FAPTURBO Review - A Much Improved FAP Version?!

(First posted on ScoutForex site)

Forget the previous disappointment of Forex Autopilot (FAP). Because the new FAP Turbo package has seriously outperformed FAP over the same time period.

Please check out these claims by the developer (Steve Carletti) first.

Trading System Description:
Trading system of FAPTurbo expert-advisor is 100% automatic. Its new features include Automatic Risk Scaling, High-Spread Protection System and Build-in Loss Prevention. The system is capable of handling multiple currencies and promises low drawdowns. It can make up to 10 - 20 trades weekly, providing a high trading activity for your account.

BackTest on History:
Great results in 1999-2008: 5000% of profit in 9 years! Made 499,785 from 10,000 usd!

LiveTest on Real Money Accounts (Live proofs available):
Account 1: $370 turning into $3,100 in 1 short month
Account 2: $2,500 turning into $6,700 in 32 days
Account 3: $10,000 turning into $32,900 in 90 days

What I also like about the FAP Turbo is that you can even have your system installed on its provided 24/7 running server. This way, you will not need to have your own computer turned on ever.

All in all, the FAP Turbo system looks genuine and has already promised us much. Talk is cheap and I do hope this trading robot can continue to build on its reputation. We shall review its live trading outcomes soon on this site.

Update (1):
I can reveal that the FAPTURBO system consists of two trading strategies. One being the Short-term Scalper Strategy which can work on 4 pairs: EUR/GBP, GBP/CHF, EUR/CHF and USD/CAD on M15 (15-minute) timeframe. The other being Long-term FAP Strategy which has been optimised for the EUR/USD pair on M1 (1 minute) timeframe.

Profits vs. Drawdowns for Forex Autopilot, Bogie and Tracer EAs

We still have four trading days left for the month of July. For my record, it's going to be another profitable month for both my Forex Autopilot and Bogie expert advisor trading. I'll be reviewing their individual performance again at the end of the month.

Here is my last month's review (first posted on my main site):

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In general, June was a very good month for trading. There were a a lot of sizable moves intraday and overnight reactions which stirred up the forex markets. Euro (EUR/USD) was the most interesting pair to watch since it recorded its historical high back in late April. Since then, it has entered into a consolidation phase.

I have three expert advisors which all auto-trade the same EUR/USD market, i.e. Forex Autopilot (FAPS), Forex Tracer and Bogie but on different time periods. I will show you how they all fair in the month of June. For comparison, all three were assigned with with same account level at the start of the month. Initial deposit: $1000; Fixed lot size: 0.1 lot. Here are their end results:

1st place: Bogie-NN-v8 end balance $2434 (143.4%) Approx. +1434 pips
2nd place: FAPS end-balance $1169 (+16.9%) Approx. +169 pips
3rd place: Tracer end balance $903 (-9.7%) Approx. -97 pips

EA Performance (Jun' 08)	Bogie	Tracer	FAPS
Time period	H1	M30	M1
Stop loss used	200	250	---
Absolute drawdown (% from initial deposit)	-3.6	-24.9	-28.7
Maximal drawdown (in term of pips)	<100>	250	>500
Final profits (in term of pips)	+1434	-91	+169

Final remarks:

1) Compared to previous month results, FAPS was slightly underperformed this month, but its overall results since the start of the year were impressive. June was the fifth profitable month of this year.

2) Bogie-NN-v8 had a very strong month in June as it outperformed others during this market phase. At many occasions, it did superbly by selling at the tops and buying at the lows.

3) Tracer was recently launched. Unlike FAPS, it uses a fixed stop loss level of 250 pips, thus giving you the comfort of knowing its risk limit. Unfortunately, June was a volatile month which in turn resulted the EA to hit the bump twice. Despite all that, Tracer EA showed great resilience and nearly made it back to the positive.

I am not sure what July will bring, but i have high hopes on three of them. If the current trend continues, Bogie is the one to look out for. If the Euro continues to gain momentum towards the upside, FAPS and Tracer should be back to exhibiting their real strengths.

Forex Autopilot and Magic Number

Forex Autopilot (FAPS) has just released a new upgraded version with the magic number feature.

