How a trader choose a signal provider?

[Gulnahar Khatun]

I made some portfolio in my account but i am confused what is the actual criteria through an investor or trader purchase the signals?

Can anyone gives me suggestion? I gave more importance on growth because i believe in usd earning by keeping account safe. 

[Sergey Golubev]

Tips for Selecting a Trading Signal to Subscribe. Step-By-Step Guide (the article)

How to Choose a Signal (MT5 help file)

Automatic Selection of Promising Signals - the article

The Easy Way to Evaluate a Signal: Trading Activity, Drawdown/Load and MFE/MAE Distribution Charts

[Sergey Golubev]

How to Subscribe to MT4/MT5 Signal - the instructions
https://www.mql5.com/en/forum/189731  (MT4)
https://www.mql5.com/en/forum/336422  (MT5)

[Sergey Golubev]

For signal subscribers (for the users who are going to subscribe to any signal) -

Mapping

• summary post:  #7  
• full explanation (thread): https://www.mql5.com/en/forum/442553 
• How to select the broker/signal and with mapping: post #28

[Gulnahar Khatun]

Sergey Golubev #:

For signal subscribers (for the users who are going to subscribe to any signal) -

Mapping

• summary post:  #7  
• full explanation (thread): https://www.mql5.com/en/forum/442553 
• How to select the broker/signal and with mapping: post #28

Thanks.. 😁

[Vytautas Paliokas]

Gulnahar Khatun:

I made some portfolio in my account but i am confused what is the actual criteria through an investor or trader purchase the signals?

Can anyone gives me suggestion? I gave more importance on growth because i believe in usd earning by keeping account safe. 

It really depends on your risk tolerance,  focus on maximum drawdown.

[Christopher Steven Pinter]

Vytautas Paliokas #:
It really depends on your risk tolerance,  focus on maximum drawdown.

I think you might mean minimum drawdown.  :)

[Jorge Vazquez Suarez]

I think there is an important distinction between choosing a signal based on its current statistics and evaluating whether the underlying trading process is actually robust.

Personally, I would not rank signals simply by growth or maximum drawdown.

I would look at:

• return;

• maximum and equity drawdown;

• deposit load / exposure;

• recovery behaviour;

• number of trades;

• length of the live track record;

• execution conditions;

• and consistency across independent trading environments.

For example, a 5% drawdown after 50 trades and a 5% drawdown after 2,000 trades are mathematically the same number, but they do not provide the same level of evidence.

I think this becomes particularly interesting with systematic strategies.

I am currently monitoring two independent live implementations of the same systematic FX methodology with different brokers. I am not using them as proof of robustness — the track record is still developing — but as a practical example of how the same methodology can behave under different execution conditions.

This raises three questions that I think are worth discussing:

1. How much weight should an investor give to track-record length versus the actual number of trades?

2. Does independent live execution with different brokers provide meaningful additional evidence of robustness?

3. Should signal selection focus primarily on absolute growth, or on the relationship between return, exposure, drawdown and the amount of evidence supporting the results?

I suspect the answer to the third question is more important than simply finding the signal with the highest percentage growth.