eToro Trading Thread

[trashbat]

"can you hand your money over to someone on eToro and make an income off it?" - I'm sure you could, but you could also do that with roulette or Euromillions. It's just that most people are losers. And the house inevitably wins.

I'm not having a go at anyone, just trying to encourage some critical thought. Intended or not, this thread may also encourage others to get into it.

IMO, you lose the most money the quickest through a lack of self-awareness and not having a handle on the psychology of it.

To me, it's interesting stuff. Amongst the most obvious problems is that people get emotionally attached to investments or financial instruments as if they were a football team or some life choice, not just a temporary vehicle for money. You can see it in this thread regarding the choice to use eToro, which doesn't appear to be a distanced experiment, and on every private investor bulletin board regarding their share choice. That kind of attachment is disastrous because it means you stop being coldly rational.

Now to you that might all be a bit Pseud's Corner, but if you do pursue something like this and it turns out you lose a load of money, maybe you can reflect back on that comment and see if it strikes a chord.

Edited by trashbat on Thursday 27th November 09:43

[dom9]

trashbat said:

To me, it's interesting stuff.

And thats the crux of it.

Some of the constructive criticism on here is good as it keeps one grounded and thinking about who to invest with and to make sure you do your DD but...

I think we should let him get on with it, frankly! He's tested some guys for a short period, seen some returns (albeit not 'real ones') and now it's time to put some money where their mouths are!

Find my Clio Williams 3 thread in Reader's Cars if you want to see how to waste money

[trashbat]

I'm just not sure I see the necessary level of detachment, but whatever, folk will do what they want to do.

You can look in my profile to see a big waste of money, and it's not even on anything that exciting

[g4ry13]

DonkeyApple said:

g4ry13 said:

DonkeyApple said:

g4ry13 said:

DonkeyApple said:

g4ry13 said:

So win or lose i'm going to be out of pocket? That's a bit absurd seeing as I am the one incurring the risk to bet on something which according to you I am bound to lose. My reward is any profit I may make as a result of this.

If I win: I gain profit from the risk I have undertaken and you donate to a charity of my choice. If I lose: I will incur financial losses and you will be able to have bragging rights and say 'I told you so'. That was and still is the bet - at no point did I stipulate that I would donate to charity in the original terms.

Now....as it is the season of giving, I am feeling generous. In the event that I win and you donate to a charity of my choice. I am willing to donate a % of my profit to a charity of your choice. However, I will not be matching 1:1. It will be a % - this is called 'leverage', as you may be very familiar with in your 20 years in this business

As an aside: i'm not sure why we're talking about MT4 and execution levels. I'm just going to hit that 'copy' button and let the rest happen. At no point have I used MT4 for eToro.

I wouldn't gain any bragging rights, I would be depressed that another person has binned their hard earned money.

I win if you win. I've had people on social trading sites for several years looking for traders. We haven't found one. They all, to date, have over traded failing to understand execution costs v daily ave market movement or over extended positions as they've not understood risk.

The other given is that when you pay traders a reward based on their volume, they over trade and implode. Hence social trading pays for flow, especially one where execution is with a bookmaker not a broker.

So, if you can game the bookie on a consistent basis then I will also have won. You'll also be the first person to succesfully day trade on three pip spreads plus slippage.

To be honest, the fact that you willingly say that you don't know too much about it but are happy to call someone at the heart of social trading and automation in the UK wrong and offer a bet does kind of mKe you the perfect client for a CySEC house.

Edited by DonkeyApple on Wednesday 26th November 19:15

I don't work hard for my money so don't worry about that.

Are you declining our friendly wager in the name of charity then?

Er, you seemed to decline

Still not sure why you are so aggressive/punchy. You need to face the reality that if you end up relying on some unknown, inexperienced kid punting a demo account at a Cypriot bookmakers for some of your 'investment' and then talk about it in public then someone is very likely to stand up and make the observation that you might just be doing something a bit silly.

I outlined my bet and then you introduced something about me donating to charity when that was never stated. I then countered and offered to donate a % of my profits. I haven't declined at all. I haven't even said i'm going to put £ behind this. I will decide that over the next few days.

