Metatrader expert advisors dissected.
Smart FX Master Scalper live forward test
Trading style: around the clock scalping with news avoidance and volatility filters.
Currency pairs: EURAUD, EURCAD, EURCHF, EURGBP, USDJPY
Timeframe: M1
Expert Advisor price: $145 (or $195 as a combo pack with Smart FX Breakout Hunter which is priced at $95 on its own)
NFA compliance: full (multiple positions opened on occasion but in the same direction and closed according to the FIFO rules)
Refund policy: 30 days, conditioned upon the robot failing to bring profits in a live or demo account
Read more at the Smart FX Master Scalper website
Buy Smart FX Master Scalper
Birt’s forward test
Settings: default
Started: 31.10.2011
Broker: PrivateFx
Account type: live, micro
Starting balance: $300
Current version: 12.3
Official accounts
Smart FX Master Scalper MB Trading demo account
Settings: default
Started: 08.08.2011
Broker: MB Trading
Account type: demo
Leverage: 1:50
Starting balance: $10000
Smart FX Master Scalper & Breakout Hunter MB Trading live account
Settings: default
Started: 29.09.2011
Broker: MB Trading
Account type: live
Leverage: 1:50
Starting balance: $500
Smart FX Master Scalper & Breakout Hunter Pepperstone demo account
Settings: default
Started: 06.10.2011
Broker: MB Trading
Account type: demo
Leverage: 1:50
Starting balance: $10000
Smart FX Master Scalper & Breakout Hunter Pepperstone demo account
Settings: default
Started: 17.08.2011
Broker: MB Trading
Account type: demo
Leverage: 1:50
Starting balance: $10000
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#4 written by Noi November 20, 2011 (1 year ago)
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#5 written by birt November 20, 2011 (1 year ago)
Good question. Thanks for notifying me, I had not noticed the issue. On the 13th I upgraded to v7.1.8 and I assume that’s when it happened. Strangely, I used all the defaults just as before and looking at it now, the money management settings appear to be in order. I will email the vendor for more information.
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#6 written by birt November 20, 2011 (1 year ago)
Turns out it was my mistake. I was supposed to use the special set files when upgrading (due to the 10k lot size) but I had forgotten. The author was very quick to provide the answer and I corrected the issue. Thanks once more for pointing it out.
Note: SmartFX Breakout Hunter was affected by the same issue.
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#7 written by Robert_4_Smart_Fx_Technology November 21, 2011 (1 year ago)
Hello Traders,
As Birt points out, the issue that kept trades at 0.01 lots since Nov. 14th was the 10k contract size of the account used. We have the same issue in our own Real Account with MB Trading.
The EAs include presets to take care of this difference for traders who use brokers with 10k contracts, which are not many. The vast majority of traders use brokers who use 100k standard contracts and do not need to worry about this issue.
If you have this or other questions, just post it here or contact us thru our website so we can help out. -
#8 written by reenato November 22, 2011 (1 year ago)
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#9 written by Robert_4_Smart_Fx_Technology November 22, 2011 (1 year ago)
Hello Reenato,
That is a good account balance for either the Master Scalper alone, or the Combo Pack, which includes the Breakout Hunter.
However I would allow the Money Manager to determine the lot sizes automatically, instead of setting fixed lot sizes. Each pair has its own setting. Some of them trade harder than others, depending on their SL size, so that no one of the pairs overwhelms the group. This way they tend to hedge each other; when one has a rough day the other pairs tend to help out, provided the losing pair was trading lot sizes that were proportionate to the others. -
#10 written by alyddd November 23, 2011 (1 year ago)
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#13 written by Robert_4_Smart_Fx_Technology November 26, 2011 (1 year ago)
The Breakout Hunter and the Master Scalper tend to hedge each other in unusual market conditions. If we have very strong rallies, we have the BH making up for flat performance in the MS, and in normal, the MS is the main pip maker.
The last few weeks have seen markets favorable to the MS mainly.
