Metatrader expert advisors dissected.
FxPapa live forward test
Trading style: grid limited to 3 trades, with the entries at 60 pips distance from each other, operating in an average-down style; it has a seemingly dynamic TP (10 pips overall in grid mode) and it also has an internal SL somewhere between 200-225 pips. It is possible to configure the maximum percentage of the account that is at risk.
Currency pairs: EURUSD, GBPUSD
Timeframe: H1
Price: $399
License: 1 live account (for the $399 license; 2 live accounts package available for $719; 4 live accounts package available for $1355)
NFA compliance: yes
Refund policy: none
Read more at the FxPapa website
Buy FxPapa
Note: this EA is based on a signal service.
Birt’s forward test
Settings: default, Risk_Percent 20
Started: 25.06.2012
Stopped: 30.11.2012 (the system has not traded for over 3 months and the vendor is no longer responding to emails)
Broker: PrivateFx
Account type: live, micro
Starting balance: $300
Current version: 4.1
Official account
Settings: default
Started: 16.11.2011
Broker: IBFX
Account type: live
Starting balance: $200
Backtests
Since this is a signal-based EA, backtesting is obviously not possible. The vendor has however posted a backtest in the Live Test section of the product website.
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#2 written by birt June 28, 2012 (10 months ago)
I was also studying that spike and I believe the reason it went past it without pausing was because the official account is running with a high Risk_Percent, probably 50-100. Anyway, assuming the account would’ve been running with a Risk_Percent of 20, it would’ve had a drawdown of 20% at that point. In hindsight, it becomes apparent that it would’ve recovered from that easily.
I’m not sure if they mentioned anywhere that their account was capped at a 20% risk, but there is an option in the EA that allows you to set such a cap. I set it to 20% on my account.
Finally, it’s worth mentioning that I was quite a naysayer when it came to FxPapa and its risk but now, some 5-6 months later, its live performance proved me wrong.
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#3 written by Roger June 29, 2012 (10 months ago)
Unless I’m mistaken, it was the older version of FxPapa that was running at 20% risk. The newer version is capped out at 15% risk (assuming you have high enough leverage). With a 50:1 leverage account, the maximum risk FxPapa will trade is 7.5% of equity — meaning that if all 3 trades continue to go south it will close them all out once your account has lost 7.5%.
By the way, I’ve been using FxPapa on my live IBFX account since February 1st, and I’ve been extremely happy with it so far. My results are a little different from the vendor’s, as the older version of the EA had a glitch in it which caused a few of the signals to be missed. It appears to have been fixed in the latest version though. My stats so far are…
99 trades
84 won (85%)
15 lost (15%)
+313 pipsI’ve hit one full equity SL on May 15th, and it’s taken about the last month and a half to recoup the losses. Hopefully it will be a while before we hit another one of those!
Cheers,
Roger-
#4 written by thibault July 5, 2012 (10 months ago)
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#6 written by Murray June 30, 2012 (10 months ago)
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#7 written by birt July 1, 2012 (10 months ago)
I was also curious about that so I searched for it among the 50+ pages of the myfxbook thread. You are correct, it was indeed extremely lucky – IBFX decreased their leverage to 1:10 without a prior notification which resulted in a much lower lot size that coincided with the trades that eventually evolved into a SL hit.
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#8 written by mariano July 2, 2012 (10 months ago)
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#10 written by Novam July 3, 2012 (10 months ago)
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#12 written by Dale July 5, 2012 (10 months ago)
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#13 written by birt July 6, 2012 (10 months ago)
“Educate” means crack it, in essence making it work without a valid license. It’s generally a very bad idea to run “educated” copies because sometimes they don’t trade like the original and you might end up with your account balance gone. In the particular case of Forex Envy, even if you do find such a copy, it’s an extremely bad idea to run it because the set files supplied by the vendor are tailored for the particular account type and balance/equity of each customer.
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#14 written by birt July 6, 2012 (10 months ago)
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#15 written by Dale July 8, 2012 (10 months ago)
Hi Birt – yes I have no intention to run a hacked version of an EA – I view it as stealing for one, and in any case way to risky as you say. Although I did try to decompile MDP to see the system in detail (from a facination with it in ‘its day’) but I didnt have much luck other than seeing it uses Bollinger Bands…
Thanks for the “Educate” lesson too – I had no idea what that meant!
