Max-Marc Fossouo interviews Tony Manso

Here is an interview I did last week that may be of interest to you as a Forex trader.

Visit the Forex Set and Forget web site for more information.

Finally, Forex Set and Forget 2.00 is here!

After months of experimentation with and tweaking of Version 1.11, I finally have produced the mysterious and elusive Forex Set and Forget 2.00. Here is a list of changes as they appear on the update page. These mostly pertain to the packaging and installation.

• New software installer eliminates the need for copy/paste into Metatrader folder.
• Check for Updates from the Start Menu.
• Register Live Accounts from the Start Menu.
• Read documentation directly from the Start Menu.
• Install the robot to Metatrader from the Start Menu!
• Completely re-designed entry logic.
• Completely re-designed trailing stop logic.
• New improvements made to the Custom Library.
• All new currency pairs (AUDJPY, EURUSD, GBPUSD and USDCHF). The old currency pairs will automatically use the previous version of FSaF when you load the templates.
• Preset files now included for back testing and/or optimizing.

Bottom line. Forex Set and Forget 2.00 is...

• easier to install,
• easier to apply to Metatrader,
• easier to upgrade,
• more reliable,
• has lower drawdown,
• has vastly improved documentation,
• comes with presets for back testing and optimizing,

and even comes with an all-new Cash Flow Strategy Guide!

Forex Set and Forget v2.00 the excitement is building!

So far I am pleased with the performance and reliability of Forex Set and Forget version 2.00. I'm talking about

• New entry logic
• New trailing stop logic
• New currency pairs
• More consistent results

Just click on the screen shot below to see the results of a three year backtest on AUDUSD. Even just looking at the screen shot you can see a nice profit graph. That is over a three year period. Not many EA's can show that kind of result.

This backtest was run with a $300 starting balance and no money management. In other words, every trade was the same size. The ending balance after 3 years was over $1300. That means a person could have withdrawn 10% of their initial deposit every month from the account and after 3 years still have their initial deposit! Imagine being able to withdraw $5000 per month out of your MT4 account that only has $50000 in it. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.

Incidentally, I ran the same backtest with money management enabled, so the trades were at no less than 1:10 leverage, and it still survived the full 3 years, AND had an ending balance of nearly $7000 (2233% profit). Of course the drawdown was insane but even so, it recovered fully and survived the entire testing period.

Anyway, at this time I am tying up loose ends such as packaging, documentation, sales page, ordering page, etc. and I'm close to releasing it to the public.

Get on my mailing list if you want to be notified when the new version is released. OR you can simply purchase the current version and upgrade for free when the new version becomes available. Here's why doing this makes the most sense...

Version 2.00 and higher will be on a subscription basis. You will be able to run on a demo account unhindered. But to run on a live account you will need to pay a monthly subscription fee. HOWEVER, if you buy the current version and upgrade, you will simply pay the $117 one-time and will never be charged monthly fees for your first live account. Most people never use more than one live account

My book is published! Hooray!

This post is more for backlinks than anything else. But if you're interested, my book is now published for print and eBook readers...

• The Forex Millionaire Maker on Amazon (Print format)
• The Forex Millionaire Maker on Amazon (Kindle format)
• The Forex Millionaire Maker at Barnes and Noble (Nook format)
• The Forex Millionaire Maker on CreateSpace (Print format)

I believe that the Nook version is compatible with other eBook readers but I'm not sure. Anyway, I'm excited to finally have my book available in so many formats.

Forex Set and Forget version 2.00 coming soon

Yes, it's true. Finally after months of experimenting and draining both live and demo accounts, I have what I believe is the final exit logic for Forex Set and Forget version 2.00. Entry logic is good but I believe I can make it even better. But that's a future version. Hopefully in the next two weeks or so I will have all of the documentation and packaging updated.

Get on my mailing list if you want to be notified when I release the new version.

What's Tony doing these days?

It's been a while since my last post. I have been busy experimenting with a new (translation: I don't know anyone else trying this) robot concept. As tends to happen very often, it started out being one thing and has gone in a completely new direction. I may go back to the original concept after a while but for now I'm very excited about the progress I'm making on this robot.

This one is not a "set-and-forget" type of robot. In fact, it's quite the opposite, and if left unattended for too long (I'm talking months, not days) then it positively absolutely WILL lose most of (but not all of) your account. But so far for cash flow, this thing is unbelievable.

At this time I am running some optimization experiments and forward tests. But if this thing turns out as good as I hope, then I will be calling for some volunteers to help me with a massive forward test of at least 100 participants.

If you want to be a participant for the forward test then get on my mailing list (signup form on the right of this page) and you'll be notified when that time comes.

P.S.

