Trading robots or expert advisors are the hottest things on the forex market today, but what exactly are these robots and how do they work? In this article I will give you a quick overview that will help you better understand the concept.

The concept of forex robots were really made possible by Metatrader, a trading platform used by many online brokers. The Metatrader platform has a programming interface that gives the user the ability to create his own custom indicators or trading systems. What this means is that any trading system that is based on a fixed set of mechanical rules can effectively me coded into Metatrader and used for automated trading. This "robot" or program is called an Expert Advisor and any programmer with a little knowledge of the C language can create fairly complicated trading systems using this feature.

Metatrader Expert Advisors have full access to all the built in indicators and trading functions that are available in the Metatrader platform, so the trading systems that you create with them can be as simple or as complex as you want them to be. Expert Advisors can open and close trades, manage open trades and perform every function that you can manually do with a trade, so the possibilities are really endless. The problem is that these forex robots require a fixed, mechanical rules to trade by and there aren't many such trading strategies available that work under all market conditions.

In order to use a forex robot you need to use a broker that supports the Metatrader trading platform. Installing the software is a simple process of copying the expert advisor file into the Metatrader /experts folder on your harddrive and attaching it to the appropriate currency chart to activate. Most forex robots come with their own set of paramaters and variables that can be optimized or customized to suit your broker, account size and appetite for risk. Most of the commercial robots are supplied with detailed step-by-step installation manuals, so setting them up is really a simple process.

Unfortunately there are hundreds of Forex robots on the market and choosing one that will suit your needs is definitely not easy. The important thing to remember is to always test a new product on a demo account for at least 2 to 3 months before considering moving it to a live account. There are also many forums and communities online that you can join to get support and connect with other users of the same systems.

When evaluating expert advisors the best approach is normally to look for systems that provides realistic growth while not risking too much of your capital per trade. Forget about doubling your account every month..rather look for something that can offer 10% profit per month on a consistent basis. This is still much better than most other investments out there.

I hope that this article has provided you with some new information about forex robots and I wish you all the best in your forex journey.