This short guide is intended to instruct you how to join eToro, and then effectively copy my trades. eToro also offers copying of other Popular Investors, CopyFunds, trading on your own. I never recommend investing 100% of your portfolio in me as my crypto trading carries significant risk.
Before copying, I recommend you read the eToro Guide to Copytrading as it covers aspects such as Copying Open Trades vs New Trades, and setting a Copy Stop Loss. It should also be noted that I am not a financial advisor, and nothing I post, here or on eToro, constitutes financial or legal advice. Please invest responsibly and do your research with due diligence.
Making An eToro Account
Head to etoro.com and hit Join Now
Fill in the details and hit Create Account
Congratulations, you’re now on eToro! Before you’re able to deposit funds, you’ll have to go through a standard KYC process, including providing photo ID (I used a passport for mine) and proof of address. eToro also provide a questionnaire to help them understand your level of experience; fill it in and the platform will be able to guide you through your initial steps easier.
Setting Up & Using Your Account - The Basics
Adding Money
You can add money to your account via the Deposit Funds button in the bottom left
Simply select the amount you want to deposit, and check that you have the correct currency selected (there are a lot of options!) along with your payment method then hit Submit.
Copying a Popular Investor
Now you’re all ready to copy a Popular Investor. To copy me, first search “jaynemesis” in the search bar at the top, and select the PI profile (the one with the green star).
This page will give you all the information about me as a trader, including performance, risk score, portfolio, and everything I post to eToro. To continue with the copy, click the Copy button in the upper right of the screen.
You’ll be presented with the copy screen shown below.
First, set the amount you want to copy with. This must be at least 200 USD or equivalent for another currency. eToro automatically sets a stop loss but you can edit it. If you want for more on that see their guide linked at the top of this post.
You can also choose to Copy Open Trades. I generally advise against this, but if you’re interested I go into more detail on this choice in the FAQ below. Other Popular Investors may differ in this regard, it’s always worth investigating their current drawdown before making the decision.
When everything is to your satisfaction, hit the Copy button at the bottom. Congratulations, you’re now copying me on eToro! This exact same process can be used to copy any other Popular Investor on the platform.
Checking Your Portfolio
Now you’ve invested, you’ll want to keep track of your money, which you can do via the Portfolio button.
Before you go any further, I recommend not doing this every day. If you’ve set a sensible stop loss your money won’t vanish, and constantly checking a long-term investment is an easy way to let fear set in. A good habit in the beginning is to check it once every week or so.
Once you’re in your portfolio, you should see a list of the instruments or copyfunds you have invested in. Any of these can be clicked on to give you a list of every position you have open in them, so clicking on a copy that you have open will show you the individual trades this has opened for you, illustrated by the screenshots below.
Screenshots taken using eToro’s ‘Virtual Currency’ function
The most important part is found at the bottom of the screen, where you can see your total investment.
Funds listed as available are in your wallet, and can be readily invested into any instrument or copyfund. The Total Allocated is how much you initially invested in your portfolio, with Profit showing how much your total investment has increased or decreased, with your Equity showing how much money you would be able to withdraw if you closed all trades at their current prices.
Uncopying a Popular Investor
There are two ways to do this, a short-term and a long-term option, we’ll explore both in this section.
First, the short-term. You can simply click the cog icon on the copy in your portfolio, and then choose Stop Copying. You’ll be greeted with a confirmation screen showing the total results of your copy.
If you then hit Stop Copying, it will then close all trades open under that copy as soon as it is able to, moving the funds back into your wallet.
If you have the patience, the long-term is often a better option. After clicking the cog icon, select Pause Copy instead. You’ll be given a screen very similar to the one above.
This will stop any new trades being opened under the copy, while continuing to copy with all of the trades currently open. As the Popular Investor closes each trade, your trade will also close, with the money being moved to your wallet instead of remaining in the copy. This manner of ending a copy takes longer, as you have to wait for the PI to close each trade, but can stop you taking the hit of any current drawdown from recently opened positions. Pause copy is also useful for taking profit as you can resume the copy after removing some funds.
Withdrawing Money
Withdrawing your money from eToro is a fairly simple process. Start by clicking ‘Withdraw Funds’ on the navigation bar.
You’ll be greeted by a screen showing your Withdrawable Balance (money not invested in positions).
Simply select the amount of withdrawable funds you want to take, and hit Submit to begin the process. Withdrawals are subject to eToro’s Withdrawal Policy and Fees, which can be found in their terms & conditions.
If you're looking to find out more about how to use eToro, check out SocialTradingVlog for some great videos.
FAQ
Copy open trades or new trades?
I advise copying new trades only (uncheck the ‘copy open trades’ box). The reason for this is simple: Your potential drawdown is much lower and you are guaranteed to open trades at the same price as me.
Copying open trades can still be worthwhile when I am already in periods of heavy drawdown or if you are happy to take a little more risk. The downside of copying new trades is that it can take several months before all of your funds are invested in positions.
How much should I invest?
The minimum you can invest on eToro is $200. I recommend at least $1,000 for an initial investment. For the best performance, I’d suggest $5,000.
What do I do if I don’t have enough for the minimum deposit?
I plan to do a further post on how to do this in detail, but in short I recommend buying crypto directly on Coinbase and using their in-built wallet functionality.