1. Jeppe Kirk Bonde (JeppeKirkBonde)
| Return (last 2 years) | 29.18% |
| Risk level | 5 |
| Number of copiers | 23,362 |
| eToro page | https://www.etoro.com/people/jeppekirkbonde |
Jeppe Kirk Bonde is a graduate of the Copenhagen Business School, holding an MSc in Finance and Strategic Management.
Since then, they have worked in strategy consulting, claiming to have advised some of the largest banks and tech companies in the world.
On their trader profile, they state that they analyse markets, politics, tech, and social trends to select their investments, creating a diversified and hedged portfolio. They also state that they tend to avoid leverage, short positions, and high-fee instruments in order to save on costs.
At the time of writing, their portfolio is constructed predominantly from tech and commodity companies. The biggest holdings currently include:
- Auribis (3.94%)
- Amazon (3.78%)
- Nintendo (3.74%)
- Barrick Gold (3.71%)
- Leidos Holdings (3.55%).
This eToro trader boasts an average annual return of 27% since 2013, claiming that a $1,000 investment copying them from this early date would be worth more than $8,000 today.
It is a minimum of $600 to open a copy with this trader, and this is the same each time you add funds.
You can read more details on theirtrader profileon the eToro website.
2. Christian Kongsted (CPHequities)
| Return (last 2 years) | 56.01% |
| Risk level | 6 |
| Number of copiers | 18,435 |
| eToro page | https://www.etoro.com/people/cphequities |
A four-time Danish champion in the board game Scrabble and a former elite chess player, Christian Kongsted is a Danish investor with more than 15 years of investing experience.
This trader states on their profile that they spread investments and risk across a range of assets, including stocks, commodities, forex, and also some cryptocurrency.
Kongsted is a former marketing executive as well as having knowledge of investments, and so uses this experience to identify opportunities and trends in tech and growth stocks. Currently, the biggest holdings in their portfolio include:
- Alphabet (9.04%)
- Microsoft (8.42%)
- Apple (7.96%)
- Berkshire Hathaway (7.57%)
- Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (7.55%).
This trader also makes use of algorithms to inform their trading strategy, particularly in their approach to forex trading.
They require a minimum of $600 to copy their trades and suggest a copy time of at least three years – although they note that all investing is inherent with risk.
You can read more on Kongsted’strader profilehere, where they are known as CPHequities.
3. Heloise Greeff (rubymza)
| Return (last 2 years) | 20.98% |
| Risk level | 4 |
| Number of copiers | 16,591 |
| eToro page | https://www.etoro.com/people/rubymza |
Trading under the pseudonym “rubymza”, Heloise Greeff has an MBA degree from the University of Oxford in the UK, specialising in machine learning.
Using a combination of machine learning and thorough fundamental analysis, this trader focuses on global equities with the potential for future growth.
This trader’s performance has been rocky over the past year throughout the periods of market volatility and uncertainty, with returns of -29.20% as of July 2022. That said, returns over the past two years still total 20.98%.
Their portfolio is carefully diversified to spread risk, with their top five holdings at the time of writing being:
- Ethereum (2.93%)
- SDPR Gold ETF (2.64%)
- Builders FirstSource (2.54%)
- Bitcoin (2.34%)
- Meta (2.25%).
Place your copy trades today with at least $1,000, which Greeff suggests you should hold for five years or more.
Find out more on the trader’seToro profilepage.
4. Richard Stroud (Richardstroud)
| Return (last 2 years) | 43.22% |
| Risk level | 5 |
| Number of copiers | 11,058 |
| eToro page | https://www.etoro.com/people/richardstroud |
Richard Stroud has traded on eToro for more than three years, earning “popular investor” status in March 2020.
This trader predominantly invests in stocks, choosing companies that they assess to be either undervalued or that have the potential for future growth. They also state an interest in those with “unique or adaptable business models”, a potentially sensible strategy in these uncertain market conditions.
Stroud claims to be a value investor, using a “buy and hold” strategy – although of course, they also note that they will make changes to their portfolio in the face of shifting economic circ*mstances.
With a risk score of just five, Stroud also notes the importance of including hedges as and when necessary to secure the portfolio.
Their portfolio is greatly diversified, including everything from finance companies to consumer goods and mining businesses. As of 26 July 2022, their top five holdings are:
- Citigroup (4.73%)
- Target (3.52%)
- Legal & General (3.24%)
- Renewables Infrastructure Group (3.16%)
- PLUS 500 (3.07%).
