FOREX REVIEWS

This is the first review I will be writing for the Pointbreak expert advisor built for the metatrader 4 platform. As you know, I started to test this expert advisor a week ago as a personal request from the maker. I am always skeptical with new expert advisors (anyone who has been into them for a while would!) but Pointbreak has been like a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel. Many expert advisor makers are always talking a lot about their expert's amazing profits, low draw downs, etc. They in fact talk the talk, but 99% of them do not walk the walk. As I have told you many times, they are based on unreal assumptions. Pointbreak has surprised me, challenging some of my core beliefs. Pointbreak does not use a fixed stoploss, it is thus subject to massive drawdown. This, unlike other experts, is hedged with the fact that this expert uses amazing money management, being very conservative while it trades. This also shines against the fact that it is one of the most aggressive exp...

Okay, it has now been a month for my first free expert advisor portfolio and three weeks for the second expert advisor portfolio. In case you do not remember or haven't read my previous posts, the first portfolio is mainly centered around the GBP/USD pair while the second portfolio is distributed over a variety of currencies. The first portfolio contains some interesting short and long term experts such as phoenix and binario as well as the second one which has, for example, an ADXcross expert and an MAcross expert. (Please see previous posts for more information) What can I say now ? This week has been completely devastating for both expert portfolios. Both of them have had massive draw downs, in the order of 40-50%. Hence, I will forward test them for another week, If I do not see substantial recovery I will eliminate them from my vps as they are well over my acceptable risk:reward ratio. This shows that the results shown on earnforex.com for the expert advisors are NOT accurate...

When people star trading the foreign exchange market one of the first things they are told is that if they intend to be profitable they have to find a trading system . By a system, people usually mean a simple or complex set of predefined rules which determine market entry points, exit points, lot sizes and such. Well, this is one of the first things that turns 90% of forex traders into losers . Most traders hear this and immediately start their search for the so called "system". They start to learn about indicators, they start to dream about holy grails, they are confused. They start to build systems from scratch, they start to try other people's systems but they are never told that a simple system just won't do it. The main reason why a professional forex trader is much better at trading than any expert advisor (feel free to debate this if you know an ea that can make 100% profit each month consistently) is because humans have a magical thing called discretion . ...

Last week I was very kindly approached by the PointBreak expert advisor creator who asked me if I could forward test his product on my virtual private server and write a review about it. As I am always looking for a new profitable expert advisor I gladly agreed to test his PointBreak5 expert advisor . I am doing this with no monetary compensation at all, neither directly or from affiliate sales. This assures that my results will be totally unbiased. At first glance, PointBreak seems to fulfill the requirements I would assign to a profitable expert advisor. It's goals also seem to be pretty doable with a long term profit target in sight . I have started to forward test this ea as of today, using the most conservative setting as outlined in the expert advisor's demo documentation. I am using an Alpari 25,000 demo account with 1:100 leverage. This expert advisor will be commented based on it's weekly results, as my free expert advisor portfolios. Let us wait then, the surpris...

It has been a bumpy week for the second expert advisor portfolio I am testing. The experts have suffered some losses and some wins, leaving their track record close to the initial starting capital. As you can see on the statement here , the expert advisor portfolio has made it close to 10200, which is a modest 2% profit . This also in conjunction with a maximum draw down close to 12% which is a decent amount for a portfolio of this sort. The most active expert advisor has been Ichimoku5 , with fxovereasy being the most inactive and the UniversalMAcross and ADXCross advisors hedging Ichimoku5 for a good percentage of the time. I have also noticed that whenever the market is very rangy the expert advisors hedge each other a lot while they don't in trending markets (in which they both run profitable positions). It should be interesting to see how both portfolios evolve with time. Up until now, both of them are profitable.

For some of the people reading this post, the title must be a shock. Technical indicators do not work ? But almost all trading systems are based on indicators ? right ? Well... Yes and no. Many trading systems are based on indicators and yes, some of these systems may well be giving profit, but, is it truly because of the indicators ? What does an indicator tell you ? Technical indicators are just graphical aids which are simply generated through pretty simple (or rather complicate) arithmetic operations on the information you already know. Yes, simply the information that is already there, in front of you, in every candlestick. I mean, I could make an indicator that took the closing price, added it to the opening price, divided it by 200, added 20 and then (to make it more complicated !) divide by 10% of the previous bar. This indicator, which I will call Magic, would give us a fancy line, we could change some numbers, it would give as another line. We could observe what Magic does, ...

