How to verify an EA's track record: investor password, monitoring and statements

In short: To verify an EA's track record, trust the account, not screenshots: use read-only investor access or a broker-linked monitoring service, and check the equity drawdown.

The hardest record to fake is the account itself, read through a read-only investor password or a monitoring service that pulls the history from the broker's server. Statements and screenshots can be edited, and backtests are simulations. For a grid EA, read equity and the deepest floating loss, not only closed trades.

This article covers the methods; questions for a seller are in how to evaluate a gold EA, marketing claims in trading robot red flags. The grid example uses the basket from the stop-out arithmetic article, calculated on 8 October 2026 with the grid calculator's arithmetic. Other numbers are made up and labelled.

How do you verify an EA's track record: evidence or just a picture?

To verify an EA's track record, rely on the account itself: read-only investor access to the live account, or a monitoring service that reads the broker's server. Statements and screenshots can be edited and backtests are simulations.

Evidence is something you can check against a source the seller cannot edit. A picture is anything the seller hands you. Roughly from hardest to easiest to fake (the order is our judgement):

A screenshot is a photo of a bank statement; read-only access is the bank's own screen. No row says anything about next month, only about the past.

How does the investor password let you check an account?

The investor password is the second, view-only password of an MT5 account: you can see the state of the account and analyse prices, but not trade. The master password gives full rights, trading included (MetaTrader 5 Help).

The check:

1. The seller gives you the account number, server name and investor password of their own account.
2. In MT5 open File → Login to Trade Account and enter them.
3. On the Trade tab read balance, equity, margin level and open positions. On the History tab choose all history and read the deals.
4. Compare with what you were shown: account number, currency (a cent account usually shows USC), dates, trade count.

It carries weight because the history lives on the broker's server, not on the seller's computer. A server name may hint at demo or live, but it is not proof: ask the broker which it is.

The investor password is private even though it is read-only: whoever holds it sees positions and history. And no genuine check needs your master password. If anyone asks for it to "connect" or "verify", stop.

The account owner can change the investor password in the terminal's platform settings (Server section) or in the Android app's "Change Password" menu; both ask for the current master password. If the master password is changed by force, the investor password is reset too, so a seller's access can stop working without any bad intent (platform settings, Android help).

Third-party monitoring: what does "verified" mean?

Here a monitoring service means one where the owner gives the service an investor password, the service reads the history from the broker's server and draws balance, growth, drawdown and a trade list. "Verified" is the service's own word, and what it covers differs. At the narrowest it means only that the history came from the broker rather than from typing. Find the service's published definition before trusting a badge. We name no services; the questions are the same.

It can still mislead. The account may be a demo, or the one that worked out of several. Growth depends on how deposits are treated (example below). Some charts cover only a monitoring period, not the whole account history: MT5's signal help says so of its equity-drawdown and deposit-load charts, and does not define the period (how to choose a signal).

What do platform signal services check?

The service built into MetaTrader is MQL5 Signals. Its rules: the provider supplies the investor password, the platform requests the full trading history, balance, equity, deposits, withdrawals and floating result are public in real time, and falsifying results leads to blocking (MQL5 Signals rules).

One rule matters for grids on cent accounts. On 8 October 2026 the rules say signals on demo, contest and cent accounts are not allowed (items III.12 and III.13), so this route gives records for standard real accounts only. Rules change.

What do statements and screenshots prove?

MT5 builds the history report as an HTML page: broker, account number, owner name, deposit currency and date, then Orders, Deals, Positions, Working Orders, a Summary with equity and margin level, and Details with the maximal balance drawdown (MT5 Help: report). The analytic Trading Report adds deposits, withdrawals and a Risks tab. Ask for one, but treat it as a list of questions: HTML is text any editor can change. Cross-check account number, currency, trade count and last date against rows 1 to 3.

Invented records happen. In October 2016 the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) alleged in a complaint that sellers of a futures trading system posted monthly results that did not reflect real-money trading, and ran a "live" trading room that was mostly a simulated account (CFTC release). A complaint, not a verdict, and about futures; the pattern is the point: a claim, a picture, no source.

Can you trust EA backtest results? Backtest vs real account

Not as proof of a real account. A backtest is a simulation on past prices, never a record, and it cannot show one real trade. The MT5 tester ranges from "open prices only" and "1 minute OHLC" (four prices per bar) to "every tick" (generated) and "every tick based on real ticks" (ticks collected by brokers), with delay and commission settings (MT5 Help: strategy testing). For a grid, ask: which mode, whose ticks, which dates, which spread, swap, commission and delay? A single score or a pretty curve answers none of these. The US rule on advertising by commodity trading advisers and pool operators requires a caution that simulated results do not represent actual trading, are designed with hindsight, and may under- or over-compensate for market factors such as lack of liquidity (17 CFR 4.41).

What should you read in any track record?

