Over the past year, I have dealt with 3 different bot providers:

• EFX: I didn’t appreciate their bot, Octane, as much as I should have. It was the first bot I purchased. I made a few mistakes with this bot that were more my fault than that of EFX. As it stands right now, this is the only bot I am operating.
• NURP: Their bots have been very successful and made people a lot of money. But all the martingale-ing they have done this summer has blown many accounts. (This is the result of many Forex pairs going on joy rides. I am not blaming NURP. Their martingale strategy can run out of control.) Since I bought the program to use their bots, I will likely use them again. However, I will limit the account size and add some additional restrictions. (The company is radically changing the Forex pairs their bots trade, too.)
• University of Options (UoO): Two of their bots had very satisfying results early on. Then, as the market will do, things change. Their bots lost some of my money, and I turned them off. I am not here to tell you what I lost. I am here to tell you what the University of Options did that makes them a bot provider above the rest.

UoO also offers an options and futures training program. Additionally, it has just started a program in which experienced traders (e.g. the company’s founder) use UoO’s signals software to trade members’ accounts using its proprietary “copy trader” software. I am not officially a member of this program…yet. I have been adopted into the program because of my UoO bots’ losses thus far this year. This adoption will continue until my losses are recovered. UoO is willing to help their bot users recover losses. I am not aware of any other companies doing this!

In this program, I have a few responsibilities (there are a couple of expenses):

• Have a NinjaTrader (NT) account
• Deposit funds in your NT account (necessary to take the early trades. Once the account size grows, the original funds can be transferred out.)
• Have a computer or VPS that can operate the NT software
• Install the “copy trader” software into the NT software
• Have the ability to configure the copy-trader software.

I am in the second week of this program. The first week I was required to use a simulation account. I am using a cash account for the remainder of this week and next week, but I am limited to the size of the copy trades I can take.

I am hopeful this program will allow me to regain some of my bot losses. Optimistically, I have higher goals. I will, of course, provide updates as my involvement in the program continues.