The issue isnt just your EA, it is also your Broker.

[ZakTrading]

Hi, after almost a year i have decided to move away from Trading. i didn't put in a lot of money but still it was quiet some money so i am still not happy with this outcome for obvious reasons.

Anyhow, the EA you are going to make, assuming that the market works in an inherently coherent way(Patterns or models) and there isn't huge competition in this market(Currency Exchange bureau's or banks), it is still not enough for you to be successful.

The truth is your broker isn't really your friend, they will do what works best for them. they will not necessarily steal your money but they will surely open or close some trades in undesired price levels and put the blame on the unavailability of the price.

further inquiries with the customer service will lead you to nowhere. if you want to make profit in this market you would need insider contacts or information. which is what the successful ones are doing but are not telling.

Also if you are relying on technical analysis alone then you are clearly, clearly still on the deep end of Plato's cave.

Technical Analysis is simply the cherry on top of the real fundamental analysis.

well that's about it. now i just don't know what to do with all this knowledge that i have gathered.
what do you guys suggest ? become another trading guru for the newbies and make a buck with it or what ?

[jstap]

There are useless brokers, there are people who want to make money from teaching, rather than trading, and there are profitable traders, nearly every penny you lose goes into someone else's pocket, and the broker makes nearly nothing.

[l'andorrà]

I've been there many time for many years. However, I agree with jstap. All lost money goes to some trader. They are those who make money. My suggestions is that you take some time and then move back when you fell fine. Trading is a marathon, not a sprint. I hope this helps.

[seb 0]

@ZakTrading
The issue is manly the EA. As brokers of No Dealing Desk type are supposed to not intervene in the transaction process, how could they manipulate the price ?

There is no "market coherence" that depends on the fact that patterns are conserved. On the contrary, a perfectly efficient market would offer no recurring pattern, and would be impossible to predict. Patterns are like the reflect of a replicating estimation bias. Indeed the increase of competition make it harder to predict the price, but it is also more rewarding. It's harder to find a good pattern, but once you have found one it is better conserved. That's why the most performants EAs operate also on the most traded(competitive) instruments like : the EURUSD.

I think the best EAs today are relying solely on the technical analysis. Because the price series offer a great data base(quantitatively and maybe also qualitatively as it is pretty normalized) the learning models can learn on. Considering price series only(technical analysis) and ignoring fundamental analysis, still allows for an almost infinite, potential predictive capacity.

[JayPhillbrooks]

I will put my 2 cents in because I think about this stuff a lot and build my EA's with this stuff in mind. I will mainly address the insider information part and technical vs fundamental. Sure there are people utilizing insider information an making profit but to say that it's what you need to be successful, I think that's an excuse for coming up short. You can't believe that while at the same time champion fundamentals. If there is insider information that is based on fundamentals, it's more likely that information was exchanged weeks if not months beforehand. By the time you read any reports which is a known fact that they are delayed, is the information really all that useful enough to put on a position and if you decide to, what technical basis are you using? I personally don't use fundamentals because I'm mentally slow when I see all that jargon and I'm skeptical of any public process, technique, report, or indicator that says '' Hey, X currency is looking bullish/bearish'' and from that moment the masses can put on a trade and all become Bill Gates afterwards. That's my issue with fundamentals and there are levels to how effective fundamentals are and people discuss them as if every fundamental event is huge. Same with technicals. ''I trade support and resistance'' or '' I use Fibonacci'' or '' I'm a breakout trader '' Okay. How often does it work? Do you have an edge that identifies a high likelihood that it's about to work or are you in the market everyday taking every bounce, retracement, or breakout? With all that being said, fundamentals and technicals both have a place, they just don't work all the time and if they do the question becomes how big of a move did it allow and how far did it go against before progressing. There needs to be an edge to complement them in order to be successful. As far as brokers, I'm just not a fan of ones that have rules that don't fit how I trade and they lay it out up front so I avoid them. I don't know if they manipulate price or how and I don't care. Whether they do or not, I went in with the belief that they aren't our friends. There are no friends in a sea of trillions transactions a day.