The problem with most automated systems is that they can not adjust to changing market conditions. For example, they can not look at an upcoming news announcement and determine how likely it is or is not that it will create dangerous volatility. They also can not easily (ever) change trading strategy in choppy vs non choppy markets or trending vs non trending markets.
Why you suggest micro account for practicing?
Hi @forexprofittrader I am new to Forex, but I have a degree in computer science and have been programming about 10 years now. What I can say is that a robot/software application is not more accurate than the human eye. A robot or piece of software must be programmed by a another human. This means that there are inevitably going to be mistakes and the robot can only be as intelligent as the person who programmed it.
An application is basically just a set of instructions and computers follow instructions, extremely well. They can’t read between the lines and interpret what you may have been thinking when you wrote a specific instruction, they will just execute it exactly as you have written it.
With a human eye for example we can see patterns, such as triangles, head and shoulders, etc…, but a computer cannot see these patterns, they don’t see a graph, they just see numbers. You’d have to figure out a way to program your bot so that it just doesn’t appear to look like a random set of numbers, but that it actually forms some pattern. This is much more difficult than one may think. Let’s say I feed it all the numbers from a triangle pattern and tell it that if it ever see’s these numbers again and in this order to perform some strategy. It will only perform it, if those exact numbers fall in the same exact pattern at the same exact location. Problem is that will rarely if ever happen. A triangle may form again, but the numbers will be different and in a different location.
You’d have to develop some kind of machine learning algorithm and feed it hundreds or even thousands of triangles and teach it to calculate the slight variations in patterns. It’s not impossible, but it’s a lot of work and very time consuming.
This next statement is my opinion, but I’m willing to bet that a developer that has been able to put in a lot of time, effort and money into developing a successful EA is not going to sell it on the open market, but use it for him/herself. People that sell EA’s are people looking to make money off of simple EA’s that were easy to develop and were successful over a short period of back test. My guess is the ones that tend to fail over time haven’t been tested well enough and haven’t been optimized with each variation of back test.
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Market conditions are unpredictable because of the cumulative decisions of all the people participating. People are unpredictable, but there are behaviors that we tend to do as a group - we tend to react a certain way at certain levels, etc. That’s why using statistical probability you can figure out which are the highest ‘win’ trades based on repeating patterns. But it’s never 100% certain. A highly skilled chartist can read the chart in real time and adapt to the conditions that are unfolding, but an automated system? It’s not capable of turning on a dime. In some conditions that would make it more profitable, because it’s not second guessing itself like a human would. But in other conditions that would make it less profitable because sometimes a change in plan is necessary and it wouldn’t be able to do that.
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Hi there,
Thank you for this clear answer, now I understand why good EA’s are hard to find and manual trading by humans is important.
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You can teach yourself to program in the MQL4 language and develop your own EA’s in the MT4 platform. I think EA’s can be valuable in triggering alerts for you. For example if two specific indicators cross path’s or you want an EA to recognize divergence. You can have an EA trigger an alert allowing you to respond and trade when the conditions are right.
I don’t think, profitable trading systems are available here and there! Making consistent money is not easy actually! I see, pro traders have a huge knowledge on technical and fundamental analysis! Besides, I have enough doubt on automatic trading.
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I have also very bad experience on EA trading! Don’t believe any Holy Grail trading EA or strategy, Holy Grail doesn’t exist here!
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I look at it the other way around, and would be amazed to find one that really works, because I don’t understand why anyone would ever want to sell one that really works?
It’s a common thing that demo account is best place for practicing. But traders trade here at all seriously? For that reason it is more appropriate for practicing micro account instead of demo. Thank you
It’s your choice peter. You can . but newcomer must avoid first of all to trade with real money . it can make them greedy and emotional. So I always prefer demo.
Exactly, same opinion here! Scammers mainly sell their trading EAs and systems.
ea is not a very effective instrument as the market is constantly changing. what worked once, won’t work within some time
that is the reason why I prefer manual trading
Absolutely, manual trading is much reliable than automatic trading! I have seen, a number of pro traders trade manually. That inspires me to do manual trading.
That’s the exact opposite of what most of the world’s financial institutions believe.
They’re all increasing their automated and algorithmic trading and employing only a fraction of the number of manual traders that they used to.
Their success rates are far higher than those of retail traders, so maybe they’re right and you’re wrong?
It inspires me to try to automate. But not with an EA!
If you mean automating your own strategies, it’s a great option, but it requires mql programming. I thought to get to it someday, but don’t have time for it at the moment.
Maybe, it’s really comfortable
So, what do you prefer? Copy trading or PAMM or anything else?
Not at all.
That would only be true if you used MetaTrader (which 99% of profitable traders don’t, and wouldn’t!).
Automation and MetaTrader don’t go together at all. That would put you in the land of EA’s. And they put you in the land of being a loser.
Hello, I’m trying to quote the post just above but I’m failing. This new forum layout is not very intuitive, at least for me 
My question for the post just above is then what is that platform that 99% of profitable traders use to do automated trading?
Nor for me. Most people here seem to dislike it.
If you highlight text in the post you want to reply to, a pop-up gives you the option to quote it.
I don’t know if there are just one or two that 99% of profitable traders use.
There are loads.
Very few people using MT4 become profitable, though.
Partly because people attracted to the kind of brokers who offer mostly MT4 are likely to lose anyway, for loads of reasons including the kind of broker they’re using, and partly also because MT4 is horrible.
It’s the worst platform I’ve ever seen, by a long way, and I’ve seen a lot.
Many successful traders use Sierra Chart.
Some use Ninja Trader.
Those two are both light years ahead of MT4, anyway.