RoboMiner Pro Robot Review - LIVE ACCOUNT

[pipdetector]

Originally Posted by CaptainD

My problem is after I get it on the desktop. How do i get it transfered to FXDD? With Windows XP I don't have things that are shown on the video for Vista. I have tried everything I know, (which isn't all that much, sorry to say).

The only thing that may be a problem if you have the ea on your desktop is to put it in the right "expert" folder for your MT4 application. You need to find folder Program Files>[Your MT4 app folder]>experts.

[Hyperdimension]

PipCop, what happened to the spread recording project that you mentioned earlier in the thread?

[PipCop]

Hi HyperDimension,

I scratched the project because it would have required me to open a live account with each broker . Due to the minimums many brokers required, it was simply unaffordable for me. $5k for an account at one place, $2k at another place ... just to record the spread ? As much as I would like to do that and provide the details, it wasn't something I could feasibly pull off.

[Hyperdimension]

Ok thanks; it was a good idea but I can see that it would've been impractical.

[Hyperdimension]

I'm running a backtest of Robominer (using default settings) and here are some things that I've noticed:

1. All positions that were open are all closed at exactly the same time. i.e. New positions are taken on gradually over the days, then one day all of a sudden they are all closed like a "fire sale".
2. I also notice that some positions were closed at a loss.
3. Some positions are held for a very long time, e.g. almost 3 months in the following example:

11    2005.09.21 01:51    buy    6    0.10    1.10090    0.00000    0.00000    0.00    20307.73
46    2005.12.15 12:19    close    6    0.10    1.08185    0.00000    0.00000    -122.25    20654.57

Is this normal bahavior of the strategy? I ask this because people say positions are never closed at a loss. I haven't heard anyone mention any problems regarding closing up to 20 positions at exactly the same time; and nobody seems worried that a trade may go on for an indefinite amount of time. In reality I don't think anyone would want to hold a losing position hoping that it will return to profitability "some day".

The data that I'm testing over is AUDNZD historical data from the FXDD web site (http://www.fxdd.com/en/mt1m-data.html). Initial balance = 20000, Initial position size = 0.1.

The backtest is taking an extremely long time; it has been running for almost 24h and it hasn't even covered 3 years of data. The code is probably written in a very inefficient way (e.g. instead of writing nested if conditional statements they may be using the && logical operand a lot). The results look quite good so far though.

[Hyperdimension]

While waiting for the extremely long backtest to finish (it's still going), I've been reading this thread and other relevant pages on the web, including the official GT-Shadow web site. The Mathematical Proof is referred to a lot, and it is interesting, though I have some criticisms.

My most obvious criticism would be that the title is a misnomer. It shouldn't be called a "proof" because it isn't proving anything. The content is a mathematical analysis, not a proof. The content does not contain any proof that the trading system will never fail, or that it will continue to be profitable, or that the historical ranges will never be breached (nor does it attempt to prove or state such). The subheading of the content is "Mathematical Proof of Trading System", but what does that mean? There is no statement of what it is trying to prove. You can't just prove a "Trading System", just as you cannot prove any other thing. You can prove things about the thing, but not the thing itself. Note that this is technically different to proving the existence of a thing. e.g. "Proof of life" actually means "Proof of the existence of life". So does "Proof of Trading System" actually mean "proof of the existence of the Trading System"?

One of the first lines is a statement of the hypothesis (i.e. what it sets out to prove):

The hypothesis is that there is a method to trade the Forex market that limits the risk to the point where our risks are the same or less than other types of investments.

However the remainder of the content does not prove that the "risks are the same or less than other types of investments", as it does not even mention other types of investments nor the risks of those types.

The next paragraph says

The theory is simply that if we had $2000 and bought or sold only .01 standard lots of the AUDNZD currency pair , then no matter what the price went to in its historical operating range , no one would ever get a margin call . I will show that by limiting the investments to a small percentage of the balance that we can achieve this result.

So now the focus is not on proving that the "risks are the same or less than other types of investments", but proving that if you had an account size of x dollars, and your position sizes were kept very small, and that the exchange rate remained within a minimum and maximum value, then you would never get a margin call . But should that be called a "proof"? It's simply a calculation of a minimum account size such that the drawdown can be handled if the exchange rate goes to the extremes. Every trader should understand the relationship between leverage , margin , equity, and stop out level (margin call), so it's like showing that 1 + 1 = 2. (ok maybe not as simple, but close). It's something so obvious that it should not be presented as a "proof".

If the title was rewritten as "Mathematical Basis", then that would make a little more sense, as it means that the author is presenting the mathematical foundation for the trading system - i.e. calculating the minimum account size such that margin call is avoided, given a set exchange rate range and maximum number of positions.

By using the word "Proof", it instills false confidence. i.e. it is misleading, and I'm not sure whether this word was used to intentionally mislead people. The content comes across as if it was an academic paper, but in reality it falls short of being such. Many people would think it looks complicated and won't bother reading it, and would just go ahead and trust it because just by glancing at the text, it looks like it actually did prove that the strategy is sound.

