Methods for Verifying a Public Trading Track Record
Summary
The document surveys ways to make a published record of recommended trades more credible. Suggestions include timestamping articles with an independent service, posting recommendations on platforms that retain publication dates, sending regular updates to subscribers, using a third-party trade tracker, and trading the recommendations in a real account that can be audited. Hashes of dated trade descriptions are also suggested as a way for readers to check that a record has not changed since it was committed.
Each method addresses only part of the problem. Timestamps can support claims about when a recommendation existed, but do not prevent selective publication or deletion of poor results. Frequent disclosure may reduce the opportunity to introduce old trades later, while audits and actual trading can add evidence about execution and performance. The answers offer practical examples rather than a comprehensive reporting standard. They emphasize that the appropriate level of verification depends on whether the record is educational, commercial, or connected to managing client money; professional reporting may require stricter standards, and no single mechanism guarantees honesty.
Key ideas
- Independent timestamps can help establish when a trade recommendation was first published.
- A public posting history or regular subscriber updates can make backdating harder to allege.
- Timestamps do not prevent selective reporting or deletion of losing recommendations.
- Third-party tracking, audits, and trading the recommendations can provide additional evidence.
- The suitable reporting process depends on the audience and whether client funds are involved.
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Full text
# Keeping a track record honest # Keeping a track record honest I want to start a blog/newsletter and maintain a track record of trades I recommend. I have a never-expiring demo account for this purpose. How do I keep this track record "honest"? Three months from now, someone can claim I backdated everything, made up trades, etc. Is there a well-known way to keep traders honest? I'll be trading OTC FX spot options, so I have to use Saxo Bank, and can't use a generic site. Will this affect the answer? I plan to take screenshots of my account daily, but I'm not sure that's enough. ## Answer by Karol J. Piczak (score 9, accepted) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/776 If what you're worried about is being accused of backdating, then you could try timestamping your articles by some trusted third party. This way you can certify that a document/article was created before a certain date and wasn't modified further on (so in this situation that you've come up with some conclusion/investment decision in the real past). In case of a non-professional context some free services might give you enough credibility: - timeMarker - Stamper service But backdating is only one of the problems you may encounter when trying to reliably report your performance. For example, timestamping won't help the fact that you can selectively publish only the trades that went well or just erase your prior poor record if it wasn't already disseminated. You could try to minimise this risk by keeping the window between actual transactions and publishing recommendations small (no "past trades" popping up in your blog out of nowhere), but in the end I suppose it's a question of trust - do your readers (clients?) feel they should/can trust you and foremost what's at stake (if you're only blogging personally it's different than if you're managing a mutual fund). Reliable reporting is a much more complex topic, there are numerous examples of real problems occurring in professional context, thus guidelines like GIPS were created. But still, I feel there's no ultimate solution to the problem. Most of the time it's a mix of legal regulations, business reasoning (you can't really "cheat" your track record that much if you have to later pay it out), professional/ethical standards and some good faith. But sorry, that was probably too much of a digression. Going back to your question, I think the most important factor is what your goal is. Are you blogging and keeping your transaction journal just for "fun" and educational purposes? Do you sell services/systems? Or maybe this blog is connected in some manner to a financial services company (managing client investments)? Presumably it's the former, but otherwise this would dramatically change the situation, and you would need to think about a much more complete and stringent solution to the problem. ## Answer by glyphard (score 9) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/777 Occam's Razor: Setup a facebook account, or a twitter account, and post your trade recommendations there. They are time/date stamped, easily accessible to others, and cannot be backdated. ## Answer by bill_080 (score 7) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/778 For third party tracking of trades, try these guys: https://www.timertrac.com/Public/Default.asp ## Answer by Shane (score 7) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/780 My primary recommendation is: "eat your own dogfood". You can then share an actual track record. And have your trades audited by a third party. One good example of this in the quant blogsphere is MarketSci (Michael Stokes), and I don't think that you could go wrong by following his example. He uses TimerTrac (mentioned by @bill_080) for some of the auditing (an example). He also offers managed accounts. ## Answer by Ralph Winters (score 6) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/775 One thing I can think of: On your blog/newletter, offer to send daily email updates of your results to them. That way no one can say that you backdate results, or otherwise altered results. And I'm sure everyone will appreciate your keeping things honest. ## Answer by Meh (score 4) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/783 Check out what these guys have done (hashes published to arxiv on fixed dates): http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0911/0911.0454.pdf ## Answer by Dimitris (score -1) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/781 Easy. Just put an MD5 hash of your complete text with your trade recommendation, along with its timestamp. Then, any reader can verify the exact date and the description of your recommendation.
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