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I’d like to start today’s newsletter with some more information about the “Forex Robot World Cup”.

Based on the affiliate information I was given, this product will launch on 16 February 2010 and the price of it will be $999. For that price you will get the top 5 robots from the competition, together with detailed instructions etc. Do I think this is worth buying? I’m not sure yet..they claim that only a limited number of copies will be released, but I’m fairly certain that the best approach would still be to wait a few days and see what others think of it.

I’ll send some final comments about this next Monday before they launch, but in the meantime you can grab a copy of the 40 page pdf they are giving away on the Forex Robot World Cup Homepage. I just read though it and it contains some very interesting insights into this competition and the history of Forex robots.

Here are my trading results for last week.

1. Manual Trading

(Using the Trading in the Buff the method on my live Account at IBFX)

I had 2 very succesfull trades with the Trading in the Buff method this week and made a net profit of about 100 pips. I’m slowly learning to resist the urge to over trade and only take the very best of setups and I’m very impressed by the reliability of this system so far. I’m looking forward to trading this method in the future.This week I also took 2 trades using the daily Pin bar strategy from Hector Deville’s

Learn Forex Live Course. Both trades works out perfectly, but due to poor money management I ended up making a net loss across the 2 trades. I personally believe that this is one of the best ways to trade “end of day” charts, but it will definitely take some practice.Overall I am about 5% in the red with my manual trades after the first month, but I’ve made a ton of mistakes and learned a heck of a lot in the process, so I’m actually very happy with the results. My plan is to keep testing and develop a detailed manual trading strategy using the above systems that I can give to my subscribers to reduce the learning curve they have to go through themselves.

2. Robot Testing in Live Accounts

I’m still waiting for my tax clearance to go through and will hopefully start my real money testing of Fap Turbo and Forex Megadroid sometime this week. The amount of red tape required invest $1000 overseas is rather shocking in this country.

3. Robot Testing in Demo Accounts

Forex Megadroid (With Aggresive=False and RiskLevel=0.30): Made 2 winning trades and no losers last week for a profit of 1.80%. The overall profit is now just under 4% since I restarted my demo testing 3 weeks ago. This robot is still as consistent as ever.

Fap Turbo (Using Settings From Fap Turbo Expert Guide): Made 6 winning trades and 1 losing trade last week for a profit of 2%. After 3 weeks of testing for 2010, Fap Turbo is now 6.75% in profit.

Forex Godfather: After sorting out my Forex Godfather setup it finally made its first trade, but unfortunately this trade made a loss of 140 pips, so the overall account is now in the red by -9.4%. Based on its past performance, this robot can be back in profit with just one 200 pip winning trade, so I definitely won’t write it off just yet.

FX Broker Buster: Made 6 winning trades and 1 losing trade to end up at roughly breakeven for the week. After 3 weeks of demo testing this robot is now -4.7% in the red. The results so far has been unimpressive, but I’ll give it some more time to prove itself.

USDBOT: My USDBOT setup at FXDD wasn’t trading, but after installing the update that Mark Trenton sent out on Wednesday it has made 2 profitable trades and the account is now just under 2% in profit. Mark and his team have been very supportive and they definitely seem to be committed to the long term success of their product.

4. Robot That I’ve Stopped Testing

Please visit the Live Testing Page for more details on each of the robots that I have stopped testing.

Before I give you the results for last week, I just want to make some comments about the Forex Robot World Cup, something that I’m sure you have heard a lot about.

Like many others, I have followed this competition with interest over the past 2 months and while the performance of the winning EA seemed a bit too erratic to me, there were some contestants that really impressed me (like the HiRider EA that came second). The important thing to note about this competition is that it was no charity event for the benefit of traders..the sole purpose of the Forex Robot World Cup was to make a lot of money for it’s owners. The competition created a LOT of hype and expectation and they will now sell the winning EA’s to thousands of eager traders. I don’t want to sound negative, but I had to mention the reality behind all this hype. I’m not sure when they will launch the product and what the final price will be, but I will definitely let you know if I hear any news.

Here are my trading results for last week.

