we are all set….. have spent most of the weekend and the past 2 days getting everything in place. in the process, have also found a very affordable Windows VPS Hosting plan to run the trading platform and expert advisors. for just US$25 a month, i now have a Virtual Private Server(VPS) hosted in a datacentre that has redundant power supply, good internet connection and ‘guaranteed’ (debatable) uptime.

as you know, the trading platform that’s running the expert advisor has to be kept running 24×5.5 (ie. early monday morning till early saturday morning, singapore time). what the expert advisor does is this : on each and every tick (ie. price movement) of the currency pair(s) that it is assigned to trade on, the expert advisor will run through it’s codes to check if the trade entry criteria(could be more than one) has been met, or if there are already open trades… it will check if an exit (whether stop-loss or take-profit) condition has occured. hence, the computer that is running the trading platform and expert advisor has to be kept running all the time while the forex market is open.

from personal experience, i believe some of you may not like the idea of leaving your computer on 24 hrs a day. some may also not like the idea of having to dedicate an entire computer just to run this program and nothing else. well, like most traders who uses automated trading systems would advise… if you are running an automated trading system and trading with real money, you should really consider using a dedicated computer solely for this purpose.

that said, there’s a good alternative for those who want to run the automated trading system, but do not wish to do it on their own computer in their own home : buy a Windows VPS Hosting plan. it only costs less than $30 a month and you don’t have to worry about hardware failure, loss of internet connection, power outages, etc. etc. a small price to pay for peace of mind… i would say :O) if you compare $30 vs a $10,000 trading capital, this cost is nothing… considering the benefits of hosting it with a service provider. you can check out www.vpsland.com or www.swvps.com for the various plans available. i currently use their most basic plan… and in my opinion, they are good enough for running the automated trading system.

what’s done so far? as of Sunday, 26 Aug 2007, the forward-test for RobinHood, EuroX2 and PipBoxer are already active. i only managed to get hold of the demo for DoublePlay on tuesday. so as of now, we have 4 expert advisors running and trading the forex market in real-time :O) setting them up was a little bit challenging, especially PipBoxer… because of the number of currency pairs it trades and also the different recommended risk-levels for each pair.

what’s next? well… basically, we’ll just have to wait and let the expert advisors do their thing. i would think that we will need at least 2 weeks worth of trades to start seeing results. in the meantime, i’m keeping track of the trades that they are doing (yes… there are a couple of winners, losers and some open trades already) and will keep a journal of my thoughts about them.

i’ve got to admit that i’m not a forex expert. i’m also not particularly bright when it comes to technical analysis. but i do think that i know just enough to understand roughly what the expert advisors are doing.  so please do read this blog with an open mind, and forgive me for any content that you may find inappropriate.

if this is your 1st time here, you might want to go to the ‘about‘ page (see right) to know more about what expert advisors are.  :O)

i’ve mentioned that i’ve been live-trading with one and forward testing a few other Expert Advisors.  and if you are a follower of Expert Advisors, you’ll probably recognise some of them :

• RobinHood (live trading since Jun 2007)
• EuroX2 (forward testing since early Aug 2007)
• PipBoxer v2.0.5 (just bought the demo.  forward testing will begin on 27 Aug 2007)
• DoublePlay v3.5 (going to buy.  target to start forward testing on 27 Aug 2007)
• (and a few other un-named EAs that were obtained from private/paid forums)

 i’ll aim to compile the performance of the Expert Advisors at the end of every week, and probably also keep track of their current and historical performance ranking in some way.  if you would like to receive updates on the Expert Advisors’ performance on a regular basis, you may want to consider joining my mailing list.  i welcome any suggestions on how we can make this as useful as possible for everyone.  you can also suggest a new Expert Advisor for me to test, provided they are not too expensive.  one with a demo, like PipBoxer and RobinHood, would be excellent :O)

let’s see where this all will lead… and hopefully in the end, we will be able to find the “best” Expert Advisor out there.  more realistically speaking, i’d be happy to just find one that is reasonably stable and able to generate consistent returns without risking too much.

…and you’ll even get your money back!!  it’s basically a loan to the less priviledged. 

got to thank yahoo answers again… found kiva.org when looking through the haystack of answers to things related to investing.  if there’s anything out there that can reduce world poverty, microfinancing is IT.   i’ve just sponsored Duch P. from Cambodia… and another 2 other ‘lendees’.  join the movement… eradicate poverty.  check out www.kiva.org :O)

<extracted from the ‘about’ page….> 

since feb 2007, i’ve been intriged by something called an EXPERT ADVISOR.  what is it?  in a nutshell, it’s an automatic trading script that is able to fully automate the entire trading process; from trade entry to cutting losses to taking profits….  if written well, a good Expert Advisor can also make money management decisions (ie. how many lots to trade, how much capital to risk per trade, etc) according to the investor’s risk apetite.  there are many kinds of automated trading systems, and Expert Advisors is just one of them that seems to be quite popular in FOREX trading.

for a few months now, i’ve been actively exploring into this area… searching for reliable Expert Advisors, testing them out by back-testing and, most importantly, forward-testing.  forward-testing is the act of running the automated trading system/strategy live, but trading on a paper/demo account that some brokers provide.  forward-testing gives the investor a good feel of how the Expert Advisor trades and reacts (or not) in different market conditions.  forward-testing is KEY in determining if an Expert Advisor is good enough to trade with real money.  it’s as close as you can get to trading live.

so there…. you can tell that i’m hooked on Expert Advisors.  to be more specific, i’m hooked on finding the best available Expert Advisor out there in the market.  there are lots of badly written ones out there, claiming to be able to generate amazing returns.  some i’ve bought with regrets, but there are also some damn good ones!

i’m currently live trading with one and forward-testing 5 others.  the experience has been very encouraging, and i’m planning to create a dedicated section in this blog to document my thoughts and results of these Expert Advisors.  i’ll probably make it into a “Forex Expert Advisor Reviews” or something like that, and post un-biased opinions and observations about the Expert Advisors i’m using and testing.

you may want to consider bookmarking this page if you would like to know more about the Expert Advisors that i’ve been using and testing.  you could also drop me a message at ck@ckowyong.com so that i can send you a note when my “Forex Expert Advisor Reviews” section materialises.  target launch : 31 aug 2007.   :o)

at just US$1.00 per month, you can’t get better value then this.  believe me… i’ve searched the web for hours and this is the best deal out there.  let me know if you find anything better.  i’ve been using them for 3 years now and i’m still a happy customer :O)

btw, this site is powered by 3ix.