Forex robots Testimonial Jaco Stander (CTO)

Morning, Jako.

Morning Martin. How are you doing?

Good, good, good. Good to finally see you.

Thanks for giving me some of your time. I know you're very, very busy, so really appreciate this. So I'm not going to keep you long. Let's dive straight in and tell us where you're from and what you do.

Yeah, so I'm from Cape Town. I've stayed my whole life in Cape Town almost. I'm, I work as a CTO for a company taking care of everything, technical coding, development, systems, automations and things like that. So yeah, I'm basically into the tech space.

Okay. Nice, nice, nice, nice fit for the robot.

Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, that's why I'm so, that's why I was so intrigued with the robot when I first heard about the robot.

Okay, how long have you been trading with us?

So I think it's about 19 months, 20 months more or less. I think I started December of, Let me just have a quick look here. I can, can tell you.

Exactly when I started.

It was in December of 2023.

Okay, so heading for two years now. Yes.

Yeah, this coming December it will be two years.

So when you started.

You started with a Learn to Read course?

That's correct. So, so I always were quite interested in trading and you know, getting into the trading space but my, my lifestyle is so busy but I thought that let's give it a shot and I signed up for that Learn to Read the Forex charts, which is amazing. All the video series, learn a lot from it. But I soon realized that because of my busy lifestyle at work, you know, I don't have a lot of time to spend on, on the charts.

So then, then I've decided to actually look into the, the, the, the robot and that's, and I think I then signed up after about a month or so I signed, actually signed up for the robot as well. But I must say the, the Learn to Read the Forex chart really helped me out a lot. You know, just to, to learn all the, all the basics and strategies and what to look for and things like that.

So before you signed up for Learn to Read, did you have, what was your trading experience?

None.

Oh wow.

Look, I, I, I dabbled around with some crypto trading and lost more than I made. So I made more with the, with the, with the actual mining of, of Ethereum. So that was quite cool. But trading, I have no knowledge at all. Just trying to figure out what to do.

Okay. Yeah, so I remember you were a bit hesitant at first before you signed.

Up yeah, look, you always, when you hear something about trading and robots and you know, automated things like that, you always worried about it because you know, as we all know in today's day and age, there's so many scams going around and people trying to steal your money and promise you the world and the end of the day you get nothing back and you just lose a bunch of money. So look, it's, it's, I think if someone is not skeptical, they've got too much money so they don't care to lose money. So yeah, I was, I was skeptical and.

But I think that's quite normal.

But the industry is full of scams and.

Yes.

And fake gurus and fake courses. So like it's important for anyone do your due diligence. Don't just jump in. Yes, agree you're gonna get bitten. But okay, so we got you on board and then you had a bit of a rough start. Yeah.

Not knowing much about trading and wanting, you know, to get rich overnight and you know, get rich quick.

I was, I was a little bit of a cowboy with my risk management and you know, pick my risk up quite a bit and you know, as we know the market is up and down and it market will reverse and then when you sit with a lot of trades, you know, and the market reverse, your drawdown all of a sudden spikes quite a bit. So yeah, I, I, I didn't look at risk management. I had no strategy there. I just, I just put the risk up and said, let's go, let's make some money. And yeah, there's no, there's no get rich quick and you put your risk up and you just make a bunch of money. You have to manage it. And, and I actually realized that quite a, quite a bit too late.

At least, at least you had the hedge feature. So. Yes, got hedged. Okay. And then, then you regrouped.

Yeah, so, so I actually.

Just looked at what I did, where I made my mistakes and I decided, look, if you look at the returns you can make in a month, even on low risk, it's way more that you than you can make putting your money in the bank, you know, so why not just take a step back and go on low risk and see what you get. And.

What I must also say is the, the, I revisited the learn to read Forex charts and I made sure that I know what's going on and know what to look for to give you some kind of an indication when, when the, when the market is going to reverse or if the trend is going up or down north or south. And that really helped me to also manage my risk better. So if I saw signs that, hey, the market might reverse, I put my risk to a minimum, you know, and if I see, okay, we kind of ready to reverse, back up again, you know, added a little bit more of risk, you know, but not crazy risk. And that really helped me a lot to, to, to, to get the maximum profit still on low risk at the, at the right time. So that really helped me, helped me a lot.

