@Whack_Attack, Alanlim3.
I sure can respect that. I too like trading manually but the elusive thing called time escapes me. I do trade manually in a small account (price action only). It still gives me the thrill of trading whilst my other two bot accounts keep churning 
Good luck out there!
~knotthead
Hi Knotthead,
I am still learning and trying to get the hang of the EAās. I saw that you said you have a spreadsheet being used for lot calculations. Could you share that with me? Also, any tips on configuring an EA best for this trading plan? I have multiple EAās but have not been able to setup the configurations quite as you described. My closest attempt resulted in a run away Martingale.
I really appreciate all of the information that you are sharing with everyone.
Thanks,
Pacificscorpion
Pacificscorpion.
Thanks for you post! See post above for lot sizes and TP targets based on account size. Iād like to take the credit for building the EAs I use but I canāt. I purchased mine. Hit me up on a PM and Iāll let you know where I got them.
~knotthead
Hi, Knott. I havenāt posted on BabyPips before (that I can recall). How do I PM you? Iād like to find out where you got the EAs. Thanks.
PacificScorp, do you know how to PM Knott?
Mary4x
I googled how to send PMs on BabyPips and I canāt send one until Iām made 50 postsā¦
There are many ways of trading with Forex Trading, one of them is the Robot, but I prefer to trade manually as it can allow us to make as much money as we want, while Robots create a barrier of earning as the money not earned is the money lost.
Thanks for the post Whack_Attack!
An old friend of mine once said āIād rather lose opportunity than moneyā. While there is some truth to the fact that if I held on to positions much longer (in many cases) I would have been able to āearnā more. However there are two major points at play here. 1) That is a double-edged sword. You can also end up losing on a trade if you donāt take profit at the right timeā¦holding on to it too long and 2) that requires using the human emotion to dictate when to hold and when to take profit. Sure you can set rules to trade byā¦but eventually emotion takes over. There is a sense of thrill when manually tradingā¦I admit it. I love it. Andā¦EA trading does take the thrill away to some degree. In eliminating the human emotion from my trading I have become much more profitable, less stressed, and I sleep at night not having to worry about whether I should close a trade. The bot takes all of that out of the equation and the system takes the worry of margina calls out of the equation as well. So if you set your bot to open, close, lather, rinse, repeatā¦and you put your trading strategy into a bot that does all of the work for youā¦where is the downside here? Itās still your strategy, youāre just not having to watch charts all day and physically pull the trigger each time. Take for instance this morning (or most mornings for me). I wake up, check my Myfxbook and see that I have had roughly 30-40 trades overnight during the Asia-Europe sessions and Iām already up $100+ for the day. The bot made money for me while I was sleeping. I didnāt have to stay up all night watching 16 charts and pulling the trigger in order to achieve that.
Again, to each their own. I too enjoy trading manually and I do it in a smaller account, only trading price action reversal patterns. Itās fun and more of a hobby. My bot accounts just keep churning for me and is my bread winner.
Trade what works for you. This is working for me and Iām ecstatic each morning. Let me know if you have any additional questionsā¦always happy to share my experience. Good luck out there!
~knotthead
Hi, Knotthead. Just got your email but BabyPips wonāt let me replyā¦ Or something. Says I ādonāt have permissionā¦ā
How about if I post my email here and then immediately edit or delete it? (I know weāre cautioned about posting emails, or other personal info) Oh, wait, youāve already go my email, correct? Then I guess youād have to not use babypips for me to reply.
Mary
Hey Mary4x.
Donāt put your personal stuff up here. You might start getting tons of spam (since this is a public site) or worse, may get some phishing attempts tossed your way. I sent you a second message. Let me know if you received it.
Also, Iām trying to be as transparent as possible with this āstrategyāā¦if you want to call it that. To reiterate, my main focus for this thread was that in order for any trading strategy to work (whether automated or not) is to be conscious of your lot sizes and take profit targetsā¦and base them conservatively off of your account balance. That way you are risking the same percentage (roughly) on each trade whether you have a $1K account or a $1M account. Somehow this has shifted to a bot vs. manual trading ping pong match
Good luck to all out there!
~knotthead
Hello Knothead
It seems that you are an expert trader and for you it would be easy to lose opportunity than money as you will be knowing when the next one will arise, I was talking about the newbies like me, we should not give away opportunity, instead if we lose while taking it, we will have the most valuable thing of Forex and that is experience. While if we donāt take opportunities because of the fear of losing, we aināt earning anything.
Hi, Knotthead. I just now tried to send you another message the way the last one was sent. BabyPips stopped it. Just wanted to say that Iād love to try the robot but I donāt have the $$$. Thanks, though. Maybe sometime in the future.
Hi Knotthead - Did you receive my inbox message I sent per your request?
Thanks,
Pacificscorpion
Thanks for the post Whack_Attack.
