Questions to Ask Before You Subscribe to a Signal Service

The seven questions

Question 1: Who independently audited your trading record?

Ask for the auditor's name, the review period, and a link to the publicly accessible attestation. A credible answer names a specific person or organisation, states the years covered, and provides a link you can check independently. An evasive or vague answer ("results are verified by our platform") is a clear signal that no independent audit has occurred.

Question 2: What was your maximum drawdown in each year of the stated history?

The peak-to-trough decline in each year is the risk metric buyers most frequently fail to ask about. A provider who supplies annual return figures without drawdown is providing incomplete information by default. A credible answer states both the annual return and the maximum drawdown for the same period.

Question 3: What is your methodology for generating signals?

Ask the provider to describe, in plain language, what market conditions trigger a signal. You should be able to understand and evaluate the answer before subscribing. If the answer is "proprietary" without any further framework description, you have no basis for assessing whether the methodology is sound or replicable.

Question 4: How do you prevent retroactive editing of your signal history?

This question separates providers who have thought seriously about signal integrity from those who have not. A credible answer describes a cryptographic mechanism: signals are hashed at publication and the hash is anchored to an immutable ledger. An answer relying on "trust us" or "our platform records everything" does not close the retroactive-edit window.

Question 5: Where is all your pricing published?

Ask them to link you to a page that shows every subscription tier, every cost, and all trial terms without requiring you to provide an email address or payment details. A credible answer is a direct URL. If pricing is not on a public page, ask why — transparency about costs is among the easiest commitments for a credible provider to make.

Question 6: Have you entered any real-money trading competitions?

Real-money competition results are tracked by the competition organiser, not by the provider. They provide a secondary verification layer where the provider cannot alter the recorded entries and exits. The World Cup Trading Championships (worldcupchampionships.com) is a well-known example. A provider with competition results adds a layer of evidence that is structurally different from self-reported brokerage records.

Question 7: What is the Sharpe ratio on your audited record?

The Sharpe ratio measures return per unit of risk. A number above 2.0 over multiple years is exceptional. Above 1.0 is good. Below 0.5 means the returns, however large, came with high volatility relative to the gain. A provider who does not know their Sharpe ratio, or who presents it only for a short cherry-picked period, is not in the habit of presenting performance with full risk context.