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About 8 months ago, I made a [post on here](https://www.reddit.com/r/algotrading/comments/1llih24/do_you_really_need_to_make_your_own_algo_to/) asking the question above. At the time I had maybe about a year of success using EAs from MQL5. In 2025, I made about +100% profit. About +12% so far 2026 (this February has been crap). Some of the responses to my post were:
"No, just lucky. ... Make your own algo, have more control, more data"
"No one in finance will give you the golden goose that lays the golden eggs"
"If your only way to earn money is through algo, you're either selling algos (a scammer), devs time or both."
Anyways, you get the gist. I wanted to wait another full year before posting again, but I have the time right now, and it's been a good amount of time since.
If you're still going to shill the same stuff above, just ignore my post please and move on. I'm writing this to share why I've been successful (so far) and get some of you to see a different perspective. There isn't always one way to do something. These are my own personal rules & assessments. It is not financial advice. Just think about it, and adjust if it makes sense to you.
* Risk Management is absolutely paramount. DD is the first thing I look at when assessing a new EA, I don't care about the profit if the DD puts the account at risk.
* I cannot rely on any one EA. I'm currently using between 10-20 EAs on several different accounts. I think I own around 30. I'm frequently adjusting risk levels, adding EAs, removing EAs, etc. I believe the best approach is to run around 10 EAs on an account with each risking around 1% if possible. When I started doing this, results became more consistent, and I stressed a lot less. Stress used to be 30%+ DD, now it's when it's 5%. I want to be fully calm about my trading. Last month I cut losses for $7500 one day, and it didn't bother me one bit. I'm protecting my account(s). If I'm not calm, then I'm risking too much.
* By running a multi-EA strategy, each at lower risk, it becomes much safer and consistent than just running 1 EA that is susceptible to changes in markets, hitting big SLs, and things like that.
* Grid/Martingale/multi-position EAs need to be avoided on my main accounts, unless I am using a stop loss. Grids still have their usefulness in a smaller high risk account. Most of my profit was made from Quantum Queen, a grid EA, but as of today, it has control of a very small portion of my portfolio.
* I focus on EAs that can generate around 5% a month (as a target) with a max DD of 10% or less. I personally consider this low risk. I'm not looking to make 10000% a year like some MQL5 EA backtests show. But 100%? I think I can make that fly, it's not too much to ask.
* I don't believe the backtests. It's so easy to be hypnotized by $$$ from a BT. BTs just give me an idea of what to expect, but I always take it with a grain of salt. I've had EAs that worked decently for a few months, and then all of a sudden they glitch out and do something crazy and put the account at risk, or it's winning month after month, and then it just starts hitting back to back stop losses (SL). In general, avoid EAs that don't add a SL immediately to a trade. I never know when it'll stop working and let the loss ride without limit.
* Whatever DD I see in backtests, I expect 2-3x worse in live trading. It could always be worse of course, but this is a reasonably safe expectation.
* Start low, go slow. Always start a new EA in a controlled, small account environment. Run it at least for a couple months before starting to scale it up.
* I have to constantly evolve & adapt. Losses I take are a lesson. Pivot & adjust. When an EA seems to stop working well, I dial down the risk and see if performance goes back up. Gone are the days I thought I could just "set it & forget it". I don't babysit my trades or anything, but I do reassess and adjust my EAs maybe once or twice a week. I have a lot of free time away from the screens.
* I use Account Protector (free at EarnForex). I use this as a final back up for my accounts to cut all trades & turn of auto trading at a certain DD. I've gotten to a stage of my trading that I disabled all of my trade notifications, and I use Account Protector to notify me of certain DD %.
* For larger portfolios, it's ok to pay more for the good stuff. I have a dedicated server that runs around 10 MT5 terminals, all with same or different EAs at different risk levels.
* I try to avoid expensive EAs nowadays, I try to keep them under $500 per EA. Some EAs under $500 I like are Neptune EA MT5, SmartChoise, and Aot.
About the included images. 1) my performance right now YTD. 2) my performance the last time I posted. I included my blown accounts since I'm not hiding the harsh possibilities of this venture. Those blown accounts were expected to happen sooner or later, but I hoped to extract profits before it happened. Edit: notice my current balance to profit ratio. I withdrew profit here and there and am now mostly profit in my portfolio. 3) my month to month profit. I haven't had a negative month since around June 2024 believe it or not. 4) my portfolio's equity curve. as you can see, there was never a large dip that exhibits risky trading. 5) list of EAs that I've gathered over the years, they are not necessarily what I'm using in my set up now.
So yeah, I think that's about all of the ramblings I have for now. Anything negative or a waste of my time, I'm just not going to respond. Anything about "needing" to learn to code, I will ignore. Once my strategy starts to fail, I will revisit coding. If you have some constructive criticisms for my strategy, I would appreciate hearing it. Questions are also welcome. Apologies in advance if it takes me a while to get back to you. Hope this helps someone out there. Cheers!