Using the combination may at times cut down a bit on overall profitability but it minimizes the drawdown in tough market conditions.-
#14 written by Dom December 13, 2011 (1 year ago)
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#15 written by Tony November 26, 2011 (1 year ago)
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#17 written by Tony November 26, 2011 (1 year ago)
Most of the developers we have talked to seem to be nice and very helpful. That is a good start for any system, whether manual or automatic.
Never heard of the Pepperstone brokerage.
These systems deserved a lot of attention. So far, they seem to be working quite well. Time will tell if they are the real thing.
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#18 written by DaveW November 27, 2011 (1 year ago)
I really like these EA’s and the team from SmartFX – they have been very helpful. I have been running the master scalper and breakout hunter for a few weeks live now (slight interruption due to VPS issue). Master Scalper has been doing well but I have suspended Breakout Hunter on Live for a while as it hasn’t been performing well – not horrendous but giving back scalper profits.
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#21 written by Robert_4_Smart_Fx_Technology December 8, 2011 (1 year ago)
That is the normal trading pattern of our EAs.
Most of the times it opens 2 simultaneous positions, with few exceptions such as some spikes in price. If you open the “comments” tab you will find them labeled “M1 and M5″, although all calculations are done within the M1 chart data feed.
This forces a certain behavior in the EA. In some cases we can choose to look at the trading channel from different time perspectives, such as shorter and longer term channel. This is particularly important for the volatility filters as well, who scan for behavior abnormality in the short, medium and long term, sometimes up the a few hours away.
The total lot size of the trade is the sum of these two positions.
In some pairs a third one will open a few pips apart (EurAud and EurCad) and it will be labeled M15.
When closing at win or loss, they all close at the same time. -
#22 written by albatore December 21, 2011 (1 year ago)
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#23 written by birt December 21, 2011 (1 year ago)
They take ages, I don’t really want to do that again. I ran 3 backtests and stopped them after several days; they were about halfway. What I can tell you is that Master Scalper is optimized for 2008+ (I asked the vendor about it) and its backtest performance prior to the crisis is not as good as the performance after.
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#24 written by Robert_4_Smart_Fx_Technology December 22, 2011 (1 year ago)
We have optimized the Master Scalper for the markets we have seen after the 2008 crisis.
Before 2008 the market was much quieter (carry-trade days) and those parameters no longer apply. In the last 3 years we keep going from debt crisis to credit downgrades, you name it, it’s been much more volatile (and profitable) than before 2008.
We used to trade an earlier version of the same EA before the crisis, with smaller TP and SL values, but we needed to update them after 2008 to stay up with the market changes, since in the last 3 years the trading channels and overall volatility have been much larger. This extra volatility is very desirable in Forex, since it is what allows profitable trading in the first place, but you need to be in sync with it.
So if you want meaningful backtesting of our EAs, stick with post 2008, because they have changed since then.
The last updates have mainly been about adding new features, like the automated News Filter. Incidentally, this is something that cannot be backtested, because the Forex Factory site only has the current week available. So any backtest will be still missing the positive influence of skipping the News Reports volatility, which is detrimental to scalping. But even backtesting without the News Filter will give you a good picture of the strategy’s results. (In the latest version, to backtest please turn off the News Filter).
The backtests posted on our website also do not have the News Filter effect reflected and still look great. They were made using MB Trading data harvested over the years by our own Real account MT4s which we have been trading with. We do not use any historical data not harvested by ourselves from our broker’s real account.
In the last update the trading parameters themselves also had small changes, making the TP and SL a bit smaller again, as the markets have regained somewhat quieter volatility patterns during our scheduled trading hours. This were the only changes made to the trading parameters in the last 3 years. They were meant to give us similar profitability with less drawdown, since with quieter markets we no longer needed the somewhat larger Stop Loss values used in 2009 and 2010.
If the calm markets we had before the financial crisis ever return (good luck on that), or if they change in any other meaningful way, we will once again adapt to the changes and issue free updates, as needed. -
#25 written by albatore December 22, 2011 (1 year ago)
Thanks for your answer,
could you perform better backtest quality, yours are only 25% modelling quality.
We would love to see 99% backtest. Birt why some EAs take so long to backtest like this one ?
