Best Copy Trading Platforms - 2019
Copy trading is the technical term for the practice in which Forex traders copy the trades of other traders directly into their trading platform. In most cases, this copying is done via a social trading platform through which traders can assess the strategies and performance of the ‘top trade leaders’ and make informed decisions about which traders to copy. Copy trading differs from “mirror trading” because mirror trading generally allows traders to copy specific trade strategies, rather than specific traders. The difference is subtle, but important: when using a copy trader, traders can get the advantage of having a personal touch to include a stop loss or to manually adjust the trade to enhance the results or mitigate risk. With a mirror trader, a technical system is set to execute the trade if the parameters are triggered, and there is little or no human oversight.
Top Rated
Best broker for social traders and crypto traders : 75% of retail CFD accounts lose money
eToro Review
Min. Deposit
$200
Bonus
None
Trading Platform
Web-based, Other
Max. Leverage
1:30
Regulation
CySEC, FCA, ASIC
Min. Deposit
None
Bonus
None
Trading Platform
None
Max. Leverage
N/A
Regulation
None
Social trading system that works with dozens of brokers
Min. Deposit
$250
Bonus
$110 + From 25% To 40%
Trading Platform
Proprietary platform
Max. Leverage
1:400
Regulation
CySEC, MiFID
Crowd trading that lets you follow trading trends
Min. Deposit
$500
Bonus
None
Trading Platform
Sirix, Other
Max. Leverage
1:200
Regulation
FSP
Great broker that specializes in personal account management
Min. Deposit
$500
Bonus
None
Trading Platform
MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, cTrader, Web-based
Max. Leverage
1:500
Regulation
CySEC, MiFID, FCA
Choice of great platforms + top-tier technology
Choosing the Right Copy Trade Platform
Copy trading is extremely popular with both new and experienced traders. New traders appreciate the ability to watch the experts and to have a sounding-board for their own ideas. Experienced traders like to share their ideas and to recruit followers for which they are compensated by the broker. When choosing a copy trade system, look not only for the right trade leaders (yes, you can copy more than one trade leader), but also for which broker is properly regulated and offers the best trading conditions. You may also want to place a few test trades on a demo account before starting. After all, with so many Forex copy trade systems to choose from, why not make sure you’re getting the perfect one for your needs?
How to Choose the Best Copy Trading Platform
Now you understand what copy trading is, it is time to consider how to choose the best copy trading platform. All copy trading platforms do the same thing, so the first thing to think about is reliability of execution. Check out copy trading platform reviews and see whether a platform is reported to suffer from a lot of execution slippage, which happens when a trade is triggered but executed at a worse price than would have been expected. To be sure, this happens sometimes with all brokers in fast markets, but if one platform seems to have an especially bad record of this happening, watch out.
The next thing to look at is how much and what type of information the platform gives you on the traders you can select to copy: after all, you are probably going to be making your decision to copy traders on the statistics presented for each trader by the platform. Ideally, you need better statistical measures of risk than simple measures such as return over a recent past period and the trade win percentage. Remember that all else being equal, it is a mathematical fact that the traders with the highest recent absolute returns are most likely to be the traders with the worst future returns. A good copy trading platform will give you superior risk criteria and will also allow you to see their traders’ past trades in detail, as well as giving them the space to explain their trading philosophy which you should agree with before you follow them.