Okay. And then you had two more setbacks after that. There were two, two little mistakes.

Yeah. Look, this, this, this strategy that I, that I developed for myself, you know, just managing my risk came a little bit later. So before that, yes, I, I had a couple of things that I did. So.

I think the very first one was way too much risk. Market reversed on me, drawdown spiked, and I was down in the dumps and I didn't know how to get out of it. Although there is excellent videos and trade strippers and things out there that can actually help you get out of it. But I just, I just wanted to get at it and I just decided take the knock, close the trades and just start fresh. And I took a knock of about, I think it was a thousand, thousand two hundred dollars.

Ouch.

Ouch. It was quite rough. And I regrouped, formed as nice strategy, low risk, look at the markets. And within, within a month or two, I made that all back. So. Wow, that was, that was actually quite, quite amazing. So I, I was very chuffed with myself. So it was school fees and I got my school fees, but there was a couple more times where I actually did not pay quite attention to what I was doing. And I clicked the button and I closed all my trades. I wanted to close my, my, my positive trades. And I was in a hurry and I clicked the button. Yeah, there we go. I closed about $600 worth of trades in a negative.

It's so important that when you're setting up your robot and if you're going to make changes, that there's no distractions.

That's the thing. Yeah. And, and you have to just set aside a 5 or a 10 minutes where you can just pay attention to your settings and your buttons and everything and don't have any distractions and not about doing this or that. Just pay attention, do it. Make sure you click the right button and all the right settings and everything and, and there you go. But that wasn't the last point.

A little while back I actually.

My drawdown also, you know, with. With all those wars and things going on in the world, you know, the market is sometimes a little bit volatile and you get very large movements on the market. My drawdown went up a bit, but it wasn't hectic. It was like 15, 18%. And, you know, I just felt, I've got some extra money. Let's put another thousand dollars in there and just get that drawdown a little bit lower. And I'm comfortable with my drawdown is under 10%, and then I'll just strip some of my profits. You know, there's a nice stripper tool that you can use to use to. To say, okay, say 10 or 20, whatever you want to choose of your profits. You can use that to. To get your drawdown. And not sure what I did, but a thousand bucks that I deposited was stripped.

So you used your deposit to strip trades?

Yes, yes, yes.

So that's.

Didn't pay attention, you know, pay attention when you do things.

That's a thousand dollars. Six hundred dollars. Twelve hundred. So about two, eight. Almost $3,000 that you lost in three separate incidents.

Yes.

Which is a lot of money.

Which is a lot of money.

Yeah, I want to see your FX Blue.

Let's have a look at this.

Let's look at the good stuff.

Open that up.

Let's have a look.

So, yeah, there's my FX Blue.

So that first drop.

Is where you took. Where you said you took the knock there on the, on the left. I'm looking at the. I'm looking at the graph on top.

Oh, the graph. Okay. Yes.

So there you took. That was your thousand dollars hedge trade that you closed down.

Yes, There we go. I think it was over there.

Now, that was the first one.

But overall, though.

So there's another little drop. But overall, let's look at. At sort of the. Yeah, just hover there. Let's see what was the date there?

That's like.

10, 13, 20, 24.

Halfway through October.

Yeah, it's October.

So if we look at from November.

What was your balance? So just go up a bit there to the left where the blue and the. The Red Meet Day 5, 3.

5,400.

5,400 in November. End of October. Okay.

Yeah.

And your balance now is $10,123.

Yeah, $10,123.

So you've doubled your account balance just about in seven months.

Yes.

After taking three substantial knocks.

Yes.

It's amazing. That is well done.

It just shows you be. You know, you have to be what's the word.

No, I lost the word focused.

You got to be focused. You've got to be determined.

Yes, yes. And you have a discipline. You have to be disciplined. If you're not disciplined and don't follow the rules and don't manage your risk, you're gonna mess up.

