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. :-)