just in case you are wondering, this post is not about PIPforia :O)

A Glimpse of Hope

something’s been brewing for about 5 months now.  it all started with a gentlemen showing me an account that doubled within a month.  it intrigued me and we discussed about the possibility of commercializing it.  that’s about the time i sent out a private message to all my subscribers (then about 1350+), asking if anyone would be interested in a system that could generate 80% to 100% per month.  well… needless to say, the excitement did not last long.  the system was excellent in the beginning, but started to have difficulty making new equity highs from the 2nd month on.

of the 1350+ blog subscribers that got my private message, about 470 people responded with interest.  who wouldn’t??!!  even at 20% a month, the EA would be selling like hotcakes (in my opinion).

then it dawned on me!  this blog is titled “Finding the Best Forex Expert Advisor”.  it’s been running for more than 20 months already.  readership wise, i now have 1557 subscribers / EA enthusiasts in my mailing list, 1388 members in my FaceBook group, and 603 members in my MeetUp group.  everyone’s looking for it… but no one (as far as i know) has found one yet (PIPforia’s HGM does not count since it’s more like a tool rather than a 100% fully automated expert advisor).

there has been recent big launches like FapTurbo, MegaDroid, GOmega, etc etc… with very slick and professional looking selling pitches.  they are getting so convincing (because they are marketed by professionals) that their stuff are selling like crazy even without showing (in true 100% transparency) a LIVE “real money” MT4 statement!  it just did not make sense to me at all.  showing LIVE account statements are very easy to do with the MT4 publisher feature, HTML statements and investor read-only passwords.  however most sellers are still not able to show their LIVE trading accounts without holding back something.

The DEMAND and SUPPLY Mismatch

looking at the situation from a higher level, it’s obvious that there is a rapidly growing population of investors/traders looking for truly genuine and profitable expert advisors.  at the same time, there is a constant chain of expert advisors being released into the market place, all claiming that they are highly profitable.  however, there’s a very disturbing fact in this DEMAND and SUPPLY picture.

ideally, the supply should meet the demand and an equilibrium should be formed.  buyers and sellers should both be happy, but that’s not the case.  what’s being created by the this unique case of demand and supply is a VACUUM… one that’s building up gradually… the pressure getting more and more unbearable each day.  it’s getting uncomfortable… and many people are getting frustrated.  i’m getting frustrated and tired too.  aren’t you?

A New Direction

it was in Jan 2009 when it struck me.  why search and evaluate commercially available EAs?  there are already countless EA review sites these days.  i then made a decision that i no longer wanted to be on the DEMAND side of the equation since i can’t control the quality of the SUPPLY.  so the journey began… (more about my journey on the next post)

PS :if you would like to receive timely updates on what’s happening on this blog (and in my endeavors), do consider joining my mailing list by filling up the fields below.  your privacy is my priority… and i guarantee you that i’m not one of those who sends out “offers” after “offers” to make you buy something.

NB : this new journey has kept me really busy for the last 4-5 months.  i apologize if i’ve not replied to your emails or FaceBook messages lately.  however, if you leave a comment on this blog, i will endeavour to reply to every single one as soon as i can.  just click on the “comment” link below to leave a message.

buy ck a coffee :O)

in the last 36 hours, i received 2 emails from the #1 and #2 winners of the Automated Trading Championship 2008

if you are new to Expert Advisors or are not familiar with the annual Automated Trading Championships, here’s what the winners did :

#1 : Kiril Kartuniv(Liliput) from Bulgaria : grew $10,000 to $169,584.64 in 3 months

#2 : Vladimir Lekhovitser(Prizmal) from Israel : grew $10,000 to $156,650.22 in 3 months

#3 : Nauris Žukas(Nauris) from Latvia : grew $10,000 to $155,936.98  in 3 months

wondering what the 3 gentlemen are up to right now?  you’ve found the right place! :O)