1. Manual Trading

(Using the Trading in the Buff the method on my live Account at IBFX)

On the manual trading side I had a much better week than the previous one. I only took two Trading in the Buff setups on the 4Hour charts and both worked out perfectly. Overall my manual trading account is still in the red by about 5%, but it’s been quite a learning curve and I’m happy with the results of my first 3 weeks of trading. I knew the first month would be a bumpy ride, but if I can be consistently profitable by month 3, I will be very excited.

I also started trading with the daily pin bar strategy that Hector Deville teaches in his Learn Forex Live Course, so there will hopefully be some results on this one by next week as well. Hector is a brilliant coach and if you are looking for a comprehensive Forex course that teaches you a number of trading strategies, then I’nn definitely recommend this one over anything else that I’ve seen on the market.

2. Robot Testing in Live Accounts

I’m still waiting for my tax clearance to go through and will hopefully start my real money testing of Fap Turbo and Forex Megadroid in the 1st week of February.

3. Robot Testing in Demo Accounts

Forex Megadroid (Using default settings with a RiskLevel of 0.30): Had only one breakeven trade last week and the overall profit for 2010 is still at 2% after 2 weeks of testing. New users were dissapointed with the lack of trading last week, but there were a lot of high impact news last week and I’m sure that Megadroid stayed out of the markets because of the high volatility. This is what makes this so safe to use.
Fap Turbo (Using Settings From Fap Turbo Expert Guide):It looks like I made a mistake when I stated that Fap Turbo made a 0.5% profit last week..it actually made a loss of 5%..not sure how I made such a big error. However, this week Fap Turbo traded no less than 43 times and it made a profit of 11% for the weel, so the overall account is now 4.63% in profit for 2010. I’m not even trading USDCHF yet, so this amount of trading activity is quite impressive.

Forex Godfather: So far I’ve had no closed trades for Forex Godfather in 2010, but I found out last week that this was because of an error in my Metatrader setup. The EA is running again and it is currently in an open trade, so hopefully I will have some results to report on next week.
FX Broker Buster: Had its second losing week in a row with a loss of 3.19%. This puts the overall account at a loss of 4.48% after 2 weeks of testing. It’s still too early to make any conclusions about this robot, so I’ll give it at least another 2 weeks to prove itself.

USDBOT: Since installing USDBOT on Tuesday I’ve only had two very small winning trades, so there is not much to report on yet. They did release a new version today, so I’ll try that for a day or two and if I don’t see some action I will consider switching over to the hourly charts or a different broker (as recommended by Mark Trenton). I’ve had a lot of good feedback from other USDBOT users though, so things are looking quite good for this robot so far.

4. Robots That I’ve Stopped Testing

Please visit the Live Testing Page for more details on each robot that I’ve stopped testing.

Before I give you the results for last week’s trading, I’d like to mention a new robot that I’m very interested in. It’s called USDBOT and it’s launching tomorrow morning at 9am EST. Like me, I’m sure you have already received a number of promotional emails about it. I promised myself that I won’t buy Forex robots on a whim this year, but there’s a couple of things that I really like about this launch so far..

The first thing I like is the fact that they show real live accounts on the USDBOT Homepage. This is already a good sign to me, because it shows that the creators have faith in their product (provided that the statements are not faked of course). The second thing that I really like is that you can also buy the actual trading strategy that this robot uses and manually trade it if yourself. They don’t advertise this yet, but the creator of the system (Mark Trenton) told me that this will be one of the optional addons when you buy the robot. If this is true then it’s definitely a first..that level of transparency is highly unusual when it comes to Forex robots.

I’ll send another email after I’ve purchased my copy tomorrow, but in the meantime you can get more information about this robot on the USDBOT Homepage.

Here are my trading results for last week.

1. Manual Trading

(Using the Trading in the Buff the method on my live Account at IBFX)

It’s been a tough week for manual trading, mainly because of my own poor decisions and trading mistakes. I seem to have violated every golden rule of trading last week, including over trading, letting my emotions influence my decisions and just plain bad judgment. Just because I was eager to trade I took a number of trades that I shouldn’t have taken and when those didn’t work out I took some more to try and make up for the losses. I ended up wiping out all my profits from previous weeks and my overall manual trading result is now at -10%. The good news is that I’ve learned some valuable lessons in the process and I’m eager to start fresh this week with a new plan of action. I’m still happy that the Trading in the Buff method is very accurate, so I’m not discouraged at all. It’s been a long time since I’ve traded manually and I didn’t expect things to go smooth from the start, so we’ll see how it goes from here.

