As a long time “Lurker” on this and many other Forums related to
FAPT I realise that there are many others who are and were in the same situation as myself in that they are trying to ascertain the real effectiveness of
FAPT Scalper. So with that in mind I will give my actual experience to date and my take on them.
I started trialing FAPT Scalper in early December on a MetaQuotes Demo account. The Scalper did exactly what the advert blurb said, in 2 weeks the $10,000 Demo account was up $6000. I then started 3 more Demo accounts, while the return on these Demo accounts was not as good as the initial demo the Scalper still returned good profits. I then started a VPS with 3 Live accounts (FXCM UK, Alpari UK, FxPro Cyprus) funded at US$5,000 each account. These accounts went “Live” on 5th Jan 2009. All of these accounts are now losers! FXCM UK is down, balance $4821 Alpari is down, balance $4512, FxPro is down, balance Euro 3431(initial Eur3600) However the Demo accounts continue to make profits. All these accounts are running the exact same scalper settings. There is no difference in the settings, there is a difference in the Demo account balances. So beware you cannot based or take any inference from Demo Account results
Why is this so? It is obvious that the Scalper relies on making numerous small profitable trades to allow it to profit over the large losses that it sometimes incurs. As soon as you apply the Scalper to a Live Account you are now dealing with the Brokers “Spread” , the Dealing Desk, and all other Dealer created impediments like “Off Quotes” “Trade Timeout” or “Old Tick” All of these impediments will reduce your profits considerably. I have watched the Demo Accounts and the Live accounts trade side by side. These “Broker impediments” cause the Scalper Live Account to miss exits and entries, it results in the Live account failing to get in or out of trades and results in the Live Account being locked in or out and causes losses. Whereas the Demo account generally deftly avoids these losses.
From the above it inevitably leads to the great ECN debate which rages back and forth across many Forums
I needs to be clearly recognised that the Broker spreads that you see on a non ECN Broker (eg Alpari, FXCM, FxPro etc etc) are created by that Broker to get you to trade. ie you are not going to trade on a 20 pip spread. They are not true “Market Spreads” from the Live Market. This is why the Brokers are so pissed of with FAPT Scalper. By using it you are trading directly against them and initially it was profitable until the Brokers figured out what was going on. These guys (Brokers)will not let you make money off them. The true Market ECN Spreads that are available during the Scalpers “Trading Window” are generally far too wide to allow the Scalper to trade much less be profitable. How can I make that statement with such certainty? I have a HotSpot FX ECN account. I watch the spreads the Scalper is trading on my MT4 accounts against the spreads presented by the Hot Spot FX feed. Based on those comparisons it would appear extremely unlikely that even if it was possible to use MT4 on a true ECN it probably would not make money.
As a final comment I had previously never used a MT4 platform to trade live, only the Hot Spot FX platform, however I tried using MT4 to double trade the Scalper where it had obviously missed or miss timed trades. Frankly I was amazed at the requotes, slippage, and Stops hit with out the price hitting the Stop price. The MT4 Platform is a “Trojan Horse” it allows the Broker to get at you and your account. Why else do they give it to you for free? It is really a great pity that so many people have put so much time and effort into EA’s and Indicators to run on MT4 when it is such a “Crock”. All the effort on EA’s has only helped gain wider useage of MT4 and thus give the Brokers a better shot at more peoples accounts
I hope the above helps some people and gives food for thought for others
Mike
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