Does anyone have an EA that produces CONSISTENT profits? - page 3

@SDC: All TA depends on Averaging to filter out Price Noise. For me Averaging is Elementary at this stage. Whats I find important now-a-days are the statistical properties of a system. Questions like: whats the probability of me Doubling the Account before it ruins? How often can I expect to see a 20% drawdown - or 30% or 50%? Does system-A do a better job than system-B at reducing the drawdown for the same average returns?

Once the system answers to the above questions are good enough for your Psychology then you go live. But one thing you have to keep in your mind is that no system is bullet-proof. Therefore, I start with and only keep what I would like to lose in the account.

SDC: If thats the case why is it, the so called experts on the regular forums, the ones who claim to have been at this for years always say the same things, find a strategy make your rules and stick to them.

Another myth. Jump into any location with manual traders and you'll get the same sad story. "I've been trading for 5-years; the first 3 I lost my pants off". And usually you have to ask them in a direct and honest way for them to admit it. People don't like talking about their losses and if traders are anything like professional blackjack players then they also exaggerate their wins. I'm not saying everyone should run around telling everybody else how much money they've won or loss. But if you're going to give advice to newbies then be open.

I observed some manual traders at work. They place a trade, watch to see if price goes into their favor or not. 5-minutes later, bob shouts "humm... I don't like the slowness of EU, I'm getting out +5 pips". Then bob turns to me and go, I always look for a 2:1 profit to loss ratio and never risk more than 2% of my equity. And I sit there thinking, so Bob were you risking 2.5 pips on that last trade.... I'm listening to these guys for hours going +7, Break-Even, +20, +10. But very, very rarely did I hear -1. So, at one point I had to ask, seems like everyone in here is winning ... so much for 99% losers in forex.

If anyone tells you that if you were manually trading 2 years ago then you would have been a winning trader just smile. Manual traders think when you say EA (they like to call it Robots) then you don't know how to trade manually. Six months after I started, I toke Phillips advice and traded Manually for about 6-Months. What I got from that experience is what I expected to get from that experience. Staring at chats for hours, looking for trade setups, constant bombardment from different factors, like News, Slow Moving Markets, Fast Moving Markets, etc. You're constantly asking yourself should I do-this or should I do-that even tho it wasn't part of the plan.

No one ever said that EAs take the Emotions out of trading but some Manual Traders like to jump on this against EAs. The EA trader would always Reserve the Right to pull the plug on the EA. This could be a double edge sword as people change systems or EAs often. Most people wouldn't admit this to themselves but 20% drawdown makes the average person sweat and abandon the system. The lessons I've learned watching Back-Tests are far more advanced than anything Manual trading could have ever done for me. Manual trading with real money could have only taught me how to let the Ice waters flow through my veins, something BJ already done a good job teaching me.

When I observed those manual traders, I played little games with them... I say something like anyone wanna guess where EU would go and how far? And mostly I was correct. They started to label me as someone who always had the need to be correct. And non-real money guesses mean nothing. If only they knew lol. Sometimes I say something like I know Weekend Gaps closes 95% of the time and thats why I guessed that it would close however It wasn't a sure thing.

Sure I've developed a Sixth Sense about where and how far the market would go within near future but I rather be in a location with lemonade and people than sitting in my home office all day doing something an EA could do without all the second guessing.

I hope you did. It's pointless, unhelpful to go into "zero sum game", "wasting 2 years", then why so and so experts mention this, that, etc, losing $ on manual, etc, etc.

The audience of this thread, forum, and esp. to the OP, may consider your advice, i.e.

as extremely unhelpful, needless just another personal affair of some stranger that thinks he is all correct.

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Consistent EA Profits? Yes, Possible. How? The way to it, as I see, and as I explained, and as I countered, is also what being echoed by this poster:

Place to start: Manual Trading Ideas, on live.

If its profitable, or as I suggest even breakeven, "then code can begin". It cant be any simpler than this. Don't complicate things, even if the market is not complicated enough.

