The year 2021 can be characterized as the period of convalescence from the hampering effect of the pandemic on the world’s economy, the process which found the reflection on Forex charts. USD has had a tremendous year and holds a favorable position coming into 2022, thanks to the monetary policy carried out by the Federal Reserve, which resulted in a strong uptrend in the pair with EUR. However, things could change with the expected increase of long-term interest rates that could spur the already high inflation. GBP has just begun to recover after a disappointing year, which saw its value rolling back significantly. The situation with EUR is even worse as the main European currency finds itself in a major downtrend. RUB has also been taking hit after hit due to unceasing geopolitical tensions.
The situation on the biggest market in the world - according to the latest estimates, the capitalization of foreign exchange market amounts to $2.4 quadrillion - tends to remain uncertain and shaky throughout 2022, which creates confusion even among the most seasoned Forex traders.
In this turbulent situation, keeping emotions in check and sticking to a well-elaborated Forex trading strategy could be quite challenging, particularly for rookie traders. In these and many other circumstances, automated advisors (EAs) or Forex robots can give succor to all foreign currency speculators in their efforts to maximize profits. Here we will give a comprehensive description of the nature of Forex EAs, their strong and weak points, and will provide a list of the top 5 Forex robo-advisors for 2022, which might turn out to be the year of great opportunities.
What is a Forex expert advisor? The difference between expert advisors and Forex robots
Many of those who hear the term “Forex expert advisor” for the first time picture a competent-looking man or woman in a business suit providing exclusive insights into the financial market, obviously mistaking it for “financial advisor.” In reality, an expert advisor is a piece of software of various degrees of sophistication, a digital tool that utilizes internal algorithms that constantly monitor the market conditions and, if needed, interact with that market in a predetermined way. This software is usually developed by individual programmers or specialized firms that sell them to Forex traders who want to enhance their trading experience and obtain greater profits.
Along with Forex expert advisors, one might hear the term “Forex robots” that are oftentimes perceived as the same thing, which is true only partially since robots possess a broader functionality spectrum.
The primary difference between an EA and a Forex robot is that the former doesn’t operate autonomously, meaning that it doesn’t initiate or close a trade on its own accord, whereas the latter is given the freedom to analyze the market and act in accordance with the preset rules when the conditions are changing. In essence, an expert advisor is more of an alert or a signal system that lets a Forex trader know when it’s the ripe time to enter or exit a given trade, whereas a robot, which can exercise the same function, is capable of identifying market patterns and performing trades without the manual confirmation from a human Forex trader. However, this is a very classic definition of EAs and Forex robots - this software has grown so advanced in recent years that the distinction has been practically erased. Therefore, we will stick to the term “expert advisor” to describe the top 5 Forex trading helpers outlined in this article.
How do Forex expert advisors work?
Practically all modern Forex expert advisors are built on the foundation of the complex programming language called MetaQuotes versions 4 and 5, which are also used to create utility applications. The same language was used for the creation of MetaTrader platforms that are considered to be the most popular and efficient for Forex trading - most Forex brokers offer access either to MetaTrader 4 (MT4) or MetaTrader 5 (MT5) along with the subscription. A person knowledgeable in programming can create a personalized expert advisor with the help of various wizards available online, but we would advise opting for a licensed product that has been thoroughly tested unless you are very competent in the said programming language.
The primary function of Forex expert advisors is the constant monitoring and analysis of market conditions. Some EAs do it by analyzing the price behavior within the broader context, comparing it against historical data on the largest timeframes. More sophisticated advisors are capable of sifting through the never-ending flow of financial news, pinpointing the ones that could potentially impact the price and factoring them in when generating a signal or executing a trade.
Most EAs rely on built-in technical indicators like moving averages, the relative strength index (RSI), the moving average convergence/divergence (MACD) in relation to the existing trend to formulate a signal or initiate a trade. Such trade placement is done on the basis of the showings of the main indicator, which is always confirmed by the direction of the trend and the showing of secondary indicators. Expert advisors of the latest generation utilize artificial intelligence and deep learning techniques to better adapt to choppy markets.
Types of Forex EAs
Having gained an understanding of how expert advisors for foreign currency trading work, let’s move on to the types of such advisors which suit different approaches to Forex trading.
- Breakout EAs. This type of advisor utilizes one of the most popular trading strategies which implies opening a position when the price aggressively penetrates a certain level of support or resistance, the move that is known as a “breakout,” which often hints at the commencement of a trend.
- Scalper expert advisors. This EA is often used as an instrument of high-frequency trading (HFT), though the majority of Forex brokers tend to restrict its usage. This piece of software is tailored for making a lot of trades for small profits, which is the essence of scalping.
- Hedge expert advisors. This type of advisor uses another trading strategy called hedging, the simultaneous opening of both long and short positions with the aim to reduce potential losses.
