My First Crusade: Selecting Traders


Tada! After evaluating a whole lot of traders, here is a detailed analysis of the traders I will be copying. But before I copy with real money, I need to ask the traders a few questions following this analysis. One of the brilliant things about Etoro is the ability to speak to the traders directly, so why not use it?

I will post updates at a later time. Do subscribe to my blog below to get continuous updates delivered to your inbox.


So far, these are the traders I have identified.


My evaluation criteria has been outline in my post: "TheScience/Art Of Evaluating: What To Look Out For When Selecting A Trader"


Trader 1: Newstrader

1)      Portfolio – Mostly FX and ETF, within my criteria

2)      Average return and loss – Not too bad on the risk reward, what I really don’t wish to see if 20% upside return but 80% average losses. This would probably mean the trader is holding on to bad trades and waiting for the tide to turn in their favour and only taking losses on really bad events.

3)      Historical trades - The historical trades as far as I can tell is not averaging down, however there seems to be opening of 3 positions per entry. This is probably a question I would like to pose to the trader.

4)      Returns per month against the NIC index – this trader performed at -0.32% against the index, which means against the 50 most popular traders on Etoro, he has a return slightly below the average. I am personally looking for inline or above the index.

 Trader 2: Doew85

1)      Portfolio – Mostly FX, within criteria. Mainly a GBPUSD and USDJPY trader, most traders on Etoro are EURUSD Traders so this provides some element of diversification.

2) Average return and loss – Excellent risk return on this trader, his average losses are much smaller than his average grains for the 3 most frequently traded instruments. 

3)Historical trades - The historical trades as far as I can tell is not averaging down, however I do see a tad bit of revenge trading, might ask trader about it.

4) Returns per month against the NIC index – this trader performed at 37.47% against the index, this is the best returns against the index that I have found that fits my criteria.


Trader 3: Sameerah786

1)      Portfolio – Almost 100% FX, within criteria. Mainly EURUSD, GBPUSD and GBPCHF trader.

2)      Average return and loss – I am a bit divided on this point as risk reward ratio for the EURUSD seems to be significantly less than a 1:1 Ratio i am looking for. I will check with her on this, if answers are inline with my own risk tolerance I will still copy here.

3) Historical trades – I have one thing with this trader that I can’t seem to reconcile. This would have to be related to my above point as well. 100+% loss on this trade and 2 trades nonetheless. It happened twice and it is strange, other than that great trader.

4)      Returns per month against the NIC index – this trader performed at -5.98% against the index, this is the low compared to the index and even the watchlist. However I needed two traders with a low standard deviation but stable returns because of the portfolio theory nature of diversification. More on this will come in a later post.

Trader 4: Tradingrelax

1)      Portfolio – Almost 78% on FX and ETF. Within criteria, I don’t like the stock element but I don’t mind because it’s of a low percentage.

2)      Average return and loss – It is not great, specifically there were trades that took a loss of 100% the reason why the risk reward wasn't great.

3)      Historical trades – Same as above, strange amount of losses, will ask trader about it. Seems to only be on EURUSD though, the gold only took one loss but at 15%, but then again it was only a single loss out of 18 wins. 2.16% returns overall.

4) Returns per month against the NIC index – this trader performed at -7.56%% against the index, this is the lowest in my active portfolio compared to the index and even the watchlist. However I need two traders with a lower standard deviation of portfolio but stable returns because again of the portfolio theory nature of diversification


Trader 5: Alkimistic

1) Portfolio – Almost 100% FX, within scope 

2) Average return and loss – Excellent, average loss for the most traded asset EURUSD has a return of 36% vs. loss of 19%. 

3) Historical trades – Mostly EURUSD, however despite the above results and low average loss, looking at the historical trades, I did note average losses were high. But so did some of the profits.

4) Returns per month against the NIC index – The trader performed well, achieving +1.29%


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