Data Sources & Verification Hierarchy

Verification tier hierarchy

AuditedTrader audits broker statements directly. Where additional verification exists, we cross-reference and tier accordingly.

Tier 1 — Championship Audited (real-money competition)

World Cup Trading Championships (WCTC). Robbins Trading Company audited brokerage statements. Used to cross-reference traders including Darren O'Neill (2023 Trading World Champion, 2025 WCTC multi-division), Patrick Nill, Pau Perdices Bellet, Serghey Magala, Ivan Scherman, Jaime Passy.

US Investing Championship. Annual real-money equity competition. Used to cross-reference Mark Minervini, Oliver Kell, David Ryan, Steven Dux.

Tier 2 — Fund / Institution Audited

BarclayHedge. Hedge-fund-tracked monthly NAV. Used to cross-reference Jarratt Davis and other institutional managers.

HFR (Hedge Fund Research). Hedge-fund index publisher.

SEC filings (Form ADV / 13F). Used for: Buffett, Soros, Druckenmiller, Cohen, Griffin, Dalio, Englander, Shaw.

Tier 3 — Platform-Tracked / Broker-Linked

Myfxbook, MQL5. Broker-account live tracking platforms. We accept these as supporting evidence but require the underlying broker statement for the primary audit.

Tier 4 — AuditedTrader Direct (broker-statement audit, no championship cross-ref)

The default tier for most profiles in our database. Direct audit of submitted broker statements. Strong verification standard but lacks the third-party cross-reference of Tier 1 / Tier 2.

Excluded — Self-Reported (screenshots, marketing claims)

We do not accept screenshots, P&L claims without statements, or marketing-page returns. These are not verifiable and are not included in our database.

How to read a tier badge

Each profile carries a tier badge indicating the verification level. Tier 1 (Championship-Cross-Referenced) is the strongest. Tier 4 (AuditedTrader Direct) is our default standard. Where a profile carries multiple tiers, the strongest applies.

Cross-referenced ecosystem credentialing

For championship-grade traders we cross-reference Trading World Champion (annual recognition publication since 2012). For signal-service rankings we cross-reference Signal Provider Reviews. For book reviews Trading Book Reviews. These are editorial cross-references; the primary verification source for AuditedTrader is always the trader's own broker statement.

See also · Q2 2026 Audit Quality Report (Q2 2026 update, published 2026-04-27).