Risk Disclosure

"Forex trading can involve the risk of loss beyond your initial deposit. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved; seeking independent advice if necessary"

Binary Options

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

PushButtonPips EA Review

Before buying a new product on the internet I normally do a search to see if there have been any reviews on the product by independent traders who can give an unbiased, impartial and honest review of the product. Sadly it seems honest forex robot reviews are hard to come by. When searching for a decent review on the Pushbuttonpips, low and behold it was no different.

Don't get me wrong there were plenty of so called reviews; sadly though, other than the developers of the product and the testemonials on their site, I could not find any reviews by real traders who had actualy tested the product themselves. If I missed any then I apologise, but I searched dilligently and alas only found so called reviews by marketers who were simply extolling the virtues of the product as proclaimed by the developers in their marketing material.

These marketers only obvious interest was in selling as many robots as they could without even doing a forward test on demo let alone test it on a live account. In spite of this I went ahead and purchased the product. My reason for this was that it was supposedly based on price arbitrage between different brokers.

I personally used this method to good effect a few years ago and managed to wrack up similar results over about a three month period trading strictly 1 hour a day on four currency pairs, without hedging them though. Unfortunately it did not last as the brokers involved eventually figured out what I was doing and closed the loophole. So when I read the sales pitch on Pushbuttonpips my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to give it a try.

Immediately I gave my crerdit card details I began to have my doubts as the the product I was purchasing at the advertised price was a watered down version on the supposed real thing.  Nowhere in the sales pitch up to that point was there anything to say that what I was about to order was not the supposed amazing product advertised in the sales pitch.

Things only got worse from there, before I could actually download the software I had just paid for, I was subjected to two more sales pitches consisting of numerous pages, trying to sell me the real thing. Personally I think that is false adverising and clickbank should stop these thieves and ensure the public are getting what is being advertised before parting with their hard earned cash.

In spite of the sales pitch clearly stating that I could own this Bot for a single once off payment, my next surprise was that what I had paid for was a monthly subscription of $39 again not mentioned in the original sales pitch at all. By now I was thoroughly annoyed and wanted to cancel the transaction immediatly. After I composed my thoughts I decided to give it a try any way, the theory being that if the bot made even a fraction of what was advertised I would recoup my money very quickly.

The next task was to set up the Bot and let it do its thing. For this I had to download a second mt4 platform (one reccommended by the developers) in order for the bot to function correctly. Being a cautious trader I ran it on a forward test to see if it works as advertised. I purchased the product on the 21st of Feb 2011 and have run it on forward test till today 08 March 2011 starting with five K in each account. As at the close, the one account is at $5010 up 10$. The second account now has a balance of $4516 thats down $484 and a total of  -$474

During the period I have observed the trades it seems there has always been a negative balance between the 2 platforms and the balance has dwindled by the day. If I label them platform 1 and 2 the in the early stages platform 1 was up about $200 whilst platform 2 was down $500. In the last few days though the position has completely reversed with platform 1 -$484 and platform 2 at plus $10.

I realise that 2 weeks is not a long time to test a product and that at times the market might lack volatility but if their ad is anything to go by, they claim never to have had a losing day in all market conditions so this should not be an excuse.

I have applied for a refund from clickbank, fortunately I did not buy directly from the vendor as clickbank normally honour refunds. The inexcuseable happened,  these clowns kicked back my refund request as tech support and I had to request the refund again. The losing has nothing to do with tech support the EA simply does not make the money they promised. Shame on you clickbank for allowing unscrupulous vendors to renage on their product guarantees by allowing them to refer the purchasers back for refunds, not once but twice.

Overall not a great experience that produced only negatives from inception, and I would not reccommend anyone spend their hard earned cash on the system. I obviously cannot comment on the Standard and Extreme versions as I only tested the watered down version that was a con to start with. If they have to resort to unethical advertising to start with then my guess is the other versions will be no different to the above. Time will tell and I eagerly await some other impartial reviews by traders who have actually tested the product.

