Well, this is my first post on this forum, but this thread is fundamental to what I hope to achieve from trading and there has been some very good and some very naive comments. The first thing I will say is I am new to forex, but certainly not new to gambling. That most people fail at making money is usually due to greed and get rich quick mentality. I wouldn't ever trade the forex until I understand what it involves. However, that one has to have a university degree in programing to profit from automated trading is totally wrong. What you need to have is a very good understanding of what you wish to achieve, and then you can find out how to achieve that goal. It's like driving a car, I'm a professional at that, and understand the basics of an engine, but I don't understand how every bit of a modern vehicle works, nor do I need to in order to achieve my goal. I'll give another example, I bet on horses and yes I'm quite good at it, but do I bet manually these days? No way! I had a bot created and it bets for me profitably. So, lately I have been getting used to the forex on a demo account and am trying to develop my manual trading skills, but in the long run, it will be an EA that does my trading for me. If that is an off the shelf one or a custom job, I don't care, it just has to do what I want it to do. If an EA can't make it in the forex, then I won't be trading it either manually. After only a short time studying this market, it is obvious to me that consistent profits can be made as long as some very tight rules are followed that include much historical, demo and finally live testing. If after all the study and testing nothing does work, there will always be the 2:15 nag at Folkstone to have a go on, lol. All the best, happy trading.