You've spent most of your last 18 months developing an automated trading system. A so-called "trading-bot". Or you spent a bunch of money to buy one that somebody else made. So you're about to become rich then?

No, not necessarily.

A trading-bot is good in that it does stuff automatically.

A trading-bot is not so good in that it can only do automatically, what you tell it to do.

Let me expand.

The Good

• In a word - Automatic. It downloads prices for future backtests, it calculates entries, stops, exits, the amount of money to risk, whether or not this trade should be taken in light of the past X trades, it stores the details of trades, the amount won/lost, and more, and continues to do all of this while you're sleeping, at the beach, or in a different country.
• It removes the boring administrative side of trading - the recording of trades for your own purposes and for tax purposes. Now everything's stored for you, and all you have to do is use the Search and Print buttons.
  
• More importantly, it removes the emotional side to trading. Book after book has told you and me that emotions (namely fear and greed) are the biggest hurdle for traders, and the reason why most traders fail. Trading-bots don't become over-confident after a big win. And they can still pull the trigger after a big loss.
• It adds 100% discipline. Book after book has told you and me that lack of discipline is the other reason why most traders fail.
• Passive Income Generator. Kick it off and go do something else.
• Take care of your family. Okay, you know how to trade. You're quite good at it. But if something happened to you, you'd want to ensure your family is still being looked after, right? Set up your trading-bot using your specialised knowledge, then demonstrate how to use the On/Off switch.

The Bad

• In a word - Automatic. Without thought. (Don't take the name of my software too literally). It only does what you tell it to do. A bad trading system traded automatically still loses money.
• Some chart patterns are more easily recognised by humans than computers.
• Using a trading-bot means an extra step in your testing process. You need to ensure the trading-bot you are using actually does what you think it should do. If it doesn't, that's not the end of automated trading for you. Just find a different trading-bot.
• The power can be switched off, and the Internet connection can fail. This can also happen when you're trading manually, but at least you know of these things straight away and can maybe contact your broker using a telephone. If you start your trading-bot and go to the beach, something might happen the very second that you get in your car. And then you probably won't find out until you get home many hours later.
  
  Please read my article "The Goal" for how to overcome this hurdle.

So there you have it. A trading-bot does not guarantee riches. But a lot of benefits to be gained nonetheless. A lot.