I honestly struggle to follow what you were trying to get at with your first post here, some of the things you said: Talk of hiding running losses - you can't. Talk of back testing and charting - i'm not doing that. Your mention of MT4. Almost every point I could rip apart. It's like you didn't care to read my first post and came here to throw your extensive 20 years of experience in my face. I'm not even sure if you've looked at eToro and had a look at the copy trader feature and how it all works.

You'll see that throughout this thread I had very little optimism that there is much success to be gained from following someone on eToro. However, I believe there must be some anomalies and someone that is decent. If hand on your heart you don't think of all the thousands of people on there that not one is capable of returning a profit then simply take the other side of the bet. Then you can say 'ha, I told you so'. If I monitor some people, weed out the 'good' from the 'bad' and yield a profit - I guess any profits will be attributed to pure luck rather than the possibility there was someone who could return a +ve ROI. Even 1 profitable year doesn't mean much. Some of these hedge funds lose over a year or more - it doesn't necessarily mean they have no edge. Likewise, some 'good' traders in institutions perform way above their EV which doesn't make them 'clever' even if that may be your assessment of them.

I'm sorry but are you 5 years old?

I am desperately sorry to have hurt your feelings or to have threatened you. As I said the first time when you had an over emotional reaction, have fun playing.

And I feel sorry that you live in a world where your experience leads you to assume that someone would mock you for losing money.

I think i've been very reasonable here. In short: you're not willing to put down 20 years of experience and that attitude of yours in the aid of charity?

[g4ry13]

trashbat said:

Many people - probably the vast majority - in every probability system believe that they can find or be the anomaly, be it proper trading or the National Lottery.

Why you? What are you doing that makes you special?

One doesn't have to be special. There are many reasons one can be successful and 'special' isn't one of them. I can assure you that the City isn't full of 'special' people. They may be special in a different way, but not 'special' in the way to which you refer.

[DonkeyApple]

g4ry13 said:

DonkeyApple said:

g4ry13 said:

DonkeyApple said:

g4ry13 said:

DonkeyApple said:

g4ry13 said:

So win or lose i'm going to be out of pocket? That's a bit absurd seeing as I am the one incurring the risk to bet on something which according to you I am bound to lose. My reward is any profit I may make as a result of this.

If I win: I gain profit from the risk I have undertaken and you donate to a charity of my choice. If I lose: I will incur financial losses and you will be able to have bragging rights and say 'I told you so'. That was and still is the bet - at no point did I stipulate that I would donate to charity in the original terms.

Now....as it is the season of giving, I am feeling generous. In the event that I win and you donate to a charity of my choice. I am willing to donate a % of my profit to a charity of your choice. However, I will not be matching 1:1. It will be a % - this is called 'leverage', as you may be very familiar with in your 20 years in this business

As an aside: i'm not sure why we're talking about MT4 and execution levels. I'm just going to hit that 'copy' button and let the rest happen. At no point have I used MT4 for eToro.

I wouldn't gain any bragging rights, I would be depressed that another person has binned their hard earned money.

I win if you win. I've had people on social trading sites for several years looking for traders. We haven't found one. They all, to date, have over traded failing to understand execution costs v daily ave market movement or over extended positions as they've not understood risk.

The other given is that when you pay traders a reward based on their volume, they over trade and implode. Hence social trading pays for flow, especially one where execution is with a bookmaker not a broker.

So, if you can game the bookie on a consistent basis then I will also have won. You'll also be the first person to succesfully day trade on three pip spreads plus slippage.

To be honest, the fact that you willingly say that you don't know too much about it but are happy to call someone at the heart of social trading and automation in the UK wrong and offer a bet does kind of mKe you the perfect client for a CySEC house.

Edited by DonkeyApple on Wednesday 26th November 19:15

I don't work hard for my money so don't worry about that.

Are you declining our friendly wager in the name of charity then?