Forex Set and Forget version 2.00 is on hold for now and will likely have some of the exit logic of the new robot. If you have been using version 1.11 the last few months, you may have noticed that it has been failing consistently since around august. Upgrades to version 2.00 will be free, so don't throw away your current version because you'll need it in order to upgrade.

P.P.S.

If I do release this new robot to the public, people on my mailing list will be the first to know.

Forex Set and Forget: Your Initial Deposit?

It seems that, in all the documentation that comes with Forex Set and Forget, I somehow managed to forget to mention what your initial deposit to your account should be! OOPS! So, I will summarize it here as best as possible...

• If your account can place trades of 0.01 standard lots (1 pip = $0.10), then deposit at least $300 and set minTradeSize=0.01, and set scaleDivisor=300 (at least).
  
  
• If your account can only place trades of 0.1 standard lots (1 pip = $1.00), then deposit at least $3000 and set minTradeSize=0.1, and set scaleDivisor=3000 (at least).

• If your account can only place trades of 1.0 standard lots (1 pip = $10.00), then deposit at least $30000 and set minTradeSize=1.0, and set scaleDivisor=30000 (at least).

That's pretty much it. With these settings, Forex Set and Forget can withstand losses of at least 9 consecutive trading rounds and still have enough left in your account to recover fully. Not that you want to lose so many in a row, but knowing that you can do so and not lose everything will help your emotions when trading.

Forex Set and Forget on Tadawulfx?

A customer contacted me today because his Forex Set and Forget was trying to place trades of 0.00 lots on his Tadawulfx account. It was a mystery to me but once I signed up for a demo account and ran MT4, the problem became obvious. It seems...

Tadawulfx has a minimum trade size of 0.05 standard lots. The templates I provide with Forex Set and Forget use a minimum trade size of 0.01 lots on accounts that allow micro-lots. The solution, then, is to adjust two parameters:

minTradeSize=0.05
scaleDivisor=1500

Then make sure you have at least $1500 in your account and you should be good to go.

An alternative is to simply use the templates made for "standard" accounts and deposit at least $3000 in the account.

But my suggestion to everyone is to use a broker who allows micro lots. I use Forex Place and a few others for both live and demo trading. Forex Set and Forget is optimized for Forex Place, but will work on any broker that has similar spreads to Forex Place.

Forex Set and Forget version 2.00 Delayed Yet Again

I have been forward testing a release candidate for version 2.00 of Forex Set and Forget, while at the same time working on improvements to the entry and exit logic, which I'm not yet 100% satisfied with. Well now it seems I have come up with a new entry logic that I think I'm happy with, which means more forward testing is required. Maybe I'll get lucky and stumble upon the "ideal" exit logic as well, before I release version 2.00. I'm thinking mid-september or early october for release to the public.

If you are one of my JV partners and want to test the latest and greatest, send me a support ticket and I'll get back to you.

Forex Set and Forget: New Review Published

I just found this review from 4xProject about Forex Set and Forget. Check it out. It is very interesting. Not your ordinary "yeah I never used it but you should buy it using my affiliate link" type of review. This one actually has some guts to it.

Yet Another Forex Set and Forget Story

A friend of mine is running Forex Set and Forget on a demo account and asked me a question that stumped me for a bit until I finally figured out what's happening...

"For some reason when I tell FSaF to trade 0.01 lots, it's actually trading 0.1 lots. How do I tell it to do otherwise?"

Well, we went back and forth with me telling him how to fix it and him telling me "it didn't work". Then finally I realized what was happening...

Forex Set and Forget deals only with standard lot sizes. So when you tell it to trade 1 lot, for example, you are really telling it that you want a trade size of 100 thousand dollars. Some mini accounts use a lot size of 10 thousand dollars. Forex Set and Forget knows what your broker's lot size is and automatically adjusts your trade size so that when you say 0.01 standard lots, it places a 1 thousand dollar trade no matter what your broker's lot size is.

How brilliant is that?

I don't know what you're waiting for. Just go buy the thing and see for yourself the genius that is Forex Set and Forget. :-)

Awww Crap!

I been so busy working on Forex Set and Forget that I totally forgot about the Automated Trading Championship! You already know how much I love contests, and how I came in 10th place in 2008 with the AME Cross Trader. I may even have a candidate that is suitable for the contest but the contest is now for MT5 (not MT4) and I don't know anything about Mt5 to determine if my MT4 robots will work on them. So I'm not sure if I will have an entry for this year's contest, but maybe if I get some encouragement from my readers, I might be inspired to adjust my schedule and prepare a robot for this year's contest.

Running Forex Set and Forget on a live account?

A new customer contacted me today asking something like "I tried to run FSaF on my live account but I'm getting the 'Unregistered Account' message. What do I need to do?"

Here's what I told him and everyone else in this situation...