I don't mean to completely dismiss the trading system, and I actually commend the author(s) for completely divulging their strategy, unlike other commercial MetaTrader Expert Advisors like the popular FAP Turbo and MegaDroid for which there are big hyped-up colorful pages that says a lot (including false claims and guarantees) without actually saying anything about the strategy, not even the times of the day it trades which is crucial to these particular trading systems. I am glad that Forex Goldmine did not go down that path, though I think I read elsewhere that they plan to outsource their marketing/sales/customer support so that they can focus on the research and development, because those other things aren't their expertise (understandably). Let's hope that their marketing doesn't turn into the same tiring "make 1000% per month GUARANTEED!!" junk style ads with affiliates all over the place pushing it into our faces every day.

[Hyperdimension]

Another thing I'd like to bring up, is that the strategy is completely dependent on the exchange rate remaining (or if breached, soon returning) within a specific range .

But nobody can ever guarantee that a price or rate will remain within a range for a particular amount of time, let alone forever. If it were possible, Writing options would be extremely lucrative: if the price isn't going to rise above a particular level before a particular date, write a call option; if the price isn't going to fall below a particular level before a particular date, write a put option. People make money like this every day, but when the day comes that the price does breach the strike price ("in-the-money"), they lose, and often big (especially if the options were naked).

The Mathematical "Proof" page states:

These two countries are located in immediate proximity to each other and have the same types of economies. They look and act so much alike that if something affects one, it will almost always affect the other in a like manner.

Technically, these statements should not belong on a Mathematical "Proof" page because no quantitative evidence is provided to back these claims up. Even something simple like correlation coefficient would give a bit more credibility.

Anyway, the statements about the relationship between two countries are sweepingly broad and vague.

"located in immediate proximity to each other" is true, but how is this relevant? Many countries are next to each other but are very different to each other in many ways.

"have the same types of economies" is questionable... you'd really have to compare the numbers e.g. GDP (including per capita), and what each country exports.

"They look and act so much alike that if something affects one, it will almost always affect the other in a like manner.": How do the countries "look and act so much alike"? Is this about the government? The people/culture? The economy? "affects" how? if there was a volcano eruption in New Zealand, would there be one in Australia? Or would the outfall affect Australia? The statement is not specific enough.

Instead of blindly assuming that the countries are "so much alike", it would be prudent for you to do a little research into the two countries and compare the numbers, because the strategy is reliant on the two countries being and behaving similarly.

Here are just a few numbers that I've found for you.

From Wikipedia:
Australia:
Area - Total 7,686,850 km2 (6th)
2,967,909 sq mi - Water (%) 0.897
Population - 2009 estimate 21,807,000[4] (53rd) - 2006 census 19,855,288[5] - Density 2.833/km2 (232nd)
7.3/sq mi
GDP (PPP) 2008 estimate - Total US$795.305 billion[6] (17th) - Per capita[6] (15th) US$37,298
GDP (nominal) 2008 estimate - Total US$1,010 billion[6] (15th) - Per capita[6] (13th) US$47,400

New Zealand:
Area - Total 268,680 km2 (75th)
103,738 sq mi - Water (%) 2.1
Population - March 2009 estimate 4,306,4006 (122nd (2008)) - 2006 census 4,027,9477 - Density 15/km2 (201st)
39/sq mi
GDP (PPP) 2008 estimate - Total $115.709 billion [1] (60) - Per capita $27,060 [1] (34)
GDP (nominal) 2008 estimate - Total $128.492 billion [1] (54) - Per capita $30,049 [1] (28)


From World Health Organization (Figures are for 2006 unless indicated. Source: World Health Statistics 2008):

Australia:
Total population: 20,530,000
Gross national income per capita (PPP international $): 33,940
Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 79/84
Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2003): 71/74
Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 6
Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population): 82/47
Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 3,122
Total expenditure on health as % of GDP (2006): 8.7


New Zealand:
Total population: 4,140,000
Gross national income per capita (PPP international $): 25,750
Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 78/82
Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2003): 69/72
Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 6
Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population): 91/59
Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 2,447
Total expenditure on health as % of GDP (2006): 9.4

[PipCop]

HyperDimension, if you are backtesting with the default settings, then you have FIFO = true. That means all trades will close at exactly the same time. This is to allow customers to use RM on NFA compliant brokerages.

If you are on Forex.com or FXDD, they are not NFA members, and thus you should turn that setting off.

IMO, backtests are useless. I have never seen a backtest that comes anywhere close to the results of a forward test. This is due to the fact that the data which MetaTrader uses is not tick -by-tick , but at best minute by minute. So the quality of your data is impacting your results, which is probably why you are seeing a loss on some trades.

You do also make good points. As with any investment, this is not a guarantee, and anyone who claims to say they can predict the future is being foolish. However, I also agree that FG has one of the most reasonable marketing campaigns.

[civfan]

hi guys.

Any problems on use alpari uk micro accouunt with robominer? it has a 2 lots maximum order, but, for a 3500 account. with eur/chf and aud/nzd is not likely it has floating 200 trades (2 lots at 0.01 size), is it? else i could use only one pair... what you think?

[veeps]

Why your http://pipcop.mt4stats.com/
site not showing today's open orders?.
345949582009.08.17 08:45sell0.01audnzdm1.22380.00000.0000 1.23320.000.000.00-0.63 346019392009.08.17 14:31sell0.01audnzdm1.23110.00000.0000 1.23320.000.000.00-0.14