Welcome to my latest Copy Trading update, where I go over my portfolio and see how everything's going...
Aimstrader
He's been doing pretty badly really, opening various shorts on indices when they should be buys and opening buys when they should be shorts... Apparently in January he had set some strict risk management guidelines for himself, but he seems to be blowing through those self-imposed guidelines. That's not great if it's true.
So are there good reasons for the trades he's making? I think so, yes - he's looking for corrections based on big recent price movements, but he just seems to be timing it badly and then holding onto losing trades longer than he perhaps should be.
When I look at the charts for the assets he's trading, I can apply some basic technical analysis, and see that there are strong support and resistance lines around where his assets are currently trading. Basically, I think I can see why he's doing what he's doing, but it's not been going well and a lot of his copiers are currently concerned...
Although Aimstrader has been losing me money, the other traders in my portfolio have been picking up the slack.
Citadelpoint
He's been doing much better this week. Gone are the big risky moves - I've drawn down the amount I'm copying him with and it's been working out recently.
He's using smaller amounts of his overall account size and making shorter time-frame trades and taking little bites out of the market. It's good news overall for now...
Chocowin
Benefitting from the recent equities surge, Chocowin is doing well although I don't know what he'll do if a Bear Market was to arrive. We'll have to wait and see.
Alnayef
He's been making lots of small trades recently which is good to see - I sometimes wonder if he's just vanished... He seems to disappear at times, and nobody's quite sure where he went or what's going on. He always seems to pop up again though and goes through a period of trading much more frequently before going silent again.
Some of his trades have still been open for a very long time and he continues to hold them open waiting for them to go green. It's still an issue, and one that I'm continuing to watch. I don't want to stop copying him for now as I do think he's still low risk and potentially profitable in future.
Olivier Danvel
He's been doing what I'd expect from him. Small trades, waiting for what he considers the best entry points (so periods with very little activity). He did say he'd be doing this all though, so I expected it.
The first trade he put on was a 3% trade, which is within his risk management guidelines. His stated goal is around 1% profit per month, and so far he seems to be on target. He's one of the people I'm copying with the highest proportion of my funds.
Analisisciclico
He's down so far this month, but still sticking to his low-risk money management approach.His trades are all around 2 - 3% of his account size as expected. I'm staying with him - there's nothing which raises any alarm bells for now, so I'll let him get on with his methods.
Did Olivier Danvel port his stats in from another platform?
I asked him directly as I heard he may have done this and he gave a slightly cryptic answer, but basically seemed to say that no, he's been on eToro the whole time and was just somehow hidden. I'm not sure, but I have to take what he says at face value...
Aimstrader has been taking a lot of flak for his trading...
I've been feeling a bit sorry for aimstrader recently. the 'social' part of etoro can sometimes be pretty rough but with unsubstantiated rumours flying around that he blew 2 previous trading accounts on eToro, it's been a tough time for him... I hope he manages to turn it all around.
Is a Bear Market Coming?
It could be - there are a lot of people talking about it as a possibility, and some even as a probability. That's one of the reasons I'm shying away from equities trades right now - I'm not sure how fast they'd all react if things were to take a turn for the worse... It could be that Aimstrader is really waiting for the bear market and being caught out on the wrong side of trades a little more right now due to that. I'm not sure...
Being a Popular Investor
I'm thinking of making some videos about what it's like to be a popular investor on etoro as it's really interesting to me, so maybe other people would enjoy it. I'd also like to make some videos about being an affiliate, so we'll see what happens with that.