weesoh88
Are you good at trading but don't have your own funds to trade larger accounts?
Now you can get funded accounts from mFF ( https://tinyurl.com/mFFunded ) with profit sharing. If you are consistent, your account can scale up to as high as $2 million!
Now you can get funded accounts from mFF ( https://tinyurl.com/mFFunded ) with profit sharing. If you are consistent, your account can scale up to as high as $2 million!
weesoh88
Rebates from Brokers Do you know that you can actually get rebates for your trading with most brokers? Premium Trading ( https://tinyurl.com/premiumtrading ) pays you rebates for your trading. All you need to do is to register with them, and look for the broker you are currently using under their list of brokers. They provide detailed instructions on how you can get rebates from each broker, regardless of whether it is an ECN account or a standard account. The rebates are calculated based on the number of lots you trade, and paid out monthly. The beauty of this is that, you still experience the exact same trading conditions as before - same spread, same execution speed, same commission - but you get extra cash rebates every month! Even if you are currently getting some cash rebates for your trading, or even getting instant discount in your trading commission, it is still worth taking a look at what Premium Trading has to offer. I find that it offers higher rebates for my favourite brokers - IC Markets and Tickmill, compared to other rebate companies. You get US$1.60/lot for ECN accounts under IC Markets and Tickmill, if you sign up with Premium Trading.
· 11
weesoh88
VPS Recommendation
Regardless of whether you are subscribing to a signal, or you are running an EA on your own, it is useful to run your MT4 on a VPS. It allows you to stay online 24 hours a day, so that you don't have to turn on your home computer all the time. In addition, a VPS has the advantage of being physically very close to your broker's server, so that you can minimize the slippage of your trades.
1) Commercial Network Services
I have been using the VPS service provided by Commercial Network Services (https://tinyurl.com/LowLatencyVPS) for two years now, and I find it very reliable. They have recently upgraded their plans:
(i) Value edition (US$35/month): 2 CPU cores, 1 GB RAM (up to 2 GB at $6/month per 512MB), 30 GB disk space
(ii) Standard edition (US$70/month): 4 CPU cores, 2.5 GB RAM (up to 6 GB at $5/month per 512MB), 50 GB disk space
They are one of the very few VPS providers whose cheapest plan comes with 2 CPU cores, a must-have if you run multiple MT4s!
2) GreenCloudVPS
If you are more concerned with the price of the VPS, and slippage is not so much of a concern for you (for example, your trading EAs are not breakout EAs that enter trades during highly volatile times), you may want to take a look at GreenCloudVPS https://greencloudvps.com/aff.php?aff=552
Their prices are very attractive. For example:
1 CPU core, 1 GB RAM, 20 GB disk space (US$8/month)
1 CPU core, 1.5 GB RAM, 30 GB disk space (US$12/month)
2 CPU cores, 2 GB RAM, 40 GB disk space (US$16/month)
They are cheaper because their locations are further away from the servers of the major brokers. So you can expect to have slightly higher latency (e.g., my North Carolina VPS is about 27ms away from my broker's servers in NY).
I use this VPS solely for sending trade notifications to my smartphone, and also for updating MyFxBook. I keep these operations separate from the MT4s that I run my EAs. When you use delay-sensitive EAs (such as breakout scalping EAs), you want the best condition for your EAs, so you keep all the CPU juice for them. You don't want part of your CPU to be used for sending trade notifications or updating MyFxBook! So my advice is to put MT4s running intensive EAs on a good VPS, and put those sending notifications on another cheap VPS.
Regardless of whether you are subscribing to a signal, or you are running an EA on your own, it is useful to run your MT4 on a VPS. It allows you to stay online 24 hours a day, so that you don't have to turn on your home computer all the time. In addition, a VPS has the advantage of being physically very close to your broker's server, so that you can minimize the slippage of your trades.
