Manual is best

Hi, I have just joined MyFXBook and I thought I would share my system with you. Basically I use naked charts (black and white),
plot chart patterns including channels, triangles, flags, etc.... Anything from 15 min (for small pips) to Daily timeframe. I trade mainly breakouts and use a sentiment index (https://www.dukascopy.com/swiss/english/marketwatch/sentiment/) and currency stregnth (https://www.currencystrengthmeter.com/) for confirmation. Just download the currency stregnth meter and ignore the rest, I found it a very useful tool....

So there it is, all my trades are visible except the history because it includes past trades made by EA's, and from the title you can guess I dont like them. It has taken a long time and a lot of money to realise that EA's are not consistently profitable in LIVE trading conditions and Manual is best... (please dont abuse me because I dont like EA's)

Thakyou for reading and happy trading..

mattkw174 posted:
It has taken a long time and a lot of money to realise that EA's are not consistently profitable in LIVE trading conditions

And manual trading is? 🙄

What's the difference between a human manually entering trades based on a good strategy and a piece of script entering trades based on a good strategy?

Sure, you can't just leave an EA to go off on it's merry way and sit back and watch the pips flood in, but most EA's just help traders stick to their own strategy.

You should always be watching an EA just like a manual trade, and intervening if necessary.

If the strategy behind the EA is sound, and it's coded well, and you understand where its weaknesses are (and how to identify and rectify them), then there is no reason whatsoever why EAs can't be profitable.

I would suspect you don't like EA's because you bought them, didn't bother to understand the underlying strategy or code, sat back and expected the money to just come rolling in and then were disappointed when it didn't all magically happen.

EA's aren't a total solution to making money in forex. They are just another tool at your disposal to HELP you identify and exectute profitable trades.

If the EA says "buy here" for some reason and you're trading experience tells you that the EA in this instance is wrong, then you simply cancel the EA's trade and move on to the next trade.

I find EA's help me stick to my own rules and miss less oppotunities that my own strategy dictates I should take.

yoohoo999 posted:

mattkw174 posted:
It has taken a long time and a lot of money to realise that EA's are not consistently profitable in LIVE trading conditions

And manual trading is? 🙄

What's the difference between a human manually entering trades based on a good strategy and a piece of script entering trades based on a good strategy?

Sure, you can't just leave an EA to go off on it's merry way and sit back and watch the pips flood in, but most EA's just help traders stick to their own strategy.

You should always be watching an EA just like a manual trade, and intervening if necessary.

If the strategy behind the EA is sound, and it's coded well, and you understand where its weaknesses are (and how to identify and rectify them), then there is no reason whatsoever why EAs can't be profitable.

I would suspect you don't like EA's because you bought them, didn't bother to understand the underlying strategy or code, sat back and expected the money to just come rolling in and then were disappointed when it didn't all magically happen.

EA's aren't a total solution to making money in forex. They are just another tool at your disposal to HELP you identify and exectute profitable trades.

If the EA says "buy here" for some reason and you're trading experience tells you that the EA in this instance is wrong, then you simply cancel the EA's trade and move on to the next trade.

I find EA's help me stick to my own rules and miss less oppotunities that my own strategy dictates I should take.

Thankyou for your repsonse yoohoo,

Your suspicions are correct, I dislike fully automated EA's because I have spent the last 2 years trying to find one that works for more than a couple of months, and as I have yet to find one I have resorted back to manually trading, there is nothing wrong in having an EA alert you to a possible setup, then taking a subjective view as to wheather you should trade it or not

I like thousands of others when starting out on the forex journey got drawn to the wonderful world of fully automated trading, hoping to find the "Holy Grail" when clearly it does not exist. My personal Holy Grail is discipline and if an EA helps you stick to your trading plan and maintain discipline then that can only be a good thing.

I have been on my forex journey for almost 3 years now, flipping from fully automated, watching it go wrong, then manually trading my account back up again. I think EA's are my weakness so i choose to stay away. My manual trading consists of technical and fundamental analysis, I use a website that tells me of upcoming chart patterns that are detected by a computer program, so I supose you could call that an EA

MW

P.S. When you say "If the EA says "buy here"" do you mean it is alerting you to a trade or that it has already traded and you cancel that trade and pay the spread ?

mattkw174 posted:

P.S. When you say "If the EA says "buy here"" do you mean it is alerting you to a trade or that it has already traded and you cancel that trade and pay the spread ?

I've got a couple of EA's which send me alerts when a set up (and then subsequent trigger) appears. So it means that I don't have to be watching the charts 24/5 waiting for a pattern to complete. Once I'm alerted to the set up, I have a quick look at the relevant chart and work out if things are in the right place. Then I sit back and wait for the trigger alert, which sends an alert along the lines of "Buy trigger alert on XXX/XXX". Then I can go back to the charts and check the whole picture and go ahead and place the trade if it looks right. This way I don't miss many opportunities, I become more consistent, but I still have the ulitmate discretion before placing the trade. I use these EA's on higher timeframes such as 4H, so if I can't get to the computer immediately after an alert then I won't matter too much in terms of the overall effect on entry/exit.