#1 : Kiril Kartuniv : undoubtedly the most humble of the 3, Kiril has chosen to auction out his winning EA and donate the proceeds to charity.  today (2nd Feb) marked the end of the bidding process.  if you were on Kiril’s mailing list, you would have received news of it too.   in the email, he mentioned something that may come to you as good news.  from the values of the bids and comments from his mailing list members, the champion realised that there is a great business opportunity staring right at him.  i quote :

“Basically all this made my decision to lunch a comercial site during the year.”

so… if you want to be informed when he launches the commercial version of his champion EA, you might want to consider adding yourself to his mailing list here : http://liliputfx.notifylist.com/atc08.html

#2 : Vladimir Lekhovitser : of the 3 winners, Vladimir seems to be the most established developer.  professionally, he works for a company that develops and codes AI (Artificial Intelligence) for automated trading in the Forex and Futures markets (WOW!!).  yesterday, he sent out an email to all those who have contacted him before, announcing that he is now “selling” his EA.  you don’t really get the actual EA.  what you get is an EA that acts as a signal receiver that receives trade signals from Vladimir’s signal generator… which is (in my opinion) one of the most secure way to “sell” an EA given all the unethical decompilers out there!

Vladimir sells his “signal receiver” EA at http://www.prizmalea.com at US$100 per month… quite a reasonable price i must say.  so… does that mean that you can pay US$100 per month and expect to make 1460% in 3 months just like what it did at the competition?  if only i knew!

here’s the catch :

for the PrizmaL EA signal service to work optimally, Vladimir asks buyers these questions on his website :

1. Does your broker give a fixed spread of 3 pips or less for EUR/GBP ?
2. Does your broker have a stoplevel of 7 pips or lower ?
3. Does your broker have a minimum time period per trade ?

when i asked if Alpari(UK) is a suitable broker, he came back with an email that said it not… and suggested that i use Velocity4X and specify him as my Introducing Broker.  i’m not too sure about the broker… so you might wanna do a bit of research on them before making any decisions.

#3 : Nauris Žukas : the first of the 3 to go commercial, Nauris has been selling his Indian EA on his website shortly after the championships ended.  at US$1000 for a full license to trade on 1 account, his EA is priced the highest.  a 1-month demo-only copy would already set you back US$300!  this is his website : http://test-abeiks.ucoz.com

price is not really the concern here.  like Prizmal, Indian needs some conditions for optimal performance.  if you read the website carefully, Nauris states :

“Before you acquire EA, you have to find a broker with EUR/GBP Spread in Asian session 2-3pips and StopLimit not exceeding 15pips.”

seems like #2 and #3 have a lot in common!

so there you have it… a summary of what the winners of the ATC2008 are doing now.  i hope this post have saved you some time in tracking them down yourself. if you find such information useful (as well as other parts of this little blog), you might wanna consider joining my mailing list so that you’ll be notified whenever there’s an update.  i blog about 1 to 2 times a month…. so you can be sure that i won’t be flooding your mailbox :O)   just fill up the form below to join the list.  it would be my honor :O)

so… am i excited about the fact that the top 3 performers of ATC2008 are selling their EAs commercially?  not really.  not unless they post LIVE account performance results with reputable brokers and/or provide investor passwords to prove that their systems are really profitable when traded with real brokers.

would appreciate if you can leave a comment if you find this post useful, ok?  coffee would be nice too! :O)

buy ck a coffee :O)

on 4th November 2007, i posted a similiar post.  back then, i took a step back and reviewed where my search was going and made a few points that still holds for me today.  you can re-read that post here : http://ckowyong.com/blog/?p=63

this is going to be a long post.  many people may not agree to what i’m going to say, but those who are familiar with the forex market and expert advisors should be able to appreciate it.  so please read with an open mind if you have about 10 mins to spare, ok?

clickbank and other forex affiliate products

i was recently asked about Forex Beater that costs US$49.95.  if you visit the link for it’s affiliates, it states that it gives a commission of 75% off the sale price.  that means the seller gets only about US$12.50…and that’s not even considering how much ClickBank gets out of that miserly US$12.50.  if something really works, it must be worth much more than that!

