I did the search too at one time for automatic trading ... and it didn't result in anything ... I had the help of a programmer who helped me a bit with things I had suspected to work, turned out they only had the tiniest edge, not really woth the effort. He himself had spent years in the past searching for edges and had even traded some things succesfully but all of these didn't last. So now he is trying to learn how to trade discretionaly
yes, I understand your problem all too well; I think the only solution for you is to become a 'manager' of EA's, letting them run when they are good and cutting them when they start to lose ... and replacing them by other ones ... easier said than done though ...
I wasted two years with IBFX as they smoothed their feed dramatically...I tried some other dealers recently and was shocked at old EA's now working.. all the time I wasted.. Here is some advice: 1) NEVER, NEVER TRADE WITH JUST ONE DEALER. 2) WHEN YOU FIND SOMETHING PROFITABLE SHUT UP 3) NEVER PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET, HOWEVER EXPLOIT YOUR EDGE FOR ALL IT IS WORTH. AND NO...I DO NOT MEAN TO BECOME A VENDOR OR MANAGE MONEY...JUST TRADE IT CORRECTLY AND MAKE YOUR MONEY IN TRADING. es
Hi all, I agree with you in most of your opinions, because I tried to earn money...several times.... with Zulutrade, but no success till now. In my opinion it is really impossible to calculate and limit the max drawdown that I can get with any of their signals. It is true that you can limit the max number of trades, lots, etc. , but at the end, you are only limiting at once. I mean, you can limit how many simultaneously trade you have opened, but after closing it starts again you cannot limit your risk. I tried to use Collective2 without success, to be honest I was not able to connect with my MT4, I think they don't support it. I don't know tradency, but I will check, thanks. I would like to ask you about rentasignal, because I am trying with them now. It seems really similar than Zulutrade, but I think they are better about risk settings. I am already trading some of their signals and seems not too bad. I used their FX-Portfolio Wizar for selecting the signals. Do you have any experience with them?
Interesting discussion. I have experience from the other side of the fence in that I am a signal provider on ZuluTrade and formerly on Collective2 :- http://www.zulutrade.com/TradeHistoryIndividual.aspx?pid=20470 I've spent a couple of years developing a generic EA that runs on MetaTrader using trading rules found through a separate AI type engine. I run this now on a demo account and feed signals into ZuluTrade. I also ran it on my live account but switched it off in December as it was suffering from heavy drawdowns. It's looking a little better now and I'm contemplating switching the live account back on and I'm also nearly ready with another set of signals for a different currency pair which should help diversify the risk. I run the system on a demo account rather than a live account so that I can track each system independantly and then decide which to use on my live account. My live account is not linked through ZT as I want to avoid the increased spread involved and I need access to my account balance. I did have a handful of live subscribers when the system was going well and the system got up to around #60 in the rankings, but, understandably, my subscribers deserted me once I encountered the drawdowns. Generally I have found ZuluTrade very reliable in that it has never missed a signal and it accurately tracks wins and losses but I do have a few issues :- 1. Subscribers often way oversize their trades from your signals. My position sizing is based on 5% of the account size which controls risk and means that it is impossible to wipe out your account. Typically on a $500 account this would mean a size of 0.01 or 0.02 lots. I found that subscribers were regularly using position sizes of 0.1 lots which meant the losers were taking huge bites out of their accounts. Unfortunately as a provider, you have no control over the sizing and no access to their balance in order to size appropriately. Position sizing policies need to be clearly stated and enforced or at least recommended to the subscribers. 2. ZuluTrade has poor statistics which makes it very easy for the providers to 'game' the system to get high rankings and attract more subscribers. I was surprised to see many providers with a 100% win rate but when I looked more closely, I found out why. It seems that many unscrupulous providers never close a losing trade and instead just leave it open until one day it turns green. This means that slowly they accumulate more and more losing positions until eventually they'll get closed out by their broker and they will be blown. They must avoid this by constantly topping up their accounts but punters won't see this and instead only see the great stats. If the providers get enough subscriptions, they could maintain this charade for a long time. If punters follow one of these strategies they will certainly lose because over time they will rack up enough open losers to eat up all of their margin and then, bang, they'll be closed out and the account will be blown. There are also plenty of systems using Martingale sizing that should also be avoided. ZuluTrade needs statistics that includes open positions in the overall p/l and also use something like Sharpe or Sortino ratios to ensure that profitability is sustained and not just a flash in the pan. Good luck with your search but please be very careful when choosing providers on ZuluTrade, my recommendations would be :- 1. Don't use any with a win rate over 80% - it can't be true, check how many open positions they have in the same asset. The best systems should only have one position open at a time. 2. Check for Martingale, by looking to see if position sizes increase after a loss. Typically on the equity graph, you'll see deep cuts for losses followed by instant repair on the next trade - avoid, 3. Avoid scalpers with many small wins of a couple of pips each. These are unlikely to be profitable by the time you've taken the increased Zulutrade spread and slippage into account. Following these rules, you'll be on to the second page of systems before you find anything interesting.
Hi Swarm, I agree with you on most of your opinions. I think the same like you, subscribers use positions sizes obviating their size account. As for your signal, I don't think that this does the same that you tell us in your post. Why allow your signal to reach to lose up to 30% in only one position (-250 pips)? And yes, I think that Zulu isn't the best web to invest with signals, if you're provider is "too easy" to place your signal in the top...
250 pips at 0.1 lots = $250 which is 5% on the nominal $5k account. as stated. It was 30% of the overall profit at the time which is what ZuluTrade shows. 250 pips is the stop size that the strategy uses. Hence on a $500 account, the lot size needs to be 0.01 to maintain the 5% risk ratio. Maximum drawdown, on the account (not the profit), has been around 11% which is higher than I was hoping but still generally good for a forex strategy. Overall the strategy is still up 9% in the 6 months that it has been operating. The S&P 500 would have delivered better returns in that time though. It has been showing a downward trend for the past couple of months so I wouldn't recommend anybody subscribing at the moment until it clearly shows some uplift once more.
Great post ES and thanks for sharing! I used to manually trade and I liked it. But sometimes, it was like real hard work with a lot of stress for me. Recently, I started using a new EA with an autotrader. It uses 400:1 but you can set it up yourself. It can execute trades during all hours of trading if the market meets the parameters specified by the EA. Now, I don't open any position manually. What's the point? Yes I like manually trading as well and I still do, just with smaller positions. The major part of my money rolls on this autotrading software and I like it! It makes money for me, smaller returns than used to, but without any intervention, without analysing anything. So I do hybrid Cheers
Anyway, I think that -250 pips is a high loss, cos you close so much trades around 10 pips of profit. Thank you for your suggest and when you will be sure with your method, please recommend us. And please, don't use Zulu... strange things happen there!!!