- News EA. An already mentioned type of advisor that analyzes financial news with regard to their capability to cause a significant move on the underlying Forex pair and acts accordingly.
The reasons to use Forex advisors. Their pros and cons
Let us be frank, a Forex expert advisor isn’t a Holy Grail of trading, a savvy trader can be successful even he or she chooses to trade manually at all times, and there is absolutely no guarantee that even the most sophisticated EA will make a fortune while you’d be lying on a couch sipping beer like a true slacker. You can consider it to be the first con - a Forex expert advisor isn’t the money printing machine regardless of what the ads might say!
You ought to perceive an EA as a smart assistant that has its virtual “eyes” constantly peeled on the Forex market even when its “master” is sleeping, which is one of its biggest benefits along with the emotionlessness. You must have heard that in order to make consistent profits one must eliminate emotions from the decision-making process, which sounds right in theory but remains virtually impossible in practice if one trades manually. But that is exactly what Forex EAs are best at - they are the robots after all.
Moreover, having an expert advisor at your disposal frees up a lot of time that a trader, who would otherwise be engaged in tiresome chart reading and news analysis, could spend with friends and family or devote it to some other useful activity. On the other hand, most expert advisors require some fine-tuning in order to run like clockwork.
Besides, it would be great to possess some knowledge in programming to understand what’s “under the hood” before purchasing an advisor, because badly designed EAs are prone to trading mistakes which often result in the decimation of one’s trading account - it can be considered as a slight disadvantage because most traders don’t have that knowledge.
Factors that have to be taken into account when choosing a Forex advisor, which we did when composing the list below
- Reliability. There is no need to say that paying a fairly high price for an expert advisor without doing some research beforehand to make sure that this software is reliable would be stupid. The simplest way to do that is by visiting various forums and chat rooms dedicated to Forex trading in order to find out what fellow traders are using. But beware that some of them might be shilling for developers that have traders/bloggers on the payroll. Other than that, check out the description of every given EA and avoid those that show an equity curve that is too smooth, play around with position size, and promise unrealistically high win rates.
- Backtesting. Most developers of Forex expert advisors offer a lot of data related to the backtesting of trading strategies using their software. We don’t question the reliability of this data, though some of them tend to tweak the results. Therefore, if you have a chance to carry out your own backtesting - make sure to do that before buying a full version of EA. This, of course, applies to EAs with a trial period or the companies with money-back guarantee policies. Ten to twenty days of testing should be enough to figure out whether an EA is a “dope” or a “trash.”
- Compatibility with MetaTrader. This might sound like a piece of advice coming from Captain Obvious, but in reality, many Forex traders are reluctant to do it before making a purchase, especially those that use MetaTrader 5. Many EAs remain compatible only with MT4! Besides, a trade could run into trouble when running several advisors on a single terminal at the same time.
Top 5 Forex expert advisors for 2022
Learn2Trade
The first spot on our list goes to Learn2Trade, the Malta-based financial services company that has been around for many years, equipping traders with knowledge and tools that are necessary to achieve financial freedom. The firm is also a financial services arm of Gadget Geek Online Ltd, the retail seller with headquarters in Harpenden, England.
Learn2Trade offers very detailed news briefs concerning a host of financial markets, including Forex, commodities, and cryptocurrencies. It’s also actively cooperating with a vast number of brokers that afford access to the already mentioned markets, along with the oil, shares, options markets, and spread betting.
But the thing that interests us the most is their expert advisor that is dubbed here the Forex Signals provider. The company claims to have over 25,000 traders that have signed up to receive daily Forex signals, which sounds plausible, given how often we have heard positive things about this service from reputable Forex traders. The signals are distributed through the designated Telegram group. One can get free access to these signals by creating a trading account with one of the following Forex brokers: AvaTrade, Longhorn FX, or Eightcap, and depositing the minimum required amount. A trader who’s interested in these signals but is unwilling to register with said brokers can purchase the access for $47 a month or get a lifetime subscription for $340. For this price, the subscriber gets up to 3 signals per day, along with precise entry/exit points and stop loss levels. As claimed, the success rate of trades carried out on the basis of these signals exceeds 70%. One can also sign up for a separate swing trading group for $68. In addition, the subscribers get daily technical analysis, alerts on important financial events, and weekly webinars.
ForexFury
ForexFury is a popular automated trading software tailored for Forex that was created six years ago by a small group of traders and programmers, with Patrick Ryan, Joe Damien, and Haroon Mir at its helm. This group is a part of a larger business organization called Rypax Inc, which presumably has its offices in the United States, though the information about this company is scarce. The team claims to have developed a fluid rating system that allows rating the performance of its Forex robot more efficiently and comprehensively. As of now, they have the strategy success rate estimated at 90% and the robot’s win rate at 88%, though they refrain from revealing the calculation methodology.
