Choosing good traders to copy is hard. Every social trading platform has a few traders worth following, but finding them takes time and some analysis, because many of the profiles you will see belong to beginners with poor money management and high-risk strategies.
In this article, you will learn how to analyse a trader in depth before copying them on copy trading platforms such as eToro, NAGA or ZuluTrade. Most examples use eToro, the largest of the three, with screenshots of a real public profile taken in October 2025.
Risk warning: copy trading does not remove risk. When you copy someone, their losses become your losses, and many copied portfolios include leveraged CFDs. At eToro, 51% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
Popularity is a starting point, not a safety check
Being on a list of popular or featured traders tells you that a trader passed a platform’s minimum criteria, not that their strategy suits you. eToro’s own Pro Investor Program (formerly the Popular Investor Program), for example, admits traders with a maximum daily risk score of 7 out of 10 and a maximum weekly drawdown of 25%. A trader can meet those rules and still lose a quarter of their portfolio in a single week.
Popularity is a reasonable place to start, but a deeper analysis will let you discard many traders before you commit any money. The eleven checks below are the ones we use.
1. Trusted traders
A quick way to gauge a trader is to look at how much other people trust them with real money. On eToro, each trader’s Stats page shows the number of active copiers, how that number changed over the last 12 months, and the total value of eToro clients’ money copying that trader, shown as “Copy Value”.
The amount of money invested is a better signal than the number of copiers. A trader who suffers a big loss may keep most of their copiers for a while, since many copiers never check their portfolio, but the money copying them usually falls quickly as copies hit their stop loss or are closed. eToro’s people search lets you filter traders by Copy AUM as well as by the number of copiers, and ZuluTrade ranks its traders with its own ZuluRank system, which weighs maturity, exposure and drawdown among other factors.
Very few copiers is usually a bad sign, but a large number is not proof of skill either. A lucky streak can attract copiers quickly, so treat popularity as one input among many.
2. Returns
Negative returns are an obvious red flag. Very high returns may look appealing, but be careful: annual returns of 70% or more are rare and usually come from luck or from very high risk. Look at the monthly returns too, to see whether the result depends on one or two exceptional months.
Check the trader’s profit chart. You want someone whose portfolio has grown steadily over a long period. A chart with sharp swings, with periods of big gains followed by big losses, often points to a trader who is gambling rather than following a strategy.
Be cautious with traders who show a 100% or unusually high win rate. Anyone can reach it by keeping losing trades open until they recover. A forex trader might start with a 100-pip stop loss and then move it to 1,000 pips to avoid closing the trade at a loss. Meanwhile, the money tied up in that position cannot be used for new trades, and the eventual loss can be much larger.
3. Number of trades
Look at how many trades the trader has closed. A long record of closed trades, 100 or more, makes it easier to judge whether results come from skill or luck. eToro shows the total number of trades over the last 12 months, the percentage of profitable trades and the average profit and loss on the instruments the trader uses most.
The right number depends on the strategy. Long-term investors hold positions for months or years, so a smaller number of trades can be perfectly normal for them.
4. Risk score
Most social trading platforms give each trader a risk score. On eToro, the risk score runs from 1 (very low risk) to 10 (extreme risk), with 0 reserved for a portfolio held entirely in cash. It is based on the expected annual volatility of the trader’s portfolio and is recalculated monthly using historical market data and the portfolio’s current composition. The profile shows the average risk score over the last 7 days and a chart of how it has changed.
| Risk score | Annual volatility |
| 1 | 0% to 9% |
| 2 | 9% to 13% |
| 3 | 13% to 19% |
| 4 | 19% to 32% |
| 5 | 32% to 51% |
| 6 | 51% to 71% |
| 7 | 71% to 94% |
| 8 | 94% to 131% |
| 9 | 131% to 187% |
| 10 | Over 187% |
How eToro maps portfolio volatility to its risk score. Source: eToro help centre, September 2026.
Look for traders whose risk score stays stable over time. A trader whose score jumps from 3 to 8 is changing strategy or taking on more leverage, even if their returns look fine. There is always a trade-off between risk and expected returns, so the right level depends on how much volatility you can live with. As a reference, a score of 5 already means annual swings of up to about 51%, and eToro’s Pro Investor Program does not accept traders whose daily risk score goes above 7.
Also check whether the trader uses stop losses on their positions, especially on leveraged CFDs. Protecting the account from a single bad trade is a core principle of risk management.
5. Consistency
Besides the number of closed trades, look at consistency. A trader with a long run of profitable months, say 12 or more, and only small losses in between is a stronger candidate. eToro also shows the percentage of profitable weeks among the additional stats, and its Pro Investor Program requires at least 30% of months to be profitable.