2. Robot Testing in Live Accounts

I’m still waiting for my tax clearance to go through and will hopefully start my real money testing of Fap Turbo and Forex Megadroid in the 1st week of February.

3. Robot Testing in Demo Accounts

While waiting for my live accounts to be funded, I decided to restart my forward tests of Fap Turbo and Forex Megadroid, just just to see what the current performance is like.The results for last week were as follows:

Forex Megadroid (Using default settings with a RiskLevel of 0.30): Made 2 profitable trades last week for a profit of 2%.

Fap Turbo (Using Settings From Fap Turbo Expert Guide): Made a number of great trades last week, but a stop loss that was hit on USDCAD wiped out most of the profits for the week and the account ended up only 0.5% in profit.

Forex Godfather: Still no trades since I switched it back on 2 weeks ago. I’ll double check my settings, but this is not necessarily a problem, because as we have seen last year, this robot goes after large moves of up to 200 pips.

FX Broker Buster: Placed 8 trades in its first week of testing and closed the week with a loss of 1%. I’m quite impressed with the way this robot trades and I look forward to seeing what the next couple of weeks will deliver.

4. Robots That I’ve Stopped Testing

Please visit the Live Testing Page for more details on each robot that I’ve stopped testing.

1. Manual Trading (Using the Trading in the Buff the method on my live Account at IBFX)

I learned a valuable lesson this week - never ignore the news! On Monday I entered a trade on USDCAD without first checking the Forex calendar and this turned out to be a big mistake. A major announcement affecting CAD was made soon thereafter and the USDCAD price whipsawed all over the place, resulting in a 50 pip loss for me. Luckily I had some good trades the rest of the week and recovered most of those losses. If I had been more careful I could have easily had another 5% week, but because of my own mistakes I ended up making a 1% loss. Despite of the losing week I am still 3.5% in profit after 2 weeks and the 10% profit target is definitely not out of reach. I am still developing my own strategy with this method, but once I have some more experience I will put together a bonus guide with my exact entry and exit strategies etc.

2. Robot Testing in Live Accounts

It’s been a frustrating week for me in this regard. Due to what can only be called a “series of unfortunate events”, I won’t be able to start my real money testing of Fap Turbo and Forex Megadroid before the 1st week of February. The reason for this is simply that it will take 2 weeks to get the tax clearance in place that my bank requires before they will do an overseas wire transfer to fund my accounts. For now I guess I’ll just have to be patient with this.

3. Robot Testing in Demo Accounts

On the demo testing side things didn’t go much better last week, because all my Alpari demo accounts were deactivated for no apparent reason. I’m not sure if this is something they do every new year, but I’ve lost all my demo account statements and had to re-start my robot testing in brand new accounts. So as of today we are starting with a clean slate, which is perhaps not such a bad thing. For the moment, I have Forex Godfather, Fap Turbo and Forex Megadroid running on demo accounts and none of them have made any trades yet.

This week I spent a lot of time researching new robots and after a lot of consideration I have decided to purchase FX Broker Buster. I have had some good feedback about this robot and the results reported by their customers seem to match the live accounts that they display on the FX Broker Buster homepage, so I am interested to see how this one performs. If you have purchased this robot, please let me know how you have found it. I’ll postpone this purchase for a day or so, just in case I receive different information in response to this.

4. New Products

There has been a number of big launches the past week, but the one that really caught my eye was the Powerband Dominator System by Dean Saunders. I’m a fan of Dean’s systems and I know him personally, so I’m always curious when he launches something new. I don’t think I’ll be able to do extensive testing with this system soon, but I had a quick look at it and it definitely looks very good.

5. Robot That I’ve Stopped Testing

Please visit the Live Testing Page for more details on all the robots I have tested so far.