1) Commercial Network Services
I have been using the VPS service provided by Commercial Network Services (https://tinyurl.com/LowLatencyVPS) for two years now, and I find it very reliable. They have recently upgraded their plans:
(i) Value edition (US$35/month): 2 CPU cores, 1 GB RAM (up to 2 GB at $6/month per 512MB), 30 GB disk space
(ii) Standard edition (US$70/month): 4 CPU cores, 2.5 GB RAM (up to 6 GB at $5/month per 512MB), 50 GB disk space
They are one of the very few VPS providers whose cheapest plan comes with 2 CPU cores, a must-have if you run multiple MT4s!
2) GreenCloudVPS
If you are more concerned with the price of the VPS, and slippage is not so much of a concern for you (for example, your trading EAs are not breakout EAs that enter trades during highly volatile times), you may want to take a look at GreenCloudVPS https://greencloudvps.com/aff.php?aff=552
Their prices are very attractive. For example:
1 CPU core, 1 GB RAM, 20 GB disk space (US$8/month)
1 CPU core, 1.5 GB RAM, 30 GB disk space (US$12/month)
2 CPU cores, 2 GB RAM, 40 GB disk space (US$16/month)
They are cheaper because their locations are further away from the servers of the major brokers. So you can expect to have slightly higher latency (e.g., my North Carolina VPS is about 27ms away from my broker's servers in NY).
I use this VPS solely for sending trade notifications to my smartphone, and also for updating MyFxBook. I keep these operations separate from the MT4s that I run my EAs. When you use delay-sensitive EAs (such as breakout scalping EAs), you want the best condition for your EAs, so you keep all the CPU juice for them. You don't want part of your CPU to be used for sending trade notifications or updating MyFxBook! So my advice is to put MT4s running intensive EAs on a good VPS, and put those sending notifications on another cheap VPS.
· 11
weesoh88
Some Tips For Choosing Forex Signals
Ever since I posted some MT4 signal reviews on this page, I have received quite a number of private messages from fellow MQL5 users, asking for my opinion on some other signals that they have come across. However, it is quite time-consuming on my part to help analyze those signals... so I would like to gently decline doing so. Nevertheless, to help you pick up the skills so that you can tell a good signal from a bad one, I am going to compile some tips below:
1) Avoid ticking timebombs
Everyone knows what a "ticking timebomb" is. It will blow up after some time... maybe soon, maybe later. In my opinion, those signals that make use of Martingale strategies are "ticking timebombs". Martingale strategies double their position size when they have a losing position. For example, if you buy 0.01 lot and it works against you, you buy 0.02 lots when the drawdown gets to a certain amount. If it continues to work against you, you buy 0.04 lots, and so on. If the combined net profits/losses become positive, and it exceeds a net gain that you are aiming for, you close all the winning and losing trades together. It seems like a nice strategy at first, but if your luck works against you, you find that you have larger and larger positions being opened. The drawdown increases at a steeper and steeper rate when this happens. It depends on pure luck that you are able to recover to a net gain to close all positions. It just takes one time when the drawdown is so large that it hits your margin call, and your entire account gets wiped out. In today's volatile forex market, it is common to see a currency pair moving in one direction for a few hundred pips, without significant retrace - with Martingale you need significant retrace to unwind your positions.
You find that there are some signals out there that keeps doubling the lot size (or some other variants that increase lot size by a smaller factor than 2). While they may seem to perform well, and some even survive for many months to even more than a year, it is just pure luck that they did not blow... or at least not yet! It will surely blow some day, just that we don't know when it would happen. I don't think I can sleep well at night if I subscribe to such a signal!
2) Be suspicious of signals that advertise huge success rate and huge growth over a short period of time
Some signal providers used tricks to inflate their signals' perceived performance at the beginning, when they are creating their trade history. Instead of opening just 1 reasonably large position they may open tens to hundreds of tiny but identical positions. If the positions turn out to be profitable, they are closed together, and "yippee!" the signal account has a high percentage of success rate, e.g., 100/100 success! Then subsequently the signal provider goes back to normal trading sizes and number of positions. And yet the success percentage will remain very high even if he fails in subsequent trades, e.g., 100/101, 100/102, ... It takes many losing trades to bring down that number! Usually such signal providers also use another trick to boost the perceived percentage growth of their signal. They withdraw most of their initial investments after they have made profits. For example, they invest $1020 but withdraw $1000 after making profits. But the percentage would appear as if he made all the money from a $20 investment, and hence the signal shows more than 1000% of growth. I think what these signal providers did are not very ethical, as these tricks distort the signals' actual performance and potential.