Summary
Unethical advertising to start with
Too many popups in the purchase process
Does not live up to advertisers promises
No money management facilities on the version I bought.(besides lot size only input)
Must be a brokers dream with the sheer volume of losing trades executed daily.
Have to open 2 trading accounts for EA to work. (FXCH not a great choice)
For other reviews on product click here
A good idea by the developers of pushbuttonpips but EA certainly has not worked for me.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Combining Indicators

For me there is nothing worse than a messy chart. Sometimes I see some of my students charts and wonder how they can trade at all with the numerous arrows and indicators on their charts.


Trading can be as simple or difficult as we choose to make it and I realize that not every trading method suits everyone. In this article I have combined a number of indicators to confirm entries and still managed to keep the chart uncluttered.

Often using too many indicators only cause confusion and it is difficult to decide whether to combine trending indicators, oscillators or volume indicators. here are some indicators that work pretty well together.

I have used the following combination of indicators.
  1. Current Trend line Break
  2. Exponential Moving Average (Represented by the Red or Green Arrows) Setting 5/8
  3. RSI with a 14 setting and only enter the trade when the 50 Line is crossed, this indicator is represented by the orange and blue candles. (When the candles are orange the RSI has crossed the 50 line short. When the candles are blue it has crossed the 50 line long.
  4. Stochastic with a 14,3,3 setting with 90, 10, 40, 60 levels
  5. Momentum indicator with a 21 moving average cross. The momentum setting is 10 with zero level added.
  6. Laguerre filter line; with a gamma setting of 0.60, which is similar to a 21 exponential moving average.
In Spite of all the indicators the chart is still uncluttered and visually easy to analyse at a glance.

The trade setup is simple, when price crosses above or below the Laguerre filter line we check to see if all the indicators are in sync.

For a long trade, price must open above the Laguerre filter line; The candles must turn blue representing the RSI Cross above the 50 line.

A green arrow must appear representing the EMA cross.

We also check if the new candle has opened above the current down trend line. Occasionally we do not get the trend line break; then we can use the stochastic or momentum indicator to determine if the trend line has been broken.

The Stochastic must cross up through the 40 line

The momentum line must cross up through the Zero line and the 21 moving average must have crossed up through the momentum line.

When all 6 are lined up we can enter the trade long.

For a short trade, price must open below the Laguerre filter line; The candles must turn orange representing the RSI Cross below the 50 line.

A red arrow must appear representing the EMA cross.

We also check if the new candle has opened below the current up trend line. Occasionally we do not get the trend line break; then we can use the stochastic or momentum indicator to determine if the trend line has been broken.

The Stochastic must cross up through the 40 line

The momentum line must cross down through the zero line and the 21 moving average must have crossed down through the momentum line.

When all 6 are lined up we can enter the trade short.

I have used this setup on the 1 hour time frame and it seems to work well on most currency pairs. The stop loss is always above or below the previous high or low in the market. The take profit I determine with Fibonacci; or based on my normal money management policy.

The following USD/CAD shows a number of entries on the 1 hr time frame (Click to enlarge)
Obviously during quiet periods it can give false entries. I have used the system successfully during the Euro/London and US trading sessions.



The dotted vertical line has been used to show that all the indicators are lined up at the price indicated on the chart. As we can see not all the trades are big moves; but the system does offer many good trading opportunities.

The system creates a quick and easy visual representation of the current market situation in spite of all the indicators used. Obviously patience is a pre requisite for this system waiting for all the indicators to confirm.
Summary
  • Wait for current trend line break
  • Candles must change colour before entering in a new direction.
  • EMA Arrow must appear.
  • Candles must open above or below the laguerre filter line or 21 EMA
  • Stochastic must cross (short below the 60 line or long above the 40 line. it should not be above the 90 or below the 10 levels when entering a trade as the market could already be overbought or oversold.
  • Momentum must cross above the Zero line (long) below the zero line (short)