1. Source. The broker's server (rows 1 to 3), or a file or picture?
2. Account type. Real or demo? Cent or standard?
3. Age and trade count. How many weeks and trades; any restarts?
4. Money in and out. Deposits, withdrawals, broker credit.
5. Equity drawdown. The worst dip in equity, not only in balance.
6. Size. The largest open volume and the lowest margin level.
7. Costs. Net of spread, swap and commission.
8. Scope. One account out of how many? The same settings throughout?

Point 4, with made-up numbers (from no real account). The balance starts at $1,000; midway the owner deposits $500; at the end the balance is $1,200. End divided by start reads as +20%. But $1,500 went in and $1,200 is left: the trading result is −$300. Growth figures that exclude deposits and withdrawals, like MT5's signal pages, exist for this reason. Ask any page how it treats them, and whether the balance includes broker credit, which MT5's trading report counts in the balance.

Why does equity matter more than closed trades for a grid?

A grid adds orders while price moves against the basket and closes it when price returns. A closed-trade list holds only baskets that got out; an open one is invisible there. Balance excludes the floating result of open positions; equity includes it (same MT5 Help page).

Worked example: cent account, $1,000, 11-order doubling grid (start lot 0.01, ×2, step $1.95), gold at $4,170 for the first order, leverage 1:2000, example stop-out level 40%. A cent account shows money in cents, so $1,000 reads as 100,000 USC in the terminal; this article counts in dollars. One basket, nothing closed yet, with price standing at the level of the newest order (spread, swap and commission ignored):

A closed-trade statement shows nothing from this basket in any row, and the equity dip at the end, 3.97% of the balance, looks small. Neither shows 20.47 lots open, $20.47 per $1 of gold, and $46.08 of price between the last order and the stop-out line in this example. Even the margin level reads a calm 2,250% there (margin call vs stop-out). Ask for the maximum equity drawdown, the largest open volume and the lowest margin level.

What does Midas offer today?

We build Midas, an MT5 Expert Advisor that trades gold (XAUUSD) with a grid on hedging cent-style accounts. Midas has traded on a live account only since August 2026. There is no independently verified public track record, and our monitoring page says a public read-only monitoring page is not available yet. So any result claim about Midas, ours included, is unverified: treat it that way.

The monitoring page adds that detailed statements are available from support on request (via the Telegram bot @MidasGridBot). That is row 4: useful for questions, not independent proof. As the Signals rules read today, a platform signal page is not open to a cent account. The calculators on our site show the arithmetic of settings, not results; risks are in Risk, plainly.

What can go wrong?

Trading with leverage carries risk: if the deposit is too small, a stop-out is possible. Size your deposit with a safety margin. A verified record still describes the past, and a long calm stretch says nothing about the tail: a doubling grid's exposure grows with every order. A service can show the wrong thing (a demo, one account, a short window), and labels, rules and password links change. No check here is investment advice or removes the strategy's risk.

This is arithmetic of the settings, not a forecast. Trading with leverage carries risk: if the deposit is too small, a stop-out is possible. Size your deposit with a safety margin. Nothing here is individual investment advice.

Midas · figures calculated and sources retrieved on 8 October 2026.

FAQ

How do I verify an EA's track record?

Rank the evidence from hardest to easiest to fake: read-only investor access to the live account, third-party monitoring (check what "verified" means), platform signal services, exported statements, screenshots and, last, backtests. For a grid, read equity with open trades and the deepest floating loss, not only closed trades, because a grid hides risk there.

What is the investor password in MT5, and what does it show?

It is the second, read-only password of an MT5 account. It shows the account state, positions and history and lets you analyse prices, but it cannot place, change or close trades; the master password does that. Keep both private, and never send a master password to anyone to "verify" results.

Can I trust EA backtest results?

Not as a record. A backtest is a simulation on past prices and cannot show one real trade. Ask which tester mode, whose ticks, which dates, and which spread, swap, commission and delay were used; a single score or a pretty curve answers none of these. Compare it with a read-only view of a real account.

Can a forex track record be faked?

Yes. A screenshot or HTML file can be edited, a demo shown as a real account, one account picked out of several, and deposits or broker credit can hide a loss behind a rising number. A live read-only view of the broker's server is hardest to fake, yet shows only the account the seller chose. Combine sources.

What does "verified" mean in forex trading results?

It is a label from whoever runs the page, and definitions differ. At the narrowest it means the history was read from the broker's server, not uploaded or typed in. It does not mean the account is real, the results are good or they will repeat. Read the service's definition, then check account type, age, deposits and equity drawdown.

How do I get an MT5 account statement?

In the terminal open the History tab, set the period, right-click and choose Report. The Help describes that report as an HTML page; Report → Overview opens the built-in analytic report instead. Your broker may also send statements. One you produce yourself from a read-only login beats one a seller sends, because it comes from the server's data.