1. Manual Trading

After announcing that I will test both the Trading in the Buff and the Black Dog Forex systems, I soon realized that testing two new systems at the same time can be quite confusing. I really want to keep things as simple as possible, so I decided to start with the Trading in the Buff method (which is the one I’m most excited about) and leave the Black Dog system for a bit later.

For the Trading in the Buff method things were off to quite a good start. I took 2 trades so far and made a profit of 90 pips for the week, resulting in a 4.5% gain for the account. This was in my live account, trading with real money. Both trades worked out exactly as planned, so I’m very happy with the progress so far. I’ve had some questions about how exactly I trade this method, so here are some basic details for those who are interested:

I like to trade the hourly chart and 4 hour charts, because this gives me a couple of good setups every week. Once a valid 1-2-3 formation is formed according to the rules in the course, I wait for price to return to the area where the support/resistance is expected to be and then enter the market. My profit target is the other side of the “black hole” as defined in the e-book and my stop loss is on the other side of the first bar of the 1-2-3 formation. I don’t use a fixed stop loss, but wait for price to actually close below or above these levels before closing a trade with a loss. Please send me an email if you need any more information on this.

2. Robot Testing in Live Accounts

This week I opened two live accounts to begin the real money testing of Fap Turbo and Forex Megadroid. For Fap Turbo I opened an account with Gallant FX (the broker that Rob Casey has a special relationship with) and for Forex Megadroid I opened an account with Alpari UK (where I’ve done most of my Megadroid testing). In order to compare the two robots head-to-head, I’ve decided to fund each account with $500 of starting capital. This is about double than I initially intended to start with, but it’s the minimum that Gallant FX requires and I really wanted to start the two robots with the same amounts.

Both of the accounts have been approved already, but unfortunately it’s a bit of a lengthy process to fund the accounts from where I live (South Africa). It will take another 7-10 days before any live trades can be placed, so please bear with me while I go through all the red tape required by the banks. Hopefully my account will be funded and ready to go by next week. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t quite excited about this live testing project.

3. Robot Testing in Demo Accounts

Forex Godfather is the only robot that I’m currently testing in demo and since it hasn’t traded yet this year, there isn’t much to report yet. I’ve had a number of requests to test some of the new robots that was recently launched and while I can not test all of them, I will definitely add at least 1 new robot to the testing profile over the coming week. Over the next few days I will sift through all the robots that were released in the last month or so and see if I can find anything that really stands out from the crowd.

4. Robot That I’ve Stopped Testing

Please visit the Live Testing Page for more details on all the robots that I’ve tested in the past.

This is my first post for 2010 and I would like to start by wishing everyone a very happy new year. I hope that I can assist you in your quest to find profitable Forex systems this year and I always welcome your questions or suggestions. I would like to kick off with some detail of my Forex plans for this year:

1. Manual Forex Trading Systems

Many people prefer manual trading over forex robots and because I have had a lot of requests I’ve decide to include some manual systems in my testing. These systems require a lot more time and attention and I can only test one or two at a time, but I’m sure that we can still discover some very profitable strategies this year.

To get started with this I spent the whole of December evaluating a variety of manual Forex systems. I purchased more than 10 manual trading systems, including Forex Rebellion, Forex Pip Snager, the Forex Cobra System, Forex Trading Made EZ, the Fiby Day Trader System, Forex Trading Machine, LMT Forex Formula and many others. After studying each system, I also spent some time back testing it and after many hours of evaluation I ended up with only two, systems that really impressed me: Forex Trading in the Buff and the Black Dog Forex System.

I tested the Trading in the Buff method for 2 weeks over December and was so impressed with the results that I decided to start testing it this week in my LIVE account. The Black Dog system showed very promising results in backtesting and will be tested in a demo account for now. I will start trading with these systems tomorrow morning and report the results on a weekly basis as always.

2. Forex Robots

Another new thing that I would like to introduce this year is live testing on real money accounts. Once a robot consistently performs well in a demo account, I will open a live account with a broker and start testing it with real money. Out of all the robots that I tested in demo accounts last year, Fap Turbo and Forex Megadroid were the only ones that showed consistent results, so for now these will be the only robots that will trade with real money. I will spend the rest of this week setting up live accounts for these and will hopefully be ready for live trading by next week.