Er, you seemed to decline

Still not sure why you are so aggressive/punchy. You need to face the reality that if you end up relying on some unknown, inexperienced kid punting a demo account at a Cypriot bookmakers for some of your 'investment' and then talk about it in public then someone is very likely to stand up and make the observation that you might just be doing something a bit silly.

I outlined my bet and then you introduced something about me donating to charity when that was never stated. I then countered and offered to donate a % of my profits. I haven't declined at all. I haven't even said i'm going to put £ behind this. I will decide that over the next few days.

I honestly struggle to follow what you were trying to get at with your first post here, some of the things you said: Talk of hiding running losses - you can't. Talk of back testing and charting - i'm not doing that. Your mention of MT4. Almost every point I could rip apart. It's like you didn't care to read my first post and came here to throw your extensive 20 years of experience in my face. I'm not even sure if you've looked at eToro and had a look at the copy trader feature and how it all works.

You'll see that throughout this thread I had very little optimism that there is much success to be gained from following someone on eToro. However, I believe there must be some anomalies and someone that is decent. If hand on your heart you don't think of all the thousands of people on there that not one is capable of returning a profit then simply take the other side of the bet. Then you can say 'ha, I told you so'. If I monitor some people, weed out the 'good' from the 'bad' and yield a profit - I guess any profits will be attributed to pure luck rather than the possibility there was someone who could return a +ve ROI. Even 1 profitable year doesn't mean much. Some of these hedge funds lose over a year or more - it doesn't necessarily mean they have no edge. Likewise, some 'good' traders in institutions perform way above their EV which doesn't make them 'clever' even if that may be your assessment of them.

I'm sorry but are you 5 years old?

I am desperately sorry to have hurt your feelings or to have threatened you. As I said the first time when you had an over emotional reaction, have fun playing.

And I feel sorry that you live in a world where your experience leads you to assume that someone would mock you for losing money.

I think i've been very reasonable here. In short: you're not willing to put down 20 years of experience and that attitude of yours in the aid of charity?

Gary, you have at no point been reasonable. You have been semi hysterical and childlike. I have already accepted the bet. God knows why you are banging on. You need to use real money over a real time frame and follow real accounts. And it is a bet, EToro is not a recognised charity so you you will need to cover your side of the bet. And it will be £ for £, no silly attempts at arguing I should be leveraged.

You say you are still on demo and we also have Christmas coming up so start second week in Jan, run for 6 months and publish real trade data and a log of switches over 6 months.

Let me know when you start.

[g4ry13]

DonkeyApple said:

g4ry13 said:

DonkeyApple said:

g4ry13 said:

DonkeyApple said:

g4ry13 said:

DonkeyApple said:

g4ry13 said:

So win or lose i'm going to be out of pocket? That's a bit absurd seeing as I am the one incurring the risk to bet on something which according to you I am bound to lose. My reward is any profit I may make as a result of this.

If I win: I gain profit from the risk I have undertaken and you donate to a charity of my choice. If I lose: I will incur financial losses and you will be able to have bragging rights and say 'I told you so'. That was and still is the bet - at no point did I stipulate that I would donate to charity in the original terms.

Now....as it is the season of giving, I am feeling generous. In the event that I win and you donate to a charity of my choice. I am willing to donate a % of my profit to a charity of your choice. However, I will not be matching 1:1. It will be a % - this is called 'leverage', as you may be very familiar with in your 20 years in this business

As an aside: i'm not sure why we're talking about MT4 and execution levels. I'm just going to hit that 'copy' button and let the rest happen. At no point have I used MT4 for eToro.

I wouldn't gain any bragging rights, I would be depressed that another person has binned their hard earned money.

I win if you win. I've had people on social trading sites for several years looking for traders. We haven't found one. They all, to date, have over traded failing to understand execution costs v daily ave market movement or over extended positions as they've not understood risk.

The other given is that when you pay traders a reward based on their volume, they over trade and implode. Hence social trading pays for flow, especially one where execution is with a bookmaker not a broker.

So, if you can game the bookie on a consistent basis then I will also have won. You'll also be the first person to succesfully day trade on three pip spreads plus slippage.

