Kicking Off the Forex Robots Scam Campaign

Just thought I’d let my readers know that the NDD forum is active again. If you enjoyed the dealing vs non-dealing desk debate, you’re really going to love the in-your-face challenge we’re dealing with now.

The issue? Gypsy programmers selling bogus forex robots. I know you’ve seen them and they all look and sound alike. Here are but a few illustrations.

God awful testimonials that read something like this: “I’m a 57-year-old, x-truck driver and thanks to you, Bob, I just closed escrow on my dream home in the Hamptons, bought a brand new Rolls Royce convertible, a 120 foot yacht, and married a 20 year old babe with the intelligence of a grape. You’re the man.”

“I turned a profit of $50,212 in just one week and I didn’t spend more than ten minutes at my computer doing it.”

And this? “Gosh, we’re sorry. This robot has sold out. If you’d be interested just enter your email address and we’ll let you know if we decide to allow additional traders to buy it."

And how about this? At the top of the developer’s website one see the logos of major media giants like CCNMoney, Forbes, FoxNews, MSNBC, Bloomberg, and the Wall Street Journal preceded by the words “Forex as seen on.”

And finally this. “Just enter your email address and we’ll send you proof.”

The long and short of it is that traders are in a position to put developers offering bogus forex robots out of business. All they need to do is contribute to the discussion.

Let’s put to rest the all the hype and fantasy. Robots work or they don’t work and traders should demand they be given the opportunity to examine a robot before they purchase it or take their business elsewhere. Money back guarantees are worthless.

Ten Surefire Signs a Robot Developer is a Scammer

If you’re thinking about buying a forex robot to automate your trading activities, you would be well advised to do a little homework. Here is a list of the top ten, surefire signs the robot being offered probably isn't worth the time that went into developing it.

1. The robot isn’t offered on a free trial basis. If the developer isn’t willing to allow you to back and forward test it using a demo account before you buy it, it's highly probable the results you see posted on his website are contrived.

2.The developer's website features an endless stream of thank you letters and endorsements from existing clients. If a developer offers his robot on a free trial basis (by that I mean free trial, not a trial accompanied by a money back guarantee), do you really think he would see the need to post a bunch of self-serving endorsements to get traders to buy it?

3. The developer makes outlandish claims about profitability. If it sounds too good to be true, you can be assured it’s too good to be true.

4. The developer puts a limit on the number traders the robot will be sold to. When a developer uses this kind of ploy to generate a sense of urgency, you have to know he’s a scammer because he is appealing to emotion not intellect.

5. The developer tries to sweeten the pot offering all sorts of free forex related crap. If a robot isn't worth anything in the first place, how does it's value increase when accompanied by more crap?

6. The developer's website is a single page that scrolls to China.

7. The developer does not provide contact information or doesn't respond if he does provide one.

8. When inquiries are made the email bounces back as undeliverable.

9. The developer posts the logos of major media outlets at the top of his webpage, e.g., Wall Street Journal, CNN Money, Forbes, and FoxNews. While no claim is actually made that any of these media moguls has published or broadcast a story about the developer's robot, few visitors bother to read the graphic text - "Forex As Seen On" - adjacent to them.

10. The developer does not honor his stated money back guarantee. It goes without saying but the trader who gets to this point has been had and there's nothing much he can do about it.

New Videos Thoroughly Document Why Traders Should Avoid Using Metatrader Like the Plague

My readers have known for some time that I'm not a big proponent of Metatrader, a forex trading platform that I have contended for some time was originally designed for the benefit of the forex dealer, not the trader. It's by far the most popular trading platform in the forex dealer community and for one very good reason. The plaform provides dealers the means to skew markets to their own advantage.

If there was any doubt about that, an insider has produced two videos showing exactly how the Metatrader platform can be used by dealers and brokers to trade against the unsophisticated trader. The producer of these videos has come up with another plug-in to circumvent the problem, but there is a far better solution folks. It's FxSpyder, an independently controlled, API driven platform that was introduced to the marketplace two years ago.

When traders use FxSpyder, facilitating dealers can't manipulate the market using pending take profit and stop loss orders because they don't have access to the trading platform let alone a plug-in designed to enable them to manipulate pending orders to their advantage.

FxSpyder's platform interfaces directly with the accommodating dealer's API and resides on the individual trader's computer. Stop loss and take profit orders, therefore, do not reside on the dealer's server where they can be used by dealers to leverage their trading positions.

The following videos documenting this conflict of interest have since since been taken off line. I can't say for sure just why but I suspect the individual posting them in the first place had good reason to hide. Makes one wonder why they haven't been removed altogether.

Video 1
Video 2

Once you've done that, I suggest you do two things.

1. Check out FxSpyder. It's the only trader controlled trading platform in existence and you don't need a silly "plug-in" to hide your stop loss and take profit orders. The platform was originally designed to do just that.

2. Visit Forexfactory's forum and get the moderators to reactivate the thread that originally brought the dealer plug-in issue to the attention of Metatrader users. The thread was deactivated some time ago.

Good luck.

A Must Read for Traders: The Black Swan

Regardless of the asset class traded, there are basically two types of traders - technical and fundamental - and neither group predicted the financial collapse, let alone its aftermath last Fall. The reason they didn't can be attributed to a shared lack of awareness. They failed to take into consideration a phenomenon Hassim refers to as "The Black Swan".

If you are a trader and aren't familiar with the concept of randomness and its affect on trading, you may very well find yourself suffering huge, unanticipated losses and it doesn't make any difference whether you're trading forex, stocks, bonds, or options.

Click on the black swan book cover in the right hand column to learn more. At 63 I'm not just a little over the hill, but there's little doubt this is the most enlightening book ever written about the inherent value of a conservative trading style.

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Fxspyder Puts an End to Targeted Stop Hunting

As most of my readers know, my blog and the NDD Forum have been inactive the past few months largely because I came to the conclusion several months ago that they had pretty much outlived their central purpose - to educate traders and help bring about much needed industry reform.

In the past year and a half we’ve witnessed a great deal of change. A number of forex dealers have moved to at lease claim that they offer non-dealing desk trading, reorders have been virtually eliminated though I’m not sure that’s really in the trader’s best interests, slippage has been reduced, the NFA is now monitoring pricing exceptions, and, of course, the industry has undergone much needed consolidation.

One problem, however, still haunts the retail trader – stop hunting – and until recently, I’d pretty much resigned myself to think that the problem was an insurmountable one. The good news is that it appears that soon that may no longer be the case.

Several months ago it was brought to my attention that historically traders hands have been tied when it comes to addressing that problem because as long as traders use the dealer’s resident trading platform, stop losses will forever be displayed on the dealer’s computer screen. Obviously, this puts the dealer at a distinct advantage because he can use that advanced knowledge to trade against you. After all is said and done, who can really compete if one of the rules of the game requires you to tell your opponent what you’re going to do before you do it?

So what is the solution? API Trading.

I believe the solution may well lie in the introduction and use of API trading platforms like FxSpyder, an independent trading platform specifically designed for traders, not brokers. The first platform of its type, it is certainly a step in the right direction. .

The concept is simple enough.

The trading platform itself is maintained on an independent server so stop loss orders are not revealed to the participating broker until the price the trader has specified has been reached. Masking the trader’s intentions and, thereby, depriving the broker advanced notice of pending orders, the platform goes a long way then in leveling the playing field. The broker obviously cannot target an individual trader’s stops for takeout because he cannot target what he cannot see.

If you're like me, you'll probably have a bizillion questions. A visit to Fxspyder's online helpdesk will answer most of them.

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