For Robert, could you please give us some more details on the money management embedded with the EA ?
thanks !-
#26 written by birt December 22, 2011 (1 year ago)
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#27 written by Robert_4_Smart_Fx_Technology December 22, 2011 (1 year ago)
Backtesting on M1 data can only give the 25% quality you see in our backtests when the smallest TF of your historical data is M1. When compared to the Real account forward tests run on the same broker, they are remarkably similar in every way.
If you want to run the EA and force it to show better than 25%, you could run the backtest on M5, but the results would not be so accurate, even though the MT4 would give it a better score! The MT4 believes that if you have data available for a timeframe smaller than the one tested, it is doing a better job interpolating the values of the price action. But if your trading TF is M1, you should stick to that, even though there is no smaller TF for the MT4 to look at, and in spite of the 25% rating. Those are the best results you will get for M1 data testing.Our Money Management determines the lot sizes as a percentage of the Free Margin in the account.
Since we trade many pairs, we use different percentages, mostly proportional to the profit/loss ratio of each pair, so that we keep the pairs working as a group, and trying to avoid having one pair hurt the performance of the group if it has a bad day.
The MM is assuming that your account is set to 100:1 or less, and the percentages that we use trade conservatively, making sure that losses never exceed 3% of the account balance. -
#28 written by Robert_4_Smart_Fx_Technology December 30, 2011 (1 year ago)
Following inquires from forum readers, I thought it would be useful to post these remarks on backtesting our EAs:
- Turn the News Filter to False, since it would give you all kinds of mistakes, when it backtests at all.
- Turn IgnoreDateFilter= False, since a 3 years test that bypasses the same Date, on the wrong year, is just inaccurate.
- Turn “SeparateStops”= False, it will save you a lot of time in the backtest.
- To make the report accurate you need also to allow for Daylight Savings time. The winter time, where we are now (trading times:19:30 to 23:59 gmt is a winter schedule, the DST schedule is 18:30 to 22:59 gmt) is wrong in a multi-year test, since two thirds of the year are on DST.
While the best would be to make independent tests for each time season, if you want to run a multi-year test you need to use the DST schedule, so at least you would be accurate 2/3 of the months. Otherwise you would make March thru Novermber of your 3 years backtest, trade right thru the Australian reports time – definitely not a scalping time. You need to test it to one hour before, according to DST schedule, and trading the proper scalping session. The winter months will have less trading hours, but at least will not conflict with the Australian/Japanese reports schedule.
If you need more info on how to backtest our robots, please contact us by email.-
#29 written by birt January 9, 2012 (1 year ago)
I was 5 days into 2 backtests when you posted that
Had to stop them because I didn’t turn off the IgnoreDateFilter.Anyway, I decided to refrain from backtesting Master Scalper since a 2008-2011 backtest takes some 7 days and it’s quite inconclusive seeing that the news filter is not active in the backtest.
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#30 written by alex19771977 February 11, 2012 (1 year ago)
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#31 written by birt February 11, 2012 (1 year ago)
I’m not going to do any. I gave up, they take way too long – one week or more per backtest. Plus, ever since I moved I get a weekly power spike that lasts long enough to outlast my UPSes.
birt:
They take ages, I don’t really want to do that again. I ran 3 backtests and stopped them after several days; they were about halfway. What I can tell you is that Master Scalper is optimized for 2008+ (I asked the vendor about it) and its backtest performance prior to the crisis is not as good as the performance after.
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#32 written by Tomas February 25, 2012 (1 year ago)
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#33 written by birt February 25, 2012 (1 year ago)
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#34 written by steve April 24, 2012 (1 year ago)
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#35 written by birt April 26, 2012 (1 year ago)
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#36 written by ASD April 24, 2012 (1 year ago)
I would not say the EA is shit, but neither is it any good. In order to just get the purchase price you would need a five figure account, a lot of patience and some luck thrown in.