People don't wish to toy and tinker with any robots all their lives. Traders, want to USE (rather than HOPE) technology to leverage strategy further in returns, and be confident that the automation does exactly what they wish for. And the expectation is, It should return higher than manual.

Thats MetaQuotes business as usual. That's the traders business as usual.

I wonder what is YOURS.

@diostar your trollish posts are getting rather tiresome.

@Ubzen I agree with everything you said I have been there manual trading myself before I even considered learning mql4 and creating robots, I have also spent time with other manual traders and have usually been left with the feeling you get when you stand at the craps table with a bunch of guys shooting dice, some win some lose, those who win think it is because they play craps better then those who lost, when in all reality they just got lucky for a while.

While manual trading with different strategies I realized quite early on, I was playing in the dark, is the strategy I'm using losing money this month just because this is not a good month and will it be better next month and will it overall be profitable ? It was that simple question that led me to learn mql4 to write the strategy into an EA and test it over chart history to see if it could have been profitable, obviously it wasnt and tanked over the previous years chart history, so then I set about testing other strategies, some I read about, some described by self styled forex gurus on some of the well known forex forums, I tested them, one after another drainer after drainer, so yes your right, when people say if I had been manual trading for the past two years I would have been a winning trader, I should smile, because had I been manual trading any of the strategies I thought were good when I coded them into an EA I would probably be broke by now.

<consistent profits>

Over what period? Any strategy will have phases of better or worse results, the trick is assessing suitability as part of the system (whether manual or coded), see topic here

-BB-

@SDC: Yep, and you would have lost money and formed Bad-Habits which would be harder to undo in the future. I have absolutely nothing against Manual Traders but I hate it whenever they go EA bashing. Just because you purchased a $199 EA which didn't work out doesn't make it all bad apples. I agree with BB's comment that one should start with manual strategy. This is the same advice Gordon give me. You look at the charts Manually scan for strategy's which makes sense. You code them into an EA. When you test it, it should be Profitable the First time around without using the Optimizer. Ok, for those who have manual strategies, go ahead and take the challenge. Code it and run it for 2011 and see if it's even profitable. Then if you feel like you can really handle the truth, go year by year backwards testing it.

If someone tell me, "I don't have the skills to code my manual strategy into an EA" I'd understand. But most of the manual trader who want to remain in the dark about their strategy use the excuse "The computer cannot do what the Human Being can". Yea? like what? Change your mind at the seat of your pants? I'm not saying computers can do everything, but you'd be hard pressed to get someone to say what a computer cannot do without going into Emotions.

Some on here claims people can start with Piggy Bank Accounts and make something substantial within their life time. I'm not saying this is impossible, but this same person should not try to lecture me about 30% returns annually, 2% risk per-trade, 5% returns monthly because the math don't add up. This person probably toke on substantial risks earlier on to built their account and now they trade differently or this person don't know how much a Piggy holds.

As I read a lot of these posts I come up with same question all the time.

Did anyone bother to read the posters question: (((((Does anyone have an EA that produces CONSISTENT profits?)))) or do they just like to hear themselves talk.

Not that but there wasn't some good advise there but that's not what he asked!

This is comical. How'd you drag a 5 year old post from the dead? Is it haunting you?

You need one of two things or preferably both. An active interest in programming and enjoying a challenge and or natural aptitude. 

If your chasing the money rather than actually enjoying learning and the challenge then what would the probability be of success?

I dont think MQL language makes it easy, it hardly comes shipped with the latest statistic libraries or genetic algorithms but then why would they?

If you read a closely someone has answered your question, anyone with above average capabilities won't be sitting around forums bragging about their latest and greatest, they'll probably be sitting with their feet up somewhere sunny.

I barely know anything about the forex but its not rocket science to notice that volume is partially sinusoidal. Mix it up with some markov analyses if you wish.

Money doesnt grow on tree's, banks dont have branches and it's unlikely anyone knows how to catch autumn leaves.