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I'm happy to see this discussion begin. I've been tempted to post similar info about different broker results. I've been running dozens of EA's on live accounts (not demos) for over a year now and the results are VERY VERY different from broker to broker. We have been using low deposits and micro minis to forward test EA's. I doubt that a broker would care about an account go from $100 to $257 in 1 year, but who knows? Here is what I know for certain:
1. The results do vary from broker to broker. I'm hosting the EA's on servers, so "down time" can only be affected by the brokers. I'm a loser on this point; I should have foreseen this possible issue and written an app to track the different platform feed connections so that I could graph out the percentage of down time per broker. (but I didn't, sorry...)
2. Brokers DO know the difference between a "market order"(click with your mouse) and an "EA triggered" trade. Yes, really. I know this from my days at IBFX and I've since confirmed it from other brokers. So are they "handling" EA orders differently? Unknown, but they can if needed...
3. Brokers constantly scan accounts for what they call "red flags". The "red flags" can be anything from "total number to trades per (hour,day,etc...)", "profit percentage (remember, most forex accounts blow-up, so if an account is making money, they usually take notice)" and scalping stuff. If they see a "red flag", your account will be put on "manual". This varies greatly from broker to broker, but basically it means that someone has to phyisically accept/clear each trade that is place from your account. Most brokers won't deny/block your EA orders, but if they are late in clearing your order and the price moves outside/beyond your max variance, then you will miss that trade. That's just one example, but I was able to track this a bit when comparing statements (i.e. trades in some accounts but not others). Yes, I know that price feeds can generate different indicator/EA output, so I confirmed this by watching the platforms live and I followed up to comfirm with a call to the broker.
What I've learned that can help: I call it the "butt kiss factor". If you have a good EA, your broker relationship is very important. I never accuse or get upset with my broker. I milk the relationship for political capital. Sounds crazy? Think about it; can you really accomplish anything by getting upset with your broker? (the answer is "no" btw, lol...) However, if you have a positive rapport with your broker's dealers, a simple phone call can get your account taken off of manual and allow your EA to perform better... just a thought...
the so called forex market is a so called "spot market" - where forex brokers can do what they like with traders... nearly all those forex brokers are so called "market makers", where they are trading nearly all the time, what traders are trading... they are taking nearly all the time the opposite trading position of the traders/customers... means - if traders/customers of such forex broker houses establish a long position in a currency pair - they are trading the same amount of lots and currency pair "short"... and so, they are using all kinds and sorts of tricks against their own customers, so that the customers of all those broker houses are losing all their invested money... this is most forex houses... all trading systems are completely worthless, trading via those forex broker houses, because they are able, to modify market prices, stop loss orders "and all and everything" for their own advantage - just how they like it and so - of course - more than ninety per cent of all people are losing all their money - trading forex... see additional information: http://forexrealm.com/brokers-reviews.com and Forex vs. Currency Futures: What You Should Know Before You Make Your Decision Forex vs. Currency Futures: What You Should Know Before You Make Your Decision... ps: i´m a worldwide known artist and musician and financial expert - see one of my websites myartphotos's Fotothing and other websites and until now, i have not been able, to find any really reputable forex broker house... seems to be so, that i have to found my own forex broker house, to begin to trade forex or i will lose all my money - hundred per cent perfect guaranteed... email: forex@mail2winner.com
I guess to clear: I wasn't trying to provide a negative spin on forex brokers. Just offering my experience. I think it's important to understand the difference between "fact" and "urban forex myth". I'm NOT backing or endorsing brokers. However, it is important to know the truth.
“Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing“ - Warren Buffet
One example of "fact" vs "myth": if a "market maker" is actually hedging your position, then they are the rare exception. They are required to hedge their booked positions, otherwise they are banking on a near 100% loss ratio. Most traders don't understand that registered FCM's (Futures Commission Merchant) are required to hedge their positions and can be fined and/or shut down if they don't hedge a certain percentage. If an ECN is hedging your positions, then you have an problem.
Another example: Most traders (roughly 94%) lose their accounts within the first quarter of trading. Most of us know this to be true, but why? Yes, I have no doubt that market makers are greasing this "slippery slope", but what we do know from a few detailed studies is:
no 1 reason: Over-leveraging
no 2 reason: Lack of disappline and patience
Forex traders have ready access to as much as 200:1 leverage (400:1 is just crazy). Most equities traders would give their right arm for 10:1. With 100:1 or 200:1 leverage, you can easily wipe out your entire account with a few bad trades. Hense the 94% stat.
What I should have posted with my original info: I don't think it's possible for 2 brokers to have the exact same results with any EA. While some of the factors could be considered "unfriendly", most of it is just the inherent nature of this market (no centralized pricing, IP connection differences, liquidity and the list goes on...) What most forex traders consider "scam" is just inherent risk. Understanding the risk is what's important...
Yes, some brokers are definately better than others, but it wasn't my intention to turn this thread into a "broker bash". I would rather focus on the difficulties that we face when using EA's and how to over-come them...
It seems that there're too many people too fascinating about the EAs spreading around...
Yes, EAs may enable you to earn a lot, but only if you understand what's going on. You need to understand how your EA handles order failures, how it handles different conditions.
If you investigate deeper, you'll see quite many EAs selling on the internet even don't use IsTradeAllowed() function to check whether the broker disable EA trades...
My suggestion is that:
if you know no technical details, but only understand all the basic trading strategies, choose some big trading robots and learn their strategies to decide which one to use;
if you know no technical details, and even don't understand those basic trading strategies, don't even involve in any tradings...
if you know technical details, read the mql4 book, and write your own robot.
P.S. As the results of the EA shown in this thread really show that the EA shouldn't be used in any market...
Although I have not tested EAs myself it would seem logical to me that the effect between brokers will only be apparent if scalping the market. If you are aiming for 10pips or less then a pip or 2 on each trade may well make a difference especially if the risk reward is reversed. However I would have thought that if you are aiming for 30,40,50 pips+ then the effect is likely to be relatively minimal. If you make 45 pips on a trade in one account and 43 or 44 in another that surely can't have much of an effect especially with regards to whether the system actually profits or not.
Has any one tested a non scalping EA across different brokers. I notice Riffster mentions tests producing very different results. What type of trading was this? What type of pip profit are you aiming for?
Keep in mind that the EA being tested is not a scalping EA, nor does it trade every day or trade a lot. I will be posting updates this evening on how the EA is doing.
-drgoodvibe
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Metatrader 4 - EA Live and Demo Hosting Solutions http://www.omegasupreme.com & Omega Trading Blog!
I have one question as I have been recoding most of my (and platform) indicators again to avoid this:
If you use ANY indicators, did you remove sunday bar from calculation? The results for example alpari are totally different because they don't have the sunday bar.
Were the pending orders the same? Was timezone the same? There are millions of things that can go wrong in both backtesting and trading if you don't know exactly what you are doing.
I have one question as I have been recoding most of my (and platform) indicators again to avoid this:
If you use ANY indicators, did you remove sunday bar from calculation? The results for example alpari are totally different because they don't have the sunday bar.
Were the pending orders the same? Was timezone the same? There are millions of things that can go wrong in both backtesting and trading if you don't know exactly what you are doing.
It's a completely indicator based EA, no pending orders, internal stop losses, not dependent on time.. but I see where your concern is here. The most interesting thing I have found is that decidedly some EA's are more profitable than others, but how is it that Alpari can have so much more trades than the other brokers?
Anyway more research needs to be done here as you can see with the statements below..
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Metatrader 4 - EA Live and Demo Hosting Solutions http://www.omegasupreme.com & Omega Trading Blog!
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