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Trading bots · Verification

How to verify a track record step by step, and what it still cannot prove

Verifying a track record means asking for a link and checking it yourself, not looking at whatever you are shown. Everything below is done from a browser, without knowing anything about trading and without taking anyone's word for it: six checks in order, each with what to look at and what it means when it is missing.

And there is a second half almost nobody writes about: a record can be verified, be genuine, and still not prove what it appears to. The later sections are that list — what the badge does not cover — because knowing it is what prevents the two expensive mistakes: dismissing a good record and accepting one that says nothing.

Sources read on 31 August 2026 · linked at the foot of the page

This page verifies no particular track record

Start by asking for the link, not the screenshot

With no public link there is nothing to verify. And the refusal is itself information.

A screenshot, a PDF or a video of the platform cannot be checked: there is no way to know which account they came from or whether they are complete. The only thing that admits checking is a public URL you open yourself, showing the whole page rather than the slice somebody cropped.

There is a detail here worth knowing, because it changes the conversation. Myfxbook explains in its documentation that making an account public and sharing a link to its system page are functions that require the full verification process to have been completed. Which means an account that has not completed it has no public page to show. That proves nothing is being hidden, but it turns "I don't have a link" into a data point, and leaves the conversation somewhere you get out of by sending the URL.

That documentation is cited here from its archived copy, and not out of preference: the Myfxbook domain returns an access error to any client that is not a browser — checked again on 31 August 2026, on its home page too — so a link to the live page works if you open it yourself and fails in any automated checker. The archived copy serves the same text and can be audited.

The six steps, one after another

Six checks, in this order. None of them requires knowing about trading, and all of them fit in an afternoon.

  1. 30 seconds

    Open the public page yourself

    Not the one sent to you as an image: the URL, in your browser, with the address bar in view. Check that it loads while you are logged out, because a link that only works from the account of the person showing it to you is not public. If what you have is a private invitation link, that still counts, but note the date you saw it: whoever publishes it controls what is served behind it.

  2. 1 minute

    Read which verification level the page declares

    Not all badges say the same thing, and the difference between them is the most misread part of this whole subject: some verifications confirm that the figures are the broker's, others confirm who added the account, and there are entire levels at which it is impossible to know whether the data was manipulated or whether the account was live or a demo. Exactly what each one guarantees, with the definitions the two platforms publish, is broken down in the guide on whether trading bots are reliable. What belongs here is reading the level the page in front of you declares, rather than taking it on trust because of the colour of an icon.

  3. 2 minutes

    Check how far back it goes, and whether the periods are whole

    The start date of a record is a setting, not a fact: whoever publishes it picks it. Look at when the trades begin and ask why not earlier. The most demanding written yardstick is the one European law imposes on investment firms: where they show past performance, the information must include "appropriate performance information which covers the preceding 5 years", or the whole period if shorter, "and in every case that performance information is based on complete 12-month periods". Three good months is not a record, it is a sample.

  4. 3 minutes

    Look for the worst stretch, not the best

    This is the check most people skip, and the one with the bluntest source. The CNMV advertising circular — the Spanish rules on advertising investment products and services — requires that information on past returns must not be given partially or in a skewed way, and goes further in the point that follows: where the maximum variation of an index or a price over a period is quoted, it must be completed with the corresponding figures for the smallest variation over the same period. A record showing only the best month is incomplete by definition. Ask for the worst month and for the longest run of consecutive losses: two numbers anybody with a real record gives from memory.

  5. 2 minutes

    Check what the figure is expressed in before believing it

    The same European rules require three things that work here as questions. That "the reference period and the source of information is clearly stated". That where the figures are in another currency, "the currency is clearly stated, together with a warning that the return may increase or decrease as a result of currency fluctuations". And that "where the indication is based on gross performance, the effect of commissions, fees or other charges are disclosed". Translated to what is in front of you: period, currency, and gross or net. Without those three, the figure compares with nothing.

  6. 5 minutes

    Confirm it is live trading and not a simulation

    European law requires "a prominent warning that the figures refer to simulated past performance" where that is what they are. Whoever sells a bot is not bound by that obligation, so the absence of the warning does not mean the record is live: it means you have to ask. And there is a technical reason to ask that almost nobody writes about, in the next section.

The six obligations just quoted fall on investment firms, and whoever is selling you a bot almost never is one. Worth saying plainly: applying this list is not catching anybody in a breach. It is borrowing the standard from those who are held to it, which is the only written yardstick that exists for this.

Why a simulation is not the same object as a record

A backtest does not observe the past: it reconstructs it. And the ticks it uses are generated, not recorded.

The platform maker's documentation explains it without hedging, and it is what turns step 06 from a formality into something worth doing. The most important event for a program that trades is a price change, so — the documentation says — "we need to generate a tick sequence to test the EA". Generate. The tester offers three modes for doing it, from the most detailed to the most simplified, and the history it starts from arrives as packed minute bars from which only four prices are known: open, high, low and close.

