How to protect strategy from theft by а trader

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How to protect our trading strategy? For example we have a strategy that requires manual trading. To reduce risks we need to trade with different traders who use differend actives.
But the trouble is that there is few Very important details. If trader knows this detail, he can easily steal it.
How to protect yourself? Except of developing of robot and inventing fake indicator (even if we will change indicator, smart trader anyway will understand the sence of strategy).
 
You can give the exact opposite of the critical details that must be followed, and tell him to alert you when that detail has not been met. This way you know when it really is being met, and you can act on it accordingly.

so if you have your important detail as "RSI > 70" then tell the traders "tell me when RSI is not < 70" and you are good. it's obviously a crude example but hopefully that paints the picture.
 
I think the OP is afraid that his broker, ie. IB or TOS, for example, is going to figure out his strategy and steal it. If that is the case, stop flattering yourself. Any large broker has tens of of thousands of accounts transacting hundreds of thousands of trades a year and they're not going to go find your account and try to reverse engineer your strategy, mostly because you're just not as important as you think you are.
But assuming you were a hedge fund with many hundreds of millions AUM and a proprietary strategy....you'd still trade with a broker just like the hundreds of large hedge funds in existence with proprietary strategies do. There are many reasons why this isn't a problem, like the fact that any particular person at your brokerage doesn't want to be blacklisted for life from their profession, the reputational risk for the brokerage firm, their compliance department which is primarily concerned with compliance for reputational reasons in addition to regulatory compliance, and the regulatory risk to mention a few.
If you're worried about this you're worried about the wrong thing. This is one of the least likely of many potential problems, foremost being that your trading system isn't really as good in live trading at scale as you think it is. If you're wasting time on it you're decreasing your chances of success.
 
Thank you for your replies. About protected I mean - protection from a trader who was learned to trade and decided go to competitors.
 
You're going to need to give more information. I can't figure out why a "trader" as you say would be learning your strategy. What about just not telling people? Are you giving signals to another trader to execute them for you? Why would you do that?

Or do you mean you are operating a subscription based service that gives trade signals, and the signals themselves are fairly easy to reverse engineer. They will join for a month or two, learn your strategy, then cancel their subscription? If that's what you mean then yeah, that's a risk.

But maybe you should fully explain...
 
Sig said:
Any large broker has tens of of thousands of accounts transacting hundreds of thousands of trades a year and they're not going to go find your account
More...

Wrong. Even big brokers like IB can find in minutes all the clients that are consistent and make good returns. Included full details of all their trades. They have computers you know.
 
i am nobody said:
Wrong. Even big brokers like IB can find in minutes all the clients that are consistent and make good returns. Included full details of all their trades. They have computers you know.
More...

They might technically be able to... but they won't. Career suicide has already been mentioned. Also most people at a brokerage house don't have the stomach to trade. Have you met any of these people that you are worried about?
 
i am nobody said:
Wrong. Even big brokers like IB can find in minutes all the clients that are consistent and make good returns. Included full details of all their trades. They have computers you know.
More...
You clearly missed the point of my post. You basically have two choices here. Live a life of paranoia sure that someone is going to steal your precious trading strategy, so you don't trade with a broker, in fact don't even buy a seat on the exchange because, you know, the exchanges have computers and those NYSE employees could always figure out who the consistent winners are. Or those nefarious guys at the SEC. Or FINRA. Or the Verizon guys who own the cable that connects your moms basement to the internet and could tap in to see your trades.... if fact just keep that secret to yourself because the risks are just too great. Or realize that the modern world works by assuming some level of trust with the counterparties you interact with every day, from your broker to the minimum wage guy in the factory that put the candy bar together you're eating for lunch. And realize that just because your strategy in your tiny account has high profits for a couple of months doesn't mean anyone with serious enough AUM to ruin it would even want you to give it to them, let alone go to the effort and risk to steal it. One way lies madness and the other well adjusted life.
 
Did not miss the point, but you missed mine. I said it can be done, and very easyly and quickly. That's all. Did not say they will or do. But if they want to do it they can.
 
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