When you’re deep in trading forums, it’s tempting to stumble upon an “easy win” strategy. Reddit is full of posts where traders share their Expert Advisor (EA) setups, often with bold claims of consistent profits. I decided to copy one of these strategies—line by line—and let it run on my MetaTrader account. The results were eye-opening.
The Setup
The EA I found was built around a simple moving average crossover with a few filters: RSI confirmation and time-of-day restrictions. The author claimed it worked best on EUR/USD during London hours. I didn’t tweak anything—I wanted to see if the raw version lived up to the hype.
The Reality Check
- Execution quirks: The EA opened trades exactly as described, but slippage and spread widened during volatile hours, eating into profits.
- Risk management gaps: The stop-loss levels were too tight, leading to frequent whipsaws.
- Overfitting signs: The backtest looked stellar, but live results quickly diverged.
Lessons Learned
- Context matters: A strategy that works for one trader’s broker, spreads, and execution environment may fail elsewhere.
- Risk trumps entry logic: Without solid money management, even clever signals collapse under pressure.
- Copying ≠ understanding: Blindly following code is not the same as grasping the logic behind it.
My Takeaway
Reddit can be a goldmine of inspiration, but it’s not a plug-and-play solution. Copying an EA taught me more about the importance of adapting strategies to my own conditions than about chasing someone else’s “holy grail.” In the end, the best EA isn’t the one you copy—it’s the one you understand, test, and refine yourself.