I have been experimenting with Tradency Mirror Trader with a DEMO account at FXDD.com for the past eight weeks. I have learned a lot about the product and I am ready to see if you and I think it is ready to be an automated trading platform of choice, i.e., Is Tradency Mirror Trader ready for Prime Time?

On October 9, 2011 I will open a NEW DEMO account at FXDD.com and will be trading like it was my own LIVE account. The account will be a $50,000 account (only choice with FXDD) and I will be using the risk and money management capabilities of the platform rather than letting the Tradency Strategies determine the settings (e.g., stop loss, limit, etc.).

An important factor to consider is whether there is a trend in the major traded currency pairs. A good trend increases the chances that a Strategy will be successful. Examine the daily charts (1 candlestick = 1 day) and the four hour charts for the following currency pairs:

1. EUR/USD
2. USD/JPY
3. GBP/USD
4. AUD/USD
5. USD/CHF
6. USD/CAD
7. EUR/JPY
8. EUR/GBP

From chart examination, I will rank the above currency pairs from best to worst trends going into each week. I will pick the top three and determine if there are Tradency Strategies, using the following criteria, that are good selections for these pairs.

For selection of Strategies I will be using the Custom Filter with the following values:

T-Score: > 9

Winning Percentage: 100% for past week and > 90% for the past 90 days or since inception of the Strategy (I found in my testing that Winning Percentage did not have enough weight in the T-Score value)

Number of Trades: => 2 for past week and > 7 for past 30 days and > 20 for past 90 days or since Strategy inception

Max DD: 0 for the past 180 days (6 months) or since Strategy inception

RAR: Equal to pips gained for the past week

I will NOT select a Strategy that has ANY OPEN POSITIONS.

If none of the top three meet the above criteria, I will expand the search criteria to Symbol = All (currency pairs) in the Custom Filter.

I will repeat Strategy selection each week after the market close on Friday and before the market open on Sunday. I will no longer close all open orders before the Friday market close. If a previous week's Strategy is not again selected for the next week, I will make it INACTIVE in the PORTFOLIO at market open on Sunday.

The following risk and money management parameters will be utilized:

Risk Per Trade: 2% of account = $1,000

Lot Size: One (1) Standard Lot (100K)

Stop Loss: 100 pips (about $1,000)

Limit: 300 pips (i.e., in effect, letting the Strategy determine when to close a trade)

Maximum Positions (MP): 1

Pause Strategy: $2,000 (if the Strategy exceeds this value in losses, stop it from running for the remainder of the week)

The concern I have with reducing the STOP LOSS to about 2% of the account size is what I refer to as the BIG BANK MENTALITY that I have seen many of the Strategies use, i.e., The Strategies pick a likely trend for a currency pair and make a bad or mediocre entry (really any entry) into the trade with a HUGE STOP LOSS and wait (hope) that the MARKET to comes to them. That causes me concern because I think many of the trades that otherwise might have ended up positive are going to STOP OUT with a reasonable STOP LOSS. The Strategy Providers at some point must understand that the RETAIL TRADER is vastly different from big banks and corporate traders. Retail traders just cannot survive the big drawdowns on their account.

I will place the same Strategies I select for the NEW account into the old account with NO risk and money management restrictions just to see if my concern is valid.

I will post the following TITLES during this three week period at forexforums.com and the Summary later to other FOREX forums:

Tradency Prime Time? Overall Description for Oct 9 – 28, 2011 (this document)
Tradency Prime Time? Strategy Selection Oct 9 – 14, 2011
Tradency Prime Time? Trading Results Oct 9 -14, 2011
Tradency Prime Time? Strategy Selection Oct 16 – 21, 2011
Tradency Prime Time? Trading Results Oct 16 -21, 2011
Tradency Prime Time? Strategy Selection Oct 23 – 28, 2011
Tradency Prime Time? Trading Results Oct 23 -28, 2011
Tradency Prime Time? Summary Oct 9 – 28, 2011

I decided that I will post DAILY UPDATES by using the Tradency Publisher so that I do not keep you in suspense for a week. This will be daily results and a summary total for the week up through each day.