In the long term the system is "profitable" so long as the price bounces back from whatever journey it happens to be on; the system defaults (which are strongly recommended as THE settings to be used) has no stop loss and a 20 point take profit i.e. massive risk to make small returns. The FAPS often has MAE of hundreds of points. The system will automatically close all open trades at the end of the calendar month too, so sometimes these losses are realised too.
Before I decided to completely throw it in the bin, I did some testing to see how it works. It was pretty easy to figure out what all the settings "do" and to locate the "bogus" settings which don't have any affect whatsoever. The system basically uses the Bill Williams Profitunity system, modified slightly. The latest version throws in some MA computations and trading time limits - - no ground breaking rocket science here.
The system did give me a couple of ideas and some impulse to do some research; I now have a more heavily modified EA in testing that is very loosely based on Williams methods, with some of the features of FAPS, and a lot more functionality and trading logic. It appears to be OK, even in this topsy-turvy market. Time will tell.
Hope this helps.
wabbit
P.S. Before anyone asks, the EA is not for sale, so don't ask. Thanks.
P.P.S. A less-known side effect of FAPS: When you purchase the FAPS, this is just an invitation for you to join another "club" where the FAPS "secrets" will be revealed. There are various levels of membership - - all of them cost money. In essence, I suppose, the purchase of FAPS is just another marketing tool to get you to part with more $$$.
I'll continue to use it for the mean time until I find a better EA, any particular ones you recommend?
I have found FAP to be steady for the long term like you said... Not huge returns but better than nothing I guess...
Thanks for the tip for the end of month thing, didnt know that, I'll make sure no trades are open then!!
I am however finding their "Ultra Trend" extremely useful over 1m, 5m & 15m.
I have managed to increase profits by using my own "human" trades with the EA doing its thing on its own... Only down side, I have to sit and watch! LOL
I have tried a couple of other EA (Forex Funnel and Forex Tracer). Like most of these products being flogged, they have good looking backtesting results and promises of making millions without having to do any work whatsoever or even knowing how to place a trade. Most EA systems use Martingale position sizing algorithms, great when they are winning but the MAE when they are losing can be phenomenal; these two EA use Martingale. I have also tried a couple of other commercial EAs (the names escape me atm) but these were riddled with errors and failed to trade or crashed MT4 etc. I returned these for refunds. (If you want to see what other effects poorly written EAs have, see the MT4 automated trading championship at http://championship.mql4.com/2008/ and read some of the news articles.)
I still think the best way to trade FX is with some screen time and knowing what you are doing; in saying that, I also support my manual trades with some computational gymnastics, scripts and codes. As I mentioned in a previous post, these are at such a state that I am combining them all into an EA which is still in forward testing, but means that having already done the screen time, my EA will now do all the work for me; but it still does require supervision and the settings need to be reviewed from time to time. I don't think any EA can be left entirely on its own; mine is no exception.
If you want a hand getting an EA custom built - then let me know. It might have to wait until next year (I am going away for my annual three month holiday at end of Nov, back end of Feb '09).
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