"DO NOT put Forex Set and Forget on a live account! Run it on a demo account for the first month. That is what the trial period is for. Then after a month, if you are happy with it, I will activate live account trading and you can put it on a live account."

I have a good reason for doing things this way...

Forex Set and Forget is not like other trading robots. Most people are used to robots that place several trades daily and capture 5 to 15 pips per trade. Most people are used to robots that have stop-loss of 20 pips or less. In other words, every time people look at their chart they expect to see their robot doing something.

What I just described is the exact opposite of what Forex Set and Forget (FSaF) does. FSaF will sit and wait for days and sometimes weeks before any trades are placed. A trading round shoots for as much as 600 net pips at a time. Stop loss can be as much as 300 net pips. Some people cannot stand to watch their robot hit a 100 pips stop-loss. So I say let FSaF run for a month, and in that time if you haven't...

• had a heart attack (drawdown induced),
• interfered with trades placed by FSaF (due to perceived drawdown),
• died of boredom (lack of trading activity),
• or just plain ran out of patience (waiting for trades),

..then by all means pay for a live account activation and put it on a live account. You are clearly ready for this style of trading. Otherwise no matter how well FSaF does, you will not be happy with it, so you better cancel and cut your "losses" before that month is up.

I apologize for being so blunt but this is the reason I turned off ordering for several months until this new version was available. People were complaining about the stupidest thing and I got pissed. Even though my web site says "try it for THIRTY DAYS...", here are just a few of the lame complaints I got...

"Please refund my purchase because..."

• The very first trade it placed was down by 30 pips so I turned it off
• I ran the EA for 2 days and it didn't place any trades
• It had 3 losing trades in a row
• Blah blah blah

I even had a very popular review site give me a bad review because the person who tested the EA somehow managed to run it on a chart without loading the proper Preset File for that chart (i.e. did not read the directions). Meanwhile, my LIVE ACCOUNT is up 400% in 6 months! So I'm sure you can understand my frustration.

Anyway, now you can try it for a month and if you're not overwhelmed with impatience and anxiety then you can put it on a live account and now you have a savings account on super-steroids :-)

Why does Forex Set and Forget place the same trades multiple times?

A customer wrote me today asking why his Forex Set and Forget placed some losing trades, then two hours later placed the exact same trades. I thought that would be a good topic for this blog...

When a new bar forms on the daily chart, if the moving averages and support/resistance levels are lined up right, then I calculate an entry level for that bar. That entry level never changes for the whole life of the bar. When the price reaches a predetermined distance from that entry level, pending orders are placed for entry at the calculated level. If the price then retraces too far away from the target, the pending orders are deleted and the cycle starts all over again. Otherwise, the price eventually reaches the entry level and the logic to manage open trades kicks in.

During a ranging market, the price can cross back and forth over the calculated level multiple times in a single bar, triggering pending orders if no orders are already placed. Some of those orders will end up as losing trades, but eventually when the price breaks out of its range then you will start seeing profitable trades.

Anyway, there's more but I'll end here for now. Later I may put up a video explaining some of the workings of Forex Set and Forget.

Forex Set and Forget version 1.11 is live now

OOPS! I forgot to mention that I released version 1.11 of Forex Set and Forget (FSaF) last night. There are some significant differences from version 1.09, and it only trades on 5 currency pairs now (4 of which are JPY pairs). Anyway, check it out...

--> http://amelabs.com/recommends/fsaf.php

If you already have version 1.05 or higher then you can simply upgrade by using the "Check for Updates" icon in your current installation.

I Started a New Blog

Started a new blog a few days ago. Most of the articles are not mine but they are Forex and income related. New articles will appear there daily. Check it out when you have a minute. Anyway, from now on, anything I write pertaining to EA's, indicators, strategies, etc. will go here. Everything else will go to the new blog.

FSaF 2.00 coming soon!

As you read this I am forward testing Forex Set and Forget version 2.00 on a live account. Version 2.00 should be available in 2-3 weeks. Here are some of the differences that you will encounter.

• FSaF will be running on D1 (daily) charts instead of the original H4 (4-hour) charts.
• Templates will be used instead of Preset Files. Now you just open a chart, set the timeframe to D1, apply the correct template for your chart and everything will be set up for you (EA, indicators, etc.). No more applying EA, loading preset file, applying moving average, applying support/resistance.
• Improved entry logic that so far is proving to be much more reliable, especially on the D1 chart.
• Improved stop loss and trailing stop logic.
• New version of AME Custom Library with improvements and tweaks (more informative email, better ECN broker support and more)
• Brand new pricing model will allow you to obtain FSaF at a much lower price. Upgrades are free for existing FSaF users. Some bonuses for existing users too!

Here's some info about how I chose which pairs FSaF will run on and also how I determine the Parameters Settings for each pair...