Okay, Like I did. For someone who had no trading experience whatsoever, take me through the process. Like, how difficult was it to get going?

Like, was it. Did you find it difficult to set up the robot? Was it easy? Was it.

Look, I think in the beginning if you look at the robot and all the settings, you've got all the customizations, you can, you can strategize your own strategy with the robot. You know, it can be a little bit daunting and overwhelming, but, you know, the videos, the training videos really takes you step by step from, from getting your VPs up and running or accessing your VPs, getting MT4 set up. There's some really nice presets that you get with the robot if you want to just get a starting point that you can adjust. But.

After I went through all the videos and watched the training videos on all of this, it actually becomes so much easier. It explains everything in detail, how to, how to set up everything, what, what every setting do. And so yeah, in the beginning, if you, when you notice, okay, this is also new, I don't know what to do. I've got no experience on trading. What did I get myself into? You know, and then you open up the training videos and you just start from the beginning and you go step by step watch each video. It all just starts making sense and it really makes the whole process so much easier. And, and you know, for someone who don't have any prior trading knowledge or Even know what MT4 or Forex Robot it was, you know, it just. The training videos really help you a lot. And then the discord access to the Discord community, where you can ask questions, this responses response on the questions is like so quick, you know, got a problem? Post a screenshot and say, oh, this and that. I'm struggling over here. Oh, go check that video. They explain in that video. Here's the link. If you don't come right, just, you know, let us know. So, so this, the support that you get from, from the whole community at the end of the day is also. So it makes life so much easier. So with the training videos and access to Discord in the coal community, it was a, it was smooth sailing. You know, it was easy. Easy to get everything set up and, and and start trading.

Awesome. Awesome.

Yeah.

Share the secret to your success.

I don't think there's a secret.

To be honest. I. I don't even know what if I should call it a secret. I don't even know. But what I've done is after my cowboy days where I just went, you know, crazy with the risk, what I've done is, first of all, the thing that helped me the most or you know, is the learn to read a forex chart. That course, you know.

It showed me all the basics and going to intermediate and advanced things to look at and how char. How to read the charge, what the candles mean and patterns mean and the different moving averages. What does it mean if the candles is there and the candles there and moving averages there, you know, understanding, you know, how to read that chart and to kind of predict where the market is going to go. Look, I've made a lot of mistakes and predicted it incorrectly, but the majority of the time, you know, if you, if you, if you look at it and you don't miss something that you supposed to look for, then you can kind of make a, quite a, you know, informed decision on if you should up your risk or lower your risk. Is the market going to go north or south? What is happening in the markets? What news is influencing the price of gold? You know.

So that really helped me a lot to be able to, to manage my risk better. So.

Knowing when to up your risk and when to lower your risk, that is actually all I'm doing right now. And trying to get my drawdown, keep my drawdown as low as possible. I will still. Even if my drawdown goes up to 8% or 10%, which is nothing, you know.

I will still, if I made a lot of profit, I will take a little bit of that profit and, you know, just strip the trades. That's, you know, a bit far away from the current price just to. To keep my draw down intact, that's all.

Am I right in saying your drawdown now is about 3%?

Yeah, I think my drawdown is basically. Let's have a look.

And it's been volatile. Gold dropped a lot.

So I can tell you my exact drawdown.

Just quickly access my VPs. I don't have to use a calculator because I've got the. Actually shows you everything. I'm sitting on a global drawdown of 0.36%.

To have that kind of profit after such a big drop in price and still have such a low drawdown, it's unheard of. Yeah, like it Just doesn't happen.

Yeah, it's, I'm just trying to keep my drawdown though, you know, and well done. So, so also one of the nice things is when you have extremely low drawdown or almost no draw when the market reverse and you know it's going to run a 50 or 80 or 100 pips, maybe go for the all time high again, you know, you've got that margin and drawdown to give that little bit of an extra risk without putting yourself in trouble and, and make actually quite a lot of profit on that run. So, so it's kind of wait, keep the drawdown low, keep the risk low, wait for that right moment when you know there's going to be a run and add that risk a little bit more and just take your nice profits and when it gets to the top, reset, go back to lower risk and make sure your drawdown doesn't spike. So that's basically what I've been doing.

