No 'forced' trade to gain 'Trading Privileges' Discussion

Guys. As much as I love the site and the work you are doing on it, I have to say that requiring us to make a trade with a specific comment in order to gain the 'Trading Privileges' verification has not been thorougly thought out.

I had no problem providing my investor password so you could verify the trades I have uploaded. Excellent idea to counteract fack uploads.

I had no problem running an EA to further confirm the trades are legitamite ... EVEN THOUGH the source code for this EA is not apparently available and so I cannot verify what you are actually able to do in this EA. Trust goes both ways. I have no problem with this EA because I can simply enable 'ask manual confirmtion' to know it wont place any trades and I know enough about MQ4 to know there is no information it can send to you that could put my account at risk.

But forcing us to make a trade with a specific comment ... to far!

Did you consider simply using your existing EA to verify the ability to trade? There is a very basic function in MQ4 called 'IsTradeAllowed' that can verify the person who is running the EA has trading privileges for that account. Sure, it may return the odd FALSE if the trade context is busy etc, but at some stage (most likely as soon as it is activated) it will return TRUE and the verification is done. Once verified, the account doesn't need to revert back to unverified just because the EA is now saying it can't trade.

Allaneagle, we've indeed explored all possibilities before deciding on the best way to go.

The EA option is not good, since an EA can be easily decompiled, so a validation of such kind will be useless.

You're correct regarding the trust issue - so we'll be adding the full source of the EA to the help section, as we don't have anything to hide.

We apologize if this wasn't clear, but <b>this step is actually optional</b>, and is meant for managers to add credibility to their performance by verifying they have the trading access to the account and they didn't just used the investor password to publish the account as if it were theirs, so it's up to you to decide if to use it or not.

We see no major issue in opening a trade and closing it immediately with the smallest possible size, as it will cost you practically nothing, but will add a lot if looking for clients.

We really appreciate your concern as we're sure some feel the same way, so hopefully, this answer will clear your doubts.

Thank you.

Fair point on the decompiled EA and I am glad to hear you will be posting the source code (although simply making the MQ4 downloadable instead of the EX4 would be the better option). I didn't think you had anything to hide at all and hope I did not imply that.

And fair point on the 'optional' part. I guess I just didn't really like the fact that my pages now have this very obvious and highly visable red mark against them when I know I have done nothing wrong and I myself have nothing to hide.

I am concerned about fake data and appreciate the efforts to try to counteract it. I also appreciate the very fast and candid response.

We understand your point of view - if you're using our platform for your own use, you don't need to worry about the red cross thingy 😉 , but if you decide to look for clients, we must provide the most current and correct data we have to your potential clients.

By the way, we've just released the full source code of our EA as promised 😄
https://www.myfxbook.com/help#help_33

at the end of the day, your gonna make a trade at some point! just add the comment when your ready to trade, staff are correct as with most things mt4 - transactions, EA's etc they can be modified, manipulated, forged, the platforms only letdown. its not like theres a time window to whe you must make that trade!

set the comment next time you place a trade? unless your never going to trade again.

Staff,
Would a limit/stop order well away from the price (with the comment) which is cancelled be something you could use? Although I think its a waste of resources ;)

We've actually experimented it with orders, but the problem is that when you cancel an order, the comment is overwritten with the word 'canceled'.

allanneagle posted:
But forcing us to make a trade with a specific comment ... to far!

Correct me if I am wrong, but the way I understand it is this. The comment with the key pasted is only needed once which verifies the accounts autheticity.

In other words I can (if I choose to) wait until my next trade (or closing of trade) and paste the key in the comment field, rather than open and close a tiny trade for that purpose.

And as far as the EA is concerned, if one has any doubt about what is in it, then simply don't install it and use the MT4 publisher instead.

Lance.

BlueMental posted:
    

allanneagle posted:
But forcing us to make a trade with a specific comment ... to far!

Correct me if I am wrong, but the way I understand it is this. The comment with the key pasted is only needed once which verifies the accounts autheticity.

In other words I can (if I choose to) wait until my next trade (or closing of trade) and paste the key in the comment field, rather than open and close a tiny trade for that purpose.

And as far as the EA is concerned, if one has any doubt about what is in it, then simply don't install it and use the MT4 publisher instead.

Lance.

Yes Lance, both points are correct.

I´ve also one question about the verification of trading privileges:
Does it matter, if the authorization key is only one part of my order comment, like: '23001_Long_1.54327_u4h453l5j3' (in this example, u4h453l5j3 should be the authorization key - only an example too).
So do you screen the order comment string for the authorization key or do you directly compare?
It would be very helpful, if my mentioned example would work too!

tom