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.
Before we get into choosing a provider we need to have a good understanding of what a third party signal provider is. A signal provider is a trader or analyst that generates trades that in turn get placed on your account. You can have several signal providers trading your forex account or just one.
You have to be careful when choosing your forex signal providers. At a glance a trader may look like he or she has a really good track record. If you take a better look, though, you may find that the trader isn't quite as good as you thought. To help to make sure that you always choose quality providers to trade your forex account we have to set some ground rules.
1. The first thing I look at is whether the trader is a winner or a loser. This may seem obvious to nearly everyone, but I often see losing signal providers with 50-100 people trading their signals.
2. After that I always look at the longevity of the account. Anyone can get lucky and ride a trend for a week, but it takes a little more to trade profitably for months or years on end.
3. Have a look at the amount of draw down the account has generated in the past. This is the furthest that their equity has dropped from their high water mark. Some traders cannot stand to book a loser. This means that they will hold onto trades indefinitely when they are in the red. They often close out trades for a very small profit but tend to accumulate massive draw downs. These are not traders that you want trading your account.
4. You should be able to spot any traders that meet our first three guidelines. Once you have some traders that you are considering using you should take a closer look at some of their stats.
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. Does your trader add to losing positions? Generally someone who is doing this is trying to average down their entry point and is setting themselves up for failure. Make sure when they do fail that your money is not on the line.
5. Make sure that the signal provider that you choose is suitable for your risk tolerance. Choosing a very aggressive trader will not work for a very conservative investor no matter what the win rate.
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. - 23196
Before we get into choosing a provider we need to have a good understanding of what a third party signal provider is. A signal provider is a trader or analyst that generates trades that in turn get placed on your account. You can have several signal providers trading your forex account or just one.
You have to be careful when choosing your forex signal providers. At a glance a trader may look like he or she has a really good track record. If you take a better look, though, you may find that the trader isn't quite as good as you thought. To help to make sure that you always choose quality providers to trade your forex account we have to set some ground rules.
1. The first thing I look at is whether the trader is a winner or a loser. This may seem obvious to nearly everyone, but I often see losing signal providers with 50-100 people trading their signals.
2. After that I always look at the longevity of the account. Anyone can get lucky and ride a trend for a week, but it takes a little more to trade profitably for months or years on end.
3. Have a look at the amount of draw down the account has generated in the past. This is the furthest that their equity has dropped from their high water mark. Some traders cannot stand to book a loser. This means that they will hold onto trades indefinitely when they are in the red. They often close out trades for a very small profit but tend to accumulate massive draw downs. These are not traders that you want trading your account.
4. You should be able to spot any traders that meet our first three guidelines. Once you have some traders that you are considering using you should take a closer look at some of their stats.
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. Does your trader add to losing positions? Generally someone who is doing this is trying to average down their entry point and is setting themselves up for failure. Make sure when they do fail that your money is not on the line.
5. Make sure that the signal provider that you choose is suitable for your risk tolerance. Choosing a very aggressive trader will not work for a very conservative investor no matter what the win rate.
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. - 23196