Are Automated Expert Advisors (EAs) Worth Considering?
Posted in Forex on 10/07/2009 07:54 am by Ash NaeckIf you are familiar with Forex, I bet this is one of those questions that got your brain juices running.
My early days of trading were spent searching the net for the best Expert Advisor out there. I got caught up in this never ending search for the “holy-grail” trading system and believe me I wasted a lot of time and money in the process. I wish I could go back in time and change some of the decisions I made but you learn from your mistakes and as long as you do not repeat those same mistakes again you are on the right track.
Why are we so obsessed about Automated Expert Advisors?
Below are some of the main reasons why traders are attracted to Automated Expert Advisors:
- System is on autopilot
- No sitting in front of the PC the whole day long looking for the right set-up
- More time to relax
- Less stress
- Easy to use
- No thinking required
- Help documents available
As a trader, those are the benefits you will be exposed to having an Expert Advisor trading on auto-pilot. Those are great features indeed but not so great when you take into account the negative side of it. The fact is that more that often Expert Advisors do not deliver on their original promise leaving your trading capital in ruin.
There are thousands of automated Forex providers on the net nowadays. This number is increasing day by day and funnily enough they all seem to have insane winning rate some even with a 100% success rate (hmmm). The common sales pitches used by those providers are:
- Make money on autopilot – No experience required
- No losing Forex Robot that can turn $500 into $5000 in less than a month
- Make $1000 on autopilot every day
- Robot with 100% success rate turns $100 to $1000 in a month
If half of the above were true I would be sitting on a nice beach as we speak enjoying the sun and sipping on a cocktail, however, here I am sharing with you my experiences about automated expert advisors. Systems that promise to make you thousands overnight or 500%+ return per month are simply B.S. You are more likely to lose than actually make money.
If you have stumbled across this article before making any purchase consider yourself as being lucky. I am among the few people out there that will tell you the truth about Expert Advisors. Most expert advisors are just a waste of money. They don’t and will never work. If they did, all the major Banks and Hedge Funds would sack their entire FX department and use those robots instead.
The fact is that banks and the big institutions rely heavily on their currency traders to take advantage of the Forex market. They understand that the currency market is way too unpredictable and volatile to allow a robot to be in control. Market conditions change all the time and the only way to adapt to those changes is to have a human mind in control. A robot for instance cannot bend the rules and thus does not cope well if conditions of market changes violently.
Forex robots are many a time designed my mathematicians or engineers who believe they cracked the code to Forex trading. Well no offence to them but if they have already cracked the code, why am I still not profitable. You see the nature of the Forex market is such that changes in market conditions cannot be predicted. This is due to news, catastrophes, political changes etc Do you believe those robots can take all those changes into account?
The following are some of the major points you need to clear out if you are thinking of purchasing a Forex robot:
- The back ground of the developer (make sure the developer is a successful Forex trader and not another engineer or mathematician claiming they have cracked the Forex code)
- Has the system been tested on a live account? If yes what are the monthly returns.
- How long has the system been in operation?(2+ years)
Potential monthly return
- Maximum draw-down.
If all the above questions check out okay then you got yourself a winner.
I have spent a large sum of money over the years trying all sorts of Forex robots. The result was that I lost as much hair as I lost money! Quite frankly, I was quite disgusted with all those Experts advisors until the day I came across a guy named Ashkan Bolour.
I knew nothing about Ashkan Bolour at this point. I researched the net for more information and learnt that he was a highly successful money manager who was well respected in the Forex world. He had featured in many trading books and had become quite an authority in the foreign exchange arena. I decided to try his product after seeing the nice monthly returns he had on his live accounts.
Well the results were quite amazing. It was not a system making 500% or even 100% return each month but it was making some very consistent profits with small draw-downs. If ever you are looking for a proven system backed by consistent profit made on live accounts, Ashkan Bolour’s system, the FXprofit Mountain is a must.