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How to Know If a Trading Bot Is Actually Reliable (Not Just Optimized to Look Good)

25 May 2025, 17:00

Diego Arribas Lopez

Backtests Are Easy to Fake

You’ve seen the screenshots:

✅ Perfect equity curves
✅ 100% win rates
✅ Massive, steady profits

But then you run it live…

And suddenly:

It breaks
It bleeds
Or worse — it blows up without warning

So how do you know if a trading bot is actually reliable —
not just optimized to look good?

That’s what this post is about.

1. Most Bots Are Built to Impress — Not to Survive

The EA market is full of strategies that look great on paper… but fall apart in reality.

Why?

Because most are:

Overfitted to past data
Curve-optimized to pass backtests
Using hidden or dangerous recovery methods
Built without any attention to emotional sustainability

They’re not designed to survive real markets.
They’re designed to sell.

2. The First Question You Should Ask:

“What Happens After a Loss?”

Every EA looks great when it wins.
But real trading includes losing trades.

So ask:

Does the bot stop after a loss?
Does it double the lot size?
Does it grid or martingale?
Or does it recover with logic and control?

The answer determines whether you’ll survive — or spiral.

3. Look at Trade Frequency and Logic

Bots that work tend to:

Trade 1–2 times per day
Wait for strong setups
Use filters, confirmations, and timing logic

Bots that fail often:

Trade 10+ times a day
Enter based on volatility spikes
Just want to generate a “nice” equity curve

More trades ≠ more profits.
It usually means more exposure — and less control.

4. Don’t Ignore the Emotional Side of Risk

Let’s be honest — most traders don’t quit because of the numbers.

They quit because of the emotions.

A bot might have “acceptable” drawdowns on paper…
But can you actually handle them?

Reliable bots:

Win often
Lose small
Make it easier to trust the process
Are designed to protect your confidence, not just your capital

That’s the part no one talks about.
And it’s what actually makes a bot survivable.

5. Ask These Final 3 Questions:

Before trusting a bot with your real account, ask:

1️⃣ Does it use a trailing stop or just a static TP/SL?

2️⃣ Is the stop loss based on structure — or just a random fixed number?

3️⃣ Is it built for one pair — or trying to be “universal”?

If you can’t answer these clearly, you’re probably looking at a backtest bot — not a real one.

🧠 Want Help Evaluating Your Current EA?

I created a free EA Reliability Checklist — a one-page reference to help you assess whether your bot is ready for real trading… or just faking success.

👉 Check the EA Checklist here - Just drop your email and I’ll send it instantly.

Inside, you’ll get:

7 common logic flaws that break gold bots
How to tell if your SL/TP system makes sense
The checklist I use when reviewing new strategies

Short. Clear. It might save your next account.

What About My Own Bots?

I’m not here to sell hype.
I’m here to build trustworthy tools for real traders.

I built DoIt GBP Master and DoIt Gold Guardian around the same principles in this post:

✅ Smart trailing stop logic based on candle structure
✅ One-trade-per-day design
✅ Controlled recovery after a loss
✅ Emotional sustainability as a core feature, not an afterthought

Are they perfect? No.
But they’re designed to survive.

And this week, when you grab DoIt GBP Master — you’ll get DoIt Gold Guardian included free.