Can be automated trading be profitable?

Hello, I'm new to FF and would like to start rookie discussion.

Not to many people on FF use an automated trading system(EA). Are they not profitable or it's almost impossible to find working one?

Kevin

Don't take anyone's word for it, simply download some EAs available freely here and put them on demo. Check out Steven Hopwood's or Ronald Raygun's.

Can you recommend me something?

Kevin

Ea's really test your system. If your system is crap, your ea will be crap.

Most of the commercial ea's are crap. I say this after looking at many forward tests/live trading that various ppl do and testing them myself.

There are free ea's that blow commercial ea's away.

As geosanuy said, start demo's and take nobody's word for it.

If you want a really good ea, I would recommend learning to make your own.

Surely it depends on the trading strategy. I am in the process of automating my strategy to test it works - my signals are very clear and do not really need any kind of analysis per say, so hopefully the EA will be quite easy to implement and to run, and hopefully be profitable.. Time will only tell.

As for the vast majority of EA's being sold, most are an absolute hunk of garbage. That is not to say that EA's can not be profitable, but the idea of those marketeer's EA's is to make them money, and not to make the people who buy them money. Most people do not know how to claim a refund of just can not be bothered, so those guys DO make money and quite a bit...

Test yourself and see how it comes along.

This is still work, even if you have some autopilot or cruise control settings. I recommend you use tech to your advantage but YOU always pull the trigger. If you miss your shot, wait. Another chance will come around

"can be automated trading be profitable?"

I think no, why?

1. Because EA have no psychology

1. it never care about your account equity, whether your equity is in danger

1. it will always trade when there is a signal, this will lead to overtrading

1. EA cant read the market psychology level

If it is true, there is a profitable EA, no one gonna share it for free, or sell it for for hundreds of bucks.

Best Regards,
Jin Shan

If an EA work (either commercial or free), more and more people will use it, then that's the time the EA will fail.

Fap Turbo used to work, Megadroid used to work, now million dollar pips. It is not about the strategy, it is about the traders effect.

When it comes to EA's there's no easy answer out there except for one "Nothing will work perfectly all the time".
Simply put, your EA may work great for..about 5 mnths or 1 year, tops. If you do not learn to trade on your own before the EA fails you, you would have to start again from scratch.
On a side note, when EA's fail [which they do, after a while], they fail spectacularly..

That is non sense,

Let say you have a profitable trading system then you share it to 1000 people, then this 1000 people will trade with your system, then how ? do you say that your system is not work anymore?

Market works in a certain manner. Once you know how it works, you will make money, anyone knows this will make money. No matter how many people knows this, it will still profitable.

EA just good for short term, for a long term, it will worse , and at last blow your account.
why? because EA have no psychology and dont know how to manage account properly.

Best Regards,
Jin Shan

I am a bit superstitious about this, but there is very simple reasoning why ea's or systems fail once everyone starts using them.

If you scale the markets down to something you can get your head around you can understand.

Imagine forex only had limited players. Bill, Jane, Sue, Steve & Steves friends.

Sue looks at the markets and sees that Bill and Jane both exchange their money at the same time every afternoon and there is always a reversal as a result. (this is just a pattern example)

So Sue happily trades this reversal every day and makes lots of money. One day while down the local pub, Sue brags to Steve about her system.

Steve goes back and has a look and sees the pattern.
Steve also starts trading this reversal the same as Sue. But Steve trades greater lot sizes the Sue.

Sue starts to notice a dip in her trading profits as Steve is trading in the same direction at the same time. Sue cant possibly make the same money she did before.

Then Steve tells his friends about the pattern, and they start trading at the same time in the same direction.

Pretty soon the pattern starts to disappear. Bill & Jane are still exchanging their money at the same time, but there are too many traders expecting this too happen. Now as soon as their money is exchanged it is gobbled up so fast that their appears to be no pattern at all.

I might be wrong about the reasoning. Truth is I dont know. But it happens all the time. Someone trades a system for years, then shares it and bang it stops working.
You can test Megadroid(or whatever) on a strategy tester and see that it would have worked for the past 10 years and it did work for a year or 2, until it was sold to the masses.

I know ppl are going to say that forex is huge and cant be influenced by small traders. But dont you think big traders would also take advantage of any pattern they could find?

On a brighter note. the fact that patterns are being exploited actually forms new patterns that can also be exploited.

I have an EA that has been profitable for 18 months. Accordingly to the people who gave me the idea (such kindness exists on these forums) for it, it had been profitable for the 2 years prior as well. Lately the brokers seem to have caught on or there are too many of us using the strategy because they deliberately widen the spread for an hour or two when the trades are triggered. So my profits have been cut in half, but still profitable.

So as not to worsen the situation, I will not tell you my strategy. But if you are clever and ambitious you can find the strategy complete with a crude EA (not mine).

That makes no sense....

You say that it is great that he has a profitable EA, and then say that they don't exist....????

I'm sorry, yeah its sound ridicilous,
I have delete that stupid comment.
Thanks for remind me

Best regards,
Jin Shan

Human nature is a strange phenomena.

Someone can post results from their automated trading they have been trading profitably, (which are all over forums) and still people say "EA's can never be profitable" or "they will all fail" etc...

The naysayers of ea's are like a religious order. No matter what proof is put before them, they always have faith in the fact that automated trading does not work.

Very well put. And despite the fact that I have several dozen EAs that are failures, I expect to write another successful one some day.

I think that's the point. Anybody who is into writing their own code will have had 100's of failures.
But when you start to figure out what works and what doesn't you turn a corner and things just keep getting better and better.

You are probably not going to go out and buy a $500 bot and make any decent money out of it, but if you spend the time and learn you can make automated systems return phenomenal profits. You just need to study and experiment and use your imagination.

EA during Central Bank Intervention, enjoy.

and what is the point of that video?

Hi custos,
May I know, What is your opinion about this thread title " Can be automated trading be profitable?"

Best regards
Jin Shan