Magic Number is simply an arbitrary number added to an EA to identify trades which are made from that EA and also to differentiate other trades made by another EA.

This new feature allows you to run several EAs on multiple charts on the same MT4 platform by using different magic numbers.

For instance, it is now possible to run both Bogie EA on H1 chart and FAPS on M1 chart to trade the EUR/USD market within the same trading platform.

Related post:
How to Activate Forex Autopilot EA

Business as Usual for Forex Autopilot

We had a lot of discussions (see here and here) about the operation of forex autopilot.

Last month April, we had our first negative return month of the year. Hence, this month should be an interesting month to follow up. Until yesterday, only 3 trades has been closed out in May. Today, I just saw the 4th trade being closed out for a profit after recovering from an early drawdown.

It is not difficult to understand the autopilot EA trading concept.

Basically, the more closed trades you have, the more profits you make.

The monthly P/L can be simply calculated using this formula:

(n-1) x (tp) - (dd)

n being the total of open trades in a month. tp is the take profit level (20 pips in this case). Due to a monthly reset, dd being the final p/l of the last open trade of the month, which is usually a drawdown.

Let's hope it is business as usual for this autopilot ea from now on, at least for this May.

Updates: ForexAutoPilot EA May' 08 Performance (+31 pips)

Q & A: How to Activate Forex Autopilot EA

**Activating Autopilot**

Click here for the pdf instructions. If you have problem activating your copy of forex autopilot, a video tutorial has also been added and it is now available on the member site.

Here are some other useful forex autopilot video tutorials to get you started:

01. Bookmark and Begin Downloading

02. Extracting Your Autopilot Files

03. Downloading MetaTrader 4

04. Installing Metatrader 4

05. Transferring Files Into the MetaTrader Directory

06. Implementing Autopilot With Metatrader 4

07. Setting Up A Live Account

08. Misc. - Installing WinRar (File Extraction Software)

It's good to have great video support for new users who are not familiar with expert advisor trading !

Q & A : Forex AutoPilot EA Trade Exit & Monthly Performance

From TJ :
Marcus says that Forex AutoPilot (FAP) has some internal indicators to close losing trades but surely 500pips should be enough to close a bad trade?

My initial thought:
System drawdown is always a concern in every expert advisor system. Unfortunately, I have no further clue about the FAP's trade exit mechanism. Perhaps, we should forward your query to Marcus. By the way, using SL parameter is the only sure choice to exit the trade at predefined risk limit.

FAP support team's reply:

Yes, like all systems, it sometimes make losing trades. Only 4% of losing trades according to history. 96% winners. Recommend this reader to perform backtests to understand how the system works. The system will stay in loss until it finds a signal to close trade. If it does not happen (no market condition to reverse the trend) then the system will close the losing trade on 1st of april.

My second thought:

It only occurs to me now that the Forex Autopilot system will automatically reset itself when a new month begins, i.e. all open positions in the previous month will be closed. This should make things easy and interesting. So, let's study its past performance on a monthly basis.

The following monthly results are based on a starting balance of $1000, lot size = 0.1 and TP = 20 pips for every month:

Jan 08: 17 trades /16 winners +275 pips or +$275 (+27%)

Feb 08: 21 trades /20 winners +378 pips or +$385 (+38%)

Mar 08: 41 trades /40 winners +674 pips or +$680 (+68%)

Apr 08: 13 trades /12 winners -149 pips or -$140 (-14%)

• What happened to Forex Autopilot robot in late April?

May 08: 7 trades /6 winners +31 pips or +$23 (+2.3%)

• Business as usual for Forex Autopilot
  

Jun 08: 13 trades /12 winners +160 pips or +$169 (+16.9%)

Jul 08: 16 trades/ 15 winners +126 pips or $119 (+11.9%)

Aug 08: 4 trades /3 winners -779 pips or -$776 (-77.6%)

• What Happened to Forex Autopilot in August 08?

Sep 08: 12 trades /11 winners -523 pips or -$543 (-54.4%)

Oct 08: 5 trades /4 winners +40 pips or +$40 (+4%) - updated 1 Oct

• Release of Forex Autopilot New Version

(Members are asked to redownload the new FAP robot from the membership page asap.)

