Some people in the Oanda forums are very anti-trading signals services. I don't understand why. So when someone, for the 100th time, said something along the lines of "if you need to use a signal service, you shouldn't be trading" and "if they were any good, they wouldn't need to sell their signals", I cracked! Cracked I tell you!
Here's the
original thread.
And below are my two posts merged and slightly edited:
I'm not sure why I'm going to stick up for people and businesses that I have no relation with, but here goes...
You all know the concept of capitalism, right? Where we all pursue money, and no matter how much we have it's never enough?
So if some trader has a great trading system which they are making money from, I don't understand why people berate them for letting other people ride the wave as well. At a fee, of course. After all, it's the trader that's done all the hard work - the subscribers just need to follow instructions.
Because, and here's the thing, in a different thread there'll be people asking successful traders to give away their trading systems.
Further, it could be the case that a trader has no capital of their own, but have worked out a really good trading system. Let's say they start with $2000. And they make 100% interest for a year. Now they have $4000. They do it again. Now they have still only $8000 even though they consistently made 100% p.a. Why is it wrong for them to sell their signals for some extra cash?
And if it's not wrong for that kind of person to sell their signals, why is it wrong for someone who has a lot more starting capital to sell their signals?
You see, generally we still want to make more money, even if we have a lot. We don't question why movie stars continue to appear in movies and commercials. We don't question why sports stars continue to play, and then go on to coach. But bizarrely, in this trading arena where the entire point is making money, we question why people want to make money.
That's not to say that there aren't some shonks around in the trading signal arena. So if possible, test them out for a bit. The Collective2 website, as best as I can tell, is probably the easiest place to verify past results.
From memory, traders don't put the details of their alleged closed trades into Collective2 after the fact - they send real-time buy and sell signals just like a broker. And Collective2 have some kind of engine which works out how much the trade would have won/lost. So as for auditing, that seems good enough.
Another way to weed out shonks is to ask in a forum somewhere. Not this one though, obviously :-)
Now, if you know how to trade, maybe you don't need to use a signal service. Good for you.
For others, the game is all about making money. Who cares how they do it? Who cares what knowledge they have? And why do they have to learn to trade? It kind of smacks of superiority to say that people need to read all the books you did, and lose all the money you did, and do all the hard yards you did, before they are allowed to profit from the forex game. (I'm putting words in your mouth there :-)
If all you have to do is follow the signals given by someone else who has done the hard yards for you, I'd say that's a reasonable strategy. Instead of learning how to trade, you can learn how to tell who gives good signals and who doesn't.
If you can find a good signal provider, well, what's wrong with it? People pay for advice in every walk of life. When you went to buy your plasma-screen TV, and you asked the store attendant for his advice, he didn't say "well, if you have to ask, you shouldn't be buying a plasma-screen TV". He didn't say that, right?
Putting ads on your website, selling trading signals, selling software, selling plasma-screen TVs - it's all about providing a service and getting paid in return. Different skills, same goal - TO MAKE MONEY! BECAUSE WE'RE CAPITALISTS!