Below we discuss some eToro traders (AKA “popular investors” and previously “gurus”) which you can copy and follow in your eToro demo account. Please note that these are included here for educational purposes only to show how you can use the data available on eToro to create an opinion of a trader. These do not constitute financial advice and the inclusion in our best or top eToro traders list should not be seen as an endorsement. What’s best or top will depend on your own investment goals which you should discuss with your financial advisor.
You can read in detail the process we go through when selecting traders to follow on eToro in our tips section. In summary though we: see Video.
- look for traders with a proven track record (ideally at least > 12 months)
- have a high preference to follow short term eToro traders (i.e. traders who don’t leave positions open for weeks or months)
- follow traders who demonstrate a professional money management strategy. I.e. traders who risk a small percentage of their balance per trade and not traders who “bet” 10% or more on a single trade
- look for an eToro trader who’s historical performance graph shows a gradual line upwards instead of a trader who graphs shows large sudden peaks and dips
- avoid traders with 100% (or > 90%) winning ratio. As explained in detail elsewhere, this only means they leave every position open until it becomes profitable, eventually locking up and losing all your capital as they widen their stop levels
- look to follow and copy traders who watch the market and use clearly defined stop levels above or below certain trend lines, instead of arbitrary stops of 100 or 500 pips away
- search for traders who know when to cut their losses and understand that not every trade
- like eToro traders who actively communicate their strategy and market view with their followers and copiers
- prefer traders who trade and focus on a few trading instruments (e.g. currencies or stocks) instead of those who trade in 10 different instruments and markets (most of the best and top professional traders specialise in a single market)
Last Updated: November 24th 2015
We long struggled to find our preference of short term traders on eToro (i.e. traders who manage stops closely and trade mainly intra-day), as most of the traders had long term strategies, leaving positions open for many months, leading to potentially large drawdowns (which they funded by their commission bonuses). However since eToro changed their reward structure well over a year ago and also made the rankings and statistics more rewarding to traders who manage overall drawdown and risk, the average quality and choice of traders to copy has certainly improved.
There’s unfortunately still a lack of complete transparent data (e.g. no full trading history) which unfortunately makes it difficult for us to properly evaluate these traders. However, we’ve been active on eToro for 4 years, so we managed to track some of the traders ourselves a bit more closely over that period. We must note though that most included are still medium to long term (so not fully matching our preference) but their long trade history and overall performance probably warrants their inclusion in this best traders list.
AnnaSerafini
Anna Serafini has been trading on eToro for over one and a half years and has really been one of the best performers over that period. A profit of 70% last year and 80% so far in 2015 is very healthy. a monthly basis, the worst month was -3% and only 3 months were in the red so far.
However as we all now, with high returns normally comes higher risk as well. In the case of Anna, the maximum yearly drawdown on eToro has been over 33% while on a daily basis the maximum drawdown almost reached 21%. Nevertheless if you had hindsight and someone had given you these odds for risk taken versus reward then most people would certainly taken them.
This trader leaves trades open on average 3.5 days. While that certainly doesn’t make her a day trader, in comparison to most traders on eToro this is relatively short. Some trades do however stay open for quite a few months with widening stop levels, though overall so far risk has been fairly well managed for the returns which have been achieved.
Venomt09
As experience goes, Venomt09 (Martin Tremblay) has been trading on eToro for over 4 years! Some of the results over the past years were exceptional in a positive (240% return in 2014) or negative (-70% in 2012) way. However these results were also achieved against fairly high drawdowns and risk levels.
What’s interesting about his eToro trader is that their risk score has dropped from a high 7/8 to a maximum of 3 from April 2015. The maximum drawdown for the year is also under 18%. So while the returns this year (18% so far) have been less extravagant than some of the previous years, it looks like the returns have been achieved by taking much less risk.
Venomt09 trades mainly currencies and leaves trades open on average 1 week (so not short term). Their amount of copiers has been growing steadily as well.
santoshtiwari
Santoshtiwari is a UK based trading with quite a few years experience on eToro. Ignoring her first two months (let’s assume that was practise), her performance has been good in terms of annual returns. She has also been in (or near) the top 5 of most copied traders for the past few years.
However not every month has been smooth and the results certainly don’t look consistent if you look at them on a monthly basis. The main reason for this is that this is a long term trader and positions are left open for longer periods of time. While trades are often opened with smaller 100 or 200 pip stop levels, they are regulrly widened when the market is going against them.
This can obviously lead to drawdown periods and the maximum drawdown on a yearly level has been almost 60%. This is obviously very high and a lot of eToro followers normally bail out when they start seeing drawdowns that size. So far though Santoshtiwari has always recovered from previous drawdown situations. However, there’s no guarantee this will always be the case.
However the timing of when you’d start following a long term eToro trader may have a significant impact on your results. Hence when you consider copying a trader like Santoshtiwari it’s always good practise to phase in your investments over a few months. This means you spread the risk of your allocation being locked in long term open trades.
4exPirate
4exPirate has been trading on eToro for over 2 years. They’re one of the few reasonable short term traders we’ve discovered so far (average trade duration 2 days).
If we consider the last two years, results probably don’t look very consistent. December 2013 shows returns of over 100% while January 2014 shows losses of over 50%. Without the historical trade data it’s impossible to exactly explain what happened in those months, compared to the fairly consistent results since then. However one logical explanation is that this eToro trader had a small account balance at that time and was risking relatively a lot per trade in relation to their overall balance. Hence it might have been easy to double the account and easy to again lose half the month later.
Nevertheless the results since then have been more contained, with a maximum monthly loss of -6.24% and a maximum monthly return of 11.51%. So 4exPirate’s money management strategy seems to be fairly consistent since February 2014.
Over the past 12 months 4exPirate produced some decent returns on eToro when you take into account the relatively low drawdown.
PS in terms of the impact of timing, especially with traders who leave trades open over time, it may be worth looking at our eToro money management tips. An example from there, in this case if you’d invested $1000 in a trader called Malsolo on June 1st your realised balance 1 year later (May 31st 2013) would be $1,872.97 with an open trades loss of -$235.48 (so $637.49 net profit). So investing 1 month later would have resulted in $356.17 more profits over a 1 year period (so more than double the profits). Hence you can always consider phasing in your investments over time since no-one can be sure when the best entry point is to follow a trader like that.
If you like to try some more risky trades with less than 1 year experience on eToro, then here are some ones you can try in your demo account:
Please note that past results are not necessarily indicative of future results. There’s no guarantee against losses when trading on eToro (and other social networks) and you may lose some or all of your initial investment. This type of trading is not suitable for everyone and you should never invest money you can’t afford to lose.
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