xr86yp295m Forex Leader: 06/11/09

Why are my trades different from yours ?

June 11, 2009

You'll sometimes notice small discrepancies between 2 platforms. These are due to any of several factors for which we can't do much.

You'll notice that some trades are sometimes omitted because of error messages or other technicalities like your broker doing maintenance (and disconnecting you for a short period) at the time a trade should have been taken. Or sometimes, if I hear the alert but no trade is automatically taken (for any reason) I'll enter it manually, so the price might be off a few pips. If I'm not near my computer (sleeping for example), well no trade will be taken (see 2nd screenshot). There are also the broker "requotes" which will make the price a bit off of when the alert went off. Also,depending on your broker, the entry or exit prices might be slightly different.

Here is a screenshot I just took a few minutes ago.


If you count the pairs, you'll see that there are 9 and that EURGBP is missing. I had some technical problem last monday with this one, but I hope you didn't because look at this:



Do you see the red triangle? (this is my real account, by the way). This is where you should have entered. I got out at some point, as you can see, but if you're still in, you're about 150 pips in the green which equals about $262 USD since this pair's pips are worth approx. $1.75.

Variations in spreads from broker to broker may also make a difference, along with which deposit currency you're trading in.

Other possibilities include trades not being taken for various reasons. Go here to read about what to do/check when this happens.