The battle is on! Paid Forex indicators vs free Forex indicators.
In the red corner, from somewhere in Southern Europe I’m sure, we have Marco!!
“Hey Bro, I sell stuff”
Marco makes indicators, shows examples where they work awesome, and then tries to sell them to you.
And in the blue corner, from………fuck it let’s just say Canada, we have Sasha!!
“Leave me alone”
Sasha makes indicators, shows you examples where they work awesome, but does not charge for them.
Two will enter, ONE will prevail, as we answer Episode 9’s question on the Forex Q&A Podcast….
“Are there any indicators out there worth buying?”
Joel from Sacramento, CA
You Have One Job
Fans of the blog, the podcast, and the YouTube channel all know by now that what they need to be doing is going out and finding those indicators outside of the Dirty Dozen to test out and plug into their very own trading systems, and to demo trade them to see if they work.
As you search for these gems, you will invariably run into people with a great indicator to sell you.
Should you buy it and try it out?
I have — probably over a dozen times. So I am qualified to answer this.
But while we’re here, let me show you what I want you to do so you can put together the system that you will use the rest of your trading career. Then we’ll see if you should add paid Forex indicators to it or not.
Lessons From A Grinder
Also, if you didn’t already know, I have tested thousands of indicators and tools on all different currency pairs on all different time frames, and on all different settings to see which ones came out best.
I gave this example out on the podcast. I haven’t kept track of exactly how many I’ve tested. So let’s just say I’ve tested out 2000 indicators and tools so we can have a base number.
Out of those 2000:
1900 of them were complete dogshit. Now don’t get me wrong, most of them were created this century and for actual Forex trading, so by default they had a better chance of success than the Dirty Dozen ever had.
And it’s no surprise really. Most programmers are not Forex traders. I’ve worked personally with a few of them to get some custom work done, and none of the people I worked with traded at all. They’re more math guys than they are traders.
Out of those 2000:
50 or so of them were usable, and in the right hands possibly could turn into something good. But in my own testings, they just didn’t call the right move often enough, and/or they didn’t play well with the other indicators I already had in my algorithm.
Out of those 2000:
50 of them were straight fire. All the time it took to discover just one of them was all worth it in the end.
No kidding, I would sit there and laugh at how these things existed all this time, and all of these other yoyos were stuck using horrible indicators like the RSI, acting like they struck gold.
Once I started putting some of them together, I finally had what I needed to enter any trade as optimally as I possibly could. Once I added the right money management to the equation, I was able to turn pro.
But out of those 50:
Only 7 became part of the algorithm I use today. And I’m not giving them away at any cost (except that one time where I did).
Go Forth
If you want to trade like I do, ie: at a pro level for only 10-15 minutes a day, listen up.
Start taking the steps to put your own algorithm together. This will involve you going out there and finding those under-the-radar indicators nobody else knows about.
There are a lot of places to do this, and you will need to find most of them on your own, but I’ll give you the largest place you can go right now.
Start your search at the MQL5 Code Base
Pro Tip: Don’t concern yourself with those star ratings they have showing. They’re really not that helpful in the end.
Two Have Entered!
So let’s take a look at what our two contestants have brought to the table.
Marco:
“Watch this, Bro.”
Marco made an indicator, found a cherry-picked example on a perfect moment in time on a hand-picked time frame and currency pair where his indicator was lights-out fantastic.
He then paid for Facebook Ads and Google Ads where he could broadcast this “success” to the world, and charge $12.99 for his indicator.
Then you buy it, because it looks awesome.
And now he has your info, so he can sell you more stuff down the line.
And of course, once you finally had the chance to test it yourself, Marco’s indicator didn’t work very well at all.
Sasha:
“Whatevers”
Sasha made an indicator, found a cherry-picked example on a perfect moment in time on a hand-picked time frame and currency pair where his indicator was lights-out fantastic.
Then you download it, because it looks awesome.
And of course, once you finally had the chance to test it yourself, Sasha’s indicator didn’t work very well at all.
Verdict
I guess if anybody here “won”, it was Marco, because he at least made money off of you.
The only difference between Marco and Sasha’s indicators, is Marco decided to charge for his.
There will be times in your search for the best Forex tools/signals/robots etc where you certainly get what you pay for.
But indicators is not one of them. I have bought probably a dozen paid Forex indicators in my life, and not one of them panned out. None of them made my top 50.
I do not regret buying them. The chance to spend a few bucks now for the possibility of making millions down the road is worth it, always.
But just know you’re not missing out if you don’t want to buy them. You can easily just stick with the free ones.
It amazes me how there are so many wonderful and talented programmers putting their work out there and don’t ask for anything in return. Take advantage of this generosity.
And speaking of, over time, I will be leaking out an indicator or two from the Top 50 I spoke about earlier on the No Nonsense Forex YouTube Channel.
……but if you’re on my email list, you will get it first. People who aren’t won’t see it for months.
You can join the list by filling out the form to the right of this blog.
Conclusion
In order to see if an indicator works for your system or if it doesn’t, you need to test it first.
Backtest it to see how it would have done in different market conditions.
Forward test it by plugging it into your demo account and see how it works, and how well it plays with your other indicators.
But with paid Forex indicators, you can’t do that unless you buy them first. And in the end, you don’t need to.
Best of luck in your search for those golden indicators that will one day take you to the top. There is much work to do. Get to it.
— VP