Etoro Popular Investor Guide

eToro offers a great variety of assets for investors to choose from but it is also a social trading platform, allowing its users to share their strategies, interact and replicate positions of more experienced and successfully performing traders. In fact, letting others copy your trades allows you to earn an additional income by sharing unique and favorable investment strategies.

(NOTE: Before we continue, we have to give a disclaimer that the trading products offered by the companies listed on this website carry a high level of risk and can result in the loss of all your funds. CFDs are complicated instruments that are never guaranteed to provide you supplemental earnings.  In fact, Around 68% of all retail investors experienced a loss while trading CFDs. Make sure to keep this in mind before attempting to use the eToro platform yourself. All the information found on this website is not official trading advice and all practices shown are referenced for the use of the Demo account only.)

eToro offers this unique opportunity to earn a second income on the platform by allowing others to copy your trades as part of the Popular Investor Program. There are currently over 1,000 traders who joined the program worldwide, all with different investment horizons, strategies and preferences for the choice of assets. The income earned from the program is directly related to a trader’s performance and has certain conditions that need to be met. Below you can find a detailed overview of this option.

Requirements

The most immediate prerequisite is actually joining the program by applying for a membership. You need to have deposited sufficient funds into your account as the minimum amount of equity is 1000$, and also spend at least 2 month trading on the platform to begin with. A Popular Investor cannot breach certain risk levels and the maximum risk score allowed is 6 or below over the time period of at least 2 month; likewise, leverage restrictions need to be met. Your profile and bio need to be complete with a description on yourself and the strategies used in trading, a full name provided and a clear professional profile picture.

There are 4 tiers that can be reached on the platform, depending on whether your satisfy the performance conditions; each of the below tiers offers its own benefits:

• Cadet
• Champion
• Elite
• Elite Pro

There are certain criteria, such as the AUM and Minimum Equity requirements, that need to be met before moving onto the next level. These requirement are summarized in the table below.

Note that Elite traders need to additionally submit a declaration of their strategy and an exclusivity agreement, while Elite Pro also need 3 years of trading on the platform/ being a financial professional.

A trader needs to spend 2 month in a Cadet tier before they can move up; these upgrades happen at the day of the payment at the beginning of each month. Moving to the Elite level would require being in a Champion tier for 4 month or more, and another 2 as Elite before you become an Elite Pro investor.

Finally, a Popular Investor cannot themselves copy others, which is quite a consequential requirement.

Reaching each new tier does not only increase your earnings but offers several additional benefits to assist your trading experience, such as a reduction in some fees, perks, events invitations, additional support and education. These are summarized in the table below.

Your income from being a Popular Investor depends on the tier achieved, as previously summarized. Payments are made every month by the 10th by adding the amount into the account and transferring them to your bank account or any other method of payment you have chosen. Your income increases with a greater number of copiers and a higher AUM.

Note that there are two values for payment available for each tier (the percentage in the payment row represents the percentage out of the total value of AUM). Earning the higher amount is possible if the value of AUM has increased by at least 1% from the previous month.

Your Social Feed

Transparency and security are some of the main characteristics eToro platform stands for, and are likewise greatly valued by investors who choose a trader to copy. Informing your copiers on your strategies, performance or any other important information is expected at least 2 times per months, although more frequent updated would certainly be appreciated.