Gaining Money From The Forex Market With Automated Expert Advisors (Forex Bots)
The most extensively recognised and used bots aren’t commonly called bots at all, but Expert Advisors or EAs. These are the little programs developed inside the popular MetaTrader4 (or MT4) trading infrastructure used mainly for transactions in currency trading (or forex or fx). As you can see, this area of expertise is awash with buzzwords, so I’ll try to explain it as I go. The beauty of the forex market, from a bot owner’s point of view is that it runs continuously from Sunday evening to Friday evening, allowing the Expert advisor to monitor the markets continuously during this period, whether you are present at your computer or not. It will open a trade within parameters you set in advance, and exit again without your involvement when a pre-set gain or loss has been made. An example of a trade might be to buy the EURUSD currency pair, on the understanding that the Euro is about to rise against the dollar. Many EAs are available without charge from the specialist retail forex forums. The Baby Pips site is particularly commended for general orientation of new traders. If an EA is getting good reviews from established members of a forum, the chances are that it is safe to try and is probably a better option than a low-cost purchase from a brightly-coloured sales page. Wherever you source your EA, the most important thing to ensure before you let it loose on your account is that you have set the stop loss to the maximum you are prepared to lose on a single trade (which should normally be a small percentage of your total bankroll). So as not to leave their computers running non-stop, or to avoid arguments with the rest of the family, many forex traders subscribe to a Virtual Private Server or VPS service, where your expert advisor operates on a sublet computer in a distant data center. This allows you to check in on its progress whenever you feel like it, but switch off your local computer in between. Numerous people make a living out of using EAs for fx trading, and many others supplement their income in this way, or dedicate a part of their investment budget to this higher risk but potentially high return pastime. But the learning curve is steep and there are many people making money from selling worthless Expert advisors to new traders, so it is best to do your research before diving in.
Dedicated to the tracking down of all of the most profitable bots and money-making software on the web, Mark has been documenting his ups and downs since May 2009 at The Botfarm. For more detail on forex EAs (and other bots), take a look at archived posts in The Botfarm. If you are short of time and just want to see a summary of recommendations, consult the short list of the very Best of the Bots
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