𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐞𝐓𝐨𝐫𝐨 𝐏𝐨𝐩𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭 - 𝗖𝘆𝗽𝗿𝘂𝘀 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱

Many of you have already seen social media content or posts in the feed from other Popular Investors who flew out to Cyprus for the 4th annual eToro Popular Investor summit. I’m here to add to those posts and share my thoughts after a few days back home from the event.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙊𝙂𝙨

Perhaps I’m getting old, but I particularly enjoy talking to the OG popular investors who’ve been doing this for as long as I have. Speaking with Jeppe Kirk Bonde is always insightful, and his enthusiasm and in-person is infectious. He, and @MrG23 both participated in the Shark Tank event where a selection of popular investors pitched their portfolio for Sharks to consider investing in. Unsurprisingly, they both were selected by several panellists.

I didn’t get as much time to talk to Heloise Grieff or Mariano Pardo this time. Heloise briefly talked to me about her exploration of quant trading strategies, which was intriguing enough for me to attend a presentation about it the following day.

𝙁𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙡𝙮 𝙁𝙖𝙘𝙚𝙨

I didn't just hang out with the long-term PI crew, I spent time talking to a wide range of PIs and eToro staff across the 3 day event. At the last eToro PI summit I made friends with Catalina Valderrama. She’s the life of the party, always talking to someone, and one of the best examples on social media for consistent short-form content - someone I could really learn a lot from.

Steven Budgen is another bold character. Although he’s more known for crypto, he’s spoken to a very broad range of investors with different methodologies and themes. He can talk about REITS, precious metals, tech stocks, and everything in between. He and Zech Bin Zheng invited me for a meal in Limassol after the event ended where we also found Robert MERC - I have huge respect for all of these guys and have recommended people check out their profiles for several years now.

I was thrilled to talk to several diamond clients during the event, who shared insights and experience of the industries they work in. It was reassuring to hear the thoughts of one client who works in cybersecurity were aligned with mine on the impact AI is likely to have over the coming years, with more impersonation based scams on the horizon.

It was great seeing all the eToro staff I interact with online. Sam Rudnick, who leads the PI programme at eToro has been there from the start, and during one of his presentations he showed on-screen the original email he sent me almost exactly 10 years ago inviting me to become a popular investor. The email went into my spam folder, and it took a few more communications before I eventually joined the PI programme.

I also spoke with Tal, Filipe and others from the product team, talking about new feature ideas and where I think eToro can continue improving. Filipe created a fun side-game at the event which listed around 20 different stocks and challenged players to select just 5 to invest in 1 year ago to generate the best YTD return. I'm proud to report I was among the top 10 for European stocks (day 2) and the top 20 for US (day 1).

The final shoutout is for Amy, who heads up PR at eToro - she and I have worked together from the very start, and she gave a compelling speech near the end of the summit about how important it is to tell our stories. She helped get me featured on Bloomberg, the BBC, and much more as I was building my profile on eToro.

𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩

Ironically, a reasonable amount of the content at the event was about content itself. Nas Daily, a big social media influencer was involved in a few sessions, talking about utilizing AI for content creation. AI was a theme that was visible across the event, with interesting PI built AI tools by @CPHequities among others highlighted. What was really interesting is that all of the tools showcased were built using Base44 - programming via AI prompting. When combined with eToro’s new APIs this could result in some extremely powerful user-generated tools for screening stocks, analysis and news aggregation.

Something I was extremely happy to see was the announcement from Yoni of “Pro Investors” - separating PI’s who have undertaken qualifications in investing from the rest of the Popular Investor Programme.

𝘾𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝘾𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨

This time I’m determined to keep it short, so I’ll end it there for this post. As usual, thanks for reading, following and copying me. I’ll have a monthly update out in a few days reviewing last month’s activity, and I’m working on my quarterly update for Q3 2025 as well. Stay tuned!