Iām no expert. When I start living off of my trades I might consider being good at itā¦but Iāll never be an expert Definitely trade a system that you are comfortable trading. If trading manually and holding on for the big winners is something that is working for you then by all means do that! I was trading purely price action signals at support and resistance lines on the daily charts and really enjoyed it. With the daily charts it meant that I only really needed to watch it once or twice a day for about 20 minutes. Prior to that I felt like I was watching charts all day. To minimize the need to look at and analyze chart patterns, I switched over to mainly trading with EAs. For me it is less stressful and frees me up to do other stuffā¦plus it takes all of the emotional parts of trading out of it.
I agree that if you donāt take opportunities for the fear of losing then you arenāt learning. Just donāt go chasing waterfalls
Good luck out there!
~knotthead
Hey Mary!
The bots arenāt that cheap, I agree. Howeverā¦I made that money back in less than a week trading with it/them. I think you get 9 or 10 of them. The thing is though, I think you can use pretty much any bot that does what it says it is supposed to doā¦the lot size/TP ratio to account size is the major piece of this. What I would do if I were youā¦set up a demo account, find an EA that uses the martingale, is very simple, and runs off of one (maybe two) indicators only, run a handful of pairs and follow the lot size/TP schedule above. Watch the demo account for 2 months and see what it does. Demo settings:
$2k
Run 8 pairs - try these: GBP/CAD, GBP/JPY, GBP/AUD, EUR/JPY, EUR/NZD, AUD/JPY, AUD/CAD, USD/CAD
Set your lot sizes: .01 for first position, .03 for second position.
TP target: $0.50
Note, the draw down will follow the profit for a while. Eventually the profit will exceed the draw down. When you get the account to $4k, move your lot sizes to .02 and .06 with a TP of $1. Lather, rinse, repeat. After two months if you are making money in your demo account, set up a live account and do the same
There are a ton of free EAs out there. Grab one that makes sense and start demoing!
~knotthead
Thanks, Knotthead. I got your email a few minutes ago. I saw a Martingale EA yesterday somewhereāhave always shied away from Martingale but if you say itās okay Iāll give it a go.
Mary.
Make sure you know just how the EA works. For instance, the ones I use open a small sized position first, then if the same actin signal happens again it opens a triple positionā¦but then that is it, no more martingales. Just make sure you know how the EA works and what the correct settings areā¦and demo demo DEMO before tossing it on a live account!
~knotthead
Hi,
As a long time reader of this forum and BabyPips in general I decided to join now because I stumbled over this thread and there is this question I wanted to ask you: How can a system be seen as profitable if the equity is negative? You put in some 39k, you spent 800 on interest (as per July 19) and your equity is now around 35k? Which for me looks like a loss, realized or not.
I am basically doing / testing a very similar system - small TPs, no SL and no Martingale but with some 50 profitable (in backtesting) EAs. I make a string of small wins every day but my equity becomes smaller and smaller since some pairs do not come back and probably never will (actually they will but by then the rollover fees will have bankrupted me).
But maybe I am seeing things wrongly so please explain - maybe I am profitable after all.
Thanks
Alp
Thanks for you post Alp!
Yes, I am trying to grow my TP levelsā¦so when I get to the next key level, I up my lot sizes and TP targets. At some point in the not so distant future, I wonāt up my lot sizes when I get to the next key levelā¦thus my open position deficit should remain the same but the profits will continue to roll in. I normally see a positive equity just as I am hitting the next level. I up the lot sizes and, like clockwork, my equity goes lower. Iāve been pushing the system over the last 9 months to try and grow the monthly profit (not counting the open positions draw down). Again, when I get to the next level where I am āsupposed toā up my lots, if I donāt, Iāll be making more than my open positions. Iām not going to move lots or TPs for the next 4-5 months just so the account gets back into black.
~knotthead
Thanks for your posts too and thanks for accepting the fact that if we lose opportunities because of the fear of losing, than we cannot earn enough and you talk like an expert trader, so I will consider you to be one. Thanks for your valuable suggestions which you are sharing here.
Hi Knothead,
Your system sounds interesting. I have been involved with forex for about 5 years during which time Iāve lost mostly.
About two years ago I decided to not trade but run a demo until I found something to work. Now 88 weeks later I have found success having turned $5000 into $50000. I use Blessing 3_v3.9.6.09 (free), with a set file that I use on any pairing.
I use 4 hr charts with Bolinger Band entry, .01 starting lot, 2.3 multiplier, have 8 lot max for any trade, and use hedge trades from lots 6-8. TPās vary from 50 pip on single trade down to 20 pips for a full 8 lot trade(if it gets that far, which has only happened once so far) Drawdown for an 8 lot trade is $9000 - $10000 (depending on pair) for 1000 pips including margin.
So far the ave. no. trades per week is 26 averaging $14.50. A trade to me is one that closes with a profit that may have 1 to 8 lots.
Be interested to hear back from you.
Froggy60