Have you contacted Tadawul about it? What did they say?
This was months ago. I did email them but never heard back if I recall correctly. In the end I was trying not to run too many platforms that would potentially affect performance so I wasnāt too bothered by it. I mainly wanted to test megadroid with an STP broker against a non-STP broker.
Iāve noticed that if you set the risk level too high on variable spread brokers, you will burn out your account quite quickly, especially with Recovery ON. I think low spread brokers, 2 or less pips and preferably fixed are best for MD.
It works perfectly well, with a bit higher gain on FXOpen /fixed 2 pips spread/ live account compared to FXPro /variable spread/ demo account, but on FXOpen /ECN/ demo account with the variable spread I have had tremendous loses with the same risk setting as on the live account. The risk settings I am using everywhere are 0.75. For such a risk setting it is too risky to have recovery ON for the long term.
No wonder you had ātremendous lossesā if you chose to risk 75% of your account balance.
Yeah, 75% is huge! I looked into Tadawul for the fixed spreads because that does seem like a good way to go but they want 3 pips fixed for an account under 5K and Iām not starting with that much. At the time MD trades the spread is always under 2 pips even on GoMarkets and certainly on IamFX from what Iāve seen. A fellow trader friend of mine had bad experiences with FXOpen so I havenāt looked into them too much. If I could find a 2 pip fixed broker I would give it a try.
(And FXPro doesnāt accept US customers right??)
FXPro doesnāt accept US customers, but FXCBS does. Iāve had live MD accounts with both and both did about equally well.
How many brokers have you used with success? In your profile you also recommended ATC brokers? Also, you have aggressive mode off? What difference does that really make? Cheers.
I have successfully used FXPro, FXCBS, IamFX, and ATCBrokers. Yet IamFX no longer accepts US customers and ATCBrokers like all other US-based brokers now have their maximal leverage set to 1:50 which is not good for robots.
I have the aggressive mode turned off on my current forward test with FXPro.
Statistically it is actually OK, no matter how it sounds. The rest are just emotions. For example FXOpen has a margin call at 20% on their non ECN accounts. For the ECN account the level is 50%. This is the reason why the 0.75 Risk factor of MD did not work. Theoretically the non ECN accounts with their 2 pips fixed spread should work with risk settings of MD of less than 0.8. I was using your FXpro history for statistical analysis, writing a program of my own. With the results you have had so far at FXPro it would have been possible to use a risk level of 0.75 without problems at FXOpen. Considering the frequency of loses since November 2009, a setting of 0.75 would have brought you a few times bigger win. I have played some thousands of scenarios and the best settings with the > 95% win rate of MD and the given ratio between highest loss and average win in pips, leads to the best setting of MDās Risk Level at about 0.55 for the long term, without using the recovery and not using aggressive modes. I donāt know what is the best level with aggressive mode ON, since I canāt find any other consistent MD data record like yours, but with aggressive mode turned ON.
Well if IamFX no longer takes US clients Iām back to square one. Now what? FXPro doesnāt take US clients and ATC requires $5K and is a US broker. No idea what to do now. Feels like months of testing a broker has been a waste.
Wow. No kidding. So are you trading live with FXOpen then with a .55 risk setting?
Actually 0.75. Recovery OFF, Aggressive ON for the time being. Iāve started recently and blew up my account several times manually. Now, starting from November, I intend to finance my account again and leave MD play alone. I will not intervene anymore. I donāt mind spending a few thousand dollars in order to learn the hard way. My opinion is if someone is not willing to try and even lose some money eventually, is definitely not for the Forex.
The Stal,
I feel like youā¦lost. I have been really happy with MB Tradingā¦service has been great. But the 1:50 just kills MD. I found SmartTradeFX out of Canada that accepts US residentsā¦anyone know anything about them or the success of the MD on their account?
Brett
Yeah, Iām a little annoyed but thatās life I guess. Iāve opened up demoās with FXCBS and FXOpen (ECN) and will test those for a while. FXOpen has high leverage and allows you to open an account with only $1000 while FXCBS has lower spreads but a slightly higher commission and you need $3000 to open an account. Staying away from āmarket makerā brokers.
Will take a look at SmartTradeFX.
(Anyone else find that forexpeacearmy is hopeless in researching brokers?)
Ohā¦ and I e-mailed MD about exactly what the āaggressive modeā means and they said that it allows MD to trade when the pair is not in a strong trend which doesnāt happen too often so I think with āaggressiveā set to FALSE this thing wonāt trade much at all and since it doesnāt trade much anywayā¦ Iām going to leave it on. They also confirmed it was designed to work best on ECN/STP brokers which, I guess, just makes sense.
If only it were so easy to change brokers. I was using a self directed IRA to trade with ATC. Tons of cash made tons of profitā¦but not many forex brokers will work with self directed IRAs.
Itās not a good idea to start off with a US-affiliated broker in the first place, as you never know what the US CFTC will come up with next. I would go with FXCBS then - theyāre in the BVI and continue accepting US customers. FXOpen isnāt bad either, but their spreads are somewhat higher. Likewise, FinFX is always at your disposal as well with their marginally low spreads and fast order execution. Canāt say youāve got no choices.
Most wont handle the IRA themselves, but if you set it up with a qualified holding company many will allow it. Most of the larger US brokers all have provisions for allowing IRAs. I havent done this yet, but Iāve been meaning too.
This makes it easier to change brokers as well. You would just withdraw your money back to the holding company and deposit it at anouther broker, just like with a cash account. All transactions would need to go through the holding company.
When I asked about FXopen, I compared both their ECN and standard accounts and felt that the standard account would yield more profit. The commission of the ECN when compared to the spread of the standard account seemed like it would hurt more.
I have around $3000 or so that I want to start playing with and Iām still undecided where to put it.
Iām also in the US.
After opening demoās with FXCBS and FXOpen, CBSā spreads look MUCH better for a scalper. Iām fine with paying whatever commission if the spread is that low and, supposedly, allows for MD to work as best as possible. Commission wonāt affect how it trades just what you pay. After my stop out loss with GoMarkets and the same trade gaining me a pip on IamFX Iāll pay whatever commission! Itās all about giving the robot the best environment to trade in. After seeing it myself the spread, although it maybe cheaper per trade, certainly affects the outcome overall.