If you've been on the internet for more than two days, you've probably seen advertisements for various Forex trading classes, and Forex trading mentors, programs, and 'automated systems' that all promise you the sun and the stars. First, let's disabuse some myths: Forex trading is a job; it's a well paying job that lets you work from home with an internet connection, but it's still a job.
Automated Forex trading programs are tools that will help you do this job more effectively, but just like a spreadsheet won't turn you into an accounting genius, an automated Forex trading program doesn't substitute for judgment.
Judgment comes from training, and from watching currency pairs at specific times of the day (the London open, the London close, the Singapore market opening, and so on.) You use automated Forex trading to make pre-programmed trades when certain specific triggers are met.
Many traders try to play the market's volatility, and it's for these types of traders that automated trading programs are essential. By using borrowed money to make bigger trades (and bigger profits), players in these markets can make money off of smaller basis point shifts in a currency pair.
To do this, they need to make a trade that's fast. The way to do that is through automatic trading software, ones that plug their trade in over the internet to their broker, rather than trying to reach that person on the phone.
For slightly more sedate Forex traders, ones who use a positional trading strategy rather than a day trading one, automated Forex trading software is also useful - in some ways, it's even more useful. Automated Forex trading software can monitor the markets for you on a 24-7 basis, and, programmed properly, can sell (or in rare cases, buy) currencies when the conditions are right.
The reason this is important to position traders is that they're looking for long term trends, rather than playing the float and edge gambling game, and sometimes, those windows of currency exchanges happen at 2-3 AM. The whole point of doing position trading is to make your currency trades grow, without having to watch every market swing.
So, whatever strategy of Forex trading you choose to take, automated trading programs are useful tools and can help you put your trading on autopilot if you get a good one - but they're no magic bullet.
