We promised total transparency when we started documenting the bot in public — and total transparency includes publishing small numbers, mixed results and one broker where the bot is, for now, in the red. This is the report of the DEMO account forward-test of our Python bot, running at three brokers (IQ Option, Quotex and Deriv) with the final configuration applied around 02-07/07. No profit screenshots, no cherry-picking: the data as it stands.
Methodology (read this before the numbers)
The strategy came from a study with 45 days of real M1 candles from Deriv (official API), with a train/test split and a fresh out-of-sample window that the calibration never saw. Reference: with an 87% payout, break-even is a 53.5% win rate. And the usual mantra: win rate is not profit — payout, session hours and execution decide the financial result. Everything on a DEMO account.
How we measure: executed trades vs. shadow mode
The bot records two different things, and confusing them is the classic recipe for fooling yourself:
(a) Executed trades — real orders sent to the broker, with time-of-day filters, minimum payout and risk management. It is what matters in the end, but it generates few samples per day.
(b) Shadow mode — on every candle, the bot checks whether the strategy’s signal would have won, even when it does not trade (outside trading hours, low payout, daily target hit). The n grows much faster and measures the quality of the signal on that specific feed, without execution noise.
(a) Executed trades — the raw numbers
| Broker | W / L | Win rate | n |
|---|---|---|---|
| IQ Option | 22 / 13 | 63% | 35 |
| Quotex | 18 / 19 | 49% | 37 |
| Deriv | — | — | 2 |
Mandatory context before drawing conclusions: Quotex’s 37 trades include operations prior to the final configuration and the atypical war day on 15/06 — a market regime no reversal strategy enjoys. Cutting to July only (already on the final config), Quotex sits at 8W/7L = 53%. Deriv has only 2 trades because the bot has just been ported there — n=2 is not data, it is anecdote. And IQ Option’s 63% with n=35? Also early. With samples this size, luck still shouts louder than statistics.
(b) Shadow mode — the signal on each feed
| Broker (feed) | Signal win rate | n |
|---|---|---|
| Deriv | 59.0% | 383 |
| IQ Option | 56.5% | 414 |
| Quotex | 53.1% | 224 |
The honest reading, in three points:
1. The shadow matches the study. The backtest projected a 57-60% win rate (see the complete rules of the two strategies). Deriv (59.0%) and IQ (56.5%) are in or near that range, with n in the hundreds. That is still not proof — but it is the behaviour we would expect to see if the edge were real.
2. The n of executed trades is far too small for any conclusion. 35 trades at 63% and 37 at 49% are compatible with the same strategy running under different conditions — or with pure variance.
3. Quotex’s feed is “harder” than Deriv’s. Same strategy, same period, lower win rate (53.1% vs. 59.0%). The less exciting and more likely explanation: each broker has its own price feed. A strategy calibrated on Deriv candles is not automatically transferable to Quotex’s feed — and the data is showing exactly that.
Operational discovery: Quotex closes forex at night
Running the bot every day, we discovered in practice: Quotex closes the real forex pairs at around 18:00 BRT. In other words, the evening window (18:00-23:59) — which was precisely the best one in our study — is not playable on Quotex. There, only the morning window counts. That is why the evening shift went to Deriv and IQ Option. It is the kind of detail no backtest reveals and that changes the architecture of the operation.
Risk management: what the 25 combos taught us
Before the forward-test, we simulated a grid of 25 combinations of daily target and stop. Two conclusions paid for the effort:
A stop that is too tight cuts off the recovery. Days that would end positive die at the early stop. No stop at all is even worse: the loss tail becomes unlimited — rejected without ceremony. The balance we adopted:
Daily target: 3× the stake — hit it, stop
Daily stop: 5× the stake — hit it, stop
Stake: fixed, NO martingale
Level cap: 10 (hard exposure lock)
On martingale: we don’t use it, we won’t use it, and be suspicious of any bot that does. Doubling the bet after losing does not create an edge — it only transfers the risk to a bigger future catastrophe. If the strategy does not survive with a fixed stake, it does not survive; martingale merely hides that for a while.
What this report does NOT say
Worth spelling out, because the internet will read whatever it wants: this is not proof that the bot is profitable. It is a demo account — no emotional slippage, no real risk, and demo execution can differ from real. The trade n is small. IQ’s 63% may regress; Quotex’s 49% may improve. What we have is a signal consistent with the study at the two brokers with the most shadow data, and a clear warning that Quotex’s feed demands its own recalibration. We keep collecting and will publish the next reading — including if the numbers get worse.
Want to follow along or replicate the test? Deriv is the only one of the three with an official API — and the best feed for our strategy so far.
Open a Deriv demo account →Affiliate link. Always start — and stay a good while — on demo.
Read next
→ Double Reversal and Band Exhaustion: complete rules of the 2 strategies
→ Is a 70% win rate a myth? The real ceiling of strategies
→ OTC is a random walk: the proof in the data
→ check_win freezing on IQ Option? How we fixed it
Dan Machado
Developer of the IA Trader Pro project. Builds and documents in public a binary options bot in Python, tested on demo accounts at three brokers (Deriv, IQ Option and Quotex) — publishing the numbers that work and, above all, the ones that don’t.
Disclaimer: binary options are extremely high-risk products and most retail traders lose money. All results in this article are from a DEMO account, with a small sample — demo is not the same as a real account and nothing here is a promise of profit. Strictly educational content; not investment advice. Never trade with money you cannot afford to lose.