What would you say to someone who's sitting on the fence, someone is looking at the robot, they're not sure, they're hesitant. Like, what would your advice be? What would you suggest they do?

I would definitely recommend it. As you can see, I've, I've made money. I'm making money while I'm sleeping. You know.

Today'S day and age, you, you need to get ahead and you'll need to make your money work for you.

I would, I would definitely recommend it. But I would also recommend, remember in the beginning it's going to be slow and it's going to be new.

If you can go for the learn to read a forex chart course, it helped me a lot. I know it's extra costs but you know, at the end of the day it's, it's paying for itself. You know, I've got my money back that I've paid for that course 100 times even more, you know, and it's knowledge that you, that you can reuse, you can revisit the videos and, and, and, and you know, train yourself to, to, to, to recognize things in the market which will then help you to manage your risk better and see opportunities to make more profit.

I would, I would say go for it and you'll start slow. You don't have to just start sprinting, take it slow, get access to the videos, get access to the community and go through all the videos and, and start with the low risk. And I would also recommend, you know, it's, the more you can start with. I think I've started with like thousand dollars or five hundred dollars or something in the beginning just to test it out, it's fine. But with a lower balance you're running a risk of getting your drawdown, you know, getting a higher drawdown. So the more you can put in, the better.

It's difficult to reduce your risk on a, on a small account.

Yes.

If you're already trading small lot sizes, you've only got a little bit of room for movement.

That's the thing. Since I've grown my account to quite a good balance, I find it so much easier to actually manage my drawdown and risk. With a higher balance it's so much easier. You've got more margin and more room to work with. So that is something that I would recommend. I know not everybody's got thousands just to put in or not going to start with just thousands without testing it, but I would definitely recommend.

Giving it a shot.

So we've got settings now on the robot that pauses dollar cost averaging at specific points in time. So that helps you manage your risk on a similar account. But yes, it becomes a lot easier as your account grows.

Yes. And I have to also mention that.

There'S, there's, there's always new things coming, that's new additions and, and, and upgrades to the, to the robot that, that's actually making your life so much easier and easier to manage your risk and your, and your, and your drawdown. Like when the price gets to the all time high, reduce load risk automatically. You know, you've got the flexibility to, to use those settings or say okay, I don't want to use it or use it and, and help you manage your account. So it's actively improving involving, you know, so yeah, that, that's also something that's really, really cool that, that, that I've noticed it's always improving.

One last question, Yaku. How much time do you spend.

Working on your robot in a day or a week?

Almost like working on it, changing settings and things like that.

I might go in, Look, I've got MT4 running on my phone. So during the day I'll say I wonder what the market is doing. Open up my phone. Okay, it looks, looks good. I don't need to worry.

So I do check that everybody would probably check, check the, what the market is doing. So maybe two or three times a day I go on my phone and just see what the market is doing. But actually going into my VPs to change settings not even once a week. I haven't changed settings.

In probably two weeks. The only setting. If I want to change setting is my risk. I will just put up my risk or lower my risk. That's it. So once you've set up your robot, it's, it's, it's almost a hands off. I don't really want to say hands off because I think it's important that you stay hands on. But you don't have to spend hours every week or every day managing it or changing settings or whatever. Once you've got it set up and in the way that you want to trade according to your strategy, your risk, you can almost just let it, you know, do its thing. You don't have to intervene.

It will just do what it should do. But yeah, spending time on setting up in the beginning, yes, that's some time that you will have to take to get everything up and running. But managing it weekly, almost none. Almost.

Excellent. Yaku. I hope we can do another chat like this in another six or seven months.

Yeah, that would be great to, to catch up again.

Let's see where your account's sitting then. And again, I appreciate your time.

Excellent.

Thank you so, so much. Well done.

Thank you, Martin.

Have a good day, Yaku. Keep well.

Okay, bye.