To be honest, the fact that you willingly say that you don't know too much about it but are happy to call someone at the heart of social trading and automation in the UK wrong and offer a bet does kind of mKe you the perfect client for a CySEC house.

Edited by DonkeyApple on Wednesday 26th November 19:15

I don't work hard for my money so don't worry about that.

Are you declining our friendly wager in the name of charity then?

Er, you seemed to decline

Still not sure why you are so aggressive/punchy. You need to face the reality that if you end up relying on some unknown, inexperienced kid punting a demo account at a Cypriot bookmakers for some of your 'investment' and then talk about it in public then someone is very likely to stand up and make the observation that you might just be doing something a bit silly.

I outlined my bet and then you introduced something about me donating to charity when that was never stated. I then countered and offered to donate a % of my profits. I haven't declined at all. I haven't even said i'm going to put £ behind this. I will decide that over the next few days.

I honestly struggle to follow what you were trying to get at with your first post here, some of the things you said: Talk of hiding running losses - you can't. Talk of back testing and charting - i'm not doing that. Your mention of MT4. Almost every point I could rip apart. It's like you didn't care to read my first post and came here to throw your extensive 20 years of experience in my face. I'm not even sure if you've looked at eToro and had a look at the copy trader feature and how it all works.

You'll see that throughout this thread I had very little optimism that there is much success to be gained from following someone on eToro. However, I believe there must be some anomalies and someone that is decent. If hand on your heart you don't think of all the thousands of people on there that not one is capable of returning a profit then simply take the other side of the bet. Then you can say 'ha, I told you so'. If I monitor some people, weed out the 'good' from the 'bad' and yield a profit - I guess any profits will be attributed to pure luck rather than the possibility there was someone who could return a +ve ROI. Even 1 profitable year doesn't mean much. Some of these hedge funds lose over a year or more - it doesn't necessarily mean they have no edge. Likewise, some 'good' traders in institutions perform way above their EV which doesn't make them 'clever' even if that may be your assessment of them.

I'm sorry but are you 5 years old?

I am desperately sorry to have hurt your feelings or to have threatened you. As I said the first time when you had an over emotional reaction, have fun playing.

And I feel sorry that you live in a world where your experience leads you to assume that someone would mock you for losing money.

I think i've been very reasonable here. In short: you're not willing to put down 20 years of experience and that attitude of yours in the aid of charity?

Gary, you have at no point been reasonable. You have been semi hysterical and childlike. I have already accepted the bet. God knows why you are banging on. You need to use real money over a real time frame and follow real accounts. And it is a bet, EToro is not a recognised charity so you you will need to cover your side of the bet. And it will be £ for £, no silly attempts at arguing I should be leveraged.

You say you are still on demo and we also have Christmas coming up so start second week in Jan, run for 6 months and publish real trade data and a log of switches over 6 months.

Let me know when you start.

Well i'm going to have to strongly disagree with you here. I have been reasonable and patient. You came into this thread throwing some things out there which had nothing in context to do with this thread and using 20 years of experience to try and take some form of higher position on the subject. I then outlined a bet and you introduced a stipulation which I had never outlined. As far as I am concerned, you have not agreed to the bet I made. I am very happy to show my post and your alleged acceptance to an independent party and let them decide if you accepted my terms. As far as I can see - you have not.

To think that I may incur a loss of £200, then pay an additional £200 to charity thereby being out of pocket £400 is a bit preposterous. Whereas, if I make £200, you would only donate £200. To me, that is an absurd concept. I am the one undertaking all of the risk and my reward will be my profit and my cost should it yield a negative return will be a monetary loss.

At no point have I proclaimed to have a massive edge or be some kind of guru. I have merely posted thoughts and balances over this period of time and am making a decision based on this so i'm not really seeing why I am being mocked for being objective with the numbers which have been presented to date. It's not like I set out to try and prove anything or get people to back me. This was only ever merely an experiment of curiosity and I had hoped others would find it of interest, test out some people and with a larger sample could collate data to see if there is merit in following people on eToro.

