ForexSignalPort : Under-the-Hood Look at Trade Cloning

In this post, we attempt to address the concern of traders have with regard to using FSP Cloner EA and any associated client-server time delay in trade execution. 

FSP is considered to be a very fast cloner of Phibase trades with average time delay less than 6 secs.  To explain trading gap needs a bit of under the hood information on what goes on during order execution. 

• Price Feed During New Bar 
  During every H1 bar close/open, there is a micro volatile phase lasting about a minute. Phibase EAs factor this and delay order execution between 3 seconds to 2 minutes - this depends on the EA and the bar open micro volatility (which varies to a great extend from broker to broker). This is not noticed in most cases since the range is only within the spread range of upto 1.5 pips. At times tick freeze is also seen for a few secs. We assume these are related to volumes at new bar open, binary Options or just plain Option trading.
• Trade Trigger in Stand Alone EAPhibase stand alone EAs have the trading logic inside a DLL file. The EA (EX4) sends price feed data into the DLL which analyses and send out a trade trigger when the logic is satisfied. This is done at every new bar opening [CabEX and INDEX] or every price tick or change of price beyond spread level [RayBOT and iProfit]. Once the EA receives the trade trigger it takes up order execution. 
• Order ExecutionAll Phibase EAs, have execution/processing gaps/delays implemented into several modules (through Sleep function). This allows price bars to fresh/download and update history files.  The sleep gaps is also an essential feature to prevent broker execution errors/issues. Most brokers have latency of 70 to 100 ms. So our EA introduces gaps between order open and request to set SL/TP - these gaps varies between 2 sec to 5 seconds.
  
  Phibase strategies does not scalp and has a much higher average gain/loss than scalper for which execution under a sec is essential. Standalone EAs will have time gaps of 1 to 12 secs across them depending on CPU occupancy and MT4 console activity.  

• ForexSignalPort Cloning Process
  When the DLL on our Master account sends a trade trigger, this is taken up for order execution by the EA and also the same trigger is sent to the Risk Controller module for signal transmission. Trade signals from active strategies are passed on to the trading database and your client EA is instructed to fetch the new trade list.
  
  The FSP EA receives order change instructions within  one second.  Once the trading signal is received, FSP order execution module functions identical to the standalone EA.  FSP instead of fetching trade triggers from DLL gets it from the Phibase Server.
  
  Since both our Master EA and your client FSP EA receives trade trigger almost at the same time, some orders may get executed client EAs a bit earlier than master account.  This is one of the reasons we named this process as "trade cloning"  rather than "trade  copying". 
  
  The execution delays/gaps introduced is a normal functionality to avoid broker related issues and errors.  All Phibase EAs, have execution/processing gaps/delays implemented into several modules (through Sleep function). This allows price bars to fresh/download and update history files.  Phibase strategies does not scalp and has a much higher average gain/loss than scalper for which execution under a sec is essential. Standalone EAs will have time gaps of 1 to 12 secs across them depending on CPU occupancy and MT4 console activity.  The cloning gap of average 6 sec will result in very minor +/- pip variations in entry price. This will be similar to Broker Spread/execution slippage differences across brokers – not of much significance in performance.
  
  If you check the trading history of your standalone EAs on your broker accounts, you will notice entry time differences across different MT4s.  Similar will be seen on FSP trades and this is normal.
  
  During extreme volatile breakout (relatively rare) price may move out of Open price tolerance range within few seconds, but in most cases this would be true with standalone EAs also. FSP will wait for the right entry price and will almost always be in the trade.
  
  The above process is explained using a process flow diagram for more clarity.

If you are new to Forex trading, you can find more information on Forex trading, brokers and strategy analysis methods at Forex InfoBook, ForexGermany and BabyPips.