What is a Forex robot?

I am trying to find out what a forex robot is, I searched google and all that comes up is a bunch of marketing gimmicks. Can anyone tell me a straight answer what a forex robot is and how they are made/developed? How come whenever someone makes a good robot they don't share it with anyone?

A forex robot is an automated trading program that places and manages trades for you. Most are developed for MetaTrader 4 and are called an "expert advisor", or EA.

Depending on the skill of the developement individual or team these robots can be quite good or worthless. Their developement depends on two very important concepts. (1) a viable and profitable trading method and (2) the ability to program this method correctly.

Having developed and programed several EA's myself I can tell you it is a great deal of work. As you may be aware, just the search for a viable method of trading can be quite daunting. It requires hours of research and soul searching to find something that is a match for your (the developing trader's) temperment. Then the process of programming the method so that it works as the trader would use it is another long and very drawn out project.

Contrary to what people think, a computer cannot do even a small fraction of what the human brain can do in the blink of an eye. So programing the EA to "think" about all the variable that present themselves daily is very difficult even if you know what you're doing. For those of us who are still learning to program, it can be many hours up late at night reading books and scouring the internet to resolve just one little issue.

After doing all that and having the success of writing a program that works the way you want it to, you must now test it to see if all that work is actually profitable in the past and current market conditions. There is back testing over a given period of time. Then there is forward testing for an equal period of time. There are the gathering of countless spread sheets all crunching data and numbers to see if the method really works.

And when finally the day comes to take it live in the market one is still left with some doubt as to its viability until it "proves itself" and only the operator can really say when that point is.

After all that work and literally YEARS of hard work, tell me...why would someone sell or give that product to someone else just so they don't have to do all the work? I don't know about you, but my time is worth more than $99 per copy of the program. Not to mention that anyone who knows how to program also knows how to take someone else's program and reverse engineer it to discover the logic. Then they can take that logic and make something for themselves without returning the favor.

Those programs that really work well, are kept under very tight lock and key. They are the "secret weapon" of the developer who knows that the moment he releases it to the public domain it will no longer be an "edge". Any program that doesn't work very well will be sold to any sucker who is too lazy to do his own research and development.

In case your wondering...yes I did find something that works great! And NO it isn't for sale, rent, or consignment.

Automated trading. Removing your brain from the equation. Yes, Expert Advisors are robots.

http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=144982

Thank you gspajon for that reply, I understand now. So an EA has to be programmed by the trader to suit his trading style.

Congratulations on your development, gspajon and best of luck in your trading.

Trading systems--automated or mechanical--are a lot of work to develop and are worth keeping for yourselves if you so choose. Who wants to give their pot of gold to the first person asking for a handout?