Copytrading

Copytrading lets you copy the trades of another client of your Broker onto your own account, at a size you choose. It also works the other way round: you can publish your own trading as a strategy for others to copy. It is part of eTrader, and it runs only where your Broker has switched it on, between clients of that same Broker.

Find it

When your Broker offers copytrading, a Copytrading link appears in the top bar of eTrader Web while you are signed in to that Broker's account. If you do not see the link, your Broker does not offer it on that account.

The link opens the copytrading page. Sign in there with the same Broker, Server, account number and password you use in the terminal. The account you sign in with is the one that copies, or the one whose trades are published.

Choose a strategy

The page lists the strategies published by your Broker's clients, with the top five by return at the head. Each card shows the strategy's name, the trader, its net profit or loss, the number of deals and how many copiers it has. A search box narrows the list.

Press View & copy to open a strategy. You see its description, in the trader's own words, and its figures. Past figures describe what already happened on that trader's account. They do not tell you what happens next, and a strategy that did well over a short stretch can do very differently over the next one.

Some strategies take a profit split. The strategy page says so and gives the percentage: when a copied trade closes in profit, your Broker transfers that share of the profit to the trader. Losing trades cost you nothing extra.

Set how much you copy

The Copy volume setting decides the size of each trade on your account:

Two more settings sit under it:

• Max lot per trade, an optional cap. Leave it empty for no cap. Setting one stops a single large trade from the trader turning into an oversized trade on your account.
• Reverse, which copies the opposite direction: the trader buys, you sell.

Press Copy this strategy. The page confirms that you are now copying it, and it appears under My connections with its size setting and status.

Copied trades are ordinary trades on your own account. They show in Positions and History like any other, and they use your margin. Check that the account has enough free margin for the size you chose.

Stop copying

Under My connections, press Disconnect on the strategy. Then look at your Positions list, so you know what is still open on the account and can decide what to do with it.

Publish your own strategy

Under My strategies, press New strategy and fill in:

• Strategy name and an optional Description, a short pitch in your own words.
• Visibility: Public, listed in the library for your Broker's clients, or Link only, shareable by its address.
• Copy stop-loss / take-profit to followers: No, and followers' copies close when you close; or Yes, and your stop loss and take profit are mirrored on their copies.
• Max lot / trade, an optional cap on what a follower copies.
• Min balance to copy, optional.
• Profit split: your percentage of each follower's copied profit, up to 50%, settled by the Broker. Leave it at 0 for no split.

Press Create strategy. From its row you can edit it, copy its share link or delete it. Deleting a strategy disconnects everyone copying it, and cannot be undone.

Publishing means other people's money follows your trades. Write the description plainly, including the markets you trade and how you trade them.

Copytrading, MAM and PAMM

All three let someone else's decisions trade for you, and all three run only at your Broker. The difference is control:

• In copytrading you choose the strategy, the size and the cap yourself, and you can disconnect whenever you like.
• In MAM a manager trades your account under a power of attorney, with fees set in the manager's terms.
• In PAMM you hold units in a pool the manager trades, with money moving on dealing days.