How to Take Advantage of Live Forex Signals
Have you ever wanted to copy the trades of other successful traders? How about earning an income from other traders copying your trades? Thanks to huge leaps in technology you can do so at the click of a button with live Forex signals!
In this article, you will learn how to identify the best free Forex signals, how to instantly copy these live signals from your MetaTrader trading platform, the traps and risks you need to be aware of when choosing which live forex signals you should follow and how you can sell your own trading signals to other traders!
Table of Contents
Forex Trading Signals | Introduction
Forex trading signals, or Forex alerts, are recommendations for trades in the foreign exchange market. While trading signals can cover all markets, such as stocks, commodities and indices, forex signals are by far the most commonly used. Typically, these FX signals are produced by a human trader or a trading algorithm.
Live Forex signals usually include a currency pair, instructions on whether to buy or sell, an entry price, a stop loss price and a target price. These trading notifications can be received via email, text or other messaging applications. More recently, however, it has also become possible to simply subscribe to a signal provider and have their trades automatically reproduced in your trading account.
This can be done easily with the MetaTrader trading platforms, which we will look at in more detail later. But first, let us look at why you would use trading signals.
Forex Trading Signals | Why Use Them?
There are many reasons why forex signals are widely used. Here are just a few:
- Education - seeing how other traders enter and exit trades can help beginner traders to learn more about the markets and different trading strategies.
- Time - many beginner traders simply do not have the time to trade throughout the day. Having the ability to replicate the trades of more active traders - such as day traders, or scalpers - can give you more exposure to the currency markets.
- Diversification - there are a variety of signal providers to choose from (some of which you will see further down the article). The variety of styles, instruments, timeframes and methods can help with portfolio diversification.
- Earnings - as you develop your skills as a trader, there is no reason why you cannot sell your own FX signals to other traders, providing another possible income stream.
Using live forex signals can have its advantages. However, regardless of whether you are using free trading signals or paid for signals, there can be some disadvantages as well. One of the main disadvantages is over-trusting that your signal provider can risk-manage individual trades sensibly. Unfortunately, there are some scammers who do not have your best interests at heart.
This is why due diligence is a key step when choosing the best forex signals to copy. Fortunately, it is possible to access a lot of statistical data for each signal provider.
If you are interested in bolstering your skills and learning new forex techniques, why not tune in to one of our free webinars? Hosted by our trading experts, webinars offer ways to discover new trends and strategies! For more information, click the banner below:
Forex Trading Signals | MetaTrader 4 & 5
The MetaTrader trading platform is arguably one of the most widely used, stable and secure platforms in the world. Admirals offers the following MetaTrader suite of products absolutely free:
- MetaTrader 4 (MT4)
- MetaTrader 5 (MT5)
- MetaTrader WebTrader
- MetaTrader Supreme Edition (A custom plugin for MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5, created by Admirals and professional trading experts)
Both MT4 and MT5 give traders access to a wide variety of signal providers. To access trading signals providers through both platforms, simply open your trading platform, select the Toolbox window (Ctrl + T) and you will see a signals tab along the bottom, as shown below:
These signals are available to both live and demo account users. To access the live forex signals, free or otherwise, you must open an MQL5 account. This can be done by clicking on the 'Register MQL5 Account' link on the top right of the signals window. The following box will pop up:
Through the MQL5 website, you can fund your MQL5 account if you choose to pay for a subscription of Forex signals.
However, instead of registering for a paid service straight away, you can choose to use free live Forex signals to start off with and learn how it all works.
Within the signals window of the MetaTrader platform, you will see a variety of signal providers along with information such as the signal providers name, the percentage growth, how many weeks it has been in operation for, and many more statistical details. Analysing these details is the first step to choosing the best free forex signals on offer. Let's take some time to analyze this information more closely.
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Live Forex Signals | Identify the Best
Before subscribing to trading signals, it is important to do some due diligence on each signal provider. Whilst this does not guarantee success, it can help in your decision of which signals to follow and, perhaps more importantly, which not to follow.
When viewing the signals window in your MetaTrader platform, there are multiple data points that can be useful to analyze, such as:
- Growth - This is the percentage growth the trading signals have achieved in the lifetime of the account.
- Weeks - This is the number of weeks the trading signals have been operating for.
- Subscribers - This is the number of subscribers that copy these trading signals.
- Funds - The amount of capital that follows these signals (where available).
- Max DD - The maximum percentage drawdown the trading signals have produced.
- Profit Factor - This shows how many times the gross profit exceeds the gross loss. The larger the value, the better.
The data can be sorted by clicking on any one of the headers. For example, if you wanted to find signal providers that have the highest profit factor, then clicking on the header 'PF' will organize the data accordingly.
In the example screenshot of the signals window above, it is only showing 'free' signal providers. This may not always be the case as some may have a subscription cost attached that can range from $5 a month to hundreds per month.
Many investors make the mistake of just filtering by the highest percentage growth, ignoring the importance of other factors. For example, a signal provider that has a higher number of weeks may not provide the highest growth but still may encourage investors as it has shown stability over a longer period of time and through different types of market conditions.
Clicking on each signal provider provides a more comprehensive analysis regarding their trading signals. Below we show the profile of a signals provider, for example purposes only.
Simply by clicking on this live trading signals provider, we have access to much more information. We now have information such as how many trades this signal provider has made (7,160), the best trade and worst trade on record, whether the signal provider is trading from a demo or live account, the profit factor, average profit on a winning trade and average loss on a losing trade, and much more important information.
At the top of the profile screen, you will note a tab marked "Reviews". Here you can read other traders' reviews of the signal providers service. When choosing the best live Forex signals provider, reading reviews of other traders' experiences with the provider can provide valuable information to help you make a decision.
It is worthwhile remembering that subscribing to a signal provider will result in trades being taken on your own account. Therefore, it is worthwhile taking your time to research the best forex signals providers. However, if you have your own positive track record you too could become a signal provider for others to copy your trades.
How to Become a Signal Provider
Traders with a successful methodology can become the provider of Fore signals for other traders. Some traders may want to offer their trading signals for free to help build accountability in their own trading. Some traders may opt to receive a fixed monthly income from any subscribers who choose to follow them.
Either way, it is very simple to set up once you have registered on the MQL5 website, through the signals window in your Admirals trading platform. Once set up, your portfolio will be showcased in the signals section along with other signal providers.
Forex Trading Signals | Final Thoughts
Following trading signals from other traders could offer some advantages such as portfolio diversification and education. Traders can access the signals window in MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 through the terminal window (Ctrl + T) in the platform. This is where traders can also register for an MQL5 account to access trading signals as well as become a registered signal provider.
When trying to choose the best free forex signals, it is important to do thorough due diligence on any trading signals provider, whether they are paid for live forex signals or free trading signals. This can be done by analysing the statistical data within the signals window. Clicking on each of the signal providers profile opens up a more comprehensive window of the trading signals statistics.
Many investors tend to only look at high performing signal providers. However, balancing performance with the longevity of the provider, drawdown and profit factor levels may be more prudent.
A great starting point would be to test trading signals, such as free forex signals, through a demo trading account, enabling you to learn in a risk-free trading environment.
Find more interesting articles:
- A Guide To Automated Trading Software
- How to Find the Best Forex Signals
- How to Choose Forex Automated Trading Strategies
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