Make sure the trader has been on the platform for a while. At least 12 months of history is a sensible minimum, since a beginner’s success may be down to temporary luck.
6. Open trades
Check the trader’s open positions as well, in the Portfolio tab of their profile. Open trades, like loose stop levels, tie up equity and can hide losses that are not yet reflected in the statistics.
Experienced traders accept small losses before they grow. A trader with few open trades and a win rate of 60% to 80% is often a better candidate than one with a 100% win rate and many positions left open for a long time.
Some traders keep losing positions open so that they don’t affect their closed-trade statistics. If you see many positions in the red that were opened weeks or months ago, treat it as a warning sign.
There are exceptions. Market conditions or a long-term investing strategy can also explain old losing positions. In that case you should see both gains and losses, a low trading frequency, and holding periods in line with the trader’s average holding time, which eToro shows in the additional stats.
7. Maximum drawdown and winning trades
Drawdown is the fall in a portfolio’s value from a peak to a subsequent low, before a new peak is reached, expressed as a percentage of the peak. It measures how much a trader’s account has lost during a bad period, whether or not the losing positions have been closed.
Traders with large drawdowns are very risky to copy. A deep drawdown in a leveraged portfolio can wipe out a large part of your copy, especially if your Copy Stop Loss is set wide. eToro shows each trader’s maximum drawdown on a daily, weekly and all-time basis in the Portfolio Risk section of the Stats page, and the weekly drawdown also appears in the search results.
Avoid copying traders with large falls in their equity curve, like this one. Screenshot from an earlier version of eToro’s platform.
What about a trader with 100% winning trades? As explained above, it usually means they leave losing trades open until they turn around. Many copiers therefore look for traders with a maximum drawdown of 20% or less. For comparison, eToro’s Pro Investor Program only requires the maximum weekly drawdown to stay within 25%.
Also be wary of traders who make steady profits for months and then lose a big share of the account, say 40%, on a single trade. Months of small gains do not make up for that kind of risk.
Finally, match the drawdown measure to your own horizon. If you plan to check or withdraw money weekly or monthly, the weekly or monthly drawdown matters more to you than the all-time figure.
8. Level of activity
Check how active the trader is. As a rule, you want someone who has traded in recent weeks, and eToro’s people search lets you filter by the number of active weeks. eToro also shows the average number of trades per week in the additional stats.
The right level of activity depends on the trader’s style. There are different types of traders:
- Long-term investors (monthly or yearly horizon)
- Swing traders (daily or weekly horizon)
- Day traders (hourly or daily horizon)
- Scalpers (minutes, seconds or less)
With very short horizons, be aware that if each trade only makes a few pips, slippage and spreads can eat a large share of the profit, so your returns may be lower than the trader’s.
Make sure the trader has been active for a while. Anyone can start with a small amount, take big risks, get lucky and make money for a few months in a row. Keeping those results over time is much harder, and that is where skilled traders separate themselves from gamblers. A track record of at least one year gives you far more to judge.
9. Trader level
Some social trading platforms rank traders by levels. To move up, a trader must meet conditions such as keeping drawdowns under control, growing the money invested by copiers and staying consistent. On eToro, the Pro Investor Program has four levels:
| Level | Min. average monthly equity | Min. average copied assets | Min. average copiers | Qualification |
| Cadet | $2,000 | None | None | None |
| Champion | $10,000 | $50,000 | 5 | None |
| Elite | $50,000 | $400,000 | 10 | Investment Management Qualification |
| Elite Pro | $100,000 | $10 million | 10 | Advanced Investment Management Qualification |
eToro Pro Investor Program levels. Traders at Champion level and above can be paid by eToro, based on the assets copying them. Source: eToro, September 2026.
At every level, eToro requires traders to show their full name and photo, have at least two months of history, keep the maximum daily risk score at 7 or below, keep the maximum weekly drawdown within 25%, hold no single position above 50% of the portfolio and trade at least three instruments in the last 12 months. Generally, the higher the level, the less likely the trader is a novice, though it is still no guarantee of future results.
Also, some platforms let signal providers trade from demo accounts. Make sure you copy a trader who trades with real money, so they have some skin in the game.
10. Average trade size
The average trade size says a lot about a trader’s money management. If they open positions that are large compared with their account, they are taking very high risks, a bit like putting all their eggs in one basket.
A small average trade size means the trader’s overall result does not depend on any single deal, so the risk is spread out. Many copiers look for traders whose average position is below 10% of the portfolio. For reference, eToro’s Pro Investor Program caps any single position at 50%, which is a much looser limit.