Apart from the above two, Forex Godfather is the only other robot from that I am going to continue testing this year. For poor performance and various other reasons, I have eliminated various Forex robots from my testing portfolio by the end of 2009. (Please visit the Live Testing Page for more details on each of these.)

3. Forex Signalling Services

Forex signalling services are somewhat popular and while it is not something I am personally interested in, it is a concept that I receive many questions about and definitely the 3rd piece of the Forex puzzle. These products can have costly monthly subscriptions and I may not be able to afford many of them, but I will definitely investigate this over the next couple of weeks and see how I can evaluate them in a practical manner.

I look forward to sharing my Forex result with you and I hope that 2010 will be a prosperous year for all of us. Please use the subscribe form below this post to receive my weekly newsletter and follow my trading results.

I’ve stopped trading for the year and this will be my final newsletter for 2009. I will resume my robot testing just after New Year and you will receive my first newsletter for 2010 on the 5th of January.

Firstly I have to mention that I forgot about Forex Godfather in my previous post. This robot has only completed 3 trades in the past month, but it has made a profit of 380 pips so far and the account is in profit by 25%. So, apart from Fap Turbo and Forex Megadroid, this will be the only robot from 2009 that I will continue testing next year.

Due to the poor performance of the robots this year, I’ve decided to give more attention to manual trading systems and signal services in 2010. I have purchased and reviewed various products over the past month and have already chosen the ones that I’d like to start with, but I won’t say more about that for now. If you have any specific requests in this regard you are welcome to send me an email and I will investigate.

Lastly, there is a lot of hype at the moment about the new Forex signal software that was launched yesterday called Forex Mutant. I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, but if you have purchased it, please let me know what your thoughts are so far?

At this point I would like to thank you for your support over the past year. I hope to return the favour by adding a lot of value to your Forex experience in 2010. Have a merry Christmas and a very prosperous New Year!

I have decided to start posting my weekly newsletter here so that new subscribers can visit past editions and get up to date with where we currently are. This is the first version of my email newsletter that is also posted on the blog.

Firstly, I have to mention that the experts don’t recommend trading between 15 December and 5 January. The markets are unpredictable during the holiday season and in most cases it is safer to just stay out for a while. I follow this advice and will stop my robot testing by the end of the day tomorrow, so this will be my final performance report for 2009.

I’ve decided to do a cleanup and get rid of all the robots that are not producing good results. After completing this exercise I surprisingly ended up with only 2 robots in my list - Fap Turbo and Forex Megadroid. You can read more about why I stopped testing all the others below and let me know if you don’t agree. In a way I think it will be good to cut the losers and make a fresh start in 2010.

There won’t be a robot testing report next week, but I will send some closing thoughts for the year and tell you more about some of the plans that I have for next year. I hope to launch a number of new things that will add value to your Forex trading and I’m sure you will enjoy some of the things on the agenda.

Here are the robot testing summary for 2009:

1. Robots Showing An Overall Profit

Fap Turbo: Out of all the robots I have tested, Fap Turbo is still one of the most consistent performers with the test account making a profit of 36.7% over the last 4 months. I believe that one of the keys to success with this robot is to know which currency pairs to trade with at any given time and this is why I’m using the settings provided by Rob Casey in his Fap Turbo Expert Guide. Another key factor to Fap Turbo’s success is the broker that you use. I’m still thinking of how to incorporate this variable into my testing, but I’m fairly certain that the next logical step would be to move this Fap Turbo test into a live real money account. More on this in January.

Forex Megadroid: I’ve been testing Forex Megadroid with different settings for exactly 5 months now and the overall account has grown by 40.2% during this time. I’m currently using the default settings, with a RiskLevel of 0.30 and Aggressive mode turned OFF. Trading activity is low, but Megadroid still has a very high success rate and it’s still one of only a handful of robots that have had success throughout 2009. I believe that Ben Cook is re-releasing his Advanced Droidtactics in January and I look forward to testing that again to increase the number of trades. In addition to Fap Turbo, I’m also considering moving this test into a live account in the new year.

