Why your fills differ from the leader's

The four sources of divergence

Divergence is not a single defect; it is the sum of several unavoidable steps between the leader's decision and your position.

• Detection latency — the leader's fill must be observed before it can be replicated.
• Book impact — your order consumes different liquidity at a different moment.
• Size rounding — proportional sizing rarely lands on a tradeable increment exactly.
• Funding and fee timing — you hold the position over a different set of funding intervals.

Which strategies suffer most

Divergence scales with how much of a strategy's edge lives in the first seconds of a move. A scalping or latency-sensitive strategy can have most of its edge consumed by replication lag. A swing strategy holding positions for hours or days is far less sensitive to a few seconds of delay.

This is why holding-period behaviour is part of trader selection rather than an afterthought. A leader whose record cannot survive replication lag is not a copyable leader, however strong their raw numbers look.

How this shapes reported performance

Model portfolio figures are estimates computed from public trader history, not a record of any individual account. Your own result will differ because your fills, timing and account size differ. Where public history is insufficient to compute ROI reliably, it is reported as unavailable rather than approximated.

Past performance is not indicative of future results. Perpetual futures are leveraged instruments and carry a substantial risk of loss, including the loss of your entire position.

What reduces divergence, and what does not

Faster detection, proportional sizing that respects tick and lot constraints, and preferring leaders with longer holding periods all reduce tracking error. Nothing removes it. Any system claiming identical fills to the leader is describing something the mechanics do not permit.