I miss lots of potential trades trying to scan the charts manually while at work.

However, I also use a couple of (almost) fully automated EAs which actually place the trades too. I'm more wary of these ones, but I understand the strategy and code, so I can sleep at night. I manually intervene when I consider that the EA has made a trade which is as a result of something like a blip in the market (for example a couple of successive really long candles can throw one EA off at times). But i'm aware of their weaknesses and what to keep an eye out for, so it's basically like having someone execute the trades for me, but I babysit them! The reason I use those EA's is because it is very difficult to be consistent when manually trading the strategies underlying them. There's too much going on and it's easy to miss opportunities, make mistakes, read the set ups wrongly or the markets move to quickly........so it's just not possible to follow the strategy 100% without computer assistance, for me anyway.

That said, if the EA does something I don't like, I know how to rectify the situation. Sure, I might lose some spread costs every now and then, but the intervention is not necessary very often and a few pips here and there doesn't have much of an impact on my bottom line. Not using the EA to enter/exit trades when I'm asleep or at work would cost me far more pips!

Oh yeah it's best when it's naked .. thanks for the sentiment link, I like the historical table, it's always interesting when it changes from green to red or vice versa.

mattkw174 posted:
Basically I use naked charts (black and white),
plot chart patterns including channels, triangles, flags, etc.... Anything from 15 min (for small pips) to Daily timeframe. I trade mainly breakouts and use a sentiment index (https://www.dukascopy.com/swiss/english/marketwatch/sentiment/) and currency stregnth (https://www.currencystrengthmeter.com/) for confirmation. Just download the currency stregnth meter and ignore the rest, I found it a very useful tool....

speki posted:
Oh yeah it's best when it's naked .. thanks for the sentiment link, I like the historical table, it's always interesting when it changes from green to red or vice versa.

mattkw174 posted:
Basically I use naked charts (black and white),
plot chart patterns including channels, triangles, flags, etc.... Anything from 15 min (for small pips) to Daily timeframe. I trade mainly breakouts and use a sentiment index (https://www.dukascopy.com/swiss/english/marketwatch/sentiment/) and currency stregnth (https://www.currencystrengthmeter.com/) for confirmation. Just download the currency stregnth meter and ignore the rest, I found it a very useful tool....

Your welcome speki

BTW I don't know why would anyone abuse you because you have your own opinion. Machines can be profitable, maybe not every EA but algos are making money - A friend of a friend worked on testing Quantitative trading programs for Morgan Stanley - now these big bloodsucker investment banks won't waste time and effort on something that's not profitable, you can bet your balls on that.

So ... don't let anyone tell you what's right and what's wrong unless they're willing to contribute to your expenses too - ie. paying your bills. If you're payin' the bills then you're making the calls too. 😉

talk to you later

mattkw174 posted:
Manual is best... (please dont abuse me because I dont like EA's)

i only trade when i am extremely drunk.

zzzero posted:
i only trade when i am extremely drunk.

Thankyou for lightening up the thread zzzero.

Is that your child ? lol

I have a similar picture of my son with a can of Carlsberg when he was only a few weeks old.

I am prefer manual trading too, because i know that all my losses is only mine, it makes me happy))I like small positions with the smallest lot size, of course i can't win a lot of money but i will not lose everything if something will happen!

SarahStone posted:
I am prefer manual trading too, because i know that all my losses is only mine, it makes me happy))I like small positions with the smallest lot size, of course i can't win a lot of money but i will not lose everything if something will happen!

Totally agree!

I also like manual trading. check my profile. Just keep eye if trend changes. so cover negative positions.

https://mechanicalforex.com/2011/05/discretionary-vs-algorithmic-trading-is-one-better-than-the-other-no.html

danielfppps posted:
https://mechanicalforex.com/2011/05/discretionary-vs-algorithmic-trading-is-one-better-than-the-other-no.html

very good stuff😉

I like automated trading because I just can't seem to get it right with Forex.
The EA that I wrote and use in live trading I optimize every 12 hours. I admit that I had 3 big losses due to a programming error but all is well now. Will I do well? I don't know but after manual trading I know what I will stick with.

HELLO FRIENDS. YES ITS TRUE. MANUAL TRADING IS THE BEST ONE. EA'S ARE NOT SUITABLE FOR EVERYONE. AND IT DONT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR LOSS. THANK YOU.

just look into my journal @ https://www.myfxbook.com/members/qqkamil/secret-ea/177876. automated is the best. :P

I prefer manual trading but more so because I find it stressful using an EA - even though the coding looks great and a lot do make profit I just find it hard to trust a program with my money...

Everybody is different... it does seem though that most EAs make some profits for a while and then crash and burn.... hmmm

Im 50/50 on this...

Absolutely agree with all statement...
yes, manual trading... is the best...
it time to back to the nature of trading...
No EA....because we are humans, not robot.....