[Julia]

Top 10 of MQL5 Trading Signals for March 2016
Overview by NordFX Expert

The MQL5 Signals service integrated into the MetaTrader platform is becoming more and more popular as it allows even amateurish investors to collect profits by automatically copying experienced traders’ signals. It takes just a few clicks to subscribe to one or more such signals. On its face, it looks as easy as it can get. However, practice shows that in pursuit of grand profits, subscribers rather often fail to assess risks correctly. To help to avoid such mistakes, we regularly publish ratings of the most sought-after signals, complementing them with comments by a professional – NordFX leading analyst John Gordon.
The top 10 of the most popular signal providers for March 2016 is presented below.
I. Green Line Signals (increase 668%, 296 subscribers),
II. Pound Aussie Real (increase 855%, 274 subscribers),
III. MenjadiTrader PAMM 144842 (increase 49%, 225 subscribers),
IV. Magic profits (increase 14133%, 180 subscribers),
V. Q2FX (increase 1300%, 126 subscribers),
IV. Geylani (increase 81%, 112 subscribers),
VII. LidziyaForex (increase 113%, 89 subscribers),
VIII. George Soros (increase 1986%, 76 subscribers),
IX. HnGcg (increase 58%, 75 subscribers),
X. Night Hunter (increase 313%, 73 subscribers).
Six of the current leading signal providers were in the February top 10 as well. They are:
- Green Line Signals jumped from the 5th place to number one;
- Pound Aussie Real went up to the 2nd place from the 4th in February;
- MenjadiTrader PAMM 144842 kept its 3rd position;
- Magic profits swapped the 8th place for the 4th in March.
Two signals, on the contrary, lost positions – LidziyaForex forfeited the top place and dropped to the 7th while HnGcg moved to the 9th place from the 6th.
“I’ll begin the overview with two signals from the March and February top lists, – says the NordFX leading analyst. – Last month, I was surprised by LidziyaForex’s popularity among the subscribers who had invested over a million dollars in it. I also urged to evaluate all risks before signing up for this signal provider.
The fact is that this signal has been around only since last December and its maximum drawdown is as much as 57%. Analysis of the trades has shown that most often the provider simply waits for a losing position to become winning and locks in losses only in an emergency.
Unfortunately, my worst fears got confirmed in March – a 45% loss is a serious financial blow for the subscribers. Those who signed up early are actually lucky as they are still sitting on profits while those who subscribed over the last few weeks lost almost half of their investments. As a result, three quarters of the subscribers unfollowed LidziyaForex. Moreover, the signal provider seems to have thrown in the towel too by announcing that as of 1 May, the signal would cease to exist.
With this, I have a déjà vu feeling about March’s new leader Green Line Signals – it reminds me of LidziyaForex that much. Consider: the signal is just 12 weeks old, its maximum drawdown is 53%, and such close calls happened twice over three months. On the signal provider’s website, the figure is an even more alarming 63%.
Nevertheless, subscriber feedback about this signal is mostly positive, which can be explained by impressive growth – about 700% in three months. Still, it’s not all that great as it may sound: +220% in January, ¬+96% in February and slightly more than 25% in March. It’s called the reverse martingale, a strategy when the trader boldly builds up the initial deposit amount but then starts reducing risks gradually, so profits drop too consequently. Time will tell whether I’m right in this case.
In terms of stable profits, it’s worth mentioning the signal Magic profits. It’s about 3.5 years old, and it’s some assurance of reliability. The ratio of winning and losing months is 40 to 1, average growth is 10-20% a month, and the only loss was under 10%. Hence, such a remarkable result. Subscribers don’t need to be concerned by quite a large number of trades – about 180 a week. The signal provider averages positions and opens series of orders with a small lot size. What’s not so good about Magic profits is its maximum drawdown of 58%. It’s easy to reduce risks here – go to the trading terminal settings and reduce maximum deposit load for signal copying. Naturally, profits will get smaller but it makes sense in this case. For example, by reducing the load to 50%, the subscriber can count on 130-210% in profits per year with a possible drawdown of about 30%. Quite decent figures, in fact.
Out of the newcomers, the signal Q2FX is interesting in terms of the growth to drawdown ratio – 1,300% growth in 7 months and a 10% drawdown. Its trading results indicate that here a grid expert advisor may be used that opens lots of pending orders while averaging positions.
Night Hunter is reasonably good too – growth of 313% in a year and a half, with a 40% drawdown. In this case, though, the correlation of deposits of the provider and the subscriber has to be taken into account, otherwise the $30 subscription may turn this signal into a losing one.
This doesn’t concern the following three signals – MenjadiTrader PAMM 144842, HnGcg and Geylani. I suppose it’s because of free subscriptions that they got into the top 10, considering that their trading results aren’t off the charts.
Finally, George Soros is noteworthy due to the fact that it lies in the 8th place in the subscribers’ ratings and in the 2nd place in the ratings by MetaQuotes, the developer of MT4 and MT5. The signal has been yielding rather stable profits for almost a year. The biggest drawdown of 36% happened last December. In the first 3 months of 2016, the signal produced 90% growth with a drawdown under 20%.”
John Gordon sums up, “In conclusion, I’d like to remind that before subscribing to a signal, it’s important to carefully study online monitoring data, assess potential risks and set maximum deposit load and maximum loss in the trading terminal settings. All this will make you feel much more confident as a passive investor.”