thanks for clearing that robert.
tim do you have any myfxbook link you can provide?
i´d like to follow your demo tests to compare with mine.
thanks
3 Accounts
MB Trading Demo System | Myfxbook
MBT Free ECN Live System | Myfxbook
Pepperstone Demo Razr System | Myfxbook
Any questions about them let me know. They are out of the box (presets for MBTrading). Anything weird, I document in the “discuss” area.
Tim
I wish that the greatest gains in that account were not from when MS/BH were in the xmas shutdown period. If the account hadnt traded during the no trading period and your vps hadnt shut down during the period where we hit by one of the DDs…what do you figure the account % would be at?
Hamno,
It would still have recovered, which was my point.
Not quite as much, but well into profit territory, something that the account with a small balance was unable to do. By my calculations, even without the Christmas trading, it would have recovered more than 45% over its lowest point in September.
I was using this account to make a point about account balances.
I never use this account as a sample of default behaviour (it has never been shown before), since I kept it running on v7.1 to test the results of the new variables used in subsequent versions. It just happened to come in handy for the example of an account that at one time was down by 14%, and made a substantial recovery.
By the way, [U]this account is not on a VPS and it shows complete trading records for the month of January[/U].
The account that was spared some of the DD because of the VPS problem is the small Real account… not this one!
With all respect, the combo isn’t doing great at all, think all the posts make that clear. As mentioned, I have multiple accounts, starting November, December and January. All are down since this morning, January strating account suffered the most.
Account starting 2 January is now down 5.39% after exactly two months trading. Not that bad but everything except great!!
Hi Robert
That might be my problem. This is a very small acc. trading micro lots 0.01. BH again opened two trades, which is still open but not looking too good. I am trading on Hotforex with standard settings. I will email you shortly.
Regarding small accounts I noticed that a 1k account is underperforming compared to a 2k+ account.
I have a $2.5K Live account that started on January 9th. It is currently running latest version of MS/BH with default settings. It is currently down 14.3% to date.
I also run my previous Demo account which is set up the same except the initial balance was $1K. It is up 4% but was as high as 18% before this recent DD.
Looking for this to turn around. The sooner the better.
Happy Trading!
:15: sorry to hear that man
Hey, it happens. I will recover.
Happy Trading!
I am still a fan of SmartFX and overall across all accounts I am just about breakeven since I started. This is however a big disappointment because November was a good month and I had high expectations, but all those profits have been now used to finance 2012 losses so far.
While it is true that the markets are what they are, an EA is not a ATM machine and the Holy Grail does not exists, the EAs should perform better. One of the reasons why I am such a fan of SmartFX is my belief that we have a great team who will support and resolve any problems and they understand trading.
I think I have mentioned before in this forum that I believe SmartFX keeps developing and adapting their products just as the markets change all the time.
I think that the “small period of bad luck” is slowly becoming a “prolonged period of underperformance” and I am struggling to see an account that is in the green (real live money, not demos). My own are pretty much @ breakeven.
I think perhaps a few words from the team on why we are experiencing such losses and what (if anything) is being done @ SmartFX to improve things would go a long way and it would ensure the feeling of being supported is reinforced. This is one of the strongest points on SmartFX. Robert should try to keep this up.
I know some people got free use of BH and probably 2012 newcomers received other goodies but at the moment, I know that every time I open my MT4 I will see BH struggling a few pips away from being stopped out having entered a long @ at candle high or a short @ a candle’s low. Or I will see yet again a bad EURAUD entry that reversed just as it was entered. The vast majority of my winning trades are stops @ breakeven for a few pence.
I reiterate, still a fan of the team and the package overall but, in the end, regular pips is what we are here for.
Ahh fair enough, my mistake!
Just as an FYI to others, I dont see this as a individual billing issue so i’ll bring it up here since I want to inform people of something that isnt on their website.
I received the following in my email after I requested a refund,
Please note that even you bought a “combo Pack”, which is a discounted set of robots, each robot stands on its own when it comes to the guarantee. In other words, if one of them has turned a profit but the other one did not, only the losing robot would qualify for its proportional refund. It sounds reasonable that you would not mind the fact that you have proven right the winning robot, right?