It is recommended by the vendors to run with the breakout hunter for the hedging capabilities but this doesn’t save it from being a consistently poor perfomer even using the venodors recommended broker and a decent VPS. This EA has a lot of ‘groupies’ on the forums who understandably are a fan of the developers excellent attitude but if they took their blindfolds off they would realise there are easier ways in life to make a few dollars such as online questionnaires or working at a fast food place which would both give far better returns than this.
p.s beware of the ‘groupies’ who will use their mantra ‘give it more time’. This thing would need a couple of light years to make anything. -
#37 written by Dave May 5, 2012 (1 year ago)
Tried the master scalper for a little over a month and it continued to deplete my account. Sent statment to the vendor and requested a refund showing all the losses and they denied it stating I wasn’t using default settings even though I was. Escalated via paypal and they decided in their favor. Another wasted $145.00, don’t waste any time or money on this one.
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#38 written by Robert_4_Smart_FX_Technology May 5, 2012 (1 year ago)
Our Money Back Guarantee covers trading done using “default settings” only. We cannot be responsible for changes made to the program, or improper trading settings.
We have 24 hours tech support that can look into traders accounts, in case there is a doubt regarding any aspect of the trading.
Dave did not receive a refund because he did not trade the EA in the default settings. He overtraded a very small account using fixed lots that were about 5 times larger than the Money Manager would have used in our default settings.
He has repeatedly refused to submit the proper account information, including the basic starting and closing balance. This information would clearly show the improper trading settings.
In the month of trading his account traded less than half the number of trades that we can see in this site’s forward test. Trading such large lots did not allow the rest of the daily trades to take place, changing the performance of the EA.
We offered to help, but found no cooperation. We are still expecting the full Account History, containing even the basic information of the Account balance!
Anyone interested can get a copy of the emails between the two parties, so you can see for yourself. -
#39 written by Dave May 6, 2012 (1 year ago)
You are incorrect and making excuses to avoid the refund. The settings were not changed as I explained numerous times. The EA says not to change anything ( Do not modify – READY TO TRADE ) and has over 100 settings so, why would I change anything? What exactly would I change anyway? All 3 of my accounts were setup the same with the automatic installer and nothing was changed in the settings (NOTHING) it’s all automatic which is a good thing, the statement I sent you was from the period I used this EA and shows my smallest account starting at $700.00 which should have been fine by the instructions, the other two accounts are $4900 and also consistently lost, same lot sizes were traded on those were being traded also as well so I am confused why you mention fixed lot sizes. The EA seems to trade at only .05 for some reason with Gallant and IBFX. Anyway, I do not believe there is no one making any profits off this EA. The win ration reported by the vender is 80%, this is definitely a false statement. This EA is a loser however, anyone wanting my copy is welcome to it. Why would anyone want a refund that is making money of of an EA?
Sending anything more to you will obviously be a waste of time as you will continue to nit pick my statement to death and say I modified something or did not do something correct.
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#40 written by Robert_4_Smart_FX_Technology May 6, 2012 (1 year ago)
Dave, that is exactly the issue: How can an EA on auto Money Manager trade the same lots on two different accounts, one with $700 and another one with $4900. The EAs money manager trades a percentage of the available balance. Clearly your Money Manager is turned off.
If you go to the sample here on Birt’s test, you will see that all trades have different lot sizes. If yours is not using different lot sizes, depending on the pair and on the account balance, something is wrong. All your trades are 0.05 lots, regardless of the pair, regardless of which account!
I have offered to help you, and continue to offer, and all I get from you is that it is our fault. I can do a remote assistance session to find out why your setup is not trading correctly.
I never denied your refund, Paypal did, since they do not issue refunds to virtual product such as downloads.
I only said that the refund would only be due if you provide the complete Account History and only if the trading was done correctly, using default settings, including Money Management, which clearly is not. -
#41 written by Del January 7, 2013 (4 months ago)
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#42 written by Robert_4_Smart_FX_Technology January 7, 2013 (4 months ago)
The year was not easy trading the euro.
However some clients with a good broker did ok as we can see here:http://www.myfxbook.com/members/egraham/mb-smartfx/179302
I think that 50% profit in one year, considering the euro nightmares, is nothing to sneer at.
But you do need a top notch ECN broker to beat these markets. -
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for sure ,the scalper strategy seems to be a winner here,almost perfect scalping with all the features it offers,this is like wallstreet improved 100 % with differents good scalping pairs