11. Understand their strategy and behaviour
Read the trader’s profile description and make sure you understand their investment style, which may or may not fit yours. What strategies do they use? Do they use leverage? Which products do they trade, and why?
Look through their closed trades to understand the strategy. For example: “Trader X invests mainly in US tech stocks, holds positions for a few weeks and aims for small, regular gains.”
Few traders are good in every market at once, from forex to stocks, indices and crypto. Look for someone who specialises in a few markets or products. They may trade other assets to diversify, but most of their activity should be where their expertise lies. If you copy more than one trader, look for complementary specialisations, for example one focused on forex and another on stocks.
eToro’s people search helps here. You can filter traders by time period, return, risk score, Copy AUM, number of copiers, active weeks and “Allocation”, which lets you find traders who focus on particular asset classes.
Knowing the strategy of each trader you copy is key to managing risk, especially when you follow several traders to spread it. If two of them use the same strategy on the same markets, your risk is not really diversified.
Check how often the trader communicates with copiers, and what they say. You want someone who posts updates regularly and explains their views on the markets, which is also a good way to learn along the way.
Pay particular attention to how they behave during or after a bad run. Staying calm and communicative is easy when things go well. A losing streak is when a trader’s real qualities show.
The last thing you want is a trader who panics and changes their approach. Poor traders try to win back losses with martingale-style strategies or by trading more often. Disciplined traders stick with a tested approach.
12. Set your own safeguards
Choosing a good trader is only half of the job. How you set up the copy matters too. These are eToro’s main CopyTrader limits:
| Setting | eToro CopyTrader |
| Minimum per copy | $200 |
| Maximum per copy | $500,000 |
| Maximum number of traders copied | 100 |
| Minimum copied position | $0.50 (smaller positions are not opened) |
| Copy Stop Loss | Required, from 5% to 95% of the copy |
| Extra fee for copying | None (normal spreads and fees apply) |
eToro CopyTrader settings. Sources: eToro help centre and Copy Stop Loss, September 2026.
The Copy Stop Loss closes the whole copy if its value falls by the percentage you choose. eToro’s pages give different default values, so check the setting before you confirm and adjust it to the loss you can accept. With a small copy, remember that positions under $0.50 are not opened, so your copy may not mirror the trader exactly.
Costs also differ between platforms:
| Platform | How traders are ranked | Cost of copying | EU regulator |
| eToro | Risk score, return, drawdown, copiers, Pro Investor level | No extra fee | CySEC (Cyprus) |
| NAGA | Copiers, return, risk | Share of profits on copied trades: 20% (Iron), 17.5% (Bronze), 0% from Silver | CySEC (Cyprus) |
| ZuluTrade | ZuluRank (maturity, exposure, drawdown and more) | No fee paid to ZuluTrade | Hellenic Capital Market Commission (Greece) |
European regulators treat copy trading as a regulated investment service. In its 2023 supervisory briefing, ESMA said that depending on how it is set up, copy trading can count as portfolio management, investment advice or order transmission under MiFID II, and it asked firms to check the experience of copied traders and make costs clear to clients. That is a good reason to copy traders only on regulated platforms.
FAQ
Is copy trading profitable?
It can be, but there are no guarantees. When you copy a trader, you get their results, including losses, minus spreads and any fees. Most copied portfolios on CFD platforms use leverage, and 51% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs at eToro.
What is a good risk score on eToro?
It depends on how much volatility you can accept. On eToro’s scale of 1 to 10, a score of 4 or below means expected annual volatility under 32%, while 7 means up to 94%. A stable risk score over time matters as much as the level itself.
How much money do I need to copy a trader on eToro?
The minimum is $200 per copied trader and the maximum is $500,000. You can copy up to 100 traders at the same time.
How many traders should I copy?
There is no fixed number, but copying a few traders with different strategies and markets spreads your risk better than putting everything on one. Copying several traders who all do the same thing does not diversify your portfolio.
What is the eToro Pro Investor Program?
It is eToro’s program for traders who let others copy them, formerly called the Popular Investor Program. It has four levels (Cadet, Champion, Elite and Elite Pro), and traders from Champion level upwards can be paid by eToro based on the assets copying them.
Final thoughts
Now you are ready to start looking for traders to copy. Remember that past performance does not guarantee future results, in trading or in social trading. The goal is to find the traders most likely to repeat what they have done in the past, at a level of risk you can live with.
Still not sure whether a trader is right for you? Ask them. Most traders on social platforms are open to questions and will reply.
Do you have more tips to share? Feel free to reach out to us.
