About Robots                  

I have spent 12 months testing quite a few Forex trading robots and this page is dedicated to my thoughts and to give you an idea of what is out there in the way of robots.

Some robots are good, some OK and some poor (as you might expect). The poor ones often trade very well in certain market conditions and very badly in others. On a number of occasions when I have been testing a robot that I have bought they have made a lot of money initially then proceeded to wipe out the account (fortunately a demo account). Most of these robots seem to now have been taken off the market - funny that!

Some I have tested for a short while and to be honest, not given them enough time for it to be judged a fair test. Some have indeed made money to varying degrees but I have an overriding desire to program my own so although I have bought quite a few of them I have spent most of my time developing my own ideas rather than rigorously testing the ones I have bought.

My own Robots

I have spent hundreds of hours designing, building and testing literally dozens of robots (probably well over 40!) and I can tell you it is no where near as easy as you might think. The problem of getting something that will make money when the market is trending strongly without losing it all when the market is ranging around within relatively tight upper and lower limits (or visa versa) is a difficult one to crack. And if we knew a way of determining when a strong trend was going to start and end we would all be instant millionaires!

I have eventually found a solution and I am trading my live account with at least one and sometimes two robots currently. The main robot does make very good money but it also carries a VERY big risk. Without going into detail, the risk is small in terms of "the chances of it happening" but the consequences of hitting that one in a thousand situation would be pretty dire. I feel that it is a risk I can manage by "tweaking" the robot every few days until I find a more elegant solution. Befor you ask - I have no intention of selling this robot. I would hate to be responsible for someone else wiping out their trading account. I have proved it works but the development continues.

Purchased Robots

Without doubt there are good and bad and some very sophisticated robots on the market. If I was not capable of building my own I would certainly have spent much more time buying and testing the ones that are readily available. I guess my other problem is that I just prefer trading my own ideas rather than using someone else's trading ideas without fully understanding them (I must be a bit of a control freak).

I have always said that you cannot look for something that will turn a 1000 account into half a million in a year, whatever you are trading - if only life were that easy. The only way to give these things a fair test is over a reasonable period of time to be able to include all types of market conditions. Most robots WILL go through winning and losing periods and you need to see both before you can say if they will make a profit overall and if they do then you have found a good one.

I can tell you it is GREAT FUN and when it all works it is a thrill to wake up in the morning and discover how much money you have made while you were asleep!

WARNING!
A number of times I have seen a robot make excellent money in the first few days or even weeks and then completely wipe out the account. A trader I know well made thousands of pounds on a demo account in the first week, switched the robot to his live account and was wiped out in the first two days. Take care! DO NOT be tempted to switch to your live account too soon and always start with small lot sizes when you do.

Also, be aware that if you leave a robot running while you are away and you get a power cut or your internet connection goes down you could be exposed and it could cost you a lot of money. You may want to consider a Virtual Remote Server which guarantees 24 hr up time for both power and internet. I use a company called EasySpace which is very reasonable in terms of cost.

If you decide to test some robots please provide brief feedback to me and I will add it to my Robot List page. I will try to build a list of good robots and ones to steer clear of for everybody's benefit.