Balancing the system drawdown and understanding the system potential is the key of using the Forex Autopilot ea. Therefore, more backtest plus forward monthly results (hopefully to be used as benchmark) will be added here for reference.

Technical Help (2): Forex AutoPilot EA

Latest Update: Great news, guys ! You can now use these e-mail addresses (here and here) to reach Marcus and support team 'faster'. In addition, the technical problem surrounding the forexautopilot EA has been resolved via the latest EA update. In the mean time, you can also check out this latest performance report from the forexautopilot trading team.

(Originally posted on ScoutForex main site)

Due to the recent program reliability issues (i.e. EA inactivity and Invalid price error_129), Marcus Leary and his support team made a first-time direct e-mail response to me and claimed that the problem has finally been resolved with the latest update on the ForexAutopilot EA. Click here for more info and the new EA should be updated in the member's area.

I also took this opportunity to raise my point regarding the EA trading and its potential system drawdown in hope to figure out the working of this forexautopilot ea. We've already seen quite a strong performance (in backtesting) of this EA as the Euro rode from the 1.48 level to the current level of 1.54 !

I directed the following question to Marcus:

Q1: At what point the EA decides to take a loss and what is the acceptable drawdown for this EA?

Here is his full response:

It decided to stop according to signals from inner indicators. ForexAutopilot EA does not use fixed stop loss. It uses smart settings for stop loss to close losing trades according to inner indicators. EA with fixed stop loss will finally loose your deposit if trading against trend. Our ForexAutopilot EA does not have such problem. when i backtested i saw drawdown near 20-30% if trading with low risk.

I recommend to trade FAPS ea:
0.1 lot for deposit 1000-2000 usd
0.5 lot for deposit 5,000
1 lot for deposit 10,000

Earlier, I also sent some of my queries to Andreas:

Q2: May I ask what is the eurusd_m1.set? And where should it be placed plus how can we change the default parameter?

Q3. LotsRiskReductor – Defines the risk. The parameter default is 1 , and what does it means. At what point, the EA decides to take a loss?

Here is Andreas's reply:

eurusd_m1.set can be skipped. It contains default parameters to let user load them if he wants to use default parameters after changing EA settingsLotsRiskReductor

To let program use AutoLot management (it means that IE decides the lot size itself) the variable Lots should be set to zero. So LotsRiskReductor will define the risk size. LotsRiskReductor can be from 1 to 10. 1 means 10% of risk of deposit. 10 means 100% risk.

If you have any problem/issue regarding this forex autopilot ea, you can try its support team or forward me your queries. I will put up a Q&A for everyone to read.


Related Post:
Technical Help: Forex AutoPilot EA

Latest From Marcus: Alligator 129 Error Solved ?!

After raising my concerns (& other site readers too) with the ForexAutopilot EA, I just received a reply from Marcus Leary, the program developer. Check this out.

Hi there Lloyd. Marcus here. I heard from andy about your problems
with faps ea. We are working hard here to find the solution to this
Alligator 129 error.

I think finally we have found the solution. I attach the fixed copy
to you. You can run it on Euro/Usd on M1. You can also backtest it. I
think we have optimized it rather good and Faps EA is making good
profit on history and on real account. you know it is really difficult
to make EA that REALLY WORKs with great profit on live and demo and
does not give huge losses. i hope you will like our EA and its
results.

I also thank you for help and support of our clients. it's much
appreciated. looking forward to long cooperation with scoutforex.

--
M.Leary,
Support Manager

He also sent me a latest EA, named ForexAutoPilot_Universal.ex4 . Hope you guys can re-download this EA (still goes with old name ForexAutoPilot.ex4) from the main site, i.e. using your bookmarked/saved member links after your purchase. And I hope the problem is now solved :-)

Related Post:
Technical Help (2): Forex Autopilot EA

Technical Issues on ForexAutoPilot EA

(Latest Update: Great news ! My site readers can now use this e-mail address to reach Marcus & support team 'faster'. In addition, the technical problem surrounding the forexautopilot EA has been resolved via the latest EA update. In the mean time, you can also check out the latest performance report from the forexautopilot trading team. Not too bad, eh? )

A lot of distress comments/e-mails lately about the ForexAutoPilot EA not firing up any trades and its lame technical support. I directed all your concerns to Andreas and here is the latest email response I managed to get from him. Below is the direct quote.