I am not going to be pasting every single trade as quite frankly I don't have the time and nor is there any incentive for me. If your concern is me fudging the numbers: on the terms of the bet I set out where if I win I will donate a %, I have zero incentive to manipulate the numbers. I can post a screenshot. But the time to get trades, format them for the forum and whatever else would be involved is far beyond what I intended to be a piece of harmless fun from the inception of this thread. I will happily announce if I stop following or start following someone new as minimal effort is required to do so.

My own financial dealings are my private business and I am very happy to fly under the radar rather than subject myself to such public exposure. This is not something I have to disclose.

If you feel as strongly as you do about how unlikely it is to make a profit from this then I welcome you to put your money where your mouth is and we can do some good for charity along the way.

I appreciate that maybe you are just trying to look out for me. I will come to a decision whether I wish to put money on this (based on my evidence and not some bet with you). I'm not here to argue as I actually have no horse in this race and will not be responding to points which I consider irrelevant to this thread eg. MT4, people hiding losses, charting, bias and a host of other topics which may belong in a general trading thread.

[DonkeyApple]

There can be no bet without some extremely basic and patently obvious guides such as following real money accounts, using real money and running it over 6 months.

Demo data is both meaningless and rigged and any trade data less than 6 months is meaningless.

This is just basic stuff.

What you make or lose is an irrelevance, you need to back your side of the bet.

The bet stands and is accepted as it was at the outset.

Good for you for having an experiment out of curiosity. That however does not explain your aggressive reaction.

Never asked you to post every trade not implied you would fiddle. You obviously need to keep us appraised of who you are following and weightings as an absolute minimum!!!

Our own financial feelings are not private, you are discussing them on a public forum so that's a bizarre defence.

You have already stated and also proven that you are not yet in a position to charge any professional view of mine on this matter as irrelevant.

The bet is there but in exchange for my expenditure I want the basic data but I suggest you delve a little deeper into the basics of bookmaking and then risk metrics prior to placing real money on account and taking the bet.

Good luck, enjoy learning and have a good weekend.

[EddieSteadyGo]

To be fair to G4ry, it looked to me as though G4ry setup this thread as a exercise to test an idea and to share the results with members of the forum.

He wasn't claiming he had a winning investment strategy. In fact he pointed out some of the flaws/issues in the system as he explored and learnt more.

FOr these reasons, I find the 'bet challenge' a bit misplaced, but that is just my opinion.

I'd suggest leaving any bet discussion to private messages between the individuals concerned.

Personally, I am interested to hear more about DonkeyApple's experiences in this area as well as G4ry's findings.

[g4ry13]

I'll cast aside the previous stuff, it's time for a delayed weekly roundup. I'm only following 4 people at this stage although one of them is really a write-off.

Noasnoas - Account is +18% ROI. So she's dropped 1.5% this week. I'm pretty happy with that though and she seems to be more from the 'slow and steady wins the race' school which means I don't have to think so much about massive swings. I would allocate the most amount of money to her. I think a 20-30% copy stop loss is very reasonable for her as I haven't seen such huge equity swings with her.

MaxxizLT - +77% on account, so it's a 7% gain on the week. Overall he has looked pretty decent, although he does have some sizeable equity swings. I'm not sure I would feel so comfortable putting a lot down as the risk of ruin is higher than Noas. I am thinking I would allocate a smaller amount and apply a larger % copy stop loss. That way I can manage my financial risk to a comfortable size.

FCInvestments - +26% ROI. So that's an 8% gain on the week. I will have to demo him some more, i'm not entirely convinced yet. I may be happy to trial one or two to see how it actually works in practise.

BestTraders - He's down 28% overall. It's a 9% improvement over last week but it's generally been bad. I had less of a basis to copy him than the others. I'm weighing it up between pause/cut/keep following. I may just keep following for passing interest and see what goes on. If it's still no improvements over the next week or two I will cut him.

[maxxy5]

Ok well I have rejoined etoro and started trading, my aim is to get copiers. Obviously this will require staying in the black so I will probably never get any I'm zuckerman111 if you're interested. You will see I lost money when I started trading but I'm better these days and I've started with some profitable trades.

