it's a swamp out there!  so many Expert Advisors out there claims that they can generate amazing profits, but how many have the proper facts on their website to really back up that claim?  not many! in fact, i believe out of 100 Expert Advisor sellers out there, 95% of them do not really know what they are doing.  many are selling freely available Expert Advisor... repackaging them and then selling them as their own. ... http://www.squidoo.com/forex-expert-advisor-reviews Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:38:42 -0600 FeedCreator 1.7.2 Mon, 10 Dec 2007 05:38:07 -0600 http://www.squidoo.com/forex-expert-advisor-reviews it's a swamp out there!  so many Expert Advisors out there claims that they can generate amazing profits, but how many have the proper facts on their website to really back up that claim?  not many! in fact, i believe out of 100 Expert Advisor sellers out there, 95% of them do not really know what they are doing.  many are selling freely available Expert Advisor... repackaging them and then selling them as their own.  they give them fancy names and write about the fantastic profits that you can get with the Expert Advisor.  just 'run it and the profits will just start flowing in'... some say. how can you identify them?  easy!  look for an email contact on their website.  if you can't find any, it's 99% a scam.  all they want you to do is to order their stuff and make payment.  last thing they want is for their customers to call them up or email them with product queries or technical issues. another tell tale sign is that all their performance results are based on back-tests statements or reports.  there are many many freely available Expert Advisors that can produce amazing back-test reports, but most of them fail badly when traded live.  why?  because all back-tests are done with a certain amount of modelling... what that means is that since the tests are done on historical data, there's is no way to simulate tick-by-tick price action.  the best data out there is likely to be the High-Low-Open-Close of the 1 minute charts.  whatever happens during that  minute is not recorded.  due to this, simulations using hostorical data carries some form of inaccuracy.  and since it's back-testing, the paramaters can always be tweeked to get the best possible performance, all based on historical data that is not representative of how the actual market moves.  you will really need tick-by-tick price data to really make the back-testing reliable. how many go through the pains of doing that with back-tests?  i can safely say NONE!  however, that does not mean that the Expert Advisor sellers are cornered.  they can still forward-test their Expert Advisors, running them on live market data!  yes... this is as close as you can get to trading live with the Expert Advisor.  forward-test statements can tell a lot about the Expert Advisor. however, static statements can be doctored to show just the good trades and can also be altered to make it look better.  so just having forward-test statements is still non sufficient. so...what's the best thing we can do?  look for LIVE FORWARD-TEST STATEMENTS.  if you want to see an example, go to http://www.ckowyong.com/blog and click on the 'live statements' link.  in my blog, i am reviewing 6 commerciall available Expert Advisors, running them in forward-tests and updating the statements to my website every 10 mins.  they are LIVE forward-test statements, not static ones that can be altered.  if you look further into the blog, you will also find read-only investor ID and passwords that you can use to log into the broker's server to see the actual trading history.  there's no way to hide anything this way. so, if you have found an Expert Advisor advertised on the web that you are interested to buy, just pause for a moment and go through the points that i have mentioned above.  i'm sure the information that i've shared with you above will help you give the Expert Advisor a fair evaluation before parting with your hard-earned money.  spending the $50-$1300 on an Expert Advisor is fine, but using it to trade with real money without first forward-testing it is just being irresponsible. i hope the information above has been helpful.  please leave a comment if you have found it so, and also leave a comment if you found my opinion objectionable. to everyone's success!! - ck http://www.ckowyong.com/blog   currently reviewing : PointBreak *new* FractalWizard *coming soon* CarryGrid v5 DoublePlay v4.0 *new* UpStream EURJPY H1 PipForia Hedged Grid v004float Steinitz HAS MTF v2.63 PipBoxer v2.0.6 DoublePlay v3.5.2 (retired) FX-Bandit v1.3-1 (retired) RobinHood v4.9 (retired) EuroX2 (retired) Mon, 10 Dec 2007 05:38:07 -0600