Examining Draw Downs When Selecting A Forex Signal Provider

So, you are in the market for a third party signal provider

. The maximum draw down of the trader is your first step in the selection process. To define the maximum draw down - this is the gap between the ultimate amount of loss between the absolute top and the absolute bottom. Included in this number is also the open positions, but not included is the account margin necessary to keep you away from a margin call. How much is too much of a draw down you may well ask. Of course, like many answers to many questions, it is - That depends. Many, many issues need to be examined when coming up with an answer to this very important question. It goes without saying that a person with an account in the high thousands of dollars can stand more of a draw down than a person with a much smaller account. So, that being said, what are some other things to consider?

Another thing to look at aside from the actual number is how that number came to be. If a trader has a draw down that is too high for you to tolerate but otherwise seems to trade well, you should look at how many positions he opens at a time. If that trader opens 5 trades on any given pair at a time you can instantly cut their historical draw down by 5. Limiting the # of open trades for a trader could drastically reduce the overall draw down.

You will on occasion discover a trader with a fine track record with the exception of one large meltdown suffered when just one trade ran amok for days unnoticed. This will give a distorted picture due to the abnormal draw down and doesn't mean much in relation to the trader's true ability. You may have stumbled on the type who can't tell when or if a trade has a shot at coming back to an even status. Or, the poor chap could possibly have the lousy luck of losing his connection to the internet at some very bad times. To keep this sort of thing from happening to you, set your own stops with the trader. Do make sure though that the stops you put on his trades are only those that are well out of reasonable trading range.

Now that we're half way down the page lets revisit our original question. After doing anything and everything you can to limit draw down, I would say that anything over 35% of your entire account equity is just too much. Once you start to get into a situation where you are losing 50% or more it is very tough to ever recover without taking extreme risks. If you lose 50% you need to make 100% just to get back to even.

When considering draw down you should also look at how much history is available on that trader. If he only has 3 weeks of history than chances are that his largest draw down is yet to come. If he has 50 or 100 weeks of history he has probably already hit some rough patches and you can get a better idea of how rough the rough patches are for that particular trader.

You must constantly monitor your traders on all of your accounts, whether live or demo. Should any draw down run rampant, you will need to reevaluate and possibly delete the trader from your active portfolio.

by: Tom K Kearns

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