Trading-alerts glossary
Plain definitions for the terms that matter when you are judging a signal service. Where a term has a test behind it, the entry points to the page that develops it.
Trading alert
A published instruction to consider a trade - typically a ticker, direction, entry, target and stop - sent in real time by a service or an individual.
Track record
The full history of a service's past calls, wins and losses together. Useful only when the losing calls are part of the record rather than edited out of it. See: a record you can re-run.
Independent audit
A review of the underlying trade statements by a named third party with no commercial stake in the outcome. A platform leaderboard is not an audit, and a testimonial is not one either. See: how to verify a record.
Cryptographic timestamp
A hash of an alert written to a public ledger at publication, proving the call existed in that exact form at that moment and was not altered later. See: sealed before the result.
SHA-256
The one-way hashing function used to fingerprint each alert. Any change to the call, however small, yields a completely different hash, so tampering becomes detectable rather than invisible.
OpenTimestamps
An open standard that anchors a hash into the Bitcoin blockchain, giving an alert a permanent, public, independently checkable receipt without trusting any single company.
Conviction grade
A label - A to D here - marking how strong a given call is relative to its model's own measured return spread. There is no E grade. See: a grade that was measured.
Win rate
The share of closed calls that finished profitable. Meaningful only alongside the total signal count and the average size of the wins set against the losses. See: why a win rate needs a denominator.
Drawdown
The largest peak-to-trough fall in an account or strategy over a period - a truer read on risk than the headline return on its own.
Copy trading
Automatically mirroring another trader's positions through a platform. More checkable than a chat room, but rarely audited independently per signal.
Affiliate funnel
A free signal channel monetised by routing followers to a broker for a commission, which rewards sign-ups over signal accuracy.
Mean reversion
A strategy family that trades on prices stretching away from, then returning toward, a typical level - the shared basis of the four models cited across this guide.