Automated forex systems are a great boon for forex traders. The ability to always be trading without the need of your presence is a great way to increase your profitability when trading forex. However, getting the wrong automated forex system to trade can cause major lose.

That is why it is important to backtest your automated forex system before you use your trading capital. However, you need to be able to do proper back testing for you to get the most out of your system.

1. Use Proper Forex Software for Backtesting

If you are going to risk thousands of dollars in forex trading, then you can afford getting proper forex back testing software. It is not enough to get software that is does basic testing. A forex trader needs to invest in forex software that is reliable and whose results can be verified. Get the proper forex trading tools and you may never need to worry about the viability of your forex trading system.

2. Get enough Forex Trading Data

The forex market is ever evolving and there is a need to test your automated forex strategy in different forex trading environments. There are a lot of forex data providers who provide such data for free. Your forex broker can also be a good source for such data.

Other than just the quantity of the data, make sure that your source also has quality data. If you test your automated forex system on quality and enough data, your chances of your back testing results being replicated are higher.

3. Do not Over-Optimize

Every time you change the parameters of your forex robot, you are likely to get unreliable results. Over optimizing or curve-fitting a forex system to give you better results on unrealistic parameters will give you a forex trading system that only works on paper but not in the real world.

Curve fitting normally occurs when the forex trader is using too many parameters. Try and keep the automated trading system as possible. If you create a simple forex robot and it shows profitable results on back testing, then it is more likely to work than a curve fitted forex system.

4. Adequately Test Your System

I have seen automated trading system that only work in one currency market. Most of the time such trading systems have been curve fitted. Before you trade your own funds in any forex robot, ensure that you have back tested the system on different time frames and also different currency markets.

The more time frames an automated forex system is profitable, the more likely it will work in a real environment. I have found that the best automated systems are the once that confirm that a trade is on in a higher time frame as well as in a lower time frame.

Take your time when back testing. Do not be lazy about it as it is crucial to making you a better forex trader. I never trade an automated forex system without back testing it thoroughly first.

The hard part really isn’t finding a forex mentorship program. In fact they are a dime a dozen. The tricky part is finding one where there is somebody who actually knows what they are doing. Believe it or not, that’s hard to come by in this day and age.

For instance, I love all the forex forums as much as the next guy, but have you ever noticed its all the same information being talked about?

You can’t go on any forex forum, and not see a million threads dedicated to the subject of indicators like Stochastics. The funny thing is that their is someone claiming to be the expert, by I can almost guarantee you that he is still using a demo. How sad is that?

For whatever the reason, people just love the bells and whistles that come along with a charting platform, such as stochastics. But eventually they get bored of them because they realize that none of these things work.

My intention isn’t to come down hard on these people. Truth be told, I was exactly like them, when I first started trading.

But after a while, it just dawned on me that they weren’t helping. I really wish more people felt that way. If they did, you wouldn’t be seeing all these useless trading systems on the market.

A true forex mentor doesn’t have to come up with any gimmicks using lagging indicators. Almost every trader worth their soul can just look at a simple price chart and tell you where the price is headed.

The reason they can do this, is because they actually understand the market, which is a lot more than I can say for the cast majority of the trading public.

The 7 things that every trader can do to have success are:

1) Get rid of your indicators – They are just getting in the way. If you are able to trade just using price action, you are way ahead of the curve.

2) Learn the concept of money management – It doesn’t matter what kind of trading system you are using. If you don’t know how to manage your money, you will never make it in this business. Too many people are just overleveraging their account, until it eventually crashes and you are left with no money.

3) Don’t rely on demo trading for too long – The normal tendency is to trade on demos on until you feel comfortable trading. The problem is that people just abuse the demos. They trade for so long without any kind of risk that they just can’t handle when they trade with real money.

4) Control your emotions – Nothing can destroy an account faster than emotions. If every single trade causes anxiety. You have to learn to relax and take a deep breath. You won’t make it far in trading, if you’re constantly having panic attacks.

5) Use Mini Accounts When First Starting Off – You need to know what it’s like playing for real money, when you get done with demos. But playing with full lots is not the way to do it. Make sure you start off nice and slow.

6) A Margin Ratio of 200:1 – I thinks that gives you enough room to trade comfortably without having to worry about getting a margin call.

7) Understand how news moves the market – It’s a forex trading certainty. The economy will always have news coming out, and you best be prepared for it, if you want to succeed. Too many people disregard this aspect of trading.