This week we saw the EURUSD reach the record 1.6000 level and then make a major correction to a close at 1.5593 (a 400+ swing in a matter of days). We all knew this was coming but it was a matter of "when". Due to the EA's preference for long positions many of you are either sitting on significant drawdown or have manually closed out a large loss. My live (somewhat manually managed) account closed 186 pips of profit and is floating a 379 pip loss. The "hands off" demo account closed 150 pips and is floating a 416 pip loss.
I chose not to stop out the trade as I've been burned a few times in the past for letting my emotions get the best of me. I will however, monitor the market closely next week and potentially stop out the loss. At this point my $3,000 deposit has grown to a balance of $4,010 so I'm really just losing profit rather than principal. If I chose to do nothing the trade will eventually close out automatically on the 1st of May.
One strategy to manage the current drawdown is to manually place a hedge trade. By setting a short position you will in effect "lock in" your loss as the market continues to decline. With each pip decline, the long will lose a pip and the short will gain a pip - netting out to a wash. If you decide that the market has begun an uptrend you can close out the hedge trade and your "locked in" loss will decline as the price climbs. I wish I would've set a hedge as I'm worried about a potential gap at market open.
Collectively we have learned a lot about the strengths and weaknesses of this EA and hopefully we will continue to learn how to maximize the strengths and mitigate the weaknesses. I spoke with a representative from Forex Autopilot yesterday and he mentioned that updates will be released and all existing users will be notified. I would be excited to see what changes will be made in the future.
On an unrelated note, you can now access this blog at www.craigsmoneymakingblog.com. Now it's much easier to remember when you're at work!
Have a great weekend and let's hope for a good upcoming week of trading.
Craig
Click here to view past Forex Autopilot updates.
Posts
17 comments:
Since this is a new thread, I've copied my last most recent post regarding trading while the EA is running.
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I'm pretty sure you can trade around the EA as long as you don't have opened positions when it's ready to do it's thing.
I've been in some draw downs, did multiple trades below the EA and it continued to function, opening and closing trades after I closed
my trades before the market came back within range of the EA's take profit.
Most of the trades I made did not put me in a better position. Had I left things alone, I would have ultimately been several hundred dollars ahead of where I am now. That's not to say one shouldn't intervene. I could not have slept without the short hedge I placed at 1.5622 on Thursday night. Had the market continued south after 1.5550 support, I would have been rewarded.
I should have taken profit at that point but was unsure it would hold. Thus, I allowed it to bite me in the a** by exiting today when the EURUSD rallied, only to re-enter a new short 1.0 lot at 1.5622 again (12:50 EST) after I saw a classic H&S on the 1m.
I'm in profit on this particular trade as of 3pm EST but am hesitant to TP and get out in case there is a gap down on Sunday evening.
It's all coming back to me now. Constantly checking the numbers, thinking, calculating, and worrying. Having the feeling everything I do could be the right move, or the wrong move. I love it and hate it. Currently I'm a bit stressed about the whole thing and I'm not even at a loss yet.
That's what attracted me to the FAPS. Theoretically, I don't have to look, worry or care.
Now I find myself back in a game I haven't trained adequately for.
Need to get back in shape-
Jim
copied from April 25, 2008 3:42 PM
Jim - The old EA would freeze up if you set a manual trade. v2.0 (the one with the registry key) will open new trades after your manual trade closes.
I will be interested to see:
#1 - If the downtrend sticks.
#2 - How the EA handles a downtrend.
Hi guys.
I've had a few so please bear with me.
I have closed quite a few autopilot trades on both demo accounts for very large losses, but that's ok since it's demo acc.'s and I want to see what it does. (I know that within days or weeks, it may close these trades at a possible profit but I didn't want to wait given that these are demo accounts.)By the way, it has had a few winning trades, but this trending market is not to it's liking for short term gains I guess.
In between closing said trades, I scalped and had amazing success in bagging small numbers of pips with each trade. A great feeling - especially since I'm new to this - untill of course I got caught in a quick trend that had me loose all the gains of those numerous trades, and didn't want to switch to swing trading since my goal was quick scalps at that time.
My question is this. Is there a quick acting automatic hedging tool that negates most of the loss in such a situation?
I'm thinking that if there was, what's to stop someone from scalp trading during safe trading sessions using large #'s of lots to make say $1,000 on each trade while minimizing the possible drawdown with said "Autohedge EA".
Place a trade, wait for one or two pips (with larger lots) and get the hell out. If market goes against you, autohedge EA immediately places hedge untill market reverses toward direction of initial trade.
