One of the advantages of eToro is the social aspect and the opportunity to learn from other traders. Observing other strategies is interesting, even for experienced traders.
I am regularly updating the “eToro popular investors’ spreadsheet”, trying to find the investors closest to the kind of portfolio and performance I aim for.
In early January, the portfolio of the popular investors, traders and two eToro funds tracked was exposed to crypto-currencies with 34.36%. The average exposure to cryptos has dropped to 21% by mid-May. Personally, I am interested in diversified traders with a limited exposure to crypto-currencies (more on why you should treat crypto-currencies with care http://iitm.be/cryptos4asset).
During the first months of 2018 we have seen losses in share prices, the value of crypto-currencies and most of eToro’s (but not all) popular investors have seen the number of copiers shrink. If in early January you used a $1000 to copy a popular investors or invest in one of the two funds tracked, you would expect to have lost about $180 (on average) by now, but with forex investor goodgoing, popular investor Wesl3y or the OutSmartNSDQ fund your investment could have been profitable. As a side note, eToro copiers should remember that you don’t sell but BUT when prices are low.
Having now nine months of data to look back on, has allowed to improve the desirability ranking formula:
=((current month return*6months return*(12months return/3))*(1-(SQRT(Risk)-SQRT(Profitable months of past eight)))*(1-(crypto’s share of portfolio during the past four months)))*(1-investment category exceeding 60%)
The ranking is now based on a zero to one hundred percent value relative to the performance of the other investors and funds tracked. The aim of the “Desirability ex crypto” formula is to highlight popular investors and funds with a balanced portfolio, preferably low risk and a continuity in increasing the return on equity.
The profitability of an investor or fund with a risk of six who has managed to increase the value of his portfolio during the past six of eight months is 2.10 by the same risk/return value (here 1), as a risk three fund or investor who has ended five of the past eight month with diminishing returns. E.G. eToro gives GainerQtr a risk of three and the past six of eight calendar months trading closed in profit resulting in multiplier of 1.72. eToro gives popular investor “isuuu” a risk seven and six of the his past eight month trading closed in profit, resulting in a multiplier of 0.35.
| Pos | Trader | Desirability | 6 months | Risk | Copiers | 12months | Profitable | May 2018 |
| May | handle @ | ex crypto | return % | last count | return, % | months (8) | return, % | |
| 2018 | Min | 44.57% | 0.00% | 3 | 0 | 4.12% | 2 | -9.29% |
| Mean | 85.92% | 33.75% | 5.42 | 2437 | 557.66% | 5.06 | 0.91% | |
| Max | 100.00% | 125.73% | 8 | 12541 | 12742.00% | 7 | 12.75% | |
| 1 | karinroth1 | 100.00% | 118.75% | 7 | 7 | 592.55% | 6 | 10.03% |
| 2 | eddyb123 | 96.85% | 98.55% | 6 | 1167 | 315.85% | 6 | 5.85% |
| 3 | JeppeKirkBonde | 94.45% | 26.54% | 4 | 7022 | 115.58% | 6 | 4.10% |
| 4 | Fastik | 92.20% | 35.53% | 5 | 2136 | 126.96% | 4 | -2.87% |
| 5 | goodgoing | 91.76% | 13.34% | 3 | 7588 | 37.67% | 6 | -5.00% |
| 6 | alexandrucinca | 91.56% | 22.48% | 5 | 4736 | 76.16% | 6 | 1.67% |
| 7 | OutSmartNSDQ | 91.18% | 25.61% | 5 | 256 | 36.19% | 6 | 12.75% |
| 8 | MrThor7734 | 91.03% | 44.54% | 5 | 6911 | 132.46% | 5 | -5.35% |
| 9 | GainersQtr | 91.01% | 15.78% | 3 | 650 | 26.84% | 6 | 0.48% |
| 10 | BigTech | 90.96% | 15.51% | 5 | 608 | 38.30% | 7 | 6.30% |
| 11 | AlexPlesk | 90.93% | 14.24% | 5 | 7863 | 66.32% | 6 | 4.96% |
| 12 | InTheGame | 90.89% | 7.84% | 5 | 516 | 40.83% | 4 | 4.03% |
| 13 | Xavier86 | 90.85% | 18.98% | 6 | 3047 | 75.37% | 6 | 5.81% |
| 14 | matanspalatrin1 | 90.62% | 20.94% | 6 | 402 | 80.62% | 6 | 5.28% |
| 15 | Wesl3y | 90.47% | 11.70% | 6 | 9210 | 59.99% | 6 | 3.74% |
| 16 | oroumann | 90.46% | 23.04% | 5 | 71 | 17.62% | 5 | 4.33% |
| 17 | TrendingR7 | 90.35% | 7.82% | 4 | 469 | 51.77% | 4 | -0.36% |
| 18 | 27cyrix | 90.13% | 27.89% | 5 | 143 | 50.28% | 6 | 7.05% |
| 19 | ADC0602 | 89.75% | 16.32% | 5 | 0 | 42.16% | 4 | -3.85% |
| 20 | Willscuba | 89.44% | 23.26% | 6 | 273 | 79.55% | 4 | -2.35% |
Investment in crypto-currencies leads to lower ranking, but not if returns have been stable and high. An unbalanced will punish the ranking, reason why funds investing 100% in stocks, like BigTech, OutSmartNSDQ or InTheGame, rank slightly lower than a popular investor with a portfolio mixing different markets. The goal is to measure the returns produced in the coming months against the effectiveness of this ranking and to re-adjust it accordingly with more data available. If you dislike the formula the data is there available for download.
You can access the data at http://iitm.be/etotrader – I am open for suggestions to add to the list.
For control purposes, I am investing $1,000 on each of a over 50 eToro traders on my virtual account, copying only new position (un-ticking open positions) and reducing the stop loss to 50%. Here some of the results for traders not necessarily appearing on the tracking list above:
When you start copying a trader, the positions will be opened at the prices, once the respective exchanges are open for trade (crypto-currencies trade 24/7). To get good results, you should copy traders at least for a few months.
But if you want to close the copy of a popular trader, the respective trading centre (Milan, Frankfurt, Paris, Madrid, London, New York, …) must be open, otherwise the stock prices can not be determined. A good time for the speedy realisation of the copied positions is shortly after 15:30 hrs Brussels time (2:30 pm GMT).