EA Craftsman's EA Course 【019】 EA is completely abandoned and semi-automatic trading... which is more profitable?
Semi-Automatic Trading
When people say EA or automatic trading...Once you start operating it, it will earn money with 24/7/365 full automation!
I think that’s the common image, but once you gain some experience...
If you know that a drawdown is likely to occur from now on, wouldn’t it be better to pause temporarily?
I think there will be situations where you think that.
In other words, semi-automatic trading. Is it better to do this, or is it better to leave it completely alone to keep performance stable...?
Huh? That depends on the EA, right?
There are EAs that are better to use, and EAs that are better to leave completely alone… that’s the punchline, isn’t it?
That’s something beginners can quickly come up with, but how should you judge it? Have you actually tried it?
Premise
First and foremost...That EA must perform in line with its backtest, or at least close to it.
If this condition isn’t met, it’s not worth discussing.
Even if you were making money, an EA that makes money in a way different from the backtest or that has a capital curve that differs would have low reproducibility as discussed in the 15th EA lecture.
Low reproducibility means it’s difficult to predict how earnings and capital curves will look going forward...
Yes, you’ve got it.
As discussed in the 6th EA lecture, semi-automatic trading involves pausing and restarting while predicting near-future capital curves, so for EAs that behave differently from the backtest, there is nothing you can do.
Considering room for growth and the magnitude of benefits
Next, given the premise “the EA earns in the same way as backtest,” the next point to look at is the magnitude of drawdown.
If an EA regularly experiences large drawdowns or many consecutive losses, the potential for performance improvement is large, so semi-automatic trading has value.
What counts as “large” or “many consecutive losses” isn’t predefined like exam study, so you need to define it with your own hands and mind.
Conversely, if the drawdown is small or it doesn’t incur many losses, the appeal of semi-automatic trading is low, so choose full automation.
Although you started EA to seize 24-hour opportunities, if you meddle and miss those chances, it defeats the purpose.
Operator’s Level
Next is the operator’s level.Like discretionary trading, semi-automatic trading also requires environment recognition skills.
If you operate without this, you’ll end up making matters worse.
If you’re not confident in environment recognition, commit fully to automatic trading and leave it alone. If you can’t commit, don’t trade FX at all. Don’t do automated trading either.
That’s the answer.
Finally, how deeply you understand the EA you are running—its strengths, what market conditions it thrives in, or where it struggles—this is what you need to know.
Summary
To summarize the criteria for deciding whether to do semi-automatic trading...
- A backtest-consistent, highly reproducible logic
- Room for growth and significant benefits
- High operator skill level
■ Concept and operating policy of the EAs I developed
EAs by a craftsman (Three Arrows) are here
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