Let's look at a couple. The first one is RSI Grid, and according to the back-test results, it's made over $60,000 from a $10,000 account in a year. 61% win rate, averaging $205 per win.
Quite impressive, until I download it and run it myself.
(Back test from 1-1-2011 to 1-1-2012, GBPUSD, 5 minute chart)
I used the rsi_grid_set2 set file from their website, which supposedly yields the $60,000.
Not such great results. My history data may be messed up, and I'm using different dates for the back-test, but the result is wildly different - a $4639 loss.
It's still achieving a nearly 61% win rate, but the average win is only $113.
Also, it only places trades up to the 18th Janurary 2011, when it places a losing trade with a 1.90 lot size and suffers a single $3131 loss. Ouch.
Let's try Momentum Grid, another robot from their grid category. It's back-test results show a $50,769 profit from a $50,000 account over 13 months. 66% win rate, averaging $100 per win to $103 per loss.
I noticed some of the results links take you to the RSI Grid results, so be careful what you click on.
(Back test from 1-1-2011 to 1-1-2012, GBPUSD, 5 minute chart)
I used the momentum_grid_set1 set file. Again, it does OK until it starts making trades with huge lot sizes a mere 31 days in, and loses most of it's gains. The robot must detect this, and stops trading.
Up until that point, this robot presents a beautiful equity curve. It trades frequently, has a 67% win rate according to my results, and averages 3 consecutive wins to 1 consecutive loss.
Perhaps adjusting the settings or playing with the code to prevent the huge lot sizes would make this a wonderful robot.
I'm impressed that it makes profit on the 5 minute chart, particularly on GBPUSD. I don't think any of my robots are successful with that time-frame and currency pair.
Let's try the Heiken Ashi trend robot, which according to it's first back-test made $19,442 in about 13 months. 62% win rate, averaging $633 per win.
(Back test from 1-1-2011 to 1-1-2012, EURUSD, 60 minute chart)
Yikes. Everything was going well until 19th July, and then it was all down-hill from there. This robot has 5 back-tests posted on the website, and from the looks of the equity curves, it was a struggle to get this thing making money.
My results using the first set file show only a 44.9% win rate, averaging $250 per win, $265 per loss, losing $6591 over the year.
Last one, let's see how Fisher M11, another trend system, does. According to back-test 3, it makes $19441 in a little more than 4 months. 58% win rate, average win of $882.
(Back test from 1-1-2011 to 1-1-2012, EURUSD, 60 minute chart)
Using the fisher_m11_set3 set file, my results are very different from what's on the website. Although the equity curve is very pleasant, on the 14th April it places a trade using a lot size of 7.20 and within 3 hours has lost $6660. The robot then stops.
57% win rate, $1861 loss overall from a $10,000 account.
What's with these gigantic lot sizes? Are they the secret to making profit with these robots? If so, it's not working out very well, at least according to my four back-tests, which all end the same way.
Looking through the robot settings, I can see an option called "Progression", which I think is related to the lot sizes. Turning it off and running this back-test again yields these results:
(Back test from 1-1-2011 to 1-1-2012, EURUSD, 60 minute chart)
33% win rate, $9922 loss. Lasted almost the entire year before running out of capital, though.
Nice website. Nice looking code in the robots, but none of them in the configurations I've tried in my back-tests have yielded positive results.
