Short answer: Copy trading automatically mirrors another trader’s positions in your account, scaled to your balance. It saves time, but you take on all of their losses, past results often don’t repeat, and fees or slippage can make your copy perform worse than the original.
How it works
You choose a strategy provider and allocate part of your balance. Each time they open or close a trade, the same trade is placed in your account in proportion to the money you allocated. You can usually stop copying at any time.
How providers get paid
- A performance fee, a share of profits above a previous high
- A subscription or volume fee
- Sometimes a share of the spread or commission you pay
The risks
- Their losses are your losses. A provider’s bad month hits your real money.
- Past results mislead. Leaderboards show the survivors. Strategies that blew up have often disappeared.
- Your copy won’t match exactly. Delays, slippage and minimum trade sizes make results differ.
- Hidden risk-taking. Smooth returns can come from strategies with no stop-loss that eventually fail badly.
Before you copy anyone
- Check the maximum drawdown, not just the return
- Look for at least a year of live history
- Start small and set your own stop on the allocation
Brokers with built-in copy trading show it under platforms on our broker profiles.
CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. Most retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
