MQL5 Signals is MetaQuotes' service for publishing a trading account's results, with the option for subscribers to copy its trades. Because the account is connected directly, the trades are real and cannot be edited, and a signal page is, in that sense, a verified record. It is also a page designed to attract subscribers, and it needs reading with care.
The headline figures
Growth, the percentage return since the signal started. Maximum drawdown, shown as a balance figure by default. The number of trades, the profit factor, and the win rate. The account's start date, broker, leverage and type, real or demo. Each is accurate. Each can mislead on its own.
What to look at instead
The equity chart, not the growth chart. The growth chart is balance-based; the equity line, when shown, reveals floating losses. Deposits and withdrawals, listed under the trading tab, since a large deposit during a drawdown makes the drawdown vanish from the growth figure. The trade list, which shows whether stops were used and how long losing trades were held. The lot sizes relative to balance, which show the risk taken. The leverage, since a signal at 1:500 and a subscriber at 1:30 will not get the same fills or the same margin. And the age. Signals under six months old have not been tested; signals whose author has several other signals are the survivors of a set.
The copying problem
A subscriber copying a signal gets the signal's trades at their own broker, with their own spreads, fills and symbol names, sized to their own account by the platform's copying rules. The result differs from the signal's, sometimes widely, for all the reasons on the page about brokers, and copying a scalping signal is usually futile because the delay and the spread difference consume the edge.
A signal shows 210 per cent growth over nine months with a 24 per cent maximum drawdown. The equity line, when enabled, dips to 61 per cent below balance in month four. The trade list shows positions held open for up to five weeks without stops and closed in baskets. The account is a demo at 1:500. The growth is real. The signal is a grid, the true drawdown was 61 per cent, and it would have been a stop-out at UK leverage.
A signal page is useful evidence when read for equity, deposits, stops, holding times and risk, and it is misleading when read for the growth figure alone, which is what the page is designed to be read for. Treat it as a raw record with a persuasive summary on top, and read the record.