In accordance with the money back guarentee posted on the website I undestand my inital request being rejected since I need to wait for a month of trading(Vice a calender month, wasnt sure which interpretation was being used) which I agreed to when I purchased the combo pack. What isnt stated in the terms and conditions for the refund is the above, which could potentially be a change of agreement after the fact.
Below is the most detailed part of the Guarantee page on the site:
We stand behind our Forex Robots.
If your account (Demo or Live) fails to make a profit by the end of 1 month, using the default settings, we will refund your full purchase price, no questions asked, and you keep the robots for Free!
All you would need to do is print the list of transactions of the first 30 days of trading, either in your Demo or Live account. Just send it to us and we will courteously issue you a full refund.
Has anyone else receieved similar emails? Did you receive Master Scalper only refunds?
Rough week, down another 3% when I checked this morning… Well below break-even now.
Hamno, it is correct, if the Breakout Hunter made you profit during the month of the guarantee, why would you want a refund on it? The fact that you pick up the discount price for both robots does not make them one item, and their performance is judged individually.
De-attached, back to manual trading…one day I’ll hope autotrading is gonna offer me some more spare time.
Small gains, big losses. can we do anything to have tighter stop losses? . i dont know if the robot enters a trade and it reverses, just close order?
im seeing that this bot have a nice % of winings, but keeps loosing.
Hi Traders,
At the request of Tradingshed, I will put down some thoughts on the January drawdown.
It was a combination of the European credit downgrades, which add excessive volatility, and the New Year rally that caused the January Drawdown.
After the Christmas-New Year’s break, a very long break for the entire community, traders from all over the world take new positions for the new trading season. This typically produces a very strong trend.
The stock markets went up about 7 to 10% worldwide, and commodities did the same thing, put on a big new year’s rally.
This is great for a Forex trending strategy, such as the Breakout Hunter.
But the Scalping strategy hates a strong trend.
The reason why traders use a scalping strategy is because in the long term currency prices tend to remain stable, so that international commerce takes place more or less fluently. So the normal market, is the quiet market, as you can see in long term charts. The super volatile market is the exception, which is why manual trading is so boring, since usually nothing much happens.
We enter scalping positions in the afternoon anticipating quiet markets, but with a strong underlying trend, sometimes the channel gets broken in mid-session, and eventually Stop Losses occur.
Having said that, [B]considering the combined drawdown of our 5 scalpers[/B], the numbers are well within parameters. If you are down 10 to 14% as some traders have posted, that is not too much per pair, isn’t it? Last Monday alone, I saw a 5% increase in my Real Account, trading the Combo. I know that we gave them back, things are not right yet, but the point is that this drawdown is not severe when you consider how many pairs we trade and how fast you can get back this small amount of DD.
We are preparing and testing a couple of very strong additions to the scalper that are aimed at controlling drawdown, both in the sense of those positions that remain open late, as well as positions that enter against a strong trend, like the January one. It will take time to get those changes tested, but we are working on them and they will be part of our next update, a couple of months down the line. The tests are looking very strong, and the updates, as always, will be sent to everyone when ready.
For the time being, New Year rallies and End-of-Summer rallies happen only once per year. European downgrades were a “first” in History, talk about volatility! And then the Iranian Oil embargo…
I am not upset at our scalping strategy. These markets were unusually volatile and that is not predictable. I think that taking 20 days off during New Year was conservative enough… next year we’ll probably take an additional week (and I will deal with the emails of people complaining because we are “not” trading enough…)
Let’s hope that the market gets back to business-as-usual soon, so we can trade and make money normally.
From my most profitable high I’m down about 7%, from my opening balance it’s down about 3%. Thanks for your input Robert. There are no open trades on my account at the moment. Have a good weekend everybody…
Agreed. Essentially I am of the conclusion that the combo (in current configuration) will, at best, give a long term breakeven. This comment is not made in haste, and follows 3 months of live.