[g4ry13]

Well i'm feeling charitable - I can follow you with $1,000 and see how you get on. I'll be nice

So $1,000 to Zuckerman. I've applied a 40% copy stop loss. It said my average trade size will be $100. Not sure how it works that out but sounds like a high leverage strategy. I'll just put it out there that those look great when they work well and you can show off some whopping gains, but you run a really high risk of ruin and a few bad trades will see a significant amount of an account gone.

I may be wrong that it's not such high leverage as it only tells half the story. I'm just thinking it's worth scaling down leverage and if you could turn a few % every month you'd be doing very well. Rather than needing to put up 5000% annual returns which understandably is just silly numbers.

Edited by g4ry13 on Monday 1st December 23:14

[maxxy5]

Thanks! However I don't think you can yet? I think I have to apply, but maybe that's just for real money.

[maxxy5]

That leverage is what I use on my main account (not etoro) and my approach works ok with that amount, but I didn't think of changing it on etoro with a view to possible copiers. Do you think that will make a difference?

It sounds like it's extrapolating the copied trade size from my account size/trade size ratio, which is very high because I don't have much money in the etoro account. Can you change the trade size yourself?

Edited by maxxy5 on Monday 1st December 23:26

[g4ry13]

Well I clicked the copy button. We'll see what happens.

I can't change the trade size, all I can change is the amount I follow and the copy stop loss I apply. The rest is up to the trader I follow.

[g4ry13]

Doh! I was a bit lazy about depositing last weekend and was a bit hesitant to do so.

Noasnoas - Now +26.5% ROI on account. She's pretty steady although 8.5% in a week is probably a little on the high side.

MaxxizLT - I watched him go through the +100% ROI mark. Currently +122% on the account. So a +45% gain on the week which I am not so comfortable with admittedly. I would have to allocate him a smaller amount.

FCInvestment - +28.7% ROI so it's a little over 2% gain on the week.

BestTraders - He's had a better week, -18% on the account. I'll run him a bit longer and see if he can start to get some consistency.

Zuckerman - Posted in here so I thought i'd just add him to take a look. I haven't really checked in the week but the account went into profit at one point. He seems to like trading various FX pairs and does use some take profit orders and sticks to them. Currently showing a small loss with a few profitable trades open. It's early days so i'll see how it goes.

[g4ry13]

I was seriously considering putting some money on and I knew they charged a fee to withdraw. I saw this:

Withdrawal Amount (USD) Fee (USD)
20.00 – 200.00 5.00
200.01 – 500.00 10.00
500.01 + 25.00

I was thinking of putting >$500 on and optimistically making more. Paying $25 to withdraw is extortionate. Or am I being a bit tight on this? I've never deposited on a speculative site and had to pay to get my money off. I have paid wire fees for a US broker, but not this where they aren't even US based. Out of all the reasons, is $25 a stupid enough reason to not do this?

[DonkeyApple]

They don't want people to withdraw deposits. The fee is to encourage you to just trade until it is all lost to the bookmaker in Cyprus.

They may also be running the wheeze of not carrying out AML & KYC until a client requests money to be returned. That is already being investigated by EU regulators on several of these types of bookmakers.

And why USD? What's your conversion cost and fx risk?

Edited by DonkeyApple on Sunday 7th December 20:25

[g4ry13]

I have no idea why USD. It just seems to be how everything is listed on their site. I haven't tried to deposit so maybe there is a £ option - I suspect not. I imagine the FX rate will be decided by debit card company. If I deposit $700, then paying 3.5% on fees just to withdraw isn't appealing. Especially not when paying them a larger spread too. I know the premise of making a bigger ROI is there, but giving away 3.5% just to get what is mine takes the shine off it a bit (on the assumption I actually make more than I initially deposit).

[maxxy5]

Things like that are why I'm only on etoro to see if the copier thing works for me. I have another broker for my real account, regulated in the UK. I wouldn't recommend etoro for your own trading.