Hello, everybody, I have recently used two EA’s, they worked very well in the backtests, and they also worked very well in demo trading, but when I started trading them on my real account, they performed terribly. It is so illusive.
So this has got me wondering, has anybody actually found success with any expert advisors on a real account? Is it even possible? If so which expert advisors have worked for you on real accounts?
Here’s my opinion on it.
Think about it—do you think someone with a successful “EA” would share it? If they were intelligent enough to pour the likely thousands and thousands of dollars and time to squeak out a mere 1-2% edge against others in the market, why would they publicly offer up that system?
Personally, I’ve never seen one. I’ve also never seen a unicorn but think my chances would be better than finding a pseudo-ATM machine.
That’s normal.
It’s far easier to make some money selling an EA than it is by trading.
Because of that there are thousands of EA’s being promoted.
And because of that, according to the law of large numbers there will always be a few people who temporarily make a profit, just randomly.
The important thing to learn is that the EA’s that happen to be making a profit now aren’t the same ones that will also make a profit for the next year. That’s all random.
So “knowing how they’ve been performing recently” is almost useless information.
The answer to your question “Is it even possible” is therefore “Yes, technically it’s just about randomly possible, but it isn’t reliably possible”.
EA’s are for fantasists and people who dream of winning the lottery.
That’s an absolutely enormous market, of course. (Just look at how many people buy lottery tickets.)
The people taking money out of the spot forex market reliably, in great contrast to EA users, are the ones who understood (at the start, or learned quickly) that what’s needed is 500 hours of highly targeted, high quality education followed by 3,000 hours of highly targeted, high quality screen time experience. Millions of people fantasize that there’s another way, but there isn’t.
Exactly. It’s a simple, profound and totally valid point that most people just choose to ignore, because it conflicts with their fantasy.
Actually none, but the point to understand is that it doesn’t matter, because they wouldn’t be the same ones that would work for you anyway.
Markets change all the time, robots don’t. They always follow the same rule with considering the context. Soooooo…they may work for a while and I used some in the past but in the long run, nope.
Markets change but not all that much. A good strategy accounts for these variations. As for automation, it is possible to automate part or all of a strategy, as long as its an original creation and not something you found online.
I would stay away from EAs and focus on hiring a developer to build you something original, based on your custom strategy.
Never use Expert Advisors. MA Crosses are late signals in general since it lags. Best way to use MA’s are just knowing that the current situation is. Price above fast is Long and Price below fast is short. Go on 1 HR chart and take 10 pips per trade… best solution I can give.
good post. but you mixed up the numbers.
3000 hours of education, 500 hours of screen time- is what you meant- i think 
Lol, now you mention it, the numbers might leave something to be desired.
Ultimately, its about finding something that works for u and adequately controlling your risks. I have created my own EA that works for me but ill never sell it. No one in the right frame of mind would sell something that they have taken much hard work and time to create unless its for a huge sum of money. I will share myfxbook link of my live account. All i can say is this, put in the hard work as no one will give u anything for free. Money doesnt fall from the sky.
I never believed in EAs even when I was a newbie 9 years ago. But it does not mean they does not exist. There may be profitable EAs but they are not available for $47.
There is another approach which is more reliable than EAs. Thats Using analyzers to assess/analyze the market and then trade manually. I have track record to prove that my analyzers are profitable. But, neither I share them nor sell.
Post the acc statement or link to your account then. Don’t scam.
You need to wait at least 6 months before you claim it to be something useful. And, then you will never sell it.
You clearly sell it, even to the extent of stating your monthly price for it, openly in the forum!
Its probably better to write your own Adviser to automate the trading of your own system than to buy one off the shelf and expect it to make money for you. It is hard to answer this question, but I dont believe you can simply escape the temperamental nature of the market by buying something that automates the trading of a system.
Any trading system automated or not will work well in some market conditions and poorly in others, the trick then is to know when your particular approach is appropriate for what the market is doing.
Trend trading a trending market will make money for example whereas trend trading a non trending market probably wont. It doesn’t really matter if I did those trades myself or automated then with an EA.
So I’ve been wondering about this for a while now.
The FX market is very speculative, and it seems from my research and time in it that that’s what moves the market. Just because you’re profitable in the market doesn’t mean that the person next to you or myself can’t be right?