What that means in practice is that two backtests of the same strategy over the same period can produce different results depending on which generation mode was picked, and none of the three is what happened. On top of that sits the simulation of spread, which is another configuration decision. None of this makes a backtest useless — what it is genuinely good for, which is ruling things out, is in the reliability guide — but it explains why a simulated curve and a live record are not the same class of object and do not compare.

The practical consequence is short: when you are shown a result, the first question is not how much, it is whether that happened or was calculated. And if it was calculated, in which mode and with which costs deducted. How the program producing those numbers works under the bonnet is in what an expert advisor is.

What a verified record still does not say

The badge confirms the connection to the broker is sound. It does not confirm who trades, or with what intent.

It is worth reading how the badge is obtained, because that describes its scope better than any explanation. Myfxbook writes that "the track record verification relies on the validity of the login credentials the user provides to Myfxbook", and lists what has to be valid to achieve it: the account number, the account's investor password, the correct broker and the correct broker server. So whoever publishes the account supplies the details, and the platform checks that the connection works and that the figures come from there.

That leaves out things people assume are included. It does not say whether the strategy is any good, it does not say whether it will carry on working, and it does not say that whoever is showing you the record is the person trading it: that is a separate verification, the one covering trading privileges, obtained by demonstrating possession of the master password — and an account can have one without the other. Nor does it say anything about what is not on the page, starting with the same seller's accounts that were never published.

Put shortly: "verified" is a precondition, not a conclusion. It is good for ruling things out quickly, not for deciding. What decides is what is inside the page once you have done the six steps.

Apply this list to this site

A guide about demanding proof, written by somebody selling something, only holds up if it is applied to itself.

Step 01 of this page asks for a public link to a verified track record. Applied to this site, that step has an answer, and it is written where it belongs: in the note that goes with the screenshots on the home page, sitting against the evidence it qualifies. It says what those screenshots are, what they are not, and what is missing. It is not repeated here, because a warning repeated on every page stops being read, but it is one click away and that is the right place to read it: next to what it qualifies rather than inside a guide that assesses nobody.

The rest of the list applies the same way. If anything shown on this site looks to you like a result, the questions in steps 05 and 06 hold here exactly as they hold anywhere else: over what period, in what currency, gross or net, and whether it happened or was calculated. Asking costs nothing, and anyone with the answers should not mind giving them.

Sources · read on 31 August 2026

Frequently asked questions

How do I verify a bot's track record before I buy it?
By asking for a public link to the account page and checking it yourself, rather than looking at whatever you are shown. On that page there are four things you can check in a few minutes: which verification level it declares, what date the history starts from and whether it covers complete periods, whether the worst stretch is visible alongside the best, and what the figures are expressed in — the currency, and whether they are gross or net of costs. None of the four requires knowing anything about trading. What does not work is an image, because an image cannot be checked.
How much history do I need to look at for it to mean anything?
The most demanding yardstick written down anywhere is the one European law imposes on investment firms when they show past performance: five years, or the whole period if it is shorter, and always based on complete 12-month periods. The CNMV advertising circular adds that this information must not be given partially or in a skewed way. Whoever is selling you a bot is bound by none of that, so you are not catching a breach: you are borrowing the standard from those who are bound. Three months of history is not proof, it is a sample.
How do I tell a live track record from a backtest?
By asking outright and looking for the warning. European law requires that where information includes simulated past performance, it carries a prominent warning that the figures are simulated. A seller outside that perimeter may simply not put one there, so the absence of the warning does not mean the record is live: it means you have to ask. The two practical tells are where the data comes from — an account synced with the broker is not the same as a report uploaded by hand — and whether the costs of trading are in there, because a backtest without spread or commissions produces a better curve without doing anything.
What does a track record being marked as verified depend on?
On details supplied by whoever publishes the account, not on an audit. Myfxbook describes it that way in its own documentation: track record verification relies on the validity of the login credentials the user provides, and to achieve it the account number, the investor password, the chosen broker and the chosen server all have to be valid. So what the badge confirms is that the connection to the broker is sound and that the figures come from there. It does not confirm who is trading, with what intent, or whether the strategy is any good.
Why am I being shown a screenshot instead of a link?
Sometimes out of convenience and sometimes because there is no link to give. On Myfxbook, making an account public and sharing a link to its system page requires the full verification process to have been completed, so an account that has not completed it has no public page to show. That turns the refusal into information: it does not prove anything is being hidden, but it leaves the conversation somewhere uncomfortable that is easy to get out of by sending the link. If the answer is that the account is private, the next question is what prevents creating an invitation link.
Can I compare two track records against each other?
Only if they are expressed the same way, and they almost never are. European advertising rules require the reference period to be clearly stated, the currency to be named when it is not the client’s own, and the effect of commissions to be disclosed where the figure is gross; the CNMV circular adds that where two or more figures are included they must refer to the same period. Translated to what is in front of you: a twelve-month record does not compare with a three-month one, nor one in dollars with one in euros, nor a gross one with a net one. Levelling those three things before comparing is half the work.

Continue reading

Three more guides on this, or on what sits next to it.