eToro Copy Trading

How copying a trader works

You choose a trader and set an amount. When that trader opens, changes or closes a position, a matching order is placed in your account, sized by the ratio between the amount you allocated and the trader's own account. You do not place any of these orders yourself. The product usually shows the trader's history, risk indicators and statistics, so you can choose. What the product measures, how it labels risk, which markets you can copy and what it charges are facts the vendor controls and changes, so read its current pages and note the date. Some products of this kind also allow copying of baskets or rule-based portfolios, which are different from copying one person. Check which one you are reading about.

Your account is a second account, not a share of the trader's. Each order of yours is a fresh trade at its own price, and rules such as minimum size, whole units and market hours may differ from the trader's. Anything the ratio cannot express exactly is rounded or skipped.

The general risks of copying

Size rounding on small accounts

If the ratio between your account and the trader's is small, many of their positions will be smaller than the smallest trade you can place. Whether the product rounds, skips or applies a minimum varies, so read the current rules. The effect is that your exposure may not match theirs, in either direction.

Lag, spread and fees

Your orders follow theirs and fill at their own prices. Add the spread and any commission or fee, and each trade costs you more than it cost the trader. See slippage and spread.

Records that mislead

A strong year can be luck, a record can be short, and traders who failed often leave the list. A return is meaningless without the drawdown beside it. See maximum drawdown and overfitting.

You share the risk, not the information

The trader decides when to hold a loss, add to a position or change style. You see it after it happens. If the trader changes approach, the record you chose them for may no longer describe what they do.

Worked example: what rounding does to a small copy

Everything here is made up. A leader has a $100,000 account and a follower allocates $1,300, so the ratio is 0.013. Suppose the follower can only place trades in steps of 0.01 lot, and a trade smaller than one step is skipped. The leader opens four positions.

Calculated by us on 31 Oct 2026, exact. The ratio asked for 0.026 lot in total and the follower placed 0.01 lot, so 38 percent of the intended exposure was copied. Three of the four trades were skipped. If the skipped ones were the hedges or the exits of a strategy, the follower's account behaves differently from the leader's. With the opposite rule, rounding up to the minimum, the follower would hold more than the ratio asked for. In both cases the result no longer matches the leader's.

Then add cost

Suppose each copied trade has an average edge of 0.35 percent before cost and costs 0.10 percent in spread and slippage. Over 100 trades the simple sum is 35 percent before cost and 25 percent after, so the cost took 29 percent of the result. A trader with a smaller edge per trade, or a follower with a higher cost, would be left with less.

How it hits bots

• Automated traders can show a smooth curve until a rare event. A follower with less margin can be forced out sooner than the trader. See martingale and margin call.
• Rule changes: an automated trader may update settings, so the record may join different versions.
• Several traders at once: copying more than one does not diversify if they all hold the same kind of trade.

What to verify on the vendor's current pages

• The minimum amount to copy, the minimum size per trade and what happens to trades below it.
• Every fee and cost, who charges it and when. Note the date you read it.
• How a record is built, how long it runs and whether traders who left are still counted.
• What risk figures are shown, how they are calculated and over what period.
• What you can do to cap your own loss, and what happens if you stop copying while positions are open.
• What the terms say about losses, and which markets and products are covered where you live.

What this page does not tell you

It does not say whether the product or any trader on it is good or poor. We have not run it, and it states nothing about its fees, traders or users. It explains how copying works and how rounding and costs change a follower's result. The numbers are made up and nothing here is a recommendation.