So if someone shares their EA, or even just the technique/indicators they use to make trades, more people would use them and create price movement. I realize it’s a multi-trillion dollar market each day which is BIG money. But if your system, whatever it may be was successful and lead other to the water, wouldn’t it make sense to get as many people on board as possible? Even if it only gave your strategy a .0001% edge?
Correct me if I’m wrong here, and if you have knowledge that I’m missing I’m more than happy to hear it!
Cheers!
You’re wrong here.
Many people share the perceptions that you’ve described above, though (including some who post in forums saying that there’s no downside to sharing “something that works”), so you’re certainly “wrong in plenty of company”.
I think that the point you may not be allowing for is that when a lot of people want to buy something, that increases the price for most of them, to varying extents, and means that the value advantage each gets is reduced.
Or, if this makes it easier to understand: if you have inside information on a horse-race, the last thing you want is for your horse also to be strongly tipped to win in a national newspaper, because if everyone finds out that there’s value there, there won’t be any value there.
I can see that point of view, but this isn’t something that’s static like a horse in race. The market is ever changing and dynamic, so if you’re following the same strategy and end up missing the entry as everyone else in the world follows it Long/Short, after you have a short amount of time to catch the wave. After that you’d be looking for your next entry point long or short. That being said, we’re talking about a small number of people, even if strategy is widely successful would it be safe to say it still wouldn’t work for 50-70% of the people out there? For some reason or another, if not more, so sharing would ultimately only tip the scales ever so slightly.
Personally in a horse race, I’d rather have a better win chance than a better win ratio. If I can replicate the process and create consistency, to a degree, I would take that over higher proceeds sometimes. Wouldn’t you?
Thanks for sharing your opinion, I really am interested to see where people stand on this mindset.
To a very small degree you are correct in your theory here. We often see exactly this effect whenever there is a widely recognised support/resistance level such as the previous week’s close, a daily pivot or a frequently tested level. Often such a level will hold and then, if it eventually gives way, there is a sudden spurt in price as lots of stops get hit and many new positions get opened - but the impact is usually short-lived unless there is some kind of substantial change in market perspective pushing it.
But in reality, the forex market is not made up of millions of private individuals all speculating on a near-term trade. A vast amount of foreign exchange is based on commercial transactions where the price is simply “right at that time” for the parties involved and there is little or no speculative element at all (like when you change your holiday money). For example, most oil is bought in USD almost globally.
For example, I might be a company based in the Euro area. I want to buy American lawnmowers to sell domestically. I know the wholesale price in USD and I know at which price in Euros I can sell my lawnmowers competitively. I do the deal when the exchange rate fits these two requirements. Similarly, I might be a producer of papermaking machinery. I sell a plant to China in millions of USD and I do not want a speculative exposure with my profits before I can get my hands on them, so I lock in a level at today’s price.
In addition, a retail trader can close, and even reverse trades, in a few clicks. A large pension or investment fund cannot, nor wants to, do such a thing. In the forex world there are every kind of vessel, from rowing boats to oil tankers, and every size and purpose in between - so no matter how effective an EA might be, it will never be right or suitable or even necessary for everyone…
…besides if you told everyone, there wouldn’t be anyone left to take the other side of your trades… 
I chose the horse as an example because its price is far from “static”: it’s even more sensitive to fluctuations between buying-pressure and selling-pressure than the price of a forex-pair, because the overall size of the market is so much smaller.
If you see that the odds on a particular horse are 12/1 and tell the bookie you want a £2,000 bet on it, the answer will be something like “We can only give you £200 at 12/1, and then another £400 at 10/1, and £400 at 8/1 and the rest of your bet at 6/1”.
Sorry … if you’re unfamiliar with betting on horses it wasn’t a helpful example to you, I can see.
No - far from it. This simply isn’t how the markets work.
I hope this won’t sound pompous, but it honestly isn’t a question of “opinion”. It’s an objective reality directly related to imbalances between buying pressure and selling pressure. That’s what moves the prices, in the market. Many people (even quite a lot of people who trade every day!) haven’t quite thought through the mechanics of how and why prices change as a response to relative supply/demand.
Thank LukasVisser for your view on the matter.
Manxx,
The S/R levels and pivot points is what I was basing my thoughts off of, and expanding it to other aspects of tradings. I understand that speculative trades only make up a small part of the market, and there’s a TON of money that moves independent of price movement, solely off of price level or of of the time that is needed. With that there should always be another side of the trade right?. Besides, who would listen to you if you told everyone? haha
Thanks for he reply, it’s very well described and answers my question.
Cheers mate!