I'm not allowed to cite names and URLs on FF, so I'll just say that I've received three separate e-mails within the last 24 hours from vendors who are talking about a trading competition that attracted 569 systems, and the top 6 are being sold (the best performed one made something like 2,300% in 30 days) to a limited number of subscribers.
Rather than re-typing my thoughts here, I'll simply post my reply to the e-mails I received:
XXX, I'm afraid you've just lost all credibility with me.
Making 2,300% in 30 days can only be the result of over-leveraging. Vendors 'tune' their EAs to take massive risks, in order to give them a chance of winning the competition prizemoney, while the publicity gives them a great spingboard from which to sell their EA. If their EA fails, then they rename and repackage it for the following year's competition, hoping for better luck.
Trading competitions are a lottery. Any system can 'get lucky' in 30 days, and luck is not indefinitely sustainable. Performance over 30 days tells nothing of long term profitability.
Out of 569 systems (and especially given the over-leveraging) one or two systems are bound to perform exceptionally. That's nothing more than the inevitable product of a probability distribution.
In marked contrast, the genuinely expert traders focus on managing risk, and seek small but steady gains, using compounding to gradually grow their accounts. Do you think that the world's best traders make 2,000% every month? If they did, they'd own the whole world in less than a year. Yet I don't see too many forex traders on the Forbes list. LOL.
Up until now I thought you knew what you were talking about. But if the results of a trading competition excite you, then I'm afraid your understanding is very limited. It now seems to me that you're a vendor selling worthless EAs, and not a real trader. Anybody who buys a system on the basis of 30 days' performance is extremely gullible.
And ask yourselves this question: if you had a system capable of generating 2,000% per month, would you sell it? Then why would anybody else?
Caveat emptor!!