Equity Builder
Overview
| EA Name | Homepage | Pair | Timeframe | Takeprofit | Stoploss | ECN | 5-Digits | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equity Builder | Click Here! | EURCHF | M5 | 10 | dynamic | no | automatic |
Forward Test (Demo)
Status: stopped (qualified for live-trading)
Last update: 2009 December 3, 16:33 (GMT)
| EA Name | Statement | Weekly Net P/L [Pips] | Weekly Profit | Weekly Trades | Winning Trades | Max/Min [Pips] | Closed P/L [Pips] | Open P/L [Pips] | Total Profit | Max. DD [%] | Weeks in Test |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equity Builder | Statement | 145 | 6% | 24 | 96% | 10 / -11 | 1452 | 0 | 85% | 0% | 10 |
Backtest
| EA Name | Statement | Period | Pair | Closed P/L [Pips] | Open P/L [Pips] | Trades | Winning Trades | Max/Min [Pips] | Max. DD [%] | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equity Builder | Statement | 2008 | EURCHF | -1291 | 0 | 202 | 63% | 10 / -85 | 100% | |
| Equity Builder | Statement | 2007 | EURCHF | -1789 | 0 | 327 | 64% | 10 / -123 | 100% | stopped out |
| Equity Builder | Statement | 2006 | EURCHF | 2858 | -400 | 896 | 71% | 10 / -57 | 8% | stopped out |
Homepage / Vendor
The homepage of FX Equity Builder is simple an clean. It does not contain a lot of information about the creator of the prodcut or how it works. Mainly they show backtest results showing hughe returns starting from 300% this year and above. In addition there is the access information for and forward test account as well.
Delivery
As owner of Equity Builder you get:
- the equity builder expert advisor (1 compiled .ex4, 1 .dll library file, 1 .exe application)
- a 4 page pdf documentation
After the completion of the order you need to send the vendor your account number and you get your EA by mail with the account hardcoded inside. The robot you get delivered is limited to a 70 day period. You will get an unlimited version after the refund period ended.
License
Equity Builder comes locked to a trading account.
Installation
The installation is described in a short sentence in the email of the delivery. It will not be a problem if you did install an expert advisor before. In addition they provide a link to a video which shows how to install an EA in general.
How does it work ?
The robot enters trades based on Stochastics and Moving Averages. It uses a martingale theory which means that if the market runs against it’s trade it opens additional trades always with increased lotsize. This additional trades are made a distance of only 20 pips. This is limited to a maximum of 8 open trades. The biggest traded lotsize starting with 0.01 lots using conservative settings is 0.62 lots, the maximum total open lotsize is 1.79 lots.
Settings
The settings are documented in the manual. There are settings to define the account type, the minimal trading size, takeprofit / stoploss, a risk setting and time window for trading and an equity protection. By default the EA comes with default settings for 5 digit price quotes.
Money Management
The money management used it martingale. This means that in worst case the whole account will be at risk as it may open a lot of trades with increasing lotsize. The Risk parameter affects the initial trading size. They suggest two different settings: 2 for conservative / 4 for aggressive setup. The initial lotsize it starts with can not be defined, it’s calculated internally by a money management routine. It starts with Risk * 0.01 lots per 10k on a standard account.
All trades don’t use any stop loss. There is a parameter offered called equity protection. With this parameter a level of drawdown can be specified at which all trades will be closed.
Here an excerpt out of the manual what they recommend:
Manual exits:
As stated above we suggest you use you initiative to exit trades as shown below. If you are not comfortable with this
then we suggest you set an equity percentage setting of 50%. This may seem quite high. This has not happened this year on the “Risk = 2 or 4 “. As this EA produces approximately 40% per month, within one
month you will have almost made this profit back.
Broker Requirements
Equity Builder works with 4- and 5-digit price quotes but does not support ECN style brokers. A Broker which allows microlots is needed for accounts < 50k for conservative and <25k for aggressive settings.
Conclusion
An aggressiv robot which either produces high returns or wippes out your account, as they state correctly in the manual:
“We strongly advise that you only trade with capital you are comfortably able to lose.” One important information is missing for a martingale product. Which amount of money is needed to give the robot enough room to survive. We did some backtests for 2009 to check that out, trading with 1 microlot (0.01) as a start and conservative settings. Especially for smaller accounts it seems not to be a good idea to use the 50% equity protection as this will be hit and the next trade setup already may have not enough room left. Without equity protection for 2009 it would have worked so far starting with 1000 USD while it would have failed using equity protection. For 2008 the situation would have been totally different: it would have wipped out an the account if running with or without equity protection.
If you plan to trade with such a tool we recommend to get an account with the highest leverage available to avoid early margin calls and always run it on an account dedicated to that robot.
The backtests we published have been made using the recommended 50% equity protection.
Update
With the Version 1.5 FX Equity Builder introduced the possibility to define the maximum number of open trades. This allows it to be traded on smaller accounts as well and to limit the total risk exposure.