Petko AleksandrovOur Experience With Forex EA Developers
Hello everyone, in this lecture, I will share with you why I stopped hiring Forex EA developers and I will share some of my experience with you.
So the time I started hiring Forex EA developers was the time when I was working for a Swiss company and I was working as a trader. But at one moment, they decided to switch to algorithmic trading. So we started looking for Forex developers.
Actually, I’m very happy the results from trading for this company were not great because of their methodology. But I’m not going to discuss it. I’m happy because due to this experience I learned a lot about algorithmic trading and after quitting the company, I switched totally from manual trading to automated trading.
Better Hire Good Freelancers
At that time the owner wanted to automate the manual trading strategies they were using. We didn’t have Forex developers in the team and I think it’s very wrong if you are a trading company, and you hire Forex EA developers to code for you.
Because there are some guys out there and these are the best Forex EA developers that you can hire as freelancers. So if you’re thinking about establishing such a company where you will hire Forex developers to code the strategies for you, I think this will be very expensive. I think you cannot hire the best Expert Advisor developers this way, and I think you will spend a lot of time and money to teach them how to do it.
So you better hire the freelancers that are available on the web, and they’re very good at what they’re doing. But I will share with you why I stopped hiring such Forex EA developers after I left that company.
Coding One Strategy Takes Weeks For The Forex EA Developers
We were giving them tasks like PDFs, that had detailed explanations on the strategies they were supposed to automate. Right? Personally, I found, I remember, some really good Forex EA developers that I still keep in touch with. But the thing is it was so expensive to do it, it was so time-consuming.
For example, for one single strategy, the Forex developers were coding a few weeks, then we were testing it, then there were always mistakes, we send it back. And sometimes, I’m not sure if you have dealt with Forex developers, nothing bad to the guys, they’re one of the smartest out there, but sometimes it’s so hard to explain something to a Forex EA developer.
Because he sees everything through different eyes. Usually, it’s just misunderstanding and that was causing a lot of time to automate a single strategy.
You Don’t Need Skills In Forex Programming
At the same time, I said it’s very expensive. However, if you don’t have programming skills and you want to trade with the Robot and you have a strategy, you need a Forex Expert Advisor developer. You cannot do it another way. Right? Actually, you can.
I will tell you in a second how I did it. But that’s what the people think. They think that the only way to go is through the Forex EA developers.
Now, why I stopped hiring Forex EA developers? So what happened to me, I quit that company. There were no great results. It was very frustrating with the Forex EA developers, sending strategies, they give it back to us, we test them, errors, send back to them, give it back to us.
That was not what I wanted to do at that time. So I quit. I continued hiring Forex EA developers for my strategies, for my personal trading until the moment I realized the problem. And it took me over a year of hiring Forex EA developers to understand where the problem is, why it doesn’t work.
Why Hiring Forex EA Developers Doesn’t Work As Expected
I have strategies, I want the Forex developers to automate them, I want them to automate the strategies for me, but it never gets a good result and I will tell you what the problem is. As I said, it took me a year to realize it.
So what the problem is, when you have a good manual strategy, you trade usually 8 to 10 hours a day. You wake up in the morning, depends on where you are, I’m in Europe, so at that time, I was trading the London stock exchange when it opens, and then I trade the New York. Right? I rarely stayed for the Asian in Tokyo because whenever I traded for more than 20 hours, it was so exhausting.
So I was focused on the London and the New York stock exchanges. Now, the thing is, when you order to the Forex EA developers your strategy, you truly believe that this is a profitable strategy. Right?
Because you’re ready to pay let’s say $200-300 to the Forex developer to automate it so you truly believe that it’s a profitable strategy. What happens is when they send it back, you start realizing that this is not a profitable strategy, not as profitable as you thought it is.
Even if you’re doing profits in a manual environment. OK? And why is that? This is because the Robots trade on specific rules that must happen on the market. No matter is it price action indicators, Stop Loss, Take Profit, depends on what strategy it’s about and how it’s created, it was the idea.
Entry Conditions & Exit Conditions
But when you see your strategy taking the trade every time, because, with the Robot, you are never missing the trade. OK? If there are the entry conditions, it will buy, if there are the exit conditions, it will close the trade.
And it does it from Monday until Friday for the Forex market. And you see that if your strategy executes every time, you are not profiting.
Most of the traders realize the same thing that their strategy is actually not that profitable as they thought it was. Do you know what’s the problem?
Because they didn’t have the backtest. I didn’t have the backtest before I ordered the strategy to the Forex EA developers. Do you get the dilemma? To know that the manual strategy is profitable, you need the Robot to backtest it but you cannot have the Robot before you order it. OK?
