If a hedge fund manager tells you he's "up 8% this month," he's invariably including the profit/loss of his open trades. That's because the financial industry speaks in terms of equity, which includes the marked-to-market value of open trades. And it's that way for a reason – the profit/loss on an open trade is every bit as real as on a closed trade, and performance metrics can be completely misleading when open trade activity is excluded.

As Product Manager for the Trade Explorer, I hear from members who are concerned that their Trade Explorer's statistics are not as favorable as shown on other sites offering trade analytics. Most of the time the discrepancy is due to the trader carrying open losses in their account, which are only being accounted for on their Trade Explorer.

To illustrate this point, I opened a demo account and entered ten random trades. Then I closed the five trades that were winning and left the losing trades open. Here are a few metrics, for the same account, from Trade Explorer and Myfxbook:

Trade Explorer







Myfxbook







The account performance looks a lot better on Myfxbook because their statistics are based on balance, thereby ignoring the huge open loss. Since the Trade Explorer's statistics are all based on equity, the open loss is reflected throughout all metrics, making the performance appear worse.

It's not just these top-level statistics that are affected by the choice of equity or balance. Periodic metrics (e.g., How much did I make yesterday? How much did I make last February?) will change dramatically depending on how open trades are accounted for.

Out of the other eight sites we know of offering Forex performance analyzers, half of them are mostly balance-based, three are somewhat equity-based, and only one does a good job of reporting equity throughout. Since the Trade Explorer is one of the two analyzers that is completely equity-based, there's a good chance your performance will, at times when you have an open loss, look worse on the Trade Explorer than elsewhere.

While this may keep some people from using the Trade Explorer, equity-based statistics are a must for professional traders. And professional traders are who the Trade Explorer was built for! We went to great lengths when developing the product to ensure that it was in line with financial industry standards, and that everything was based on equity.

Btw, we know balanced-based statistics do have their use. They can be helpful in performing what-if scenarios, for example. That's why the Trade Explorer was built with an 'Equity/Balance' toggle that allows you to flip to balance-based statistics when needed.



If you have any questions or feedback, please send us some mail!

When we launched the Trade Explorer there were 60 graph combinations available. With the overlay graph feature added today, there are now more than 600 possible combinations! Here's just a few of the insightful graphs you can now produce:





Overlay graphs replace the single y-axis with two y-axis scales, one on the left of the graph and one on the right. Both axes can be adjusted with the options below the graph, giving you the flexibility to analyze your trading performance however you want. After some practice with the graph you'll be able to quickly find answers to questions about your performance, and you'll begin to understand your strengths and weaknesses from a visual perspective.

Oh, and now you can modify the graph colors too.

Forex Factory is pleased to announce that the Trade Explorer now connects with OANDA's fxTrade platform! The legions of fxTrade users finally have a compatible performance analyzer.

fxTrade users: Get your Trade Explorer started here!



While fxTrade-based Explorers look identical to those based on MT4, they connect to trading accounts using different authorization methods. Instead of using an Investor Password, like MT4, OANDA developed a page on the fxTrade interface where traders can grant the Explorer read-only access to their trading history. It's a secure, modern setup that gives you complete control over access to your trading data. We're proud to have been chosen to beta-test for OANDA, and we think the final product turned out fantastic.

Please contact us if you have any problems getting your Explorer set up, or if you have any requests. I'm always glad to hear from you guys!

Forex Factory has a new search engine! It's smarter, easier to use, and more tightly integrated with Forex Factory's products. Check it out: http://www.forexfactory.com/search.php



You can utilize four different search types to locate information. For everyday use, the 'Google Powered' search harnesses Google's algorithm to find relevant content throughout Forex Factory. For Forum-specific searches, the custom-built 'Forum Posts' search is a powerful tool when used with the 'Advanced Options.' There's also a News-specific search, and a 'Posts by Member' search that makes it easy to sort through posts a member has made.



The 'Posts by Member' search pulls together member-specific content from around the site, and it ushers in new nomenclature. The word 'post' now encompasses four items: forum threads started, forum thread replies, news stories submitted, and news story comments. This puts all of a member's contributions into a single, easily-browsed list. Of course you can still search specific post types by clicking on the 'Post Type' links or setting the advanced options.



We hope this new search engine helps you find what you're looking for! If you run into any bugs, or have feedback, please let us know.

We're pleased to announce that we've completed the rollout of our radically redesigned News product. After several revisions over the past few years, we think we've finally reached our goal of making FF the best news resource for Forex traders!



Here's how it works:

1. The News page is now based on our new Flexbox technology, which allows you to customize content and layout throughout the page (click the block titles for options).
   
2. Any member can submit any story, from any website, via the submission box in the top left of the News page. The submissions go into a back-end queue.
   
3. Forex Factory's news editors, a team of experienced traders and analysts, decide which submissions become public. Therefore, all news posted to Forex Factory now goes through a quality assurance process managed internally. News editors also submit stories the same way members do.
   
4. The news editors' mission is to deliver the most timely, useful, and entertaining news from around the web. They are Forex Factory employees who operate upon a strict set of guidelines to ensure the news mix is consistent and stays true to the mission.
   
5. A new sorting option, 'Hottest,' is now one of the primary methods for displaying news. The Hottest algorithm considers how FF users interact with stories to determine which are the best of the moment. The algorithm's calculation is confidential, making it harder to manipulate.
   
6. FF's familiar impact icons are used to rate breaking news (i.e., new information) that is moving the market. A red icon () indicates the information is having a big impact on the market.

Please contact us to share your thoughts. We love to hear your feedback!