3) Beware of signal providers who invest very little money themselves
I think this should be quite obvious. If the signal provider does not trust his own trading strategy, and invests only a few hundred dollars in his master signal account, then the signal subscribers cannot trust him too! When you subscribe to a signal, your lot size is calculated based on the relative size of your account's equity versus the master signal account's equity. If a master signal account has only $100, and you are investing $1000 with his signal, then his 0.01 lot will be amplified into 0.1 lot in your account. If he makes some mistakes, and wipes out his little $100 investment, you lose much more than him... your $1000! I would feel safer if the signal provider has much larger equity in his account, so that we feel like we are in the same boat. This also makes him a safer boat captain!
Note: You must be wary of those signal providers who are using "Cent" accounts. Their actual equity is actually not what you see. If you see that he has US$1000 in his "Cent" account, he actually only has US$1000/100 = US$10 in his account. Would you trust your thousands of dollars with a guy who has invested only $10 himself?
4) Can the monthly growth cover your monthly subscription fee?
Some signals have very consistent monthly profits but the growth may be low, say, 3%. While this is higher than earning the bank's interest from your savings account, you have to do some calculation to ensure that your monthly returns from this signal can cover your monthly subscription fee. For this type of signal, you need to invest a large sum of money, so that you still have some net profits. Usually this type of signal also comes with low drawdown risk. Hence, it may still be worth investing significantly large amount of capital.
On the other extreme, there are some high growth signals but their subscription fees tend to be high as well. In this case, you also need to ensure that your monthly returns from your invested capital can cover your subscription fee. If the monthly growth is 10% but the subscription fee is $50, and you only have a $500 capital, then you won't make any net gain by subscribing to such a signal.
5) Does the signal provider explain his/her trading strategy?
Some signal providers do not explain their trading strategy at all, and they expect others to just analyze their past trades to make a decision on whether to follow the signal. But it is basic responsibility to inform the subscribers about what they are going to jump into. Besides, past performance may not always be representative of what the signal provider would perform in the future. When a signal provider explains the trading strategy, he/she will also feel more obliged to stick to it. The subscribers will also be scrutinizing the trades to watch for any deviation from that trading strategy. Signal providers who explain their trading strategies naturally gain more trusts from the subscribers.
6) How large was the historical drawdown? Under what circumstances did it happen?
...
7) Did the signal provider inject more capital when there were open positions with a net loss?
...
8) Remember: past performance may not always be representative of future performance
...
9) To be continued...
Ever since I posted some MT4 signal reviews on this page, I have received quite a number of private messages from fellow MQL5 users, asking for my opinion on some other signals that they have come across. However, it is quite time-consuming on my part to help analyze those signals... so I would like to gently decline doing so. Nevertheless, to help you pick up the skills so that you can tell a good signal from a bad one, I am going to compile some tips below:
1) Avoid ticking timebombs
Everyone knows what a "ticking timebomb" is. It will blow up after some time... maybe soon, maybe later. In my opinion, those signals that make use of Martingale strategies are "ticking timebombs". Martingale strategies double their position size when they have a losing position. For example, if you buy 0.01 lot and it works against you, you buy 0.02 lots when the drawdown gets to a certain amount. If it continues to work against you, you buy 0.04 lots, and so on. If the combined net profits/losses become positive, and it exceeds a net gain that you are aiming for, you close all the winning and losing trades together. It seems like a nice strategy at first, but if your luck works against you, you find that you have larger and larger positions being opened. The drawdown increases at a steeper and steeper rate when this happens. It depends on pure luck that you are able to recover to a net gain to close all positions. It just takes one time when the drawdown is so large that it hits your margin call, and your entire account gets wiped out. In today's volatile forex market, it is common to see a currency pair moving in one direction for a few hundred pips, without significant retrace - with Martingale you need significant retrace to unwind your positions.