When I started trading forex, one of the first things I was introduced to was day trading. As you know, day trading is the art of opening up positions that last for less than a day and end up with a profit. The reason I write this article is to talk to you about some of the myths, misconceptions and truths surrounding day trading and finally, why day trading is not a positive way to start for a forex newbie. First I would like to address some of the myths that revolve around day trading. Day trading is not profitable because intraday market movements are random and chaotic - This is an absolute myth. It evolved because intraday movements seem random and chaotic, which does not mean they are. The thing is that movements that occur within smaller timeframes seem more volatile (hence chaotic) than movements that occur in larger timeframes which seem to adapt better to fundamental analysis. But, you can always see in smaller timeframes (60 min vs 1 day) what you see in bigger ones, you se...

Our free expert advisor portfolio had had a massive draw down throughout the past week. The account had plummeted almost 41% , leaving us with little hope of recovery. However, this week was amazing for the expert advisor portfolio number one . The portfolio recovered all of its losses and began picking up profits again. The portfolio hit the 12,000 mark which is a 20% profit margin. This shows you how relative the performance of an ea can be and how deep your draw downs can get. What I like about the portfolio is that you are protected from large open draw downs by each expert advisor's preset stoploss. This at least protects us in some way from margin calls and such. The trades have been done mainly by the Binario and Artificial Intelligence expert advisors, with artificial intelligence contributing a large percent of the winning trades and Binario hedging it occasionally which has proven to reduce exposure. As always you can check the account statement here. I hope I we can ge...

I have always been a fan of simple trading strategies that just work. This, I believe, is the case of trading using the Fibonacci series (which I have used for manual trading for about 2 months). As you may know, the fibonacci sequence is a progression of numbers where each number is the sum of it and the one before, hence 1,2,3,5,8,13, etc. The division between a number of the fibonacci sequence and the number just before approaches the golden ratio as we approach infinity. This sequence and, by consequence, the golden ratio, are found widely throughout nature and... Of course, in the forex and stock market. Trading the forex market with fibonacci numbers is very simple, although it does require certain amount of "perception" to visualize the trends, breakouts, retracements, etc. I found this very good video on youtube that will explain trading with fibonacci levels in a much simpler way. The mechanism is as straight forward in the video as in metatrader 4.

Since the beginning of this blog I have somewhat given priority to automated trading systems (such as expert advisors) over of manual trading systems. Today I will review for you one of the best trading tools I have found to aid my manual trading. This tools is the IBFX-PRS or IBFX-GPS which stands for interbankfx G raphical P attern S canner or P attern R ecognition S canner. - The IBFX-PRS program does just what you would expect. I t tries to recognize common pattern formations along the different currency pairs and different timelines . It find patterns such as head and shoulders, wedges, triangles, etc. Then in tells you a bunch of very useful information about these patterns. As you can see on the next image, the IBFX-PRS shows you the timeframe, trend, type, length and currency pair of every pattern that has formed completely or is awaiting breakout. The system also tells you how much it "trusts" each pattern formation by a series of indicators such as quality, Initial ...

Many people who are new to automated forex trading are puzzled by installation issues regarding the expert advisors for the metatrader platform. This easy to follow graphical guide will show you the simple steps necessary to setup an expert advisor for the metatrader 4 platform. - 1. Download your expert advisor file and indicators (if the ea needs any custom ones). These are either ex4 or mq4 format files, depending on if they are a source or a binary (precompiled file). There is no difference between these two classes as far as installation and usage goes. - 2. Copy your expert advisor files and indicator files to the corresponding directories. As it is shown in the following picture. Keep in mind that this directories are located under your metatrader installation path and that metatrader should not be running at this point. - - 3. You should now open up metatrader. Open up a chart with the timefrime and currency pair in which you want to run the advisor. Now simply drag and drop t...

