Why don't the follower's orders fill at the same price as the leader's?

When using a trade copier like Replikanto, it is common to see discrepancies in the order fill prices between the leader and follower accounts. This can happen for several reasons:

• Market Volatility: The market is volatile and prices can change rapidly. If a leader's trade is executed during high volatility, the price may have moved by the time the follower's trade is placed.
• Lag Time: There is often a slight delay between when the leader's trade is executed and when the follower's trade is placed. Even a few milliseconds of lag time can result in price differences in fast-moving markets.
• Liquidity: If the leader trades large volumes, the market's liquidity can affect the execution price. If there isn't enough volume at the leader's execution price to fill both the leader's and follower's orders, the follower's order may be filled at a different price.
• Slippage: Slippage occurs when an order is executed at a different price than the requested price. This can happen during market gaps or periods of high volatility. Both leaders and followers can experience slippage.
• Broker Execution Speed: Different brokers have different execution speeds for trades. A slight difference in execution speed can result in a difference in the price at which a trade is filled.

It's important to understand that some degree of discrepancy is almost inevitable due to the nature of financial markets.

Also, using the Replikanto's Cross Order feature where the order is copied to the followers on a different instrument can increase the chances of the order not being filled on one side. This is because the two instruments, although they usually move together, there are times when the price of one can vary a few ticks compared to the price of the other, most commonly in times of high volatility. For example, when using the NQ instrument for the leader and the MNQ for the followers, a stop order placed at the price of 15000 might be filled on the followers where the MNQ price has reached 15000 and not on the leader where the price has only reached 14999.75.