However, the company does reveal its trading method to be centered around the fundamental properties of time restriction; it also boasts that the Forex robot in question excels at limiting the losses instead of aiming for maximum profits that entail increased risks.
This software is capable of taking long and short traders as well as operating in range-bound conditions, conducting money management through the function called “incremental lot size,” calculating the risk percentage per trade, place stop loss and take profit orders. The robot is programmed to halt its activity if the spread rises above 5. The software also incorporates a number of trading strategies, including Martingale, lot multiplier, and trading reversals. Soon the range of the robot’s features will be supplemented with “dynamic retrace”, “ retrace trigger”, and “retrace exit.” You can get this top Forex robot for $229.99, the price for one live account, unlimited demo accounts, and free updates - the membership is permanent. Getting two live accounts with the same options will cost you $439.99.
OdinForex Robot
People behind this one claim to have created an “expert advisor with brutal trading accuracy.” We can confirm that OdinForex Robot is quite accurate, though there is nothing brutal about it, to be frank, just enough to place it on our list of top 5 Forex EAs for 2022. The main distinguishing feature of this FX trading software is that it incorporates the grid trading strategy, which implies the calculation of the probability of price movement on the basis of comparison of price action against the grid that allows eliminating the indicator lag. Like all expert advisors on our list, Odin monitors the markets around the clock during all five trading days.
What’s interesting about this one is that it has the Broker Shield feature that conceals trader’s sensitive data from the broker, which could be quite useful even with reputable brokers.
Also, the robot is capable of determining the lot size on its own accord, depending on the size of the account. In our experience, Odin has displayed efficiency in working with as many as eight Forex pairs simultaneously, though its claimed operational capacity is twenty-two pairs. This particular robot goes for the price of $199, but you can get it much cheaper during the sale. The company also offers a host of other Forex robots, namely Vader, which is based on Fibonacci levels, Falcor, Ganon, Reaper, Hedge, Waverunner, etc.
FX Classic Trader
FX Classic Trader is a very popular Forex robot among the users of MetaTrader4 who claim it to be the most efficient for the given platform. It’s a proprietary EA developed by the eponymous company that sells it for $109 for a lifetime license that includes one real account, one demo account, and free upgrades. For the price of $129, a trader will get two real and two demo accounts - three accounts will cost $149. The developer claims that this robot is accepted by all Forex brokers that offer access to MT4, which is a big plus, though this robot isn’t compatible with MT5. The minimum leverage requirement is 1:50, which is adequate, whereas the balance requirement is $200 with any account, which is also feasible. The developer also strictly follows the NFA Compliance Rule 2-43b, commonly known as the “first-in, first-out” or FIFO rule that doesn’t allow traders to use a hedging strategy. The robot also has a smart money management feature that helps to keep losses in check.
Happy Frequency
Happy Frequency is one of the most versatile Forex expert advisors available on the market today. While the majority of other EAs use only one or two trading strategies, Happy Frequency relies on as many as four: trend following, grid, hedging, and semi-martingale, with each one of them tailored for specific Forex trading goals and account types. On top of that, each advisor is supplemented with an efficient news filter. The company offers four different EAs: Happy Galaxy, Happy Power, Happy Neuron, and Happy Breakout, which could also be purchased in a pack worth $340 for 2 real accounts, unlimited demo accounts, the Happy Indicators PRO feature, and the Happy Gold MT5 Version. Those who would like to have 5 real accounts would have to pay $570.
Choosing a suitable Forex broker to match your advisor
As you have probably already figured out, choosing a suitable Forex broker is of the utmost importance for the success of your newly bought expert advisor. For instance, you might have the best scalper expert advisor in the world, but if using it goes against the broker’s policy, this software is good for nothing. This is the first thing to take into consideration before paying money for a Forex robot. Many brokers also disallow EAs with the hedging feature.
Pay attention to the technological capabilities of the broker of your choosing, with execution speed being the most important aspect. Slow execution speed won’t allow the robot to achieve its full potential.
Also, pick a broker who is also a reliable liquidity provider since they tend to cope better with slippages in volatile markets that can disrupt the work of an expert advisor. And it goes without saying that broker’s spread and commission should be your main point of attention before running the EA at full throttle.
Bottom line
This review of the top 5 Forex expert advisors should have erased any doubt regarding the usefulness of this type of trading software. At the times when high-frequency and EA-backed trading is dominating the markets, the old-school manual trading becomes insufficient for those who pursue real financial freedom. It’s okay to trade manually when you are a beginner, but nowadays, true money lies with automated trading, that’s just the reality of this industry.
Hopefully, this material was helpful in educating you about the intricacies of choosing the best Forex robot for your profit-making needs. Just remember not to raise your expectations too high and get to know your EA through and through before entrusting it with significant capital. The software might be better than the brightest human brain in many ways, but it still has a lot of flaws, ignoring which could lead to financial losses.