So you’re ordering a strategy to the Forex EA developer to code it for you. And when he sends you back the Robot, this is the time when you can do the backtest and you will see if actually, the strategy is profitable.
So at the end of the day, it comes to the fact that when you are giving a manual strategy to a Forex developer, you’re just testing if this strategy is profitable or not. Because when he sends you back the backtest, you will see, when you perform the backtest on MetaTrader you will see if that strategy is actually profitable.
Strategy Builders vs Forex EA Developers
So at that time, when I realized that, I said OK, that’s not the way I will continue. I’ve spent time with that company, I don’t want to mention the name. I’ve spent time on my own trying to code strategies with Forex EA developers, and I said OK that’s it.
Do you know what I did? I sit in front of Google, I sit in front of the computer and I started typing. It was the beginning of 2017. I thought it’s not possible that someone until the moment hasn’t created a strategy, a software that is not doing the whole thing without programming.
And I started looking for such programs, and there were such programs. And at that moment I felt so stupid honestly that I didn’t check that earlier.
These programs are known as strategy builders. Some call them Expert Advisor builders, Robot builders, it’s the same thing. It’s software that allows you to create the strategies, to build the strategies without programming skills. The different software uses different methods but usually, you just put the entry rule.
So, for example, let’s say you use MACD. When the MACD line crosses the signal line upwards, let’s say this is your entry rule, you put it as a rule and there is the magic, immediately you see what is the result from that strategy.
And not just with the MACD. Let’s say you use RSI for exit or you have Stop Loss and Take Profit. Take Profit of 70 pips, Stop Loss 20 or anything. OK? You put all the things in the strategy builder and immediately you can see what is the backtest, what is the result out of that strategy.
Forex Strategy Builder Professional
I tested the Forex Strategy Builder Professional first, I wondered why I hadn’t looked into it earlier since it had been launched much earlier. What was the possibility that the company I worked for didn’t know about it?
They wanted automated trading but they didn’t check if such programs are available. How come I didn’t check personally a year ago and I spent so much money on Forex EA developers? I am glad that I found it. It’s better late than never. Right?
So then I tested many more. I tested both the EA Builder Strategy and Strategy Quant, though a few of them have changed their names.
The Two Programs That I Use
And for the moment, I use Expert Advisor Studio and I use Forex Strategy Builder Professional. These 2 programs are the programs that give me the opportunity to build my strategies in a different way. And since this time I’m not hiring any more Forex EA developers.
No need to do that for me personally because the strategy builders allow me to automate my trading without programming skills. All I needed to export the strategy as an Expert Advisor was one click.
It was really hard to stop hiring Forex developers. And. It depends on what you’re looking for and what you want from the Expert Advisor developer. If you want your manual strategy to become a Robot, you will realize that your manual strategy was not that good as you expected.
It changed my trading, way of thinking, and understanding
And using the strategy builders personally for me, changed my trading in general. It changed my way of thinking, changed my understanding of the market. I realized how Robots work with time. And also the type of strategies to be automated for profits.
And one last thing, when you build a Robot, it doesn’t have in mind the fundamental news. Because usually, when people trade manually, they always look at the Forex Factory calendar, for example. And they decide whether they will open their trades or not, when they will close, based on the news.
But when you have the Robot, it buys and sells, it buys, sells, buys, sells, it doesn’t really care as it doesn’t know about the news except if you have timed a filter inside and you will just close the Robot because of the news. Keep that in mind.
What You Need To Have In Mind
This is something very important when you do automated trading and when you especially order strategies to Forex EA developers.
Keep that in mind that the strategy you order to the Forex developer, you have manually used the fundamental news but the Robot will not use it.
The Robot will not know when anyone is speaking when we have an interest rate decision or anything like that. So that’s one of the reasons as well, the regular manual strategies that people use do not work as Robots. The dilemma is you cannot see that before you have the backtest. I stopped hiring Forex EA developers and started using the strategy builders, that was my solution.
And since this time, I feel so much better personally when trading with Robots because it was a headache dealing with the Forex developers even if there are some really good guys out there.
MetaTrader Forex Developers
You can find Forex EA developers, if you want still to go with Forex developers, you can find them on the MQL5 website. This is the official website on MetaTrader. Those guys have a lot of experience.
Usually, the experienced ones will charge you more which is understandable but keep in mind all the tips I said in this article because they might save you a lot of time and money.
Thanks for reading. We’ll see you in the next article and take care. Bye.
