Definitely. It's normal after you graduate that what you learn won't necessarily be what you will encounter while working, but don't ever forget how it helped develop your fundamentals.

anyone got simple fx tester that's working? i need to backtest something

Exactly.. U dont read/write if u dont learn whats ABCs haha...

U mean EA/Indi Backtesting? Try strategy tester on your mt4

Learnt the best lesson of all. Got out of a short 5 minutes before it falls 600 points off.

Just find forex simulator from Vladimir.

Guys, remember you will have losers, best traders in the world have losers, it's all about money management and risk.

You may have took a trade and lost from yesterday, but look at GBPAUD, it's flying, and has potential to be a steam train runaway and not only cover your losses but close in profit too, covering the losses and adding on top. This is why in the long run if you stick to the rules, take the losers as part of trading, and allow the winners to run, you will always end out on top in the long run.

Which pair ? u mean u came out from the position ?

Use the momentum indi if u are unsure of a position to hold or close.

Biggest obstacle for a trader is not the market but himself.

You can't do shit on the market, just yourself and the system

What is yourself ?
1. Discipline
2. Pain tolerance
3. Money management
4. Stress management

System
1. Technical base
2. Fundamental
3. Both

Knowledge to turn your psychology of a normal person to become a trader however is not available. Lol

Nice, pain tolerance. I think that's the hardest lol.

Make it automated and you can eliminate all the psychological factors. Like HFTs, they have a very high win rate, making lots of money. Also Algo traders, making lots of money using algorithm.

This one everyone knows already. You think we are newbies here?

That's out of our range.
Unless u have a few hundred millions or billions

Then there are no automated bots which can work based on technical based unless u can see real exchange data.

All the forex robots are marketing gimmick by brokers to draw in deposits, later when these bots start to make money, they will play slippage, rejected orders and things like that.

I've seen those scalping bots basically work on very bad R:R ratios. And bots are not so smart to factor in volatility as it changes throughout the years.
Let's say now u set ur bots SL to be 30pips. This is based on movement from last month. So this month the 30pips becomes too small, rendering it unprofitable.
So u continue tweak to 40pips, then this time, the take profit couldn't hit that well.
So u continue to tweak-adapt-tweak-adapt cycles.


The only HFT that works is all based on order sizing n speed

yes the AI now is smarter than those who underestimates bot's ability.

Very simply one can code %ADR as a measure of range for TP and SL.

there are many indicators measuring volatility if u bothered to google.

Smarter but does it make money ??

I've read about those bots developed by hedge funds, they either work by having these advantages
1. Speed
2. Market order flow
MT4 is just tip of the retail pie only. The real exchange is at EBS Thomson Reuters n the other one.
Data type got special order flow subscription well into 6 figures per month.
That's what advantage big players have over us

You are wrong in many things here.

You clearly don't know much about what you are talking about. There are many retail algo traders who make good money out there. Look at top automated systems at myfxbooks and other similar sites. You can find that the robots are profitable for years.

Talking about volatility, how do you know the robot trade based on the volatility, it could be based on other things and the stoploss and take profit are not necessarily hardcoded like you mentioned 40 pips, 30 pips, which made me think that you are an amateur. Also, volatility could be measured which could be coded. And yes, the robot can adapt to volatility.

Lastly it is not impossible to access the order flow in forex futures, anyone could if you have a forex futures account.

Have you ever coded a real algo robot (forget about 30 pip stoploss or something similar)? if you have not, please do not say that a retail trader could not make an algo robot.

Scalping robots don't work first of all.
Volatility is a variable and changes all the time, just like weather.

Btw forex futures represents maybe less than 15% of global volume. Real volumes are not available for retail levels.
Retail level is like traditional fisherman while those hedgefund n banks readings are like fisherman with underwater radar. That's their edge over us.

My programmer friend worked with a seasoned trader, previously keep tweaking it until they gave up.
As volatility changes, u need to tweak it.

Unless yours have wide SL which u see their equity chart climbs up slowly and drops down like a cliff. A few consecutive losses burns the account.

From what you have written you have very limited knowledge about algo and quant trading. Let me correct you.

I am not sure what you mean by scalping robots, because most HFTs are scalping. If your term is limited to MT4 robot, then I am not sure.
Some algo or quantitative trading do not use volatility as their variable, their strategies discount volatility, hence volatility does not affect their trading.

It does not matter how many percent it represent, even it is it 1%, you can still access the order flow. You clearly do not understand how futures and spot forex work and how they are separated. Why you want to know the real volume in the first place when you already have forex futures with depth of market?

Your programmer friend is probably an amateur who works with MT4 without the knowledge of other platforms and knowledge of quantitative/algorithmic trading. Tweaking will only curvefit the robot, that's where your friend went wrong.

Again you are talking about huge stoploss and small stoploss. I recommend you to read more on quant and algo trading then we can talk at the same level/frequency.

Scalping robot refers to mt4 based. I'm saying that those technical based bots on mt4 doesn't work for long due to changing volatility because most of it rely on technical entries like breakout, moving average cross over.
So they tune the bots to follow certain market conditions for trade but then can't work as well when volatility changes.
Unless the bots are using very wide SL.
Over the years I see those bots making money for a couple of months which later account burnt due to changing market conditions n volatility. That's why broker use bots to lure ppl to use robots because most of the time confirm lose after a while.

The big guys HFT is all based on front running orders. Or practically speed and also order based. (Quant or algo trading the only thing which works if not those big guys won't dump in tune of hundreds of millions)

Regarding futures and spot fx.
For every single tick the value of transaction is different.
Futures are based on contract, every tick represents a fixed contract size.
Real exchange ticks are based on a variable contract size. 1 tick=usd 100mil during active hours. During non active hours maybe 1tick=usd 10mil. Transacted amount is unknown behind every tick. The exchange do sell these data for premium price

MT4 is a time based price platform. Moving average is time based rather than tick/volume based.

This post has been edited by AllnGap: Sep 18 2016, 11:36 AM