1. I run each pair through the optimizer, optimizing for the most influential parameters.
2. Once I have a list of all combinations that end in profit, I run it through an advanced version of the EA Reliability Spreadsheet.
3. Then I start looking for the combination with the highest Reliability Factor that matches the following criteria:
   
   - At least 10% profit per month gains on average.
   - Maximum drawdown of less than one third of the initial deposit.
   - Ending profit of at least three times the maximum drawdown.
   - No less than 12 trades per month on average.

If you want to be notified when FSaF becomes available for download, sign up for the FSaF mailing list (form is on the right of this page) and you will be the first to know.

Do you like contests?

I found this interesting site that lists a bunch of companies that host Forex Contests. Anyone who knows me knows that I love trading contests, especially for Automated Forex Trading. So don't be surprised if a future post to this blog announces my entry into a trading contest. :-)

Just upgraded my FRWC

An upgrade was available for the FRWC Fusion, so I had to close all currently open trades (most of which were in profit WOOHOO!) and shut down my Metatrader in order to upgrade the robot. So far it is the only time I had to interfere with the robot's trading. There were no stop-loss or take-profit on any of the open trades, so I don't know how they would have ended if I hadn't interfered with them.

FRWC Fusion? Failing?

Well, I have been running the Forex Robot World Cup Fusion EA for about a week now and it was off to a good start. However, in the last 2 days it lost all of its previous gains and the account is down more than 3%. Of course one week is not enough time to measure the true performance of a robot (I wish some of my EA customers knew that).

Like I said before, I will let FRWC Fusion run for one month before making any judgements. After all, 3% drawdown on an account is not a bad thing if the losses can be recovered. Here is a simple formula that I use to determine if a robot is worth investing money into...

1. Let the robot run for at least 1 month (or backtest for 3 to 12 months).
2. Calculate the maximum drawdown on the account during the testing period.
3. The account profit at the end of the time period (or backtest) must be at least 3 times the amount of the maximum drawdown.

If you want to be even more aggressive in your testing...

1. Run 12 1-month backtests for the past 12 months, noting the max drawdown and ending balance for each month.
2. Calculate the average ending profit of all 12 months.
3. The AVERAGE ending profit must be at least 3 times the HIGHEST max drawdown.

I would imagine that most EA's on the market today will not pass the aggressive test. But if you find one, you should really take advantage of it and use it for a nice additional cash flow. I myself am working on an advanced version of Forex Set and Forget that can easily pass such aggressive testing. I am also working on a new version of AME Cross Trader that can be used with any of the money management strategies in my book, The Forex Millionaire Maker, to enable you to become wealthy in a matter of a few years.

Sign up for the mailing list now to be notified when these new versions of my robots become available.

Ever Heard of the Forex Robot World Cup?

Ok, I'm gonna keep this as short as I can...

In case you don't know about the Forex Robot World Cup (FRWC), it is an automated trading competition. As you probably already know, I love to compete in trading contests, especially for trading robots. I'm pretty good at it too! However, the requirements to qualify for the FRWC are so tough that I couldn't even get my robot into the competition. In fact, only 24 out of nearly 400 people were able to qualify. There was a backtest you had to pass with profit and no errors, followed by a forward test on a demo account. If your robot survived those then it was placed on a live account. The robot with the highest balance after 2 months earns it's creator a big pile of money. In fact, the top 3 prizes totalled 150 THOUSAND dollars. Ok, enough about that. Go to the site to learn more.

--> www.ameLabs.com/recommends/frwc.php

So, knowing that these 24 dudes could get into the contest and I couldn't, I thought it would be cool to get a hold of any of the 24 robots. Then the contest creators did something really cool; they combined the top 3 robots into a single robot and made it available for download! I'm sure you can guess what I did next... I BOUGHT IT!

--> www.ameLabs.com/recommends/frwc.php

Now anyone who knows me knows that I have never purchased a trading robot before. I write my own and the ones that work best become products that I sell. That's how it's always been. Anyway, to keep this short, I have the robot now (called FRWC Fusion) running on a demo account for the next 30 days. If it does well then I will drop a small pile of money into a live account and run it live. I am monitoring the demo account on MyFxBook.com. Click the chart below for full stats.

Yet another account running Forex Set and Forget

I added a new account to MyFxBook.com...

This is a demo account that I started in December with just $300 to prove that Forex Set and Forget does work on an account that small, provided the broker allows trading of micros (0.01 standard lots).

--> Forex Set and Forget on MyFxBook.com

Incidentally, it is running Version 2.00 of Forex Set and Forget, which isn't available to the public yet. Version 2.00 will be available in early March or maybe even sooner. Join my mailing list (use the signup form on this page) and I will notify you when Version 2.00 becomes available for download.

Upgrades are free for life, so if you order 1.09 now (or already have 1.09) then you will be able to upgrade to the new version automatically.