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Forex Bull Expert Advisor – Good Or Bad?

January 11, 2010 By Raj 2 Comments

Recently I bought another expert advisor called “Forex Bull” (www.forexbulltrader.com). I was impressed by the backtested results and the live results they are providing on their website and it made me bought their expert advisor. The backtested results were showing an average of 5 trades per day. If it is good a expert advisor, I can make an average of $100 per day ($20 per trade per 1 standard lot. Minimum I am expecting is 2 pips profit per trade). So I bought this expert advisor.

This expert advisor is a scalping expert advisor and this is for EURGBP currency pair. The cost of this expert advisor is $99. After I paid this I got the download link and downloaded this expert advisor. The author(s) of this expert advisor is(are) providing only the expert advisor file but they are not providing any documentation file like a pdf file which generally describes how to install the expert advisor, the settings for the expert advisor etc. Geneally other expert advisor provide these kind of support files. But anyhow, since I already have an experience of using some expert advisors I installed it correctly.

The first thing I do whenever I buy any expert advisor is backtesting the expert advisor. I tried to backtest it. This expert advisor has two important settings on it called “BeginTradingHour” and “EndTradingHour” where we have to enter the GMT Offset setting for these. If the author provides any support document which explains how to set these values that would be very useful. Anyhow I did not change these settings since it was the first time I was testing.

I started the testing this for 2009 year but it was not opening any trades. I was confused a little first and then tried to find out what was happening. I checked it here and there and then I checked in the “Journal” tab. It is giving the error “ERROR: No testing possible. This expert advisor needs live data for calculations”. I really got pissed off by seeing this error. It means that the expert advisor can not be backtested. How can anyone use any expert advisor with out backtesting it. Any expert advisor should be backtested to find out for which parameters it works good and this is not allowing me to do that. This is really bad.

So I decided to send an email to them. On the support page of the website they mentioned that they provide 24/7 support. The following is what is mentioned on the support page of their website.

Our support will be available 24/7. If you don’t receive an answer after 48 hours, please try to contact us again via email or use the Clickbank Support Form.

Please check your spam folders too.

If you don’t get any answer, please try to contact us via twitter or Facebook.

English Support: support@forexbulltrader.com

German Support: support-de@forexbulltrader.com

Test our support

Test our support and send a testmail to support@forexbulltrader.com. Just ask any question you want to know and test our support response times.

I bought this expert advisor on 1/4/2010 and on the same day I sent the email to them. The following is the email I sent to support@forexbulltrader.com.

Subject: Backtesting your expert advisor

Hi,

I have bought the expert advisor for EURGBP from your site and the following are my purchase details.

——————————————————————————–
PURCHASE INFORMATION

Order Number:        ********
Order Date:          01/04/2010 8:36 PM PST
Customer Name:       ********************* ********
Customer Email:      ************************
Product:             Forex Bull Evolution VI Limited Edition
Product ID:          400
Vendor’s Site:       http://www.forexbulltrader.com
——————————————————————————–

I would like to back test this expert advisor but when I try to back test, it is not working. In the journal tab it is showing the message “EURGBP,M5: ERROR: No testing possible. This expert advisor needs live data for calcualtions.”. I have all the data and everything for to test this.

Does the error mean that I can not backtest this expert advisor at all? Since this expert advisor needs GMT Offset timings, I have to backtest it. Can you please tell me what I should do to back test this expert advisor?

Thank you

I did not get any reply from them even after 48 hours. I waited for 3 days and sent the same email again to them and mentioned that I sent the same email eariler and since I did not get any reply I am sending it again.

I got a reply, I think after 12 hrs on the same day. The following is the reply I got.

Hi,

Thank you for your email. I will upgrade the EA to make backtests possible and send the updated version to you in the next 24 hours.

Regards

I got this reply on 7th but I did not get any email with the modified expert advisor after that. Today is 12th and I already sent 2 more emails asking for the modified expert advisor. But till now I did not get it. I will post an article about how this expert advisor is working, if I get the modified expert advisor. If I don’t get any reply I will try contacting them using Clickbank support form. I will update what’s going on in the comments section.

In the meanwhile if you guys have already bought this expert advisor and using it, please let us know how this is working. If you can also explaing the two things BeginTradingHour and EndTradingHour that would be very helpful.

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Some of the important things you have to observe in the backtested reports when you buy an expert advisor or when you backtest an expert advisor

January 11, 2010 By Raj Leave a Comment

Forex expert advisors or forex robots are mechanical trading systems that buy or sell currency pairs automatically when some conditions are fulfilled. But not all the expert advisors can make profit. Some expert advisors may result in losses also. So you have to look for many different things before you buy an expert advisor. If you want to know all those things you can read my article at “http://www.forexbees.com/things-to-watch-before-you-buy-an-expert-advisr/“.

