Trade-by-Trade Verification
Definition
Trade-by-trade verification is the publication standard where the live track record exposes every individual closed trade — entry time, exit time, instrument, lots, entry/exit price, profit — not just aggregate monthly returns or summary metrics. The granularity required to audit vendor claims against EA logic.
In-depth: Trade-by-Trade Verification
Trade-by-trade verification is the auditability standard that distinguishes serious verification from marketing-grade verification. Aggregate statistics (monthly returns, summary win rate, headline drawdown) can be selectively edited, conveniently truncated, or contextualised to favour the vendor's narrative. Trade-by-trade detail, in contrast, exposes the underlying behaviour that aggregates summarise away.
What trade-by-trade verification enables for buyers:
• **Strategy-class verification**: an EA marketed as M1 XAUUSD scalping should show short-duration trades (minutes to low hours) on XAUUSD; trade-by-trade detail reveals if the account is actually running hourly EURUSD trades despite the marketing • **Position-sizing audit**: aggregate "1% risk per trade" claims can be verified by inspecting individual lot sizes relative to account equity at each trade • **Session-timing verification**: an EA claiming London-NY overlap focus should show trade timestamps clustered in 13:00-17:00 UTC; trade-by-trade detail reveals if trades are spreading across all sessions • **News-filter verification**: vendors claiming explicit news avoidance should show no trades during the 30-minute window around scheduled high-impact events; trade-by-trade timestamps make this auditable • **Drawdown construction**: aggregate "14% max drawdown" claims can be verified by tracking equity through the worst sequence of trades; trade-by-trade detail prevents the vendor from selectively excluding the worst week
Without trade-by-trade verification, the buyer is trusting the vendor's aggregation of the underlying data. Aggregation creates many opportunities for selective presentation that the underlying trade history would expose. Vendors comfortable publishing trade-by-trade detail typically do so because their underlying behaviour matches their marketing — vendors uncomfortable with the granularity typically have something to hide.
For EA buyers, the practical workflow: open the vendor's published MyFXBook or MQL5 Signals link, navigate to the trade history view, and spot-check 20-30 random trades against the EA's claimed behaviour. If the trades match expectations (instrument, timeframe, session, position size relative to claimed risk-per-trade), the verification is meaningfully strong. If they diverge materially, the vendor's marketing claims are not what the EA actually does.