The second expert advisor portfolio has had a good and bad week . As I commented on the other expert advisor's week report, the FOMC interest rate decision made a dramatic hit , owing to the discrepancy between market expectations and the rate decision. However the expert advisor portfolio did catch the other news events related to consumer sentiment, which did correspond to general market expectations . Up until now, the most active expert advisor on this portfolio has been the Ichimoku5 which has opened and closed trades daily while the ADXcross expert has done no trades and the universal moving average expert advisor has done one, almost not profitable trade. As you can see here , the portfolio is barely profitable until now , after a large draw down owing to the events I just explained. I hope this portfolio improves as I do think the experts have potential. Well, we will see next week.

After two weeks of trading things have turned a little sour. All expert advisors showed a classic behavior yesterday when the news release (interest rates) contradicted general market expectations. As you know, based on the efficient market hypothesis, prices reflect what the majority of the market believes before a news release. Therefore, prices aligned for the effect a 50 point cut in interest rates (US) would have had, that is, an adverse effect on the US dollar. The expert advisors did the same thing, they all positioned themselves against the dollar expecting what everyone else did. Then, everything turned black. As the news release announced a dovish 25 point cut, the dollar rallied against other pairs, such as the GBP which is the main pair acting in our first expert advisor portfolio. This resulted in massive losses, almost a 20% drawdown. Now everything is better though, the expert advisors have since recovered most of the losses and are almost up to the original 10,000. As a...

There are many people new to the forex market and many more new to the world of automated trading. For this reason, I have put together this general frequently asked questions section. To help anyone who needs to gain a deeper understanding of this subject. What is a forex expert advisor ? An expert advisor is basically a program written in the metaquotes language that trades automatically using the metatrader platform. What is an expert advisor's objective ? The objective of an ea (expert advisor) is to take trading decisions away from the human trader. Alternatively expert advisors can be used to just do money management, loss control or other similar jobs which can be automatized in forex trading. What are an expert's advantages and disadvantages over manual trading ? An expert advisor has the advantage of being emotionless. Expert advisors feel no fear or greed and operate purely based on mathematical logic. They also have the advantage of letting a person trade without the...

I have just received my copy of the new version of the Doubleplay forex expert advisor . The first thing I noticed when I got it was the inclusion of a new feature which allows to hide your stoploss and take profit levels from your broker . Your broker is fooled by the stoploss and take profit levels sent by the order but the real ones are executed by the expert advisor's logic (you set this levels to your taste as balance percentage!). This gives you the chance to eliminate the hunting opportunity for your broker ! The next thing I noticed was the wider stoploss . This, as weird as it may sound, comes without an increased risk as the ea adjusts lot sizes based on your balance to risk just the exact same amount of equity . The wider stoploss also allows you to get higher returns by allowing more movement in the market (the adjust in lot sizes means we do not increase drawdown!). Another great new feature is the automatic managment of trades during Fridays and weekends . Previously...

I have decided to start another expert advisor portfolio test using the following four expert advisors (which seem like good choices). ADXCROSSAutotrade - This expert advisor is simply an ADX indicator based ea. This means that it is supposed to be able to predict reversals and corrections. (EUR/USD 15min) Ichimoku5 - This expert was developed by the Japanese and is mainly focused on trend following (JPY/USD 1 Day) Moneymaker v2 - This ea is different from the one in my reviews (which I purchased from ebay) this one is based on the GBP/USD pair and has a stoploss (also different logic). It seems that this ea follows trends but it also seems capable of managing a little bit of range. UniversalMAcrossEA - This ea is based on simple moving average crossings, although it has some good money management features. (USD/CHF 1 hour) I just started it today on a 10,000 demo account. Let's hope that it will perfom in a profitable manner. As usual, I will be posting the Statements in a we...

I have been thinking about designing at least three free expert advisor portfolios. The objective is to buttress my idea that several free expert advisors can remain profitable in a wide range of market conditions. Although I know several free expert advisors, my knowledge is rather limited. Therefore I appeal to my readers. If you happen to know any free forex expert advisors which you think are profitable, please do suggest them so that I can include them inside one of my portfolios. The experts must follow these guidelines : - Must be completely free (source code available) - Must have a stop loss - Must be a trending, ranging or breakout expert advisor - Must have a magic number (so that it can trade with other experts) Please suggest any experts that meet this criteria and you feel could provide a very good addition to my free expert advisor portfolios. Just leave a comment !

