This article is obsolete and no longer maintained.
Trading style: opens positions both long and short in a grid style, using martingale and creating a trade basket for each pair; the basket is closed when a target profit is reached.
Currency pairs: EURUSD, GBPUSD, EURJPY, EURGBP, USDCAD, AUDUSD, NZDUSD, USDJPY, AUDNZD
Timeframe: M30
Price: $379 + $39 quarterly
License: 3 live, 3 demo accounts
NFA compliance: no
Refund policy: 30 days, 110% of the price is refunded conditioned upon the EA failing to bring profits on a real or demo account
Read more at the Forex Envy website

Buy Forex Envy

Note: this expert advisor uses martingale money management and is inherently risky. There is a chance to completely wipe out an account which is greatly increased in case of improper use. It is strongly recommended to only use Forex Envy as recommended by the vendor. Furthermore, it is a good idea to aim to make withdrawals that amount to the sum of the deposit prior to any attempt to increase the account size. When using any martingale EA (except the strictly limited ones), it is also a good idea to withdraw regularly even after you recovered your initial deposit. Under no circumstances should one attempt to trade this EA with funding that doesn’t match the minimum recommended by the vendor for the selected brokerage. To illustrate the minimum starting balances with a leverage of 1:500 in some cases (more info on choosing a broker can be found in the members area on the Forex Envy website):

Account type Contract (lot) size Minimum lot & lot increment Minimum starting balance Broker examples
cent 100000 0.01 $360 (¢36000) Instaforex (0.1 min lot)
regular 1000 0.01 $360 Trading Point
regular 10000 0.01 $3600 LiteForex floating spread accounts, the old GO Markets L-Plate accounts
regular 100000 0.01 $36000 Most brokers nowadays
regular 100000 0.1 $360000 Some ECN brokers

Birt’s forward test

Settings: as provided by the vendor, long cycle only
Started: 12.03.2012
Stopped: 08.01.2013 (account wiped out)
Broker: PrivateFx
Account type: live, cent
Starting balance: $400 (¢40000)

Forex Envy live forward test

Official accounts

Settings: long & short cycle
Started: 11.04.2011
Broker: Instaforex
Account type: live, cent
Starting balance: ¢82842

Forex Envy official Instaforex live long/short cycle live account

Settings: long cycle only
Started: 11.07.2011
Broker: Instaforex
Account type: live, cent
Starting balance: ¢178751

Forex Envy official Instaforex live long cycle live account

Settings: long cycle only
Started: 11.07.2011
Broker: Trading Point
Account type: live
Starting balance: $90

Forex Envy official Trading Point live long cycle live account

Settings: power edition
Started: 26.03.2012
Broker: TradeFort
Account type: live
Starting balance: $5000
Note: this account is using Forex Envy Power Edition.

Forex Envy Power Edition official TradeFort live account

Backtests

One thing that sets Forex Envy apart from other martingale EAs is that the vendor acknowledges the risk and works together with each customer to create setting files tailored for their account, so all my backtests use the same starting balance and trading conditions as my live account and all the settings used below were those provided by the vendor in .set files unless otherwise mentioned. Due to the vendor’s concerns about piracy, the parameters were removed from the backtest reports. Version 2.1 was used in all backtests.

As you will see below, some of the backtests resulted in an account wipe. While that is a rare occurrence, the possibility of such an event is certainly not excluded. I’ll stress this once more: if you use Forex Envy, withdraw often.

When evaluating the results here, since the same starting lot was used throughout the backtests regardless of the increased balance, a realistic calculation of the drawdown should be performed by reporting the maximal drawdown figure to the initial balance of 40000.

Before we delve into the backtests, I would advise against opening the detailed statements in your browser due to their large size (some of them exceed 50 MB which can give your browser a major headache).

History center data

Just like my account, all history center data backtests have a commission of ¢5 per lot round-trip, which is why the spreads were configured a bit lower than I usually set them. I’ve tried to perform backtests on all currency pairs supported by the long cycle, but the history center data for NZDUSD was badly lacking (starting late and ending early) so I ended up skipping that currency pair. Speaking of which, backtesting currency pairs with a suffix using history center data can be quite a pain in the behind because one has to rename each HST file and edit the currency name in all of them.

EURUSD history center data

Forex Envy v2.1 1999-2012 EURUSD history center data backtest, spread 1.0, vendor's settings
Forex Envy v2.1 1999-2012 EURUSD history center data backtest, spread 1.0, vendor's settings

EURJPY history center data

Several drops throughout this one:

Forex Envy v2.1 1999-2012 EURJPY history center data backtest, spread 2.0, vendor's settings
Forex Envy v2.1 1999-2012 EURJPY history center data backtest, spread 2.0, vendor's settings

EURGBP history center data

Forex Envy v2.1 1999-2012 EURGBP history center data backtest, spread 1.5, vendor's settings
Forex Envy v2.1 1999-2012 EURGBP history center data backtest, spread 1.5, vendor's settings

USDCAD history center data

Forex Envy v2.1 1999-2012 USDCAD history center data backtest, spread 2.0, vendor's settings
Forex Envy v2.1 1999-2012 USDCAD history center data backtest, spread 2.0, vendor's settings

AUDUSD history center data

Forex Envy v2.1 1999-2012 AUDUSD history center data backtest, spread 2.0, vendor's settings
Forex Envy v2.1 1999-2012 AUDUSD history center data backtest, spread 2.0, vendor's settings

GBPUSD history center data

This is where I hit the first bump in the road. The EA is definitely not infallible but these “oops” moments seem to be very rare when running with the recommended settings.

Forex Envy v2.1 1999-2012 GBPUSD history center data backtest, spread 2.0, vendor's settings
Forex Envy v2.1 1999-2012 GBPUSD history center data backtest, spread 2.0, vendor's settings

USDJPY history center data

Second road bump.

Forex Envy v2.1 1999-2012 USDJPY history center data backtest, spread 1.0, vendor's settings
Forex Envy v2.1 1999-2012 USDJPY history center data backtest, spread 1.0, vendor's settings

AUDNZD history center data

Forex Envy v2.1 1999-2012 AUDNZD history center data backtest, spread 5.0, vendor's settings
Forex Envy v2.1 1999-2012 AUDNZD history center data backtest, spread 5.0, vendor's settings

Tick data

EURUSD tick data

This one had a hiccup in the middle:

Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 EURUSD tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings
Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 EURUSD tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings

EURJPY tick data

Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 EURJPY tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings
Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 EURJPY tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings

Since this one crashed, I figured I would test the BailOutPercent parameter and set it to 50 and here’s the result:

Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 EURJPY tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings with BailOutPercent 50
Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 EURJPY tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings with BailOutPercent 50

EURGBP tick data

Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 EURGBP tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings
Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 EURGBP tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings

USDCAD tick data

Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 USDCAD tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings
Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 USDCAD tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings

AUDUSD tick data

Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 AUDUSD tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings
Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 AUDUSD tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings

GBPUSD tick data

Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 GBPUSD tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings
Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 GBPUSD tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings

NZDUSD tick data

Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 NZDUSD tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings
Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 NZDUSD tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings

USDJPY tick data

Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 USDJPY tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings
Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 USDJPY tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings

AUDNZD tick data

Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 AUDNZD tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings
Forex Envy v2.1 2007-2012 AUDNZD tick data backtest, real spread, vendor's settings

Conclusion

Will Forex Envy end up crashing the account? Not excluded. However, I don’t think that will happen anytime soon as long as I’m following the vendor’s recommendations. I plan to withdraw regularly from my live forward test account, at least until matching the deposit size.