As the shift towards social trading continues to solidify the collective appeal of this emerging segment, the latest announcement from FXPro was released today with the launch of the SuperTrader platform. This new product will be available to customers under the firm's Cyprus entity FxPro Financial Services Limited during initial launch, and will enable copy trading from selected trade leaders.
The new platform aims to provide clients with the ability to diversify their Forex portfolio by creating a basket of strategies from a group of rigorously vetted trade leaders and effectively mirroring their respective trades (trade copying). The SuperTrader platform adds to the existing MT4 and cTrader platforms offered by FXPro, and thus broadens the list of products that clients can choose from. The new platform is expected to benefit from the recent change in the brokers business model (see below) and includes the following key points according to the release:
- The ability to analyze strategies via real-time performance statistics, risk ratings and copier data
- Effectively control fund allocation to stringently tested FX strategies
- Allocate funds to numerous strategies or just monitor them via a Watchlist
- Manage risk by applying stop-losses and trailing-stops to help ensure gains are locked in.
A screenshot of the platform user interface below shows the SuperTrader screen layout:
Optimizations And Selection Bias
The UK FCA and Cyprus CySec regulated broker has recently switched its business model to Agency execution in order to best align its interest with that of its clients according to the statement. With regards to SuperTrader, the firm states that strategies of approved trade leaders are monitored around the clock continuously by electronic reporting tools that flag deviations in performance and risk-taking to help ensure consistency, and that performance benchmarks are met.
According to Forex Magnates' research, this vetting and monitoring of providers can be a key factor in the overall success of clients' systems profitability, while also presenting a selection bias on the permissible trade leaders included. However, the benefits of having controls in place far outweigh the risk of not having such policies with regards to how trade leaders must adhere to specific rules (in order to best help protect from customer losses).
Therefore, the differentiation is in the details of how this balance is achieved (between trading freedom and control - given to respective trade leaders). The parallel of automated trading products follow on a previous launch of FXPro's auto-trading market place to meet the demand for trading robot on its MT4 platform. This adds to an increasingly automated trading-oriented product base (including the above mentioned cTrader platform).
Charalambos Psimolophitis CEO, FXPro
Commenting on the platform launch, Charalambos Psimolophitis, CEO of FxPro said in the corporate statement, “Investment is all about diversifying your exposure to a wide-range of asset classes. FxPro SuperTrader enables clients to control risk by setting key risk parameters before quickly and easily allocating funds to profitable FX trading strategies. As always, FxPro’s Agency Model ensures that clients benefit from the best price available from a pool of leading Liquidity providers.” Mr. Psimolophitis holds a CFA license and was previously the company's CFO before assuming his role as Chief Executive.
