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.

For you to choose a quality third party signal provider, we should have a good understanding about who they are and what they do. Signal providers are other traders or analysts that are able to place trades in your own account with the hope of turning a profit. Depending on your trading needs, you can have one or many signal providers.

The US Constitution states that all men are created equal. Unfortunately this is not the case with traders or signal providers. Some traders look like a million bucks at first glance but turn out to be bad news upon further inspection. To keep away from these types of traders we have to set some guideline to follow when choosing a third party signal provider.

1. First, I make sure that the trader is a winner. This is a little bit obvious already but I could always see losers with 50 to 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. Look at the max draw down. This is the largest peak to trough draw down in equity that the trader has historically had. Some traders refuse to take a loss. This causes them to hold on to losing trades forever or until they turn to a winner. Turning a loser into a winner sounds great, but it will eat up a huge chunk of margin and may never turn around. If it doesn’t turn in your direction, you will have your entire account destroyed by a trader that could have taken a 30 pip loss but held on until it was an 800 pip loss.

4. The first few are fairly easy to keep an eye out for. They should all be displayed on the main screen and you may even be able to sort by each of them. Once you find several signal providers that you are considering, you should think about looking a little closer.

a. Take a look at individual trades. Are all of the trades placed in the same direction on the same currency pair? If so this trader has not yet seen a reversal.

b. Look at their draw down on individual trades. Do they let a trade go 300 pips against them and then close it out when it hits 5 pips of profit? This is a trader who lets their losses run out of control and cuts their winning trades short. It’s not a trader that you want in control of your money.

c. Make sure that they do not constantly average down. A trader who is adding to losing positions and trying to buy a better entry point is asking to go broke. This is a trader to avoid.

5. The most important thing is to choose a signal provider that you can live with. If you are risk adverse than an aggressive trader will probably more than your stomach can take. Its OK to let your account grow at a more modest pace if it helps you sleep at night.

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.

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