Forex Signal Providers - What To Consider
The popularity and easy accessibility of the ForEx, or foreign exchange market, makes many people choose it as their financial stepping stone. Together with its indisputable popularity come some extras. The extras include computer programs, trading systems, videos, books and most of all, third party signal providers. Now, I will discuss some points when searching for a good third party signal provider.
For you to choose a quality third party signal provider, we should have a good understanding about who they are and what they do. Signal providers are other traders or analysts that are able to place trades in your own account with the hope of turning a profit. Depending on your trading needs, you can have one or many signal providers.
Like anything else, all third party signal providers are not created equal. At first glance a trader may look like a home run. That same trader may well end up completely torpedoing your entire account in one afternoon. To help make sure this doesn't happen we'll set down a few guidelines. These guidelines will give us something to look for when choosing our third party signal provider.
1. Is your signal provider a winner? It would seem that no one would trade the signals of a losing trader, but still I see losers with a big following from time to time.
2. The next thing I look at is how long they have been a winner. If a trader has been winning for a week, this means nothing to me. I recommend that you don't trade any signal provider with less than a few months of results to show you. Any one can place a few good trades one week and get lucky. If you are going to be trading this trader's signals they need to be established.
3. Look at the max draw down. This is the largest peak to trough draw down in equity that the trader has historically had. Some traders refuse to take a loss. This causes them to hold on to losing trades forever or until they turn to a winner. Turning a loser into a winner sounds great, but it will eat up a huge chunk of margin and may never turn around. If it doesn't turn in your direction, you will have your entire account destroyed by a trader that could have taken a 30 pip loss but held on until it was an 800 pip loss.
4. The first few are fairly easy to keep an eye out for. They should all be displayed on the main screen and you may even be able to sort by each of them. Once you find several signal providers that you are considering, you should think about looking a little closer.
a. Look at their actual trades. Do they have a good win rate because they have opened a ton of trades all at the same time on the same currency pair? They may have 20 winners in a row. This looks great, but if you look a bit deeper you will see that its really only 1 winning trade places 20 times. Not as impressive is it?
b. Look at the draw down on each trade. If your signal provider lets trades get several hundred pips away from them and then cuts them short the second they head back into the black you are in trouble. This is a trader who lets losses run and cuts profits short. You do not want to trade a signal provider of this variety.
c. Make sure that they do not constantly average down. A trader who is adding to losing positions and trying to buy a better entry point is asking to go broke. This is a trader to avoid.
5. The most important thing is to choose a signal provider that you can live with. If you are risk adverse than an aggressive trader will probably more than your stomach can take. Its OK to let your account grow at a more modest pace if it helps you sleep at night.
These guidelines are only few of the things that you could try when choosing a third party signal provider. Just remember to try this on your demo account before doing it with real money. It's your account and ultimately, you will be held responsible for whatever happens to it. - 23199
For you to choose a quality third party signal provider, we should have a good understanding about who they are and what they do. Signal providers are other traders or analysts that are able to place trades in your own account with the hope of turning a profit. Depending on your trading needs, you can have one or many signal providers.
Like anything else, all third party signal providers are not created equal. At first glance a trader may look like a home run. That same trader may well end up completely torpedoing your entire account in one afternoon. To help make sure this doesn't happen we'll set down a few guidelines. These guidelines will give us something to look for when choosing our third party signal provider.
1. Is your signal provider a winner? It would seem that no one would trade the signals of a losing trader, but still I see losers with a big following from time to time.
2. The next thing I look at is how long they have been a winner. If a trader has been winning for a week, this means nothing to me. I recommend that you don't trade any signal provider with less than a few months of results to show you. Any one can place a few good trades one week and get lucky. If you are going to be trading this trader's signals they need to be established.
3. Look at the max draw down. This is the largest peak to trough draw down in equity that the trader has historically had. Some traders refuse to take a loss. This causes them to hold on to losing trades forever or until they turn to a winner. Turning a loser into a winner sounds great, but it will eat up a huge chunk of margin and may never turn around. If it doesn't turn in your direction, you will have your entire account destroyed by a trader that could have taken a 30 pip loss but held on until it was an 800 pip loss.
4. The first few are fairly easy to keep an eye out for. They should all be displayed on the main screen and you may even be able to sort by each of them. Once you find several signal providers that you are considering, you should think about looking a little closer.
a. Look at their actual trades. Do they have a good win rate because they have opened a ton of trades all at the same time on the same currency pair? They may have 20 winners in a row. This looks great, but if you look a bit deeper you will see that its really only 1 winning trade places 20 times. Not as impressive is it?
b. Look at the draw down on each trade. If your signal provider lets trades get several hundred pips away from them and then cuts them short the second they head back into the black you are in trouble. This is a trader who lets losses run and cuts profits short. You do not want to trade a signal provider of this variety.
c. Make sure that they do not constantly average down. A trader who is adding to losing positions and trying to buy a better entry point is asking to go broke. This is a trader to avoid.
5. The most important thing is to choose a signal provider that you can live with. If you are risk adverse than an aggressive trader will probably more than your stomach can take. Its OK to let your account grow at a more modest pace if it helps you sleep at night.
These guidelines are only few of the things that you could try when choosing a third party signal provider. Just remember to try this on your demo account before doing it with real money. It's your account and ultimately, you will be held responsible for whatever happens to it. - 23199
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posted by X - Men @ 5:07 AM
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