# Brokers piggybacking?



## Punta (31 October 2011)

Hi all,

Just hypothetically, let's suppose you came up with some whizz-bang strategy that is fantastically successful.  What's to stop your broker observing your trades and copying your strategy?


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## prawn_86 (31 October 2011)

*Re: Brokers piggybacking??*



Punta said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Just hypothetically, let's suppose you came up with some whizz-bang strategy that is fantastically successful.  What's to stop your broker observing your trades and copying your strategy?




Unless you are going through a full service broker (ie ringing the guy and dealing direct witha  person), there is no way a broker is going to take the time to analyse your trades etc. Even if they did they still wouldnt know your strategy, just what shares you buy


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## Wysiwyg (31 October 2011)

*Re: Brokers piggybacking??*



Punta said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Just hypothetically, let's suppose you came up with some whizz-bang strategy that is fantastically successful.  What's to stop your broker observing your trades and copying your strategy?



Or, what is to stop Mr. Market from making it unsuccessful? Wherever there is money there is corruption from small and often overlooked (client information exposure, fake bid or ask offers) to the Bernie Madoff scale which was itself allowed to go on for quite some time. 

And that's the truth.


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## Whiskers (31 October 2011)

*Re: Brokers piggybacking??*



Punta said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Just hypothetically, let's suppose you came up with some whizz-bang strategy that is fantastically successful.  What's to stop your broker observing your trades and copying your strategy?




They may observe your trades, but unless you tell them, they will still have to work out you strategy... unless you mean they just duplicate your trades.

Risky move for a broker or anyone to copy a trade without knowing all the circumstances and other trades you may have made elsewhere, eg to hedge.


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## Wysiwyg (31 October 2011)

*Re: Brokers piggybacking??*



prawn_86 said:


> Even if they did they still wouldnt know your strategy, just what shares you buy



Well they could collect entry point data and identify a pattern if there was a lot of money involved. Otherwise they are wasting their time and that is good.


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## lazyfish (31 October 2011)

Punta said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Just hypothetically, let's suppose you came up with some whizz-bang strategy that is fantastically successful.  What's to stop your broker observing your trades and copying your strategy?




Hypothetically if you came up with a whizz-bang business idea there isn't anything stopping it getting copied either...


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## tech/a (31 October 2011)

The brokers I know certainly wouldn't trade their clients account
According to them very few are longterm profitable

A few hrs reading through all these links wil be of interest to some

http://www.investorhome.com/daytrade/profits.htm


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## mr. jeff (31 October 2011)

tech/a said:


> The brokers I know certainly wouldn't trade their clients account
> According to them very few are longterm profitable
> 
> A few hrs reading through all these links wil be of interest to some
> ...




I do my best to ensure that is the appearance, I convincingly lose consistently although I did not know it was noticed. 
A potentially profitable system might be to short my longs and long my shorts, quite straight forward, you could call it the "George Costanza".


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## Punta (31 October 2011)

Thanks for the replies all.  I have to say, based on the responses here, it sounds like it's worth being wary of implementing a systematic strategy through brokers that cater for individuals.


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## cutz (1 November 2011)

Brokers don't piggyback on their retail clients, too risky, they make the moolah on commish.


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