Forex Derivative
It was a mixed bag this week for our two Forex Derivative demo accounts. The FxPro account did well and was up $284.36, or 8.6%, bringing its account equity to 3,579.30, or a 19.3% gain since the account began one month ago. The Alpari-US account didn’t have such a nice week and continues to disappoint. For the week it lost $316.71, or 11.0%. This account now sits at $2,554.63 in equity, or a 14.8% loss since the account was opened on June 4.

EuroBlaster
It was a great week for our EuroBlaster demo account. First and foremost, it was able to get itself out of the rather large drawdown that it had been fighting since a June 12 trade that went against it. Then it also made a positive trade or two. The account now stands at $6,092.40 in equity, which represents a 21.8% gain since it began on June 8. There is one position open, currently with a drawdown of $154.00. I have now lowered the risk that the EA is using. I am risking just 2% with a lot size of 0.1 and maxtrades of 1 as well.

The Robominer
The Robominer had a great week. As I have stated before, I *really* like this robot, and this week showed why. This week the EA added another $67.37 in equity after it was able to close out a whole host of open trades. The equity balance is now $3,180.35, representing a 6% increase since the account began on May 21. This thing just chugs along making a steady stream of small wins. It’s conservative — but effective!

Forex Grid Bot
I blew it with Forex Grid Bot this week. I took down the demo account and began a live account on Tuesday with $1,000. It was able to close out its first trade on Tuesday with a profit, but then the trouble began. The GBY/JPY pair decided to make a steady play to the north and never retraced enough for either of my two open positions to close out a profit. Ås the price continued up, I foolishly went against my plan and removed my stoploss at $150. My thought was that the immediate 1-hour trend would bring the price back down to a point where I could get out of the trades without an issue. Well, the price has ranged since Tuesday and has not allowed me to exit those trades yet. I am presently down about $275 between the two positions and have turned off the EA to manage them on my own. In retrospect, I should have been firm with the stoploss I set ($150) and just taken my lumps. So depending on what happens with these trades, I will be back soon with trading results on either the demo account or the live account.

One thing is certain — you can’t beat the account balance curve. It’s a beauty.

I’ll get the one major caveat out of the way right up front. At $500, it is one of the more expensive EAs on the market. But unlike many of its over-priced competitors, Robominer is probably worth it.

Robominer is another grid-based EA (I seem to be drawn to those) that focuses on only two currency pairs: AUDNZD and EURCHF. The system is built around the fact that historically these two currencies have always traded within a specific range and their price tends to always come back to the midpoint of their respective ranges. When price moves up from that midpoint, short positions are taken, and when price moves below the midpoint, long positions are established. Profit is made as the price action then returns at some point to the midpoint. Positions are opened for every 40 pips of movement in either direction.

Robominer is very conservative in that it recommends using lot sizes of only 0.01 lots per $2,000 of trading capital if trading just the AUDNZD pair, and 0.01 lots per $3,500 of trading capital if trading both AUDNZD and EURCHF. This ensures that even if the pairs were to go outside of their historical ranges, your account would not get a margin call.

Because it is so conservative, there is obviously a limit to how quickly Robominer can grow your account. The developer’s web page states that it can easily produce 6% per month or 100% per year (compounded). In my own backtests, it normally gained between 2% and 5% per month, and in my current forward test, which has been running just about one month, it is currently up about 4%.

Now while you may scoff at getting only a 2% to 5% gain on your account each month, keep in mind that most of the investing world would give one of their kidneys for such consistent returns. This is one of the safest EAs in existence, in my opinion. It would be perfect for the person who has a substantial amount of money to invest but is not interested in the traditional investment vehicles — CDs, IRAs, mutual funds, etc. In fact, the developers encourage you to think of Robominer as more of an investment EA than a trading EA and only suggest you check on your account every once in a while. It works slowly and steadily to build your account. I can attest to this. During the month that I have run my forward test, there were times that I thought, “this isn’t going to get anywhere,” but here at the end of the month, it has made roughly 4% on my account.

So, if you have some extra money to invest, Robominer would be another great tool to put in your EA toolbox. It’s one that you literally can just set and forget and let it make money for you. Also, the developers offer a free unlimited trial so you can see how it works for yourself. Click here to visit their site.