Trade copiers add latency that nobody budgets for

[Amanhasnoname]

Copying trades from a master account to a follower sounds simple, but the chain has several links. Signal detected, message sent, server received, order placed, broker confirmed. Each link adds time, and on a one pip target even 300 milliseconds of extra delay changes the outcome.

The follower account almost always gets a worse price than the master, and the gap gets bigger during volatile moments, exactly when the master's entry was most valuable. Some followers see negative slippage on 70 percent of copied trades just from the timing difference.

Local copiers running on the same machine tend to be faster than cloud services. Both lose to a direct bridge between accounts at the same broker. And some brokers dislike copy trading on scalps and may flag the pattern.

Anyone planning to copy a scalping strategy to multiple accounts should run a two-week test comparing master and follower fills side by side. The numbers often show that the strategy still works for the master and barely breaks even for the follower.

What latency and slippage gap showed up between a master account and its copies, and was it worth keeping?