The minimum to invest with this trader is $500 and they recommend holding your copy for at least one year. To see more details about this trader, check out theirprofileon eToro.
5. George Thomson (misterg23)
| Return (last 2 years) | 47.69% |
| Risk level | 5 |
| Number of copiers | 7,399 |
| eToro page | https://www.etoro.com/people/misterg23 |
George Thomson has more than 15 years of investing experience, trading under the name “misterg23”.
This trader’s performance is supposedly very good – indeed, they claim that if you had copied their trades since 2014 when they first became a member of the eToro “popular investor program”, you’d have generated returns of more than 900%.
Maintaining a relatively low risk score, Thomson takes what they refer to as a “multi-strategy approach”, combining fundamentals and technical analysis to make their investment decisions.
Currently, the major components of their portfolio are:
- Tesla (10.13%)
- Oil – selling (6.67%)
- Palantir Technologies (5.07%)
- Novo-Nordisk (4.46%)
- Bitcoin (4.44%).
Thomson states that while small copiers are welcome, they recommend copying with a minimum of $1,000 for best results.
Find out more on theirprofileon the eToro site.
What exactly is copy trading with eToro?
Copy trading on eToro involves using the platform to copy the trading behaviours of other investors with a simple click of a button.
This gives you exposure to a range of assets in one go, depending on the investment decisions of the trader you decide to copy.
While a handful of other platforms do offer the service, eToro is probably the most well-known and leading copy trading platform, allowing you to copy traders and their strategies quickly and simply through the platform’s CopyTrader system.
How to copy trade on eToro
To copy trade on eToro, simply find the trader you’d like to copy, click the “copy” button, select how much you’d like to invest, and click “invest”.
Once you have selected a trader you’d like to copy, there are a few setting options on eToro that you can consider:
- Copying all trades
- Copying new trades only
- Stop-loss orders.
Find out more about these options below.
Copying all trades
By copying all trades, you’ll be invested in all of that traders’ open trades. You’ll then be subject to stop-loss orders (see below), take profit, and closing of trades from that point onwards, just as you would be with any other trades they make.
Bear in mind that choosing to do this will see you invested at the current market rate, not at the rate the trader you’re copying initially invested at. However, you will be subject to the same stop-loss and take profit rates as the initial trade.
This may mean you see differences in gain percentage between your account and theirs, as your trades were opened at different rates.
You can also close a specific copied trade that doesn’t suit you without entirely closing the copy account.
Copying new trades only
Rather than copying all trades, you can instead choose to copy new trades only. That means your trades will be opened at the same rate as your copied trader’s.
Again, you’ll be subject to stop-loss orders, take profit, and the closing of the trade from that point onwards, and you can still close copied trades without closing the whole copy account.
Is it better to copy open trades or new trades only on eToro?
This decision is fully down to you. Most traders state on their profiles that it’s best to copy all trades, not just new ones. However, this may not be the case for you, especially if you don’t want to buy an investment at a new, less favourable rate than that trader initially paid.
Of course, there may be trades they have made that are worth copying, even if you have to pay higher rates. Realistically, it comes down to your personal risk tolerance and how confident you are in the trader’s decision-making.
Copy stop-loss orders
In investing, a “stop-loss” is a set minimum value that you’re willing to allow your investments to fall to or by. If the value of your investment hits this level, it will automatically be sold.
eToro automatically applies a 40% stop-loss to each copy relationship, terminating the relationship if it reaches this amount and then returning any remaining funds to you. So for example, if you invested $1,000 and the value fell to $600 (down by 40%), all the positions in that copy relationship would be closed.
You can manually set a copy stop-loss from between 5% and 95%, depending on your tolerance for risk and your trust in the trader that you’re copying.
One thing to bear in mind is that if your investment falls in value and you decide you want to adjust the stop-loss in order to keep the relationship open, you’ll only be able to adjust it in relation to the original investment.
So for example, imagine you had invested $1,000 with the standard stop-loss of 40% and you had lost $300, leaving you with $700. You’ll no longer be able to adjust the stop-loss to 30% as you’ve already reached this level, meaning it would entirely close this copy relationship.
