signal blow ups

 

I'm more and more convinced that mql signals are the target of a brokerage. or bank, or someone with a whole bunch of money. Everytime a signal reaches a fair amount of invested funds like 1millon or more it is systematically attacked and it quickly melts down. I've experienced this more than a few times unfortunately, a signal will have a great track record for several months even years and once it gains enough popularity and funds it's not long till death. It's happened more than enough to simply be a coincidence in my opinion.

I think it's in the mql organizations best interest to hide or otherwise not show how many subscribers or funds are allocated to any certain signal. It simply protects accounts from targeted money grabs, let users decide on a signal from it's track record not the amount of funds or popularity of it.

How do I suggest this to the powers that be?

 

Where do you think your money goes when you open an account with a broker?

The simple answer is that it doesn't go anywhere until either you lose, then it goes into their pockets, or you win and withdraw, then it goes back into your pocket. You are betting against the prices the broker quotes and then fills your order at. A high percentage of retail accounts lose.

 
That is correct... I just want to eliminate the possibility of targeted attacks on a signals position. If I know the position of a few million that the signal is in and I have enough money I'm going to move the price against it and take that money.
 
4 trillion dollars per day is processed through foreign exchange markets, mostly commerce. Nobody is interested in 8000 lots from a signal. 
 
Again, you may be correct. I know a lot of money moves in fx everyday, we all know this. I don't really know that number to be exact and I'm guessing this is all currency pairs combined, if I know the position of a few million on any one given pair I could certainly move the price maybe even considerably during thinly traded periods. Even more so if the pair is thinly traded in general, not necessarily EUR/USD or other highly traded pair. 

Broadcasting the amount of money and position of a signal is like telling your poker buddies at the table you only have a low single pair.
 

I think it has more to do with lots of subscribers on a particular server, and end up not everyone is being served, causing a huge slippage. 

Maybe at any one time, only 1000 concurrent subscribers have their orders successfully closed with profit, depending on the resource available on the server.

These of course remain silent and happily still remain as subscribers, while the rest opt out, usually with complaints.

And it just happened that the main signal provider is not served promptly after he puts his position out in the open. It may not be FIFO order matching but maybe whose order is largest get served first?

That will be the central bank... The biggest shark of all, and always being served first. It has to protect its economy and currency.

I think there can be several order matching algo at work to ensure market is fair to everyone.

The price will look like it moves to your order, but it just does not close yours at TP, skip you and go the other way to your SL. 

What is price? And price action? Most trading strategies are created based on it, and the  quantum "volume" of the market.

Maybe MQL5 can reveal the concurrent numbers served and how they can help iron out this situation so that it will not occur in future, like maybe notifying the broker to upsize their servers or split the subscribers among more servers. More customers, more business, and so it should be justifiable to add more servers.

I think only they have the ability to investigate such matters and see what happen in the market and whether there are any foul play. 

The rest of the guesses are just speculation. No one will know for sure until a hero steps out to investigate.

I think the signal provider should help the subscribers make a case with his broker to find out what is wrong or is it truly the trading strategy incompetency, and needs to be improved.

That, should theoretically ensure the signal provider still have good reputation. 

 
There are other sociIal trading platforms with millions $ under management over several years, so I think the conspiracy bank theories are a little dubious. Over the last 10 years  I have witnessed numerous million $ funds blow up not only here, of which there has been many in the last year, but on other forums - some very well respected. The traders in all have often taken a high risk averaging down approach and sold it on the basis that the market would always correct in time or that their method was foolproof etc - the only thing the investors wanted and got initally was a regular few % a month, without taking into account any assessment of the risk - many of the collapsed funds didn't use a stop loss!. SO you would have one trader opening 20 positions iwth over 200 pips drawdown and still have 1 million $ of invested funds, because each time he got lucky with the market retrace, until 3 years later the whole thing blew up - surprise surprise! To summarise investors are terrible at assessing risk - they assume a 30% return fund will always be that way and the brokers are well aware of this - it keeps them in business. So next time you look at a signal service/EA start from what is the risk to my account - if his 20 profitable trades per day turn into 20 unprofitable trades and what account protection do I have if the system goes into catastrophic collapse ( note free MT4 equity protect bots are available). Finally trader psychology plays a big part in many collapses - they may start off with good intentions and then after the 5000* 30$ sub realise they have enough to live on and simply lose interest..taking many innocent investors with them! So beware and take action quickly to limit risk  - always use a SL, always use a small % equity risk per trade, use an account equity protection bot, don't use risky grid/marti/no stop systems strategies and you would have survived most of these fund collapses.
 

I have worked in the CFD/FX broker business for 10 years.


There is no "Attacks" on signals, it is fanciful to think a retail FX broker (or brokers) or even LP's have the ability or will to move a trillion dollar market  for extended periods to "take out"

a signal and it's followers.

The FX market is moved by large institutions, banks , governments etc. They have no interest in a few hundred retail traders following a signal.


The problem is the strategy, I have seen it dozens of times over the years, 100% win ratio due to taking small profits and not taking losses until

they are catastrophic. I've seen this trading style with manual trading, signals and EA's, while it's working it looks great, but they have always ended up in the same place

without exception, at zero.


As for the slippage issue some of the popular signals get, it is not surprising. Most of them trade during the low liquidity (especially for EURUSD) hours of the beginning of the Asian session.

When LP's get hit with 100 or more lots at the same time they are going to fill  those orders from different levels of the order book and give an average fill, this is unavoidable.

 

if your money management is good enough no one even big banks can blow up your account and even you can be consistently profitable. in addition to that my 10 years of experience tells me

scalping and intraday short term strategies are not trustworthy so you have to trade on high timeframes D1 and higher.

just peruse warren biffett methods of investing and trading . and also a lot of big traders to know that.

 
Seyedmajid Masharian:

if your money management is good enough no one even big banks can blow up your account and even you can be consistently profitable. in addition to that my 10 years of experience tells me

scalping and intraday short term strategies are not trustworthy so you have to trade on high timeframes D1 and higher.

just peruse warren biffett methods of investing and trading . and also a lot of big traders to know that.

Totally agree with there 

Money management is the key to every success trader

 
I think what's happening is most of the signals are doom to fail anyway but since there's a large volume of them you just end up seeing the ones that have been succeeding