I just saw a post in the new hot topic on this forum, and as usual, this has my curiosity rabbit jumping up again but I don't want to post in that thread as it would be off topic and the main topic of the thread is very serious.

So, not too long ago, one of my friend was telling me that his broker has a "star trader" list, its a list of the traders who are making profitable trades over certain period of time and have certain gains in their accounts.

What this broker is doing is copying trades of these people+/-spread, this to me is very serious possibility and while I do not know truth behind the matter, today I was reminded of it by the post in new popular topic here.

Is this possible? Are there any real "Regulations" against this? Or is it even possible to regulate it?

This broker is very big in India and has a very large client base, probably in top 2-3 brokers in country of 1.4bn, that has to be very big. And since I don't have any evidence other than "rumor", I will not mention the name. But, I do want to know if this is happening or has happened with others, doesn't matter from where and through which broker and if anything we on our end can do to stop it other than changing the broker.

Little note, in India, generally platforms and data are both part of broker package, and I'm assuming here that if any broker is really up to these kind of practices, he can certainly pull it off.

Good Question. No idea about India but I would think assume this is illegal in the US, but as they say, assumption is the mother of all F*** Ups!

In reality you would need to be either a) so good or b) so big to make this worthwhile I can't see how this would happen. I personally think the average Joe Smith who thinks somebody is intentionally stopping out his 1 lot trade has no idea how big markets are.

SMCJB 

Good Question. No idea about India but I would think assume this is illegal in the US, but as they say, assumption is the mother of all F*** Ups!

Yes, and I'm not trying to be an alarmist here but authorities are usually doing catching up as far as these issues go. Generally they are more focused in the area of misuse of account holders holdings and money. And even after that its very common for broking houses to get shut down in India for the same crimes, so its not that farfetched to consider this "rumor" with possibility of being true. But that's pretty much it atm..Idk anything else.

SMCJB 

In reality you would need to be either a) so good or b) so big to make this worthwhile I can't see how this would happen. I personally think the average Joe Smith who thinks somebody is intentionally stopping out his 1 lot trade has no idea how big markets are.

Completely agree on that, but the person in question in my case was not really complaining about getting stopped out, it was more in line with "whenever I put in order for certain amount and qty of lot I see another just spread+/- in the same direction, in same qty and if I cancel mine it is also cancelled"

Tbh, no one would notice this kind of thing in index or liquid instruments, but its noticeable in otm strikes in little less interesting scripts.

Having said that, judging by overall lack of interest for this, I guess general opinion in this is clear.