The Expert Advisor - Forex Trading Software
The Expert Advisor is a sophisticated piece of trading software comprised of a specific set of rules that sits on your trading platform and executes your trades. Essentially, it is a robot.
The majority of forex traders fail as a result of the human emotions of fear and greed. When trading with an Expert Advisor - a purely logical tool - the emotions are removed from the trading decisions.
Under the influence of greed or fear, traders will frequently either stay in a trade in order to grab extra profit when the trade should be closed, or exit a trade prematurely and lose out on profit. The beauty part of trading with an Expert Advisor is that it trades with a plan - not emotion - and does so 24 hours a day during market hours.
The Expert Advisor is constantly scanning and monitoring the market, and executes trades based upon its underlying parameters. And unlike a human, it is also capable of monitoring indicators, support and resistance levels, and a host of other factors in a variety of timeframes with lightning speed, and making immediate trading decisions.
Today’s market offers quite a variety of Expert Advisors in a wide range of prices. There are so many factors to consider; for example are they currency specific? Are they timeframe specific? Do they attempt to predict trends or do they follow them? What about risk management? Most I’ve seen recommend 2-4% risk, but there are some out there that are low risk (1-3%). Do they support stop losses or do they continue to hold a trade - even thru downturns - until a profit is achieved?
There are many questions to be researched and answers to be considered before buying an Expert Advisor. It’s also important to be sure the EA will run on your trading platform, that you can run multiple EA’s on one account, and that it can be used with a mini account, if that is your account type.
Prior to installing an EA on your trading platform, there’s one more thing to think about. What happens if your computer dies, or the power in your area goes out? Remember that the EA handles your trade, and resides on your computer, but open trades are in the hands of your broker. In this case, you would have an unmanaged open trade.
If you are located in an area that is prone to power failures, you might want to consider opening a VPS (virtual private server) account and loading your trading software on it. That way, your platform will continue to run without you monitoring it, and it can be accessed from any location.
Expert Advisors are definitely helpful tools. Do your homework and conduct some in-depth research before making your purchase and your experience should be a good one.