You find that there are some signals out there that keeps doubling the lot size (or some other variants that increase lot size by a smaller factor than 2). While they may seem to perform well, and some even survive for many months to even more than a year, it is just pure luck that they did not blow... or at least not yet! It will surely blow some day, just that we don't know when it would happen. I don't think I can sleep well at night if I subscribe to such a signal!
2) Be suspicious of signals that advertise huge success rate and huge growth over a short period of time
Some signal providers used tricks to inflate their signals' perceived performance at the beginning, when they are creating their trade history. Instead of opening just 1 reasonably large position they may open tens to hundreds of tiny but identical positions. If the positions turn out to be profitable, they are closed together, and "yippee!" the signal account has a high percentage of success rate, e.g., 100/100 success! Then subsequently the signal provider goes back to normal trading sizes and number of positions. And yet the success percentage will remain very high even if he fails in subsequent trades, e.g., 100/101, 100/102, ... It takes many losing trades to bring down that number! Usually such signal providers also use another trick to boost the perceived percentage growth of their signal. They withdraw most of their initial investments after they have made profits. For example, they invest $1020 but withdraw $1000 after making profits. But the percentage would appear as if he made all the money from a $20 investment, and hence the signal shows more than 1000% of growth. I think what these signal providers did are not very ethical, as these tricks distort the signals' actual performance and potential.
3) Beware of signal providers who invest very little money themselves
I think this should be quite obvious. If the signal provider does not trust his own trading strategy, and invests only a few hundred dollars in his master signal account, then the signal subscribers cannot trust him too! When you subscribe to a signal, your lot size is calculated based on the relative size of your account's equity versus the master signal account's equity. If a master signal account has only $100, and you are investing $1000 with his signal, then his 0.01 lot will be amplified into 0.1 lot in your account. If he makes some mistakes, and wipes out his little $100 investment, you lose much more than him... your $1000! I would feel safer if the signal provider has much larger equity in his account, so that we feel like we are in the same boat. This also makes him a safer boat captain!
Note: You must be wary of those signal providers who are using "Cent" accounts. Their actual equity is actually not what you see. If you see that he has US$1000 in his "Cent" account, he actually only has US$1000/100 = US$10 in his account. Would you trust your thousands of dollars with a guy who has invested only $10 himself?
4) Can the monthly growth cover your monthly subscription fee?
Some signals have very consistent monthly profits but the growth may be low, say, 3%. While this is higher than earning the bank's interest from your savings account, you have to do some calculation to ensure that your monthly returns from this signal can cover your monthly subscription fee. For this type of signal, you need to invest a large sum of money, so that you still have some net profits. Usually this type of signal also comes with low drawdown risk. Hence, it may still be worth investing significantly large amount of capital.
On the other extreme, there are some high growth signals but their subscription fees tend to be high as well. In this case, you also need to ensure that your monthly returns from your invested capital can cover your subscription fee. If the monthly growth is 10% but the subscription fee is $50, and you only have a $500 capital, then you won't make any net gain by subscribing to such a signal.
5) Does the signal provider explain his/her trading strategy?
Some signal providers do not explain their trading strategy at all, and they expect others to just analyze their past trades to make a decision on whether to follow the signal. But it is basic responsibility to inform the subscribers about what they are going to jump into. Besides, past performance may not always be representative of what the signal provider would perform in the future. When a signal provider explains the trading strategy, he/she will also feel more obliged to stick to it. The subscribers will also be scrutinizing the trades to watch for any deviation from that trading strategy. Signal providers who explain their trading strategies naturally gain more trusts from the subscribers.
6) How large was the historical drawdown? Under what circumstances did it happen?
...
7) Did the signal provider inject more capital when there were open positions with a net loss?
...
8) Remember: past performance may not always be representative of future performance
...
9) To be continued...
· 9