a fellow forex blogger also wrote about the Expert Advisor business here :
http://www.macrotactics.com/2008/08/25/forex-funnel-review-and-a-bit-about-the-expert-advisor-business

the above link is a good read, but it may dampen your spirits a little if you are still in a stage where you get all excited whenever you read one of those long and well crafted websites that sells Expert Advisors.

the SWITCH

the following link brings you to an interview with Mr Thomas Bopp :
http://championship.mql4.com/2008/news/371

it’s not obvious, but near the end of that interview, Thomas mentioned something about a SWITCH.  a few months back, i attended a forex talk by Kathy Lien.  she too mentioned about this SWITCH.

market conditions changes from time to time.  most often in unexpected ways and times.  there are trading strategies that works great in a certain market condition, but fails when it changes.  banks and institutions have spent years trying to develop a SWITCH that could monitor the market and switch to the most profitable strategy as and when market conditions change.  according to Kathy and Thomas, this automated SWITCH does not exist…. yet.

on the other hand, the best SWITCH that we’ve got is likely the trader in front of your computer right now.  an educated and competent chart reader who understands the fundamentals is our best bet.

in other words, invest in your education.  there’s no short cut in this game.

mean reversion + martingale = DISASTER

if you do not know what these 2 terms mean, below are their explanation from investopedia.com :
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/meanreversion.asp
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/martingalesystem.asp

time and time again, we see EAs coming into the market that are based on the above 2 theories.  they work great in a volatile ranging market, but once it catches a strong trend on the wrong side, it would crash faster than you can say “what the…”.

how to tell if an EA is based on the mean reversion or the martingale theories?  the only way is to scrutinise it’s trades.  if the EA seller’s website does not offer a statement for you to check out, you will be pretty much clueless about how it trades.

don’t get me wrong.  such systems (or any hybrids of them) can be very profitable.  that can produce amazing profits and generate beautiful back and forward test results.  but what’s lacking is the SWITCH that we mentioned earlier.  with good money management and a seasoned human SWITCH, once could still make some money with such a system.

but in general, systems that uses these theories and touts about it being a fully automated system should raise lots of red flags.  in fact, a fully automated Expert Advisor that does not require human intervention or regular optimisation is equally suspicious.

back testing and optimisation

here’s another great interview with William Boatright, Yuriy Zaytcev and Olexandr Topchylo :
http://championship.mql4.com/2008/news/376

with the lack of a highly intelligent Expert Advisors that can adapt to all sorts of market conditions, one of the best approach is to run backtests and optimise.  the caveat, however, is that past performance does not equal to future results.  realistically speaking, what can guarantee future results anyway!

but if an Expert Advisor or strategy reacts well to optimisation, then optimising the system periodically would be the way to go.  many of us are still trapped in the “If it’s a good EA, it should not require any human intervention or optimisation.” mindset.  well… aren’t we all looking for the Holy Grail that does not exist?

conclusion

this is going to dampen a lot of hopes out there.  but from what i have read and from my personal experiences (and many others in the FaceBook group), all i can say is that Expert Advisors are great trader’s tools.  they are excellent and amazingly efficient in executing the programmed strategies, but in my honest opinion, Expert Advisors are best used as tools only.

to trade successfully with Expert Advisors, we first and foremost need to know how to read the charts.  and with good knowledge of how the EA works (as well as it’s strengths and weaknesses), we can then deploy the EA to do it’s job at the most appropriate situation.  we have to be fully accountable for our own actions, and that includes the evaluation, purchase and employment of any strategy or system.

so… the search for the best trader’s tool continues.  for me, i’m sticking to PIPForia and Bogie for now.  using them requires some effort and education, so they are not your typical plug-and-play “Holy Grail” type of Expert Advisors.

please leave a comment if you find this post useful (or not).

good trading to all!

ck

buy ck a coffee :O)

if you have been following this blog, you will most likely know that i, from time to time, will negotiate with Expert Advisor creators for discounts. i will then pass these discounts down to the readers and members of this blog.

