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YOUR results with live, fully-automated EAs??

  • Poll

  • What are your results with EAs & live trading?
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  • #1
  • First Post: Mar 15, 2010 4:10pm Mar 15, 2010 4:10pm
I've been dabbling in forex now for more than 10 years. Although I am a programmer by trade, I have only recently begun developing EAs. Right now I'm running a lot of tests on demo accounts but I have yet to put any of my actual money behind them.

I would really like to hear from others here who have used them for live fully-automated trading. Please don't respond with tales about your magical demo account that has multiplied 10-fold in the last 10 days. And please don't lecture me with Zen principles about money management and market wisdom. I really want to hear from people who have tried (successfully or otherwise) to let an EA manage your trades.

Have you ever found one that actually worked on a live account over the long run???

With all the time/effort that is spent posting in places like this and swapping programming ideas, I would like to think that someone out there has actually managed to do this profitably over a significant period of time. But I'm also skeptical.

I understand that, if there are successful fully-automated EAs out there, that they won't be posted for free in forums like this. I also understand that anyone owning such a program would not want to talk much about it.

Please know that I am NOT asking you to show me how it's done. I don't want you to send me your EA or give me a tutorial. I'm a big boy and I can find my own way. I'm just curious, before I embark headlong on this path, has anyone else actually pulled this off?
  • #2
  • Mar 15, 2010 4:44pm Mar 15, 2010 4:44pm
Quoting Bytebodger
I've been dabbling in forex now for more than 10 years. Although I am a programmer by trade, I have only recently begun developing EAs. Right now I'm running a lot of tests on demo accounts but I have yet to put any of my actual money behind them.
I have been successfully live-trading Blessing for the last 1 1/2 years. My small
account gained 68% and my big account gained 58%. I have de-tuned the settings so it will survive large trends. I could make it a lot more aggressive,
but I'm not interested in blowing my account, so I try to play it safe. Aside from
the inputs, the most important aspect is risk/money-management. I use a large
balance, small initial lots, and manually intervene when appropriate.

Rob
  • #3
  • Mar 15, 2010 4:48pm Mar 15, 2010 4:48pm
Quoting ChicagoRob
I have been successfully live-trading Blessing for the last 1 1/2 years. My small
account gained 68% and my big account gained 58%. I have de-tuned the settings so it will survive large trends. I could make it a lot more aggressive,
but I'm not interested in blowing my account, so I try to play it safe. Aside from
the inputs, the most important aspect is risk/money-management. I use a large
balance, small initial lots, and manually intervene when appropriate.

Rob
Exactly the kind of feedback I'm looking for. Thanks.
  • #4
  • Mar 15, 2010 6:01pm Mar 15, 2010 6:01pm
I've been running vGrid live for a long time, and its predecessor mGrid before that.

It hedges and martingales so isn't everyones cup of tea.

Doubled my account in the first 3 months, added another 70% in the next 3 months. Changed to very very conservative settings after that and netting 3-10% per month depending on market volatility.

I've recently started running blessings. Again very conservative settings. I cant really put a percentage on it, but it does make a reasonable contribution.
bull in a china shop
  • #5
  • Mar 15, 2010 6:22pm Mar 15, 2010 6:22pm
Quoting plasmapants
I've been running vGrid live for a long time, and its predecessor mGrid before that.
Thank you for the feedback. Could you please define "a long time"? Months? Years?

I'm sorry to sound anal retentive, but part of my reason for starting this thread is that there are so many people out there who say they've been running some EA profitably in live trading for "a long time". When you press them on it further, you find out that "a long time" is a few months (and some jokers would put "a few weeks" under that category).

I'm not saying you're one of those, but I'm trying to get a feel for how long people have successfully been using EAs.
  • #6
  • Mar 16, 2010 12:58am Mar 16, 2010 12:58am
I found 2 but one is by far more profitable. As soon as you're able to find one you'll see that finding another one is very easy. You simply know where you must look for them. It is anyway easier to stick to one or two and optimizing them instead of always searching for another one.

It has been working for all majors for the last 5 years and in a live account for the last 6 months. As it uses only price behaviour without any indicator I assume that the markets should change a lot before this strategy will not work anymore.
  • #7
  • Mar 16, 2010 2:22am Mar 16, 2010 2:22am
Quoting plasmapants
I've been running vGrid live for a long time, and its predecessor mGrid before that.

It hedges and martingales so isn't everyones cup of tea.

Doubled my account in the first 3 months, added another 70% in the next 3 months. Changed to very very conservative settings after that and netting 3-10% per month depending on market volatility.

I've recently started running blessings. Again very conservative settings. I cant really put a percentage on it, but it does make a reasonable contribution.

Test your martingale in year 2008 and post the results
  • #8
  • Mar 16, 2010 3:43am Mar 16, 2010 3:43am
Quoting Trad3r
Test your martingale in year 2008 and post the results
Hi Trad3r, can let me know which day or which month?

interested to test mine too.
  • #9
  • Mar 16, 2010 3:56am Mar 16, 2010 3:56am
Quoting Bytebodger
Could you please define "a long time"? Months? Years?

