The investor password

Every eTrader trading account can have two passwords. The trader password does everything. The investor password opens the same account in view only mode: the positions, the pending orders, the history and the charts are all there, and no order can be placed, changed or closed. You set it yourself, you can replace it at any time, and you can remove it when it is no longer needed.

Who it is for

Give the investor password to someone who should watch the account without being able to touch it. A coach reviewing your trades. A partner who wants to see the balance. A prop firm or a money manager checking your trading record, which some of them ask for. Some firms also send an investor password together with the trader password when they open the account.

Never give out the trader password for this. Anyone who holds it can trade the account, change its passwords and close its positions.

Set it in the browser terminal

1. Press the account chip at the top right of the terminal and choose Account Settings.
2. Scroll to Change Password. Under the trader password fields is a second block, Investor password (view only). Its badge says Set or Not set.
3. Type your current trader password in Trader Password. The terminal asks for it to prove it is you.
4. Type the new investor password in New Investor Password and press Save.

The terminal confirms that the investor password is saved and that you can share it with anyone who should only watch the account.

On the iPhone and Android apps the same section is in Settings, under Change Password, with the buttons Save Investor Password and Remove Investor Password.

What the password must be

• At least 12 characters.
• Different from the trader password. The terminal refuses one that matches.
• Not a common password such as password1 or 12345678, not one character repeated, and with at least five different characters in it.

A short phrase of three or four unrelated words is easy to pass on over the phone and clears every rule.

Signing in with it

There is no separate screen. The person choosing your Broker, your Server and your account number types the investor password into the same Password field as the trader password, and the terminal works out which one it is.

The terminal then opens with View Only beside the Demo or Live badge on the account chip. The New Order button, the SELL and BUY buttons, the pending order tool on the chart, Add Alert and the close and modify actions on each position are hidden. The Change Password section is hidden too, so the investor password cannot be used to change either password.

What stays visible is the account itself: balance, equity and margin, open positions with their live profit and loss, pending orders, the chart with your positions drawn on it, and the full trade history.

Change or remove it

To replace the investor password, set a new one the same way. The old one stops working at once, and anyone signed in with it is signed out.

To remove it, type your trader password in Trader Password and press Remove. The terminal asks you to confirm, because anyone signed in with the investor password is signed out straight away. The badge goes back to Not set.

It is good practice to remove or replace the investor password when the person you gave it to no longer needs it. A review that ended months ago is no reason to leave the account open to them.

If it does not work

If the terminal says your current password is incorrect, the password in the Trader Password field is wrong. It must be the trader password, not the old investor password. If you have lost the trader password for an account a Broker or prop firm issued, the firm resets it. Changing your password and sign in problems cover the rest.