There Is Power in Numbers…

when we act as a group.

where possible, i will post the discounts here. however, to be fair to the EA creators who are also promoting the EAs themselves, some “ck-exclusive” deals can only be communicated through emails which i send out to my 1000+ strong members.

i’m sorry that i do not have any freebies to offer you for joining my mailing list. all i can promise you is that once i find any profitable EAs, members of my blog would be the first to hear about it. there are a lot of crap EAs out there… and my intention is to review and sift through all the hype to bring you EAs that can really make money… at a discounted price if possible :O)

join my mailing list if you would like to be kept updated with the progress of my quest for profitable Expert Advisors… and save some money along the way! :O)

ps : your email privacy is important to me.

buy ck a coffee :O)

although i’ve already found what i’ve been looking for, the Expert Advisor that i like does not suit everyone’s trading style.

for some time now, i’ve been monitoring the progress of this EA called Artemis-Breakout. it’s a subscription-based EA that costs 70€ per month (minimum subscription of 2 months!). yeap, i’m paying 140€ to test this Expert Advisor out. as much as i want to know how this EA performs, i hope readers of this blog will benefit from the LIVE forward test results that’s being updated every 30 mins.

http://www.ckowyong.com/blog/statements/artemis-breakout

i may not have the correct settings running yet (it’s quite a complex EA to set up), so settings may change and the demo account may be restarted if required. but by the end of 2 months, we should have enough good data to give the Artemis-Breakout EA a decent review :O)

coffee anyone? :O)

buy ck a coffee :O)

a friend posted a link to this interesting video about forex-killer.com. i’ve not used it before, so can’t post a review about it. but from what i read on the internet, i’ll pass on this one…. and all other Expert Advisors that have little people popping up and talking in your face when you visit the site :O)

buy ck a coffee :O)

as usual, you will be able to see the LIVE forward-test statements here (updated every 10 mins) : http://www.ckowyong.com/blog/statements

drop me an email ( ck@ckowyong.com ) if you are interested in buying SHARK or GRIFFIN and want to receive a good rebate for it.

good trading to all!! - ck

=========================================

[update : 1 march 2008]

apologies for not replying to all the emails regarding the rebates for SHARK and GRIFFIN. i’m currently engaged in something that’s keeping me REALLY busy… which is preventing me from replying to all your queries. however, i promise to reply them by monday… even if it means going without sleep. thanks for your patience… and i’m very sure all of you would like the rebate that’s coming your way. it’s likely to be the BEST rebate that i’ve ever offered!! and what does that equate to? A 4-WAY WIN-WIN SITUATION!! :O)

4-WAY WIN-WIN SITUATION
1) the Expert Advisor creator WINS - earns from the sale
2) the Expert Advisor reviewer(ck) WINS - retains a bit of commission from the sale (after giving a rebate)
3) the buyer(you) WINS - pays full price, but gets a decent rebate by means of a KIVA.org gift certificate
4) the poor that KIVA.org supports WINS - because of your purchase, the the poor get loans(your rebate) which help them get our of poverty

ps : if you would like to be kept well informed of my latest findings on profitable Expert Advisors and the rebates that i’m giving away, please do consider joining my mailing list. just fill up the little form below and click “Join Now :O)”

(your privacy is my top priority)

pps : i’ll be buying Griffin to test soon :O)

buy ck a coffee :O)

through the fellow Singaporeans i’ve got the pleasure of meeting up with after starting this blog, i can feel that there’s a strong interest in Automated Trading Systems in Singapore.

i’m not sure where this will lead, but i’m sponsoring this event (think it will set me back about US$250 for a good venue) to share what i know about this exciting way of trading in the Forex market.

Click here to check out
The Singapore Automated Forex Trading Meetup Group!

as attractive as it may sound (ie. letting a robot do the trading and just sit back and watch the profits flow in)… i think there’s a huge misconception about the world of Automated Trading Systems.

if you live in Singapore, please mark your calendar : 18th April 2008, 7pm. if you are from elsewhere, it would be great if you could swing by and join in the fun of learning and sharing with like-minded folks.

buy ck a coffee :O)