Its been almost a complete year now.
bull in a china shop
  • #10
  • Mar 16, 2010 4:02am Mar 16, 2010 4:02am
Quoting Trad3r
Test your martingale in year 2008 and post the results
You cant run martingale sytems unless you embrace risk. Its well documented in the math grid thread. Like i said, it's not everybodys cup of tea.
bull in a china shop
  • #11
  • Mar 16, 2010 4:15am Mar 16, 2010 4:15am
Quoting plasmapants
You cant run martingale sytems unless you embrace risk. Its well documented in the math grid thread. Like i said, it's not everybodys cup of tea.
Hi Plasmaplants,

base on your experience with martingale, any day u can consider as death trade days? Care to let me know which days?

I am in testing of my new system and due to the calculation behind it, I cannot fast forward the test. Need to test it day by day.
  • #12
  • Mar 16, 2010 5:57am Mar 16, 2010 5:57am
Quoting akukaya
Hi Plasmaplants,

base on your experience with martingale, any day u can consider as death trade days? Care to let me know which days?

I am in testing of my new system and due to the calculation behind it, I cannot fast forward the test. Need to test it day by day.

Depends on your system. But perhaps its a discussion for another forum.
bull in a china shop
  • #13
  • Mar 16, 2010 7:01am Mar 16, 2010 7:01am
Quoting Sauron
I found 2 but one is by far more profitable. As soon as you're able to find one you'll see that finding another one is very easy. You simply know where you must look for them.
When you say "where you must look for them" are you referring to a specific location? Like a particular web site or vendor? Or are you referring more esoterically to a particular style/strategy of EA?

I'm asking because I've always figured that if I could find even one strategy that works, it would probably be relatively easy to create 10 different variations on that theme that would probably also work to varying degrees.


Quoting Sauron
It has been working for all majors for the last 5 years and in a live account for the last 6 months. As it uses only price behaviour without any indicator I assume that the markets should change a lot before this strategy will not work anymore.
That's very encouraging feedback. The EAs I've been writing are all based on price action.
  • #14
  • Mar 16, 2010 8:04am Mar 16, 2010 8:04am
Quoting Bytebodger
I'm asking because I've always figured that if I could find even one strategy that works, it would probably be relatively easy to create 10 different variations on that theme that would probably also work to varying degrees.
This is what I meant.
  • #15
  • Mar 16, 2010 11:41am Mar 16, 2010 11:41am
Quoting plasmapants
You cant run martingale sytems unless you embrace risk. Its well documented in the math grid thread. Like i said, it's not everybodys cup of tea.
Too many risks...You can see here a simple but effective martingale:
http://codebase.mql4.com/5288

It works well under normal market conditions during some months even years, but always fails backtesting in long term, unless you put the Limit parameter so high and the profit so low that don't worhwhile to use it...

You can run a martingale profitable during a hundred of entries and lose all your money in just 1 entry...
  • #16
  • Mar 16, 2010 11:52am Mar 16, 2010 11:52am
Quoting akukaya
Hi Trad3r, can let me know which day or which month?

interested to test mine too.
Test it from October 20, 2008 to January 20, 2009
  • #17
  • Mar 16, 2010 2:36pm Mar 16, 2010 2:36pm
ea's seems to be only sonething for experienced people and they don't work in a profitable way. why would someone post an excellent ea which would make money when everybody has this marvel? in order that brokers could banned this money machine?
  • #18
  • Mar 16, 2010 4:01pm Mar 16, 2010 4:01pm
Quoting crackajack
why would someone post an excellent ea which would make money when everybody has this marvel? in order that brokers could banned this money machine?
To be clear, when I ask if other people have done successful, live trading with EAs, I don't expect that most of them will have found those EAs in forums or in any other public venue. I am quite certain that the EAs you download for free are almost always worth far less than you've paid for them.

I assume that any successful EA traders probably fall into one of three categories:

 

  1. Programmers who already have some trading knowledge, so they can write their own EAs from scratch
  2. Traders who know a programmer or have paid a programmer to translate their trading strategies into EAs
  3. Traders who have found a "system" EA (like the Grid System) that would eventually fail if used ad infinitum, but they then use it to jump into or out of the markets as they see fit


I would be shocked - absolutely friggin flabbergasted - if it could be confirmed that someone just wandered into a forum like this one, downloaded a publicly-available EA, and then traded profitably with it for an extensive period of time.

But just because you can't find gold bars lying around for free on the ground, doesn't mean that gold bars don't exist.

  • #19
  • Mar 19, 2010 2:30am Mar 19, 2010 2:30am
My ea performance for the period
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: 2008 october backtest.gif Size: 6 KB
  • #20
  • Mar 19, 2010 8:33am Mar 19, 2010 8:33am
Quoting showbaba
My ea performance for the period
These results say they are a backtest. I'm specifically looking for feedback from traders who have used EAs in LIVE trading. Backtesting an EA has little value to me.
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