ForexRobotTrader.com robot review - BUSTED! -$3,318

[rchardt98]

How come there are no winners in the past reviews? Does anyone know if they have ever had any good ones? It is not encouraging to see such a long list of loosers? There must be some? Does anyone know of any?

[1ka]

Originally Posted by rchardt98

How come there are no winners in the past reviews? Does any no if they have ever had any good ones? It is not encouraging to see such a long list of looser? There must be some? Does anyone know of any?

I think that's the problem, there are no, or few, commercial EA's that work.

My feeling is that if an EA works, why sell it? Surely the author doesn't need the money since his EA works. I can only assume that the EA doesn't work either at all, or that well, so the author has to sell it to boost their income.

As stated in previous posts, I am very cynical when it comes to commercial EA's.

I do look forward to being proven wrong, and my cynicism doesn't stop me trying to develop my own

[Ken Long]

Originally Posted by TheFrenchman

yeah I heard about that one, from what I hear it didn't do to well but Steinitz has a new bot called "Steinitz HAS MTF" that he claims is REALLY 100% no loss "this time" we shall see soon enough... hopefully he makes good on his claims this round.

Same bot, new version.

This isnt new, this is the same robot he's always had. The basic principles are sound and always entice me, but in real action the huge drawdowns are hard to take.

The problem rises from the fact that this is entirely based on a smoothed moving average, on multiple time frames. As long as the upper trend holds all trades will eventualy become positive. However, when the upper trend changes direction you can quickly find yourself facing massive drawdowns.

I've tried manualy managing this robot, but its very difficult. The trade entries are so inacurate, due to the large lag in the smoothed moving averages, that it needs very large drawdowns just to run normaly. Stoping out prematurely results in unneccessary losses, but holding results in uncontrolled drawdowns.

I really like the system and indicators this EA is based on. But the system needs a bit more accuracy and discretion in choosing, entering, and managing its trades. It can be hugely profitable, to really incredible levels, when it has a good trend . On the other hand it can throw it all away, diving for pennies when the tide is changing.

Compare the actual price action to the HAS action. The HAS is a great trend spotting indicator . It could work very well as the basis for an EA, but it is an extremely laging moving average. By the time it gives a signal the move has almost always passed, and your really just catching trend continuation, generally from a very poor entry position. As long as the trend does continue its profitable, if the trend reverses the system fails (belly up) RIP.

Closing all open trades monthly is not good enough, by then it could already be thousands of pips in drawdown . Closing weekly is a much better idea, but any quick change is still going to cost you a lot.

This program does have many user adjustable variables, and there is a lot of potential for managing it better, but most of these alternatives have been tried. If they did work better, Don would have already incorporated them into the default settings.

This robot was a big disapointment. It is based on sound theory, but the implementation is a bit off. It needs a more accurate indicator for timing entries, and it needs to anticipate failure and have some loss cutting programing activated.

[kanakorn]

i am running it. now i show this link http://instact.mt4stats.com
you can looking. if have problem you can PM to me.

[Ken Long]

Originally Posted by kanakorn

i am running it. now i show this link http://instact.mt4stats.com
you can looking. if have problem you can PM to me.

How are you planning to manage the uncontrolled risk, and the massive drawdowns this robot continually accumulates?

This has been my biggest problem when looking at the Steinitz. I like the basic theory of entering trends on a pullback, but the robot seems to err in its entries more often than not, either entering the trend late following a quick pullback, or entering on the pullback as the trend reverse's.

This could be a successful robot with the proper manual guidance, but it needs to be monitored and directed almost constantly. The problem results from the use of smoothed Heiken Ashi candles for the entire signal. This is the same as trading a smoothed moving average. Its a great device for holding a trend long term, but its a poor timing device for entries and exits. Generaly slow moving averages are coupled with fast moving averages and ocsillators to generate and confirm signals and improve the timing.

I would like this robot a lot if there where a way to master exiting failed trades at a small loss, rather than holding massive drawdowns on the hope that the long term trend pulls us through. Unfortunately the robots entries are so inacurate that by the time a short term trend failure is detected the drawdown is already quite large.

This problem is common when trading moving average crossovers without taking into consideration the actual price action. With a heavily smoothed average, such as this one, by the time a signal is generated the price is usually already doing something entirely different.

[kanakorn]

Originally Posted by Ken Long

How are you planning to manage the uncontrolled risk, and the massive drawdowns this robot continually accumulates?

This has been my biggest problem when looking at the Steinitz. I like the basic theory of entering trends on a pullback, but the robot seems to err in its entries more often than not, either entering the trend late following a quick pullback, or entering on the pullback as the trend reverse's.

This could be a successful robot with the proper manual guidance, but it needs to be monitored and directed almost constantly. The problem results from the use of smoothed Heiken Ashi candles for the entire signal. This is the same as trading a smoothed moving average. Its a great device for holding a trend long term, but its a poor timing device for entries and exits. Generaly slow moving averages are coupled with fast moving averages and ocsillators to generate and confirm signals and improve the timing.

I would like this robot a lot if there where a way to master exiting failed trades at a small loss, rather than holding massive drawdowns on the hope that the long term trend pulls us through. Unfortunately the robots entries are so inacurate that by the time a short term trend failure is detected the drawdown is already quite large.

This problem is common when trading moving average crossovers without taking into consideration the actual price action. With a heavily smoothed average, such as this one, by the time a signal is generated the price is usually already doing something entirely different.

i would like to know now . what are you use EA? now are you trade your self? and do you have MSN and skype?

[Ken Long]

Originally Posted by kanakorn

i would like to know now . what are you use EA? now are you trade your self? and do you have MSN and skype?

MegaDroid, FAP-T, read recent Megadroid post. I still dont have FAP-T on a live account yet, I dont like my FXDD account for FAP-T, the spreads are too wide for it to run right, and I havent decided where to open a new account with all the new NFA rules. There are a bunch of other robots I've tried, but those are the only two I want to run on my live account right now, its not just that they're profitable, its more about the trading hours and sharing the computer, those two robots only trade during the slow hours and they dont interfere with my trading during the day. I trade, I try to trade Forex during the day, but I havent done all that well, well enough to keep going, but I still do better just trading stocks and ETF's without any intraday charting. I think this probably has something to do with the size of the accounts and the way I trade them, but the two markets are different in other ways as well. And I dont have MSN or Skype, and I dont want them.

[Neo-Rio]

The only decent software Steinitz has is his fractal breakout indicator . Even then, that takes some trading experience to use effectively.

Honestly, the robot he sells, is just not one that anyone should seriously bother with. It's borderline expensive, and the drawdowns are incredible, and will just wipe your account out. Don't even think about using it with less than $10,000, but better yet, simply don't bother using it at all.
Even if you somehow COULD get it to work as a trading system - there are better EAs out there that won't torture you with drawdowns like this one does. Steer well clear.

The only bots I would ever consider using live are bots that:-
* Survive 10-year backtests and thrive over time.
* Don't contain Martingales
* Controlled drawdown (Steinitz EA fails this completely)