Instead, the maximum you would be able to adjust it to is 35% (down to $650) as this is the next available stop-loss level rounded to the nearest 5%.
eToro CopyTrader rules
Before you start copy trading on eToro, it’s important to know these five rules, as stated on theeTorowebsite:
- $200 is the minimum amount to invest in a trader – some traders may require you to invest more as a minimum.
- $2,000,000 is the maximum amount you can invest in a single trader.
- You can copy up to 100 traders simultaneously.
- $1 is the minimum amount for a copied trader – if you trade below this amount, your position will not be opened.
- Manually closing a copied trade will see the funds you had in the position credited back to your copy balance – that is, the amount you allocated to copy that person that isn’t currently invested in an open position.
How to choose the right traders to copy
My guide has shown you five of the most popular copy traders on the eToro platform as of 26 July 2022.
But as you’ve seen, you can simultaneously copy up to 100 traders. So, if you want to find more traders to copy, here are a few things you could consider when choosing the right ones for you.
Trading strategy
Firstly, you’ll want to assess the particular trading strategy of the trader you’re looking at.
As you’ve seen from my top five list, traders have different ways of analysing the markets and constructing their portfolios. As a result, you’ll want to check that individual traders’ strategies suit what it is that you want for your money.
For example, if you’re a value investor, you’ll want to find and copy a trader who seeks out value opportunities or growth businesses and uses them to generate returns in their portfolio.
Finding the right strategy for you on eToro
The eToro site makes it simple and straightforward to find traders who fit your strategy needs.
Traders often include details of their strategy in the bio on their eToro profile. Alternatively, you can look at their portfolio and decide whether the investments included suit your investment plans.
Beyond this, the platform itself offers various different categories and filters for you to apply so that you can find the right traders to copy.
For example, there are various categories when you go to the “discover” tab of the eToro website, including:
- Most copied
- Trending
- Long-term stock investors
- Long-short investors
- Multi-strategy investors.
You can also select the different assets and financial markets that certain traders might choose. The dropdown menu allows you to pick across:
- Currencies and forex trading
- Crypto traders
- Commodities
- Indices
- Stocks
- ETFs.
Whatever it is that you’re looking for, eToro makes it possible to search through and find traders with the balance of options that you need.
Performance history and returns
Another factor to consider is the performance history and returns that certain traders have managed to generate.
Take a look at the profile ofJeppe Kirk Bonde, one of the traders I selected as the best to buy right now.
By clicking on the “stats” tab at the top of the screen, you’ll see Bonde’s entire trading history presented in monthly percentages since they started using the platform. You can also view an interactive graph of the trader’s performance in the current year.
Past performance is never an indicator of future results when it comes to investing, but it can potentially be a sign of a trader who has good knowledge of financial markets.
Risk profile
As you saw above when reading about my top eToro traders, you’ll have seen that I included a “risk score” for each one.
This score, determined by a formula that eToro developed themselves, shows you the risk level that each individual investor takes on in their decisions.
The risk score ranks each trader out of 10 for the amount of risk in their portfolio. A score of 0 means risk is extremely low, while 10 means it is extremely high risk.
There’s nothing wrong with selecting a trader with a higher risk score. Indeed, more risk can translate to higher returns if the investments turn out as they hope.
However, you need to be comfortable with the increased chance that your investments may lose value, and you might even not get any of your money back at all.
Popularity
Popularity is another key metric to consider as, typically, those on the main pages of eToro’s copy trading page have climbed to a certain stage because of their success.
Indeed, eToro even names certain traders as the most popular through its “popular investor program”.
That doesn’t mean copy traders with fewer followers and copiers can’t be successful – in fact, you may find a gem in the rough when you input all your desired characteristics into the trader search and find the right ones for you.
Even so, choosing more popular investors can be a sensible choice as it will generally mean selecting those with a proven track record of generating returns on their investments.
Again, past performance is not an indicator of future results.
Is it worth copying people on eToro?
Now that you know what copy trading is, how it works, and how to find traders that suit your investment needs, it may leave you wondering whether it’s worth copying traders on eToro in general.
So, to help you make that decision, I’ve made a quick list of some of the major pros and cons of copy trading on eToro.
Remember: if you’re not sure whether copy trading is right for you, seek independent investment advice.
Pros of copy trading
Opportunity to diversify your portfolio
Firstly, copy trading offers you a method to instantly diversify your portfolio with little effort needed on your part.
Diversification is the process of including a range of assets in your portfolio across different sectors, industries, and geographical regions.