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#16 written by Andrea July 6, 2012 (10 months ago)
Yes I agree with Birt 100%. I’ve been cracking video games for fun since they invented secureROM, I’ve been part of a group in Switzerland that made MS office a whole lot more affordable for many people and there’s some pretty heavy stuff out there today like Diablo III that uses a downloads parts of itself while you play to keep you from ever cracking it but the EA business is a whole other deal. If you’re going to hire someone or something to manage your capital you’re looking at something a lot more complex than a) I’ll pay 60 bucks and risk hating the game/program meaning I’ve lost 60$ or b) I’ll crack it and if it doesn’t work perfectly I still saved 60$ and enjoyed myself and can always pay for it later. You have absolute 100% sure way to know what EA is going to make you money that you can go and spend short of trading it. Unless you’re trading less than 100$ (and many EAs don’t like having so little cap) you’re risking a lot more by hacking it, namely you’re entire capital. On top of that many EAs offer refunds. Buy it and run it until the refund period ends, you might just make more than it cost you.
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#18 written by Andrea July 6, 2012 (10 months ago)
In case anyone is wondering about the strategy it’s quite simple : The TP is 8 pips. If trade goes to opposite direction for 60 pips the EA add another trade with same lot size and same direction and close both when the total net profit be 8 pips. If the trades still goes to another 60 pips loss FxPapa add the last trade with the same lot size and same direction and close all 3 trades when total net profit be more than 0. The added value is in the fact that they claim to know when not to trade it and when to trade it. I’m down 250 bucks from last week but the robot seems to be lose rarely and the live accounts reflects the loss as well so I’m guessing it’s a one off. More worring is the other EA they launched that seems to be about the same strategy… http://www.cyber-forex.com/?lan=EN&app_id=0011&pg_id=11&m_id=3 backtests are close and it just collapsed totally. I hate that I can’t backtest it… I think I’ll reduce my exposure to 1000 $…
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#19 written by birt July 6, 2012 (10 months ago)
I believe the exit strategy is different when there’s a single trade and the 8 pip TP only kicks in when there’s more than 1 trade.
Regarding cyber-forex, that’s the reason I delayed posting FxPapa for several months. I thought it’s the same EA (even the webpage is the same) and noticed that it failed so I dismissed it without a second thought. Turns out it’s different – it’s now limited and it performed rather well live so far. However, as Murphy would dictate, as soon as I started using it a SL was hit.
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#21 written by Andrea July 26, 2012 (9 months ago)
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#22 written by birt July 26, 2012 (9 months ago)
My forward test was stopped between 12.07-26.07, most likely because I forgot to restart it after updating or something like that, haven’t been able to figure out why.
Anyway, from what I see in the official account, there have been 6 winning trades since that loss. How come yours were losses? Perhaps you should check with support… Did you update to the latest version?
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#23 written by Andrea July 30, 2012 (9 months ago)
Nevermind, I’m a morron that’s the technical problem, it did win several trades since, it’s just it lost one other and wiped out most of it’s wins.
Still, 5% down over 2 months in this market it’s alright I guess. I was being emotional, I just hate the fact it hit a huge SL the day after I launched it… I never get the flu at the right time.
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#25 written by Andrea August 20, 2012 (9 months ago)
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#26 written by birt August 20, 2012 (9 months ago)
Well, ever since the latest update (the one that separated the currencies), it crashes extremely often, about once every 1-2 days (at least for me). Coincidentally, the trade frequency decreased dramatically after said update, so I can’t help but wonder if the vendor has the same problem on the master account.
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#28 written by Andrea August 28, 2012 (8 months ago)
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#29 written by birt August 28, 2012 (8 months ago)
That or a vacation… Bit of a coincidence if it’s a vacation, though. As I was saying in my first comment here, I was a bit reluctant when it came to FxPapa (mostly due to its similarity with another EA from the same vendor). Could be that I was right in the first place and then I was wrong to add it here when I noticed its performance kept up.
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#30 written by Andrea September 7, 2012 (8 months ago)
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#32 written by teuteux December 30, 2012 (4 months ago)
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#34 written by teuteux December 31, 2012 (4 months ago)
I MEAN ON YOUR LINK
http://eareview.net/best-forex-robot
WE CAN SEE IT’S STILL HAVE NO COMMENT IN RED
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- Comment Feed for this Post
Hi Birt, I researched this EA for a while, but I think its good to note that the backtest is missing entire months – so could be very likely rigged to show a better result.
Also, they stated that the risk was limited to a certain percent, however one day i noticed that the live account was in 30%DD, but managed to come back up before the day was over to only register an 18% DD (as they say drawdown will be capped to 20% on their risk setting).
So just a few warning signs for your readers.
Keep up the great work Birt.