Why screenshots prove little
Most EAs are sold with pictures: a balance curve going up, a month of green days, a profit figure in large type. Some of these are honest. But a picture cannot tell you which, because it leaves out the things that matter:
- Which account, and how many. A seller who runs ten accounts can show the best one.
- Which period. Any strategy has good months. A picture can start after the bad ones.
- Balance or equity. A rising balance can hide a deep floating loss, as Balance, equity, drawdown explains.
- Deposits. A curve that climbs in steps may be money added, not money made.
And a picture can simply be edited. This is not about assuming every seller lies. It is about asking for evidence that does not depend on trusting them.
Five questions to ask
- How long has it run on a live account? A few weeks shows very little. Rare bad days need time to appear. Ask for at least several months, and ask whether a demo result is being shown as live.
- What is the maximum drawdown, measured on equity? If the seller only talks about balance, or does not know, that is an answer too.
- Were deposits and withdrawals taken out of the return? A return worked out on NAV per unit separates them. See NAV per unit, explained.
- Who produced the numbers? A figure the seller typed, or a picture they made, is not the same as a live link fed from the account itself.
- What does the EA do when it is wrong? Does every trade have a stop loss? Does it add positions as the price moves against it, as grid and martingale EAs do? Strategies that never take a loss tend to take one big one, eventually.
Some answers should make you stop at once: a request for your MT5 password, an offer to trade your account for you, or a promised monthly return. A real track record does not need any of them.
Numbers that are hard to fake
When you do get figures from a live account, these are the ones that carry the most information:
- Length of the history, in months, on a live account.
- Maximum drawdown on equity, over that whole history.
- Return on NAV per unit, not on raw equity or balance.
- Number of closed trades. Ten good trades say much less than five hundred.
- The worst month, not just the average one.
None of these predict the future. Past results never do. But together they tell you how the strategy behaved, including on the days the seller would rather you did not see.
Showing your own results honestly
If you are the one selling, or sharing results with a group, the same rules make you more credible. Share a live link instead of a picture, show maximum drawdown next to return, and let people see a long period.
Quantrivance's Share results makes a picture or a public link of your portfolio's performance, worked out from what the Agent reports in your terminal: return and maximum drawdown on NAV per unit, the number of closed trades, and how many of the accounts are live and how many demo. You choose the period, and whether amounts of money are shown or only percentages. You can turn the link off, or replace it, at any time. It shows what the accounts did; it does not promise what they will do.
In Quantrivance
A track record from the account itself
Connect your accounts, and Share results gives you a link your group can open, fed by the Agent in your own terminal rather than by a screenshot.
This post is for education and is not investment advice. Examples use made-up figures, not anyone’s results. Trading carries risk.