From Marcus:

About no trades in few days comment:

"Experts-Robots open trades few times a week when their internal indicators see the market conditions to open trades. They don't have to open many trades or trade every single day. The role is to make profit, not to make many trades! Also Experts dont trade on weekends because forex market is closed."Robot must work on EuroUsd M1 only!"

About Alligator Jaw error = 129 error:

"it was fixed, ask the client to redownload robot."

From Andreas:

To add, I personally started to use FAPS Forexautopilot on Demo in http://alpari.co.uk/ and made over 1500 of profit in few trades for last days, so I can personally confirm and show the record that this EA is really working and making money. Maybe not in all brokers. I attach the proof screenshot of account. Please post this screenshot to let people know. HERE.

I am not sure what is happening. Everyone please download the EA again just for sure. If still not working, simply request a new copy again from the program developer. The best I can do FOR NOW is helping you to redirect your queries or problems to Andreas. I am not paid for this kind of job though ;0) !

If you wish to obtain the ForexAutoPilot EA, please be warned about the lack of response from the customer support. In the mean time, I would like you to consider also my forex day trading method which can provide you with 'real' forex trading knowledge/ support and allow manual trading within your own control.

Technical Help: Forex AutoPilot EA

(Originally posted on ScoutForex main site)

Here are some of my thoughts and technical notes about the operation of the latest Forex AutoPilot EA.

Note 1: System Drawdown
I've just noticed this. The drawdown on the very last position seen in the previous assessment (or simply click here for the Strategy Test Report) was about 400 pips using the suggested no stop-loss (SL) setting. The position has since made a strong recovery and the system has just exited that position for a profit. Here is its latest performance (last update: 1 September 2008)

Thus, what is the right account size to maintain the drawdown for scoring a 100% win-rate as programmed? Is the drawdown going to be a fallback of the system? These are the questions that I have no certain answers for you at present. My next task, probably, will be running more test scenarios using different SL levels to understand the system drawdown level as well as using different settings in live modes.

Note 2: Performance Optimisation
I ran some simple tests - if we use a stop loss level in the region of 400 -500 pips, we should be able to match the system's no SL setup by aiming for consecutive winning trades. Using other amount less than that probably won't cut it. The next set of questions will be - what are the improvements if we increase the take profit target to different levels? I probably leave you to find out for the moment...

Note 3: Different System Advantages
I think I might have judged William's Bogie EA unfairly by drawing up a comparison earlier as Bogie prefers a 100-pip SL on running positions. Meanwhile, the new Forex AutoPilot EA targets a 100% win-rate using its own automated robot without setting SL.

Forex AutoPilot Review part 2: This Could Be The Real Deal ?!

(Originally posted on ScoutForex main site)

Forget the previous 8 EAs. Now your latest Forex AutoPilot package should come with the one and only - ForexAutoPilot.ex4 Metatrader Expert Advisor Script.

Please check out these claims by the developer first.

Trading System Description:
Trading system of ForexAutoPilot advisor is based on over 20 modern forex indicators such as Alligator, Fractals, DeMarker, William's Percent Rate. The system detects good trend, confirms it using internal indicators and opens the trades to take maximum profit for you. The system does not use fixed stoploss parameter to prevent getting losing trades. ForexAutoPilot advisor monitors each open trade carefully and closes it if reaching takeprofit limit when the trade is successful. If the trade is loosing ForexAutoPilot advisor closes it using signals of its internal indicators to prevent drawdowns.

Currency and TimeFrame:
ForexAutoPilot advisor is optimized and can work only on EUROUSD pair on 1M (1 minute) timeframe.

BackTest on History
Great results in 2007-2008: 700% of profit in 1 year! Made 74,035 from 10,000 usd!

The following question immediately popped into my mind after obtaining this latest Forex AutoPilot upgrade from Andreas (supposedly from Marcus).

