ZuluTrade
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Actually it is not. On average, people are not able to isolate only good providers, giving the various ways a provider can cheat with zulu. The proof is that the "bad" provider you talked about now has $824,268.94 live money following him.
Zulu is all about hype, and probably it is making more money than others services. It has a clearly defined target consumer group (the group of customers where the most money come from): newbies, and it is acting coeherent to this. For each one expert forex trader, there are thousands of newbies, and each month they are more than the previous. This is the current retail forex trend, and zulu it is exploiting it well.
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Thanks. These are more reasons why zulu is the worst.
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1. Other services charge a flat commission or % on gains (currensee, rent a signal, zip signals, collective2) so what I say is perfectly compatible with company interest.
2. Think like a signal provider. If I were a zulu signal provider with a good method, I would likely split a trade into multiple ones, to get more money. It's that simple. Zulu encourages me to do this with its cost structure, the end result is less money for the signal followers, compared to what I label as a "fair service".
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If your having a problem with spread differentials try fxdd, I have 2 accounts with them, 1 for testing zulu and one thats my larger manual account and the last 12months+ there's been no difference in spread. The only cost difference is a 1 pip 'commision' on the zulu account.
Always use the safe stop feature. I have only once in 12months or more had a trade not close and run the stop, I took it up direct with FXDD and it was fixed immediately with full reimbursement. IF you use the safe stop you will always have a stop entered at the same time the trade goes in and if it runs that stop its a broker issue.
I don't agree with the 'fixed fee' idea either, as one of the providers im using trades on 3 different signal services and had a down month this month. On all the other services clients got a $100+ bill and the trades lost money. On zulu I still lost money but atleast I didn't then have the indignity of having to pay him his $100+ for losing money. When he's back to making money next month I still won't have to pay him.
As for the 'conflict of interest' I don't think there is one, or atleast not in the way suggested. Zulu does not broadcast more than 30 trades per day per provider. So neither the provider or zulu is getting paid for more than the 30. I think the problems associated with zulu lies more with the quality of their providers and they could be eliminated if they for example did 3 things:
1.) Stopped traders having more than 1 signal account.
2.) Only accepted signals from live accounts - no demo warriors.
3.) Removed a providers ability to manipulate stats & comments (they now rate and comment on their own signals as users)
A perfect example of all that is wrong with zulu is this chump:
https://www.zulutrade.com/TradeHistoryIndividual.aspx?pid=13389
- Manipulates his stats (on one account alone he opened over 2000trades at once to cover up his previous losses)
-moves his stops from 500 pips to thousands when their going to get hit
- uses multiple accounts all doing the same thing, well over 15+ at last count. Everytime he jams one up he opens a new one.
- Trades on a demo account and doesn't take his own whole signal.
- Is now commenting on his own signals as a user with "always good and safe", "best on zulu", "should be top3" etc etc
- 500pip initial stop with a 40 pip take profit, WTF?...
It's the providers that make or break any signal service.
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I partially agree with you jagui, but you have to take into account two things
1. company interests
2. implication of what you suggest in reality. I think this is very hard to implicate, the commission per trade is rather "fair" for all the sides, providers, company, followers.
I still believe that it is in the interest of zulu for its providers to be good and win, so that customers wont go away and even more can join. I think every company wants this, the things is if the providers are up to it!
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This one does hundreds of clients from on master MT4 account
http://www.mtprogramming.com/tradecopier.html
Then there is spyware riddled http://www.toolsfortradingtheforex.com/aboutproduct.html , it stakes snapshots of your screen back to the authors.
http://tradecopier.com/1-master-upto-3-slave-copier/
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The conflict of interest is so evident that one must be blind to not see it (no offense intended to anyone).
The conflict is between zulu and the clients who follow one or more providers. Providers are encouraged to do more trades than necessary, they earn from the number of trades, and so does zulu. This doesn't mean you can't find succesful providers in zulu, of course there are! This means the the client's profit are cutted by an unfair percentage.
1) clients cannot use the better brokers out there => this add at least 1 pip just from the broker.
2) add the zulu commission and we are at 2 pips.
The problem here is that the client pays at least 2 pips more (than trading alone with a good broker) on every trade, not just on the profitable ones. This kills profit, unless you choose providers which target big profits and trade. It would be much more fair to pay only for profitable trades, or, better, only for profitable months, or a fixed fee.
My point is that the rewarding scheme for the automation platform and for the signal providers should be neutral to trading styles.
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I cant see your point here...conflict of interest between who? Zulu and the providers or zulu and the brokers? Zulu makes their commission whether you win or loose, same goes for providers and brokers...If you are clever enough, you can understand that if as a company, they have winning accounts its better for them because they will attract more and more instead of closing accounts and getting a bad reputation...
I mostly agree though on your second suggestion, one has to be very careful on which broker he will choose, it makes a big difference and I have a personal experience in this with zulu.
I dont know about you, but so far im rather satisfied from this service, I dont risk much and I dont expect huge profits though and I think this is the best way to treat the forex market in general.
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Zulu is the worst among the automation platforms.
The fact that they earn by adding a pip or more to the client spread, or by having the client trading in their own brokerage, tells it all => there is a HUGE CONFLICT OF INTEREST between clients on one side and zulu and signal providers on the other side.
The more trades done, the more zulu and the provider earn, while the client's best interest would be few trades.
When a HUGE CONFLICT OF INTEREST like this is simply detected, run as fast as you can and never look back.
