Myfxbook’s AutoTrade introduces slippage metrics data for all mirrored positions.

Forex social network and copy trading platform service Myfxbook announced the introduction of slippage information to its AutoTrade copy trading service. And as part of its introduction, Myfxbook made a very interesting claim (see below), which we hope to look further into in the coming days. Specifically, Myfxbook claims that users of its AutoTrade copy trading service experienced an average of 14.4 pips of positive slippage on each round trip trade — 5.9 pips on the initial trade and 8.5 pips on the exit trade.

We don’t doubt Myfxbook’s numbers, but we do aim to understand them better. We don’t really understand why copy trading of any kind, even successful copy trading, would result in positive slippage, especially that much. With spreads on most traded instruments in the 2-5 pips range, 14 pips is quite a large number.

We’d be happy to get your comments (or explanations) below in our Comments section.

What is Slippage? Slippage is the measured difference between the order price a client enters, and the actual executed price — as markets are constantly moving. Positive slippage is slippage in the trader’s favor — the trader ended up getting a better price (lower buy price or higher sell price) than his/her order price. Negative slippage is just the opposite — the trader ends up getting a worse price than his/her initial order price.

We’ve written recently about some fines handed out by the CFTC to brokers who (allegedly) engaged in what’s called asymmetric slippage. That is, these brokers allegedly programmed their MT4 systems to allow negative slippage, but to capture for themselves the positive slippage (instead of giving it to the client). All of the charges brought against a variety of brokers were settled without any admission of wrongdoing.

For more on the global Forex industry see the LeapRate-Dow Jones Forex Industry Report.