I may receive a referral reward if you sign up through my link. It costs you nothing extra.
Disclosure: I may receive a referral reward from High Capital Group if you become a client through my link. It costs you nothing extra.
Most people who lose money to a trader they trusted skipped the same few questions at the start. They liked the sales page, they liked the numbers and they never asked who could touch the money. Here are seven questions worth asking before you copy anyone's trades, with the answers High Capital Group gives to each one, so you can see what a good answer looks like and compare any other service against it.
This comes before everything else. If the answer is "with us", ask why, and ask who regulates them.
With High Capital Group, you open your own account with a highly reputable, regulated forex broker, and you deposit your money with the broker. The account is in your name, and the money is held by the broker, not by High Capital Group. That means the broker's regulation applies to your account, which is a very different position from handing cash to a trader directly.
It sounds like the same question but it is not, because a trader can have permission to place trades without having permission to take money out. Ask exactly which permissions they hold.
The company states that it can place trades on your account but has no access to withdraw any money. The invoice process shows how the arrangement works in practice: at the end of the month the company sends you an invoice, and you pay to keep your access. As the company's FAQ puts it, you could technically choose not to pay, because the fee is only owed after the money is made, but there is no way the company could take your money.
A screenshot proves nothing. A record verified by an independent third party, ideally in real time, is a much better starting point.
High Capital Group's results are verified in real time by a third party, FX Blue, and there is a link to the verified account on the Past Performance page. The company says it is one of its accounts. Note also that results before 2018 came from the old legacy system and the current system's record runs from 2018, so look at the two periods separately.
Everyone shows you the best month. Ask for the worst fall from peak to valley, which is called maximum drawdown, because that is the number that tests your nerves.
The company's target is to keep maximum drawdown below 15.0%. It also reports one losing quarter out of 33 and a profit factor of 4.99. These are the company's published figures, and the word target applies to the drawdown goal and the 10% monthly return aim. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results, and a future fall could be larger than a past one.
Some strategies look brilliant for months and then wipe out an account in a day. Martingale (doubling down after a loss), grid trading and hedging are the three most often blamed.
The company says plainly that it does not use martingale, grid or hedging techniques, and that it is fiercely against them. It describes them as the fastest way to blow up an account. You cannot verify a promise about future behaviour, but the stated policy is a fair thing to ask any provider about, and the verified record lets you look for the pattern yourself.
Fees decide your real result, so get every one in writing, including the ones that look small.
The fee here is 30% of profits, charged only after you have made money and calculated on the high water mark, so a loss has to be recovered before any new fee applies. There are no upfront fees. The copy software normally costs US$19 a month, and the broker the company recommends covers that for life when you sign up through the company's link. The minimum investment is US$1,000. If you invest US$5,000 and make US$1,000, the fee is US$300. Ask any other provider to give you that same kind of worked example.
A good service lets you decide how hard your money works, and it lets you walk away without penalty.
You can set a personalised risk level so your account trades more or less aggressively, and you can change it with a few clicks. Your money is not locked in, and you can access it at any time, though you withdraw through the broker. The account requires leverage of at least 30:1, which raises risk, so a lower risk setting is worth thinking about if you are new to this.
Write the seven answers down for each service you are considering and put them side by side. A provider who dodges any of them has told you something. A provider who answers all seven clearly has at least earned a closer look, and a closer look is all any of this should be.
You can read the full answers on the company's FAQ page, and if a question is still unanswered, email support@highcapitalgroup.com and ask. Copy trading is an investment, so it can lose money, and no checklist removes that. What a checklist does is make sure you know exactly what you are agreeing to before you send a single dollar to a broker.
If you do decide to go ahead, the Get Started page asks you where you live, shows you the broker available in your region, and takes you through the setup.
Risk warning: past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Forex trading carries risk and you can lose money. Only invest money you can afford to lose. Client money is held by a regulated broker in the client's own account.
Forex trading carries risk and you can lose money. The return and drawdown figures are targets, not promises, and past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Your money is held in your own account with a regulated broker. Only invest money you can afford to lose.