As an example;
10 quick scalp trades making $1,000 per trade then a large quick change in market loosing the $10,000 gained previously, but autohedge EA placed a quick hedge in essence losing me only a percentage of the $10,000.
Had I had such a hedge EA I would have lived to scalp another day. In my demo account anyway. I look at such a tool as a sniper's rifle. A sniper with a good rifle and a quick extraction plan.
Being that I'm new I may have my basic theory all wrong so go easy on my possibly ridiculous question.
(Oh, and I've had a few.)
Must remember not to trade under those conditions!
Thanks in advance for entertaining the question.
Message to Dave P.
Your post from previous week's page:
"I tried something a little different....I have had good experience in the past trading the EURJPY...so I said to myself why don't I try to use this EA with that along with the EURUSD...and here is what I have so far using a Demo account Click Here it is a PDF document so you will have to have a PDF viewer to read it".
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I saw that your statement is from forex.com. Visited their site and didn't see a download for metatrader platform.
I compared your entry/exit prices with hisroric Apari & IB prices. Very different, often 10 pips from same times.
I'll load the FAP on anothe 5-digit broker MT4....FXPRO.
Will monitor with default settings to see what kind of DD ocurr.
Does anyone understand why there is a setting for trailing stop when it doesn't work/apply?
Thanks Craig for headsup on EA update forthcoming. Hopefully they can control the large DDs.
I think simply having the EA scan back a few hours for the high & low to act as a stop is better than a set number of pips.
For anyone that needs to access their computer (with EA loaded) from work or abroad, you can use this software on a trial basis:
logmein.com
If your workplace has a firewall, it may not allow.
Regarding an upcoming improved version:
When I go back to my FAPS download page, it simply tries to sell me the EA.
IS there another site that has news releases or updates.
I use the FAP "universal"
They sent this to me by e-mail as my activation code wouldn't work.
I wonder if I'm using the same version as everyone else.
Jim
According to the person that I spoke to, you should receive an email when there is an update to the product. He didn't mention that there was any specific timeframe for receiving the next update. Jim, you version is the most recent.
I'm very glad to see this blog, you started this just about the same time I went to a live account. I am wondering, everyone that is using FAPs must have similar trades, especially when the market goes into a large downfall like what happened last week? I threw in $5,000 and set the FAPs to have the highest risk. I have gone hands off from the beginning, emotions have a way of getting to you, usually in a bad way. I'm still in the trade for a large loss, but I'm faithful FAPs will come threw. I can't wait to see what happens in this next week.
nnyckhqHi Buzz,
The more the merrier here, welcome. Do you mind disclosing:
What date did you start?
How many lots are you trading?
What is your results thus far, including pending trade.
Not everybody will have same trades as some choose to manually intervene.
I will post to ask everyone that's willing to keep a log. I will have these sent to me in order to put all results on one spreadsheet for Craig to post on his next updates.
Cheers!
I've been playing around with this EA and the backtesting seems impressive. I will be testing this with a $2000 demo account on InterbankFX which has a 200:1 leverage. I'm setting the lot size to 0.5 but leaving everything else the same with aaa=13 and bbb=14. I'm concerned about the long positions it take so I'll try and close out or hedge before close on Fridays to mitigate this risk.
Hi Craig,
Someone claiming to be from FAP called me today offering to train me in forex and their EA for like $5k. Sounded real fishy. Anybody know about this? If it is a scam, please let people know.
The number they called from is:
800-884-1588
Been playin with FAP for about 2 weeks now. bout even right now on 2 demos, keep getting bored with the long floaters. what's the latest on the stop-loss?
thanx,
chris
Hi Chris, I got a similar call this past weekend. I'd imagine it is legit but wouldn't recommend spending $5K on a course from somebody with no credentials.
FAP works best in an uptrend. I've experienced some great results over the past two months. The last two weeks have been the worst due to the rising dollar. Let your floater close out on the 1st of May and see what happens.
I have the live report starting from 4-2-08. The report
They moved my account to a new server, thats why the last part of it says that the balance went to zero.
I hope this can help any of you.
I've gained a $3,191 gain in one month. The settings were at max risk.
As of this moment I'm sitting on a floating order for a loss of $2,846. I've learned to let go of the money in my mind, so I don't get emotional on the money, which can be easy. I got faith FAPs will come through.
Buzz,
Are you using the auto lot manager?
Looks like you were stuck in some of them for several days. Is this completely "hands off"?
Down 110 on mine right now. Hard to leave it alone.
Chris
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