Making money on forex is a tricky business and even veteran traders make regular losses on positions. It is therefore little wonder that everyone who likes to dabble in the market, from professionals through to casual traders, is on the constant lookout for a tool that gives them the edge.
In recent years, forex robots have been touted by many as the panacea to cure all forex ills but they have not proven to be either universally successful or even well-liked by many traders, who dislike the sense of detachment plus the potential for problems if a small inputting error is made.
However, there is another new tool which takes the best of forex robots and manual trading and combines them to provide an advantage.
Although the tool also comes under the heading of automation, it does not refer to a robot acting on rules that are programmed, but a platform which works from signals provided by brokers. There are various providers in the market but two of the biggest are AVAfx and ZuluTrade.
The AVAfx Auto Trader is a platform which incorporates a service which allows traders to utilise as many as 10 different signal providers, specifying what type of indicators you wish to incorporate. As well as using currency pairings and lot sizes, it is also possible to differentiate a huge number of other factors such as winning percentage, average pip gain and max draw down.
For those wanting to take things easily to start with, it is possible to restrict the number of open trades as well as specify stop losses and lot sizes.
This kind of service comes at a premium however and AvaFX charge users an additional 1 pip of commission in addition to the normal spread on offer.
ZuluTrader operates along the same kind of lines, allowing traders to benefit from signals provided by top and professional forex dealers. Anyone can potentially become a ZuluTrader signal provider, a status which earns pips when users select your signals, but in order to gain a following, it is essential to have track record of good results.
Just like AvaTrader, ZuluTrader has quite literally hundreds of different signals, allowing traders the chance to specify down to the minutest details what they want included.
It is also possible to identify signals which fail and invert them, in other words setting up a trade in the opposite direction than the signal intended, a quirky twist which many traders like to check.
ZuluTrader does have the edge over AvaTrader on price, as it does not charge an additional commission to use the service. Some traders claim the extra cost for AvaTrader is worth it due to the ease of use of the platform and superior signals on offer but no data has been made available to compare the two, like for like.
Utilising an autotrading facility does not stop you opening positions manually, the two means of trading sit very comfortably in tandem together. It is also not necessary to keep your PC switched on in order to allow the signals to go live on your account. With both sites working on a remote server, your account will trade even if your PC is switched off.
By including an autotrading facility as part of your strategy, it is possible to keep up to date with forex news as well as follow other markets without fearing you are missing an important signal in forex.