Not enough, they only allow providers and clients to trade with a predefined list of brokers, of course they favor the brokers that pay them the biggest commissions as introducing broker => another conflict of interest.
To avoid conflict of interest, which is the conditio-sine-qua-non for choosing an automation platform, the automation platform have to:
1) charge a fixed monthly fee to the client, or a percentage of the generated profits => no conflict of interest, neutral about trading styles.
2) let the signal provider and the client trade with a broker of their choice, or, at the very least, let choose among a good list of brokers, not only the most introducing broker friendly.
So, if you take a deep look at the better known automation platforms (zulutrade, collective2, tradency, zipsignals, rent a signal, currensee, ...) you'll discover that zulu is the only one who fails at both point 1) and point 2).
So do yourself a favor and leave zulu to those newbies who only need to lose the first account or two to get more serious.
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AAAFX is Zulu's own broking firm they own, thus with AAAFX your trades should execute. If you use zulutrade be sure to have aaafx execute the trades. They can more easily hedge the trades on currenex if there is enough followers for an account . With Alpari and others there is bound to be slippage and delays.
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Take a signal provider and compare the draw-downs per trade to the gain. Pro-B5 is ranked at nr.2 or 3 but trades like a clown. He makes 9 winning trades in a row for 5 pips each only to wipe the entire gain with a 45 pip loss in the next trade.
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From all the "autotrading" platforms I tried on this site, this seemed the most serious
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Try zulu with an AAAFX account. COMPLETELY different results!
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MANSET AND VERIASEN OBJERVARSAN ZULU TRADE PLS DIT OK
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WHOT IS ZULU TRADE
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Im not a signal provider, so I dont know what problems a provider is facing. Im a live follower and my main concern is if what a provider does, will apply to my live account EXACTLY as in the provider's account. The quality of the providers is in fact a problem, but as I said, I think it can be dealt with by limiting the open positions to the provider and also adding a custom TP and SL (not in all cases though)
Now in the execution part:
There is slippage and slight signal execution, that is max 20seconds, with the broker I use. The biggest problem I have faced so far, is 1 trade was left open once, it was closed automatically by the system later though. I requested a refund for it and I got it. I believe this is cause because of the different broker the provider has from me.
Generally, I think that also brokers play a vital part in zulutrade. If you choose a bad broker, with high slippage and slow execution, you can loose everything really fast. You must admit though that zulutrade tries. The latest slippage chart is an interesting addition, as well as the calendar.
Again I dont know how zulu platform is for providers, I havent even connected my MT4 to zulu yet, though I will in the near future.
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here's a discussion I had with them recently regarding a profitable provider from whom i was only getting a small proportion of the trades. What really pisses me off is that they knowingly show you stats that you can NOT achieve, not might not or hypothetical trading disclaimer stuff. They litterally know its impossible to achieve the stats for that provider that their showing you. If zulu doesn't broadcast the trades how do they justify showing them in the stats, their showing you trades they never had.
info: Please wait for a site operator to respond.
info: You are now chatting with 'Itab'
Itab: Hello. My name is Itab . How may I assist you?
you: hi I got transfered to you before from rose and it dropped out, im enquiring about 'PROVIDERS NAME'
Itab: Can you let me know what your question is and see if I can help?
you: essentially I want to know why there's profitable trade stats appearing that seem to not exist
you: the sell trades don't action on any live accounts (no L next to them). they havent actioned on either my live or demo accounts.
Itab: there is a maximum limit of 30 trades (including pending, and canceled pending orders) per day for each signal provider, therefore a signal provider with an MT4 can open as many trades as he wishes but only the first 30 trades, that have been sent with an interval of 15 sec between each one, will be broadcasted
you: well how do I change that on my account? because without changing it your showing me stats that can not in any way be replicted (false advertising)
Itab: I will be right with you.
you: okay
Itab: We sincerely apologise, but this is a general policy that applies to all providers without the possibility of any exceptions
you: okay bye
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If you put the effort in to find the right traders then I'm sure in concept ZuluTrade could be profitable. However this does not remove the fact that they have technical glitches in there platform.
As I said in my initial post a friend of mine lost 16% of his account that should have been 1% trading my signals as ZuluTrade did not place a stop loss on his side of the trade. If he had not been occasionally checking his trades then he could easily have wiped.
No matter how much effort you put in to finding the right traders if the platform is flawed then it shouldn't be used. A mirror signal system has to be 100% watertight. This is people's money we are talking about here.
I must admit I do agree with you on the EA's, anything under $100 is trash.
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I have been reading your comments about zulutrade and i wanted to post my comments too. If you take out the promotion zipsignals is trying to do by posting bad reviews about zulu (i have seen similar posts in other forums), for me the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Yes I use them too, but after a lot of testing. Its true that most signal providers are amateur traders, its very difficult to find a serious one. This is why i want to emphasize how important testing is.
I used the following method: tested about 30 signal providers, in different demos, all with custom stop values. It took me about 5 months to separate the good ones from the bad ones.
After the testing, I opened a small $1000 micro-lot account. Ive put only 3 of the providers I found good and only allowed them to trade 2 lots at the same time.
I dont say I got rich from zulu, if anyone claims this he has no idea about the forex market.
Also, about the EAs that are promoted here. Every EA that I have tested so far has been a catastrophe for me, so I have stopped believing that a simple "robot" can make even the slightest pips and only cost like $50-60...
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Everything I do relating to trading is always in the Stevetrade moniker. Fortunately nobody other than friends lost money with me due to ZuluTrade making mistakes and it was only "play" money that they lost before we discovered it was a bad site.