So, what's its recent performance (Since Jan'08) even the popular Bogie EA was underperforming?

Thus, I quickly performed a backtest from Jan'08 to present and I managed to compile a Strategy Tester Report (and Graph) during this period for your viewing. Looking at these results alone, this new AutoPilot EA could be a better deal than the original 8 EAs provided.

The forward live testing is now ON. Readers can now check back HERE (last update: 1 September 2008) for its up-to-date PERFORMANCE.

Forex Autopilot Review: Don't Take Them (Robots) Too Seriously !

(Originally posted at ScoutForex main site)

Below are some important advices which can be found at the member zone after purchasing the Forex Autopilot Package.



After trying out for another hour today (may be still too early to judge?) using Strategy Tester - the BACKTESTING feature of the METATRADER platform, I have some uneasy feelings about those 8 robots (EAs) with fancy names due to their backtested results !

I have HIGHLIGHTED in RED some of the so-called IMPORTANT advices (as seen in the pic. above) in order to alert users NOT to take them too SERIOUSLY !!! They (i.e. EAs, instructions, and advanced ebook) are probably good EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS with SAMPLES for helping users to learn or get used to the concept of auto-trading in Forex market using expert advisor program.

In my opinion, we probably WON'T understand how they really work or which market conditions they excel, unless undertaking HUGE TASK to find out, i.e. many man hours to observe on our own, or may be even better, ask directly for more information from the developers.

The EA in the name of ProfitStream Advisor looks impressive at first glance by generating streams of profits, i.e. booking small and consistent profits as promised. However, users could end up with a large unrealised drawdown in the most unfortunate circumstances, which do happen quite often when dealing with a volatile forex market.

Therefore, I would suggest you to learn the BACKTESTING function first before strapping the EAs onto a demo or real account. Unfortunately, no detailed instructions are given for this purpose in the the instruction PDF -the only missing info in a clear instruction guide. Here is one useful document I found for you on Strategic Tester to get you started.

P.S There is actually another two more robots being thrown as ForexAutopilot EA's bonus ! The NFP (for trading non-farm payroll job report !) and UltraTrend EAs. They have more detailed instructions than that of the 8 EAs combined. I would probably pay more attention to those two EAs for now. Please share your backtesting or any results with me if they happen to be CONSTRUCTIVE !

P.S.2 My FORWARD test results coming soon ...

P.S.3 Andreas just informed me (his words) that Marcus Leary plans to introduce new EA this week with stable results instead of his current set of 8 EAs. We got RESPONSIVE actions from the program developer - via the power of blogs ! Stay tune for more updates as we will ride this EA robot-trading learning progress together, thus making sure that our money is well spent.

(Latest: Forex AutoPilot Review part 2: This Could Be The Real Deal ?!)

Forex Killer Found Forex Autopilot EA

(Originally posted in ScoutForex main site)

I received this e-mail today from Forex Killer software developer, Andreas Kichberger (or Kirchberger, typo error in his own name, may be ;O) ? ). I suppose other forex killer software users might as well get this PROMOTION newsletter as you were subscribed for the free 8-day Forex Killer crash courses.

From Andreas Kichberger
Subject: ForexKiller found ForexAutopilot

... A close friend of mine and very successful forex trader, Marcus Leary developed AUTOMATIC set and forget meta trader 4 plugins that .. trade your accounts automatically. The whole package consists of 8 robots that can be applied to different trading graphs and literally make you money.. while you sleep.

This software is brand new and I had to encourage him to make it open to the masses. He was very reluctant to give up his "secret" but finally he put it online:
FOREXAUTOPILOT http://www.forexautopilot.net (he really took a little inspiration from forex-killer it seems) but i really do not mind because the software is a MASTERPIECE...

OK, I got it. They are selling Expert Advisor script for the purpose of AUTOMATIC TRADING in the Metatrader platform. Since I am a KEEN user of expert advisor and I also run my own EAs, I will be live testing this 'recommended' EA myself. It costs me $89.50 (the best offer price) + $15.66 (vat) - own affiliate commission. Our SITE MEMBERS will probably get the first-hand update regarding the forward test results of this Autopilot EA. We will JUDGE its results by then.