equity high. Rationale is that if a trade goes into profit but is not closed out, this floating profit never ‘belonged’ to the trader, or algorithm, and should not be construed as banked profit.
I will illustrate with a breakeven trade for both methods of calculation for Relative Drawdown:
- Account balance at the start is $100.
- A trade is opened and then goes into floating profit of $10. This makes the equity high $100+$10 = $110.
- A breakeven is set at the entry price.
- The price retraces and exits at breakeven.
For MT4’s Relative Drawdown, it is:
($110-$100)/$110 * 100 = 9.09%
For Relative Drawdown based on pre-trade Balance, it is:
($100-$100)/$100 * 100 = 0%
With MT4’s calculation, even though your Equity never dropped below your starting Balance, your Relative Drawdown is 9.09%. But with Relative Drawdown calculated against Balance, it is 0%.
Here an extreme example to illustrate the less meaningful use of MT4’s Relative Drawdown calculation:
- Account Balance at the start is $100.
- A trade is opened and then goes into floating profit of $500. This makes the equity high $100+$500 = $600.
- The trade then goes into negative territory of -$20. This makes the equity low $100-$20 = $80.
- Relative Drawdown(MT4) is calculated as: ($600-$80)/$600 * 100 = 86.67%
Even though the account is only 20% below the starting Balance, MT4 reports the Relative Drawdown as 86.67%. Not so meaningful.
Do you understand now?
With over 10 years of trading and 6 years of programming experience I think I know what is relevant… And it’s definetly not a problem of understanding.
The brokers know whats relevant. Your example is psychologically more comfortable. Nevertheless still disappointing: See the ea winning 500$ and then going out of the trade with -20$. What will people do: Throwing away this EA and it’s the best what they can do!
But what is, when the trade goes first in the wrong direction? With a 100$ account the margin call of the broker will come quickly! It will never reach the -500$. And if you’re not fill up your account with fresh money quickly your account is busted. Or in worst case your account is in a negative state because the broker close your trade too early.
How react your EA after such a loss?
But even when, as you say, relative Drawdown is not meaningfull. Over 50% max Drawdown is still too high! Good EA’s are working between 10 and 25%.
Wouldn’t still touch this EA.