The reason that this is typically sensible is because it means spreading risk across different kinds of investments, reducing the chance that your entire portfolio falls in value at once.
For example, imagine that you had invested exclusively in cryptocurrencies just before the market dipped in June 2022. In this event, you would have seen a great deal of value wiped off your holdings if your portfolio was constructed from cryptos such as bitcoin and ethereum.
Meanwhile, if you had a more balanced portfolio containing stocks and shares as well as crypto, these other investments may have retained their value while the crypto market was struggling. In turn, this would reduce the instant impact of losing money rapidly at once.
This is by no means guaranteed as all your investments could fall in value at once even if they are diversified. But this method of spreading money is often a sensible course of action.
By copy trading, you can instantly benefit from diversification on your money as you’ll be invested in the various different trades made by the trader.
Furthermore, you can magnify this effect by copying multiple traders, increasing the variety of investments in your portfolio.
Benefit from the good decisions of experienced traders
Another big advantage of copy trading is the opportunity to benefit from the knowledge and experience that other traders bring to the table.
Two of the traders I named in my top five list each have 15 years of investment experience under their belt which they’ll be able to draw on when making decisions for their portfolio.
Similarly, two of them also have impressive educational qualifications that help them to make sensible, long-term decisions with their money.
While you may not have this knowledge or experience yourself, copy trading allows you to benefit from other traders’ years of hard work.
Learn from other successful, experienced traders
As well as benefiting from their good investment decisions, copy trading gives you the opportunity to track and learn from these experienced traders who know what they’re doing.
You’ll see the types of assets they tend to favour, how they access the investments they’re interested in, and how they react to market news and movements to streamline their portfolios.
Over time, this may help you to learn many of the basics that you’ll need to know if you want to be a successful trader in your own right.
Cons of copy trading
You have no say over how your money is invested
Of course, the downside to relying on other traders is that you’ll have no say over how your money is invested.
While you can close individual copied trades if you think they don’t suit your portfolio, you’ll still be invested in them initially if that’s the decision that the trader makes.
If you’d prefer more control over your portfolio, copy trading may not be the best solution for you.
You may not learn to invest as quickly as you would want to
While it’s possible to learn the ropes of trading and investing from these other traders, you may also find that you don’t learn as quickly as you would if you were making your own decisions in your portfolio.
Imagine that you were investing £1,000 of your money for the first time in investments you’ve chosen yourself, whether that’s in company stocks and shares or the forex market.
Choosing these yourself may make you more focused and meticulous in your approach as you know that your decisions will have a direct impact on how your money performs.
It might force you to read up on different investment strategies or keep up with industry news as you know that your money is on the line.
However, by copy trading, you remove this pressure. As a result, you may find that you don’t learn as quickly or improve your investing personally as you become reliant on the decisions of others.
Is eToro the right trading platform for me?
eToro is one of the most popular investment platforms available in the UK, reporting more than 20 million users in 2021.
So, aside from the ability to copy trade, is it the right platform for you? Here are some of the major features of eToro to help you decide.
Variety of fees
In terms of fees, eToro is roughly comparable to other platforms.
Fees to note when trading on eToro include:
- Minimum deposit: $10
- Minimum trade: $1
- Conversion fees: 50 to 250 pips per conversion – eToro operates in USD so you’ll need to convert your money if you’re planning to invest from the UK in GBP.
- Non-trading fee: $10 each month after one year of inactivity
- Withdrawal fee: $5 – you must withdraw a minimum of $30.
The other notable fee to take into account is in trading forex. These fees tend to be higher on eToro than on other platforms.
Range of instruments
eToro offers access to a huge range of assets, including:
- Stocks and shares
- ETFs
- Forex
- CFDs
- Crypto
- Commodities
- Indices.
Please bear in mind that the majority of retail CFD accounts lose money on their trades. Only start trading CFDs if you understand the risks involved with this strategy.
Open an eToro account today
If these factors add up to make eToro the right platform for you, then you can open an eToro account today in just a few minutes on the platform’s website.
You’ll simply need to input a few details so that the site can verify your identity.
The site may also ask you a few questions about CFD trading and leverage to assess whether you’re ready to have access to these complex instruments.
After that, you’ll need to deposit funds with a credit or debit card. As mentioned above, you’ll need to deposit at least $10.
Once that’s all done, you’re ready to trade! Simply find the investments you’re interested in or the copy trader you want to follow and get started.
