This trading robot falls into the category of trend ones, and the entry into the market is carried out after the end of correction. It is unknown what kind of tools Excalibur expert advisor uses to assess the situation. The author only states that this MTS is an indicator one and cuts off the excess price movement in the process, so this probably explains the name – after the legendary sword.

Expert advisor should only be used on m15 timeframe and currency pairs recommended by the author. Trading is conducted on GBP/USD, EUR/USD, USD/CHF, USD/CAD, NZD/USD, USD/JPY and AUD/USD only. The EA is unable to provide acceptable results on other pairs.

Installation of the trading robot doesn’t actually differ from other expert advisors. Attention should be paid only to the fact that you need to copy need 7 files with .ex4 extension to the “experts” folder – one for each of those currency pairs.

The author draws attention to the fact that the expert advisor uses a fairly quiet trading method, so sometimes there may be long periods without transactions (especially if trading is conducted only on one currency pair).

How to configure Excalibur expert advisor

By and large, the trader can’t directly affect the algorithm of the EA. Only auxiliary parameters are customizable, such as:

• Magic – “the magic number” is used to prevent the expert advisor from confusing the orders on different pairs. When you trade on several currency pairs, this value should be different for each pair;
• EA-comment - the trader can manually specify the comment to the orders;
• MaxSpread - the value of the spread is specified, if the spread exceeds the set value, trading will automatically stop;
• Slippage - the maximum slippage;
• FixedLots - if this feature is enabled, trading will be carried out without increasing the lot;
• AutoMM – the maximum allowable lot is specified in % (from the value of the deposit at the time of activation of this option). If trading is conducted profitably, the lot is increased; AutoMM_Max – the maximum permissible value of the lot with enabled MM;
• MaxAccountTrades - this parameter determines the maximum number of transactions on the account.

Attention should be paid to the fact that the MaxAccountTrades parameter takes into account all transactions, no matter whether they were opened manually or by another expert advisor. The EA will not trade at a value of "0". If, however, manual trading is planned along with the automated, it is necessary to take into account the number of orders, otherwise the expert advisor may stop working.

Testing of expert advisor

Excalibur expert advisor has been tested on several currency pairs, such as EUR/USD, GBP/USD and the less popular NZD/USD, AUD/USD. To check the survival of the expert advisor, tests were carried out over the past few years (since the beginning of 2010 until 10.13.2014). Trading was carried out with the fixed lot of 10% from the deposit.

EUR/USD and GBP/USD pairs showed approximately the same results, the chart of the changes in the size of the deposit looks almost identical. A total of 686 transactions were concluded, of which 92.86% were closed with profit. Expected payoff was 4.3, and the profitability was 1.74. During the tests, the initial deposit ($10,000) increased by $2,950.57. The interesting fact is that the bulk of the profit was obtained until the spring of 2012, after which the EA has been trading at zero for about 2 years.

The expert advisor showed not very stable result on AUD/USD and NZD/USD pairs. Four-year testing period also closed positively, but with more modest results. Thus, the profitability for the period was 1.30, while the deposit increased only by $1,436.64. Other parameters were similar to the result of the test on EUR/USD.

The deposit growth curve as a whole tells about the average stability on that pair, a significant portion of time the EA was trading with zero profit. In addition, the gradual reduction of the initial deposit has been observed since 10.22.2012. AUD/USD and NZD/USD showed the worst results among the tested pairs.

Ways to improve profitability

According to test results, Excalibur expert advisor can only be blamed for very small profit margins. In the best case, within 4 years the deposit increased by 30%. The reason for such a small effect would be the use of the fixed lot in trading. The automatic MM was turned off for the experiment; the lot size was equal to 5% of the deposit. Restriction on the size of the transaction was equal to 20.

Testing was carried out at the same time interval. As a result, in less than 4 years, the initial deposit increased by $31,549.52, but it should be noted that it significantly increased the risk. If at trading with a fixed lot the drawdown was 3.71%, at enabled AutoMM the drawdown increased to 22.28%. As before, the bulk of the profit was obtained until the spring of 2012.

For the rest of the currency pairs, the situation is similar – enabling of MM in the settings of the expert advisor improves profitability, but the Excalibur expert advisor becomes quite risky, and the demands to the size of the deposit respectively increase.

General impressions and recommendations on the use of EA

As for recommendations on trading, the use of the fixed lot definitely can’t be recommended. Profit in this case is negligible. If you plan to use the expert with a fixed lot, the risks can be increased to 10% (total for all pairs involved in trading). At the enabled MM, it is better to stay with one pair (preferably EUR/USD or GBP/USD).

The expert advisor leaves mixed feelings. On the one hand, it has a decent survival rate and for almost 4 years of testing managed to increase the deposit, on the other hand, its yield is poor. Situation can be fixed by enabling MM in the settings, but in this case you should be ready for a significant drawdown.

The disadvantages of the EA include the fact that its algorithm of trading is unknown, and closed code makes it impossible to optimize the basic algorithm. Given the fact that it has been trading near zero for more than 1 year during testing, this is not encouraging.

You should also keep in mind that in reality, the situation may be different from test results, and the trader in such a situation can’t even change anything, because the principle of MTS is unknown. Therefore, Excalibur expert advisor can’t possibly be recommended as a tool for sustainable and profitable trading.