As I mentioned in that article one of the important thing you have to look for is backtested reports. This article is mainly about the things you have to look for with in the back tested results, if the author of the expert advisor is providing any. You can also use these if you are back testing an expert advisor. If you want to know how to backtest an expert advisor you can read my article at “http://www.forexbees.com/how-to-backtest-an-expert-advisor-in-metatrader/“.

So if the author of the expert advisor provides backtested reports or if you tested an expert advisor you will see the following kind of report after the backtesting is completed.

Example Backtested Report

Example Backtested Report

In the above picture there are many things that you see but the following are the things I would like to explain you as I consider them important.

1) Currency pair – If the author of the expert advisor does not provide any information about the currency pair for which the expert advisor works, you can look for this field. I have seen many expert advisor’s websites and some of them don’t provide any information about the currency pair for which it works. So I generally look for the backtested results and then I look at the currency pair text in that, to check for which pair it works.

2) Period: The same thing as above. If you don’t know for which time frame it works you can look for this. You can also check this to know about the length of time period it was tested.

3) Model: This is an important one you have to watch out. There are three models available when backtesting an expert advisor. They are

  • Every Tick
  • Control Points and
  • Open Prices only

In all of the above “Every Tick” model is the precise method as it uses every tick when testing the expert advisor. So if the model is showing “Every Tick” then it is a good one. If it is showing anything other than “Every Tick” model then the results are not believable.

4) Modelling Quality: Modelling Quality is another important factor. Modeling quality is the number of ticks modeled during testing. It is in percent value. Lets say it is 50%. That means only half of the ticks are used by the expert advisor when testing it. When I look in the reports I look for the modeling quality to be at least 90%. If it is not 90%, I think that it is not tested properly and I won’t believe in the results.

5) Initial Deposit and Total Net Profit: Some expert advisor authors may say that the expert advisor has made one hundred thousand dollars in 30 days which sounds like it’s a cool expert advisor. But when I see such things the question that immediately comes into my mind is “what is the initial deposit they used?”. It might be a million dollars and a normal man like me can not fund my forex account with a million dollars. So I look for these two things “Initial Deposit” and “Total Net Profit”. If the initial deposit can be affordable by me and there is a good total net profit that means its a good one.

6) Profit Factor: This is another important one you have to look. It is the ratio between Gross Profit and Gross Loss. It is in percent value. Lets say it is 1. That means there is an equal amount of gross profit and gross loss which means there is no profit for you. When I look for this, I look for a minimum value of 2. If it is 2 that means the profit is double than the loss. If it is greater than 2 that means it is a good expert advisor.

7) Maximal Drawdown: We can say it is maximum loss incurred in backtesting. For example if the initial deposit is $5000 and the account grows to $30000. Then a loss of $5000 occurred and the amount comes down to $25000 and it went to $35000 again. If it is the maximal loss in the whole length of back testing then it is the maximal drawdown. At any point if the maximal drawdown is not below the initial deposit and if the graph is continuously raising then it is good.

8) Maximal Consecutive Losses: These are the consecutive losses that occurred. The expert advisor is good if it is a small number.

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Why I don’t trade EURUSD and USDCHF both in the same direction?

January 11, 2010 By Raj Leave a Comment

If you observe the currency pairs EURUSD and USDCHF you can clearly see that they both go in opposite directions at any point of time. I don’t know exactly what’s the reason behind this but they go in opposite directions.

For example if EURUSD goes up USDCHF goes down. If EURUSD goes down USDCHF goes up. So I don’t really like to trade these currency pairs in the same direction. Lets say I enter a long trade for EURUSD. Either I go for a short trade for USDCHF or I leave it as it is. If I go for a short trade for EURUSD, I go for a long trade for USDCHF or I leave it as it is. The same thing applies for USDCHF also.

If I go for a long trade for USDCHF, I go for a short trade for EURUSD or I leave it as it is. If I go for a short trade for USDCHF, I go for a long trade for EURUSD or I leave it as it is. But I never go for these currency pairs EURUSD and USDCHF both long trades or both short trades.

Check the following pictures at different points of time. They show you that they both go in opposite directions. The upper chart is EURUSD currnecy pair and the lower chart is USDCHF currency pair.

First Picture:

First Picture

First Picture

Second Picture:

Second Picture

Second Picture

Third Picture:

Third Picture

Third Picture

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