Many of us have spent the past months or years looking for some decent profitable expert advisors. We just ask for a perfect expert advisor . An expert with a small drawdown , a modest profit and most important a constant output . We want an ea that is consistent with today's as well as tomorrow's market conditions. The perfect ea, as many of you know, is a multi billion per second calculation machine with the processing power of millions of modern computers, it can take fundamentals, news, everything into account when making a trading decision. The perfect ea is, in fact, a simple human brain :) . This neural network type ea can learn from the market and in fact adapt almost miracously to ever changing market condition. The question is, can we mimic that in metatrader 4 ? I think the answer is simple. One ea alone, cannot do it . Even if we assume that the role of fundamentals and news is taken intro price action efficiently based on the efficient market hypothesis it is s...

Given the extraordinary number of forex expert advisors available online, it is very easy for someone to buy something that does not work . Let's face it. We all want to believe the things that the creators of most expert advisors tell us . We are usually attracted by the simple idea of an ea, therefore vulnerable to the trap. We are dazzled by their back and forward tests, by their profits, their small drawdowns, simply, by the promess of success. The objective of this small article is to tell you a few things that should instantaneously raise a RED FLAG inside your brains when buying an expert advisor. 1. The Holy Grail . This one is the biggest red flag. If the webpage or author states that the ea has 100% winning trades with absolutely no losses. Come on, I can show you scalpers that perform with no losses for 4 months in a row, then give everything back (the whole account) to the market in just one or two trades. Don't be fooled by any backtests or forward tests. If it is ...

As I explained in my last post, I have started to test an expert advisor portfolio based on freely available expert advisors . The results have been astounding this far. Yes, of course, only a few days have passed since the beginning of the forward test but I had never seen results this impressive. It is although very likely that most profits will be given back to the market in the next few days but well. I hope it just maintains itself at a profitable level altogether. How well is well ? The expert advisors turned 10,000 into almost 12,000 in just a few days. If you are curious check it yourself (login as fxreviews). Also remember that it is far too early to draw any conclusions ! Results may seem tempting but this may be the result of sporadic market conditions. At least 2 months are needed to even think about the possibility of live trading. The expert advisors seem to be performing very good as they seem to complement each other in different market aspects but this remains to b...

Today I realized that maybe it is not absolutely necessary to spend a lot of money to get some decent expert advisors. Based on my experience with myfxovereasy (which I reviewed earlier last week) I can say that there must be some promising free expert advisors out there. I have always been aware of the free ea collection available at earnforex.com but I just saw the recently updated tests on the ea's earlier this week. With these expert advisors optimized and the "perfect" conditions for their operation given I found no reason not to test them myself in a demo account and see what happens. So I started a test of a complete free expert advisor portfolio. This portfolio has the following experts : Framework : Which uses commodity channel indexes and strikes me as a medium term expert advisor. Artificial Intelligence : Which is a neural networkish expert advisor. Phoenix : Which is a short term sort of scalping expert advisor. Binario : Wich is a long term expert advisor. ...

When you want to totally or partially automate your forex trading decisions you can use either a forex expert advisors or a forex signal trading service. A forex signal trading service is just a company or individual who provides buy/sell signals to you in exchange for a monthly fee or totally free in some cases. Signal services have some advantages and some disadvantages against expert advisors. The main advantage and disadvantage enjoyed by forex signal services is that they are mainly managed by humans . Humans take the decisions relative to the trade and then give you the go on the buy or sell orders. This has the advantage that a person has the faculty to consider factors and ea cannot, such as fundamental analysis and other psychological factors . This may improve performance over a single expert advisor. The disadvantage however is that a person or team can be potentially biased by their own emotions. Hence, a forex signal trading service will always be a more "emotional...

When I first started to look for books on forex trading I was basically overwhelmed by the massive amount of information available online . Tons and tons of books on forex. I had no clue about where to look or what would be a particularly good book for me. So, I started with the basics. The first book I ever bought regarding the subject was a very very basic book which I recommend to anyone who is new to forex trading. It was "Technical analysis for dummies" and even though the book is extremely basic, it features many of the things a forex newbie MUST now and most of the other books take for granted. This book opens up the door to the understanding of technical trading , giving you the option to apply the acquired knowledge directly or divert to more sophisticated books on the matter. I provide you know with a link in case you are interested in the book The next books I purchased are the basis of my forex knowledge and provide both a psychological and a practical approach ...