2. Robots That I Stopped Testing

(NOTE: See more details about each of these tests on the Live Robot Testing Page.)

No Loss Robot
Robominer
Forex Hacked
FX Nitro
Forex Bling
Forex Cyclone
M5G Cyborg
Forex Monster
PipTurbo
Forex GridBot
IvyBot
Forex Decimator

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Swing trading can be one of the most effective methods for trading the Forex markets, but there are many different strategies available and choosing the right one is not always easy. In this article I hope to clear up some of the confusion and give you some insight into the most popular strategies used by professional swing traders.

The basic definition of Forex swing trading is to buy at the end of a down swing or sell at the end of an upswing. All swing trading strategies consist of the following 2 components: (1) A method for identifying the end of a swing (called the swing reversal) and (2) A method identifying which swings to trade and which to avoid.

[ Click Here to Visit My Recommended Swing Trading Course ]

Identifying the End of A Swing

There are various methods that traders use to identify the end of a swing or the signs of a swing reversal. Some traders use indicators like the MACD for this purpose, but the most successful swing traders usually rely on pure price action for the most reliable signals. Certain price patterns give very clear indications that a swing reversal has occured and these signals are usually much more reliable than any indicator. For the highest probability swing trades, I definitely recommend that you choose a strategy that is based on price action as well.

Identifying Which Swings to Trade

In general, the best swing trades are those that are taken in the direction of the main trend, just after a retracement. For example, in the diagram below you would look for swing reversals signals in the areas where I drew the blue circles.

In this case you will be looking to buy at the end of the downswings and the downswings are the small retracements that occur before each big move in the direction of the trend.

Recommended Swing Trading Course

I have bought and tested several Forex courses that teach swing trading strategies, but the one that impressed me by far the most is Hector Deville’s Learn Forex Live video course. Hector not only teaches you a very effective swing trading strategy, but you will also learn a variety of other strategies like breakout trading, news trading, support and resistance trading and various others. Hector’s swing trading strategy is based on sound price action principles and the quality of his training material is second to none.

Even if you don’t purchase the full Learn Forex Live course, I highly recommend that you subscribe to get his free trading strategies. Over the course of a number of free videos, Hector gives away 2 detailed trading strategies that are really worth learning. Read my full Learn Forex Live Review or use one of the links below for more information about Hector’s course.

[ Click Here to Learn More About the Learn Forex Live Course ]
[ Click Here For Hector's Free Trading Strategy Vidoes ]

Today marks the launch of FX Nitro, a new Forex Robot by Johnny Livermore.  As is the case with most robots, FX Nitro claims to be the most profitable and accurate robot the forex market has ever seen. If you have tested as many Forex robots as I have you will naturally be sceptical of these type of bold claims, but this time I had some inside information that caused me to pay a bit more attention..

A couple of months ago Johnny Livermore contacted me via email and invited me to become a beta tester of his FX Nitro robot. I was interested in the basic information he sent me, so I accepted the invitation and started testing the robot in a demo account soon there after.

The FX Nitro robot uses a unique scalping strategy that works mainly on the EURCHF currency pair. After a week or two of testing I could see that Johnny’s claims of a 99.75% success rate was not far fetched at all and I achieved very similar results to those advertised, but there was one or two things that concerned me. One thing in particular that worried me was the risk/reward ratio per trade and the size of the rare losing trades that the robot had.

Johnny took note of these concerns every time and addressed them by making various changes to the robot over the past couple of months. Today FX Nitro is a much safer, more robust robot than the one I initially started testing and I must say that I have been very impressed by Johnny Livermore’s commitment and support over the past couple of months.

Is FX Nitro Worth Buying?

Johnny Livermore comes across as an honest trader who really wants to deliver a product that can produce long term results. Based on my earlier testing, the contact that I’ve had with the FX Nitro team and the work that they have done on their robot throughout this year I think that this product is definitely worth buying. I for one will get my copy as soon as the doors open today. >>Click Here to Visit The FX Nitro Homepage<<