Is Etoro Safe ? Scam or Legit Broker ? Find Alternatives (2023)

Many traders ask whether is eToro safe or not ?

Is it a legit broker or a scam ?

If you try to figure out if eToro broker is a scam or not, this review will help you make a decision.

eToro Pros & Cons

Visit eToro.com

79% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Why is eToro different ?

1. WATCH: you can easily search for profitable traders from all over the world
2. FOLLOW: you can chat with them / watch their open trades + history of trades / learn and understand their trading strategies
3. COPY: you can let the system to copy automatically all their future trades (forex, crypto currencies, commodities, world stocks)

Best eToro traders to copy in 2022

Below is my top secret list of best eToro traders to copy. I reveal this only for the readers of this review.

Simply search for their nickname in SEARCH field.

1. berrau +16.24% gain during last 12 months
2. CatyFX (Ecaterina Bors)+44.09% gain during last 12 months
3. zsyuan +44.88% gain during last 12 months
4. kelaleo +13.74% gain during last year
5. ThinhLeDuc +8.57% gain during last 12 months
6. JBinvest +11.89% gain during last 12 months

Disclaimer: Past performance is not an indication of future results!

What is eToro and why its popularity has been booming

eToro is a world-wide social trading network that connects investors and traders around the world. Something like a Facebook network, but a place where less experienced traders meet and copy trades of profitable investors. It is free to signup and watch other people’s trades, follow them and even chat with them. If you want to earn real profit you must deposit real money of course.

In case you are really good at trading, you can directly place your own trades without copying anyone and become a popular investor that will be copied by others.

Tradable assets

At the moment, you can trade the following assets :

Forex >> 47 currency pairs available for trading on eToro

• major pairs include combinations of: EURO, USD, CHF, JPY,
• exotics: AUD, CAD, NZD New Zealand, CNH China, SEK Sweden, NOK Norway,
• ZAR (South Africa), RUB (Russian Rubel), HKD (HongKong Dollar), TRY Turkey, MXN Mexico, SGD Singapore Dollars, PLN Poland, HUG Hungary

• Real Cryptocurrencies >> without leverage:
  • Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Cardano ADA, Iota, Stellar Lumens, EOS, Nio, ZCash, Binance Coin, Uniswap, Chainlink, Tezos, Dogecoin, TRon
  • You buy real cryptocurrencies with minimum investment of $10 for each trade
  • No leverage
• Real stocks from 13 stock exchanges around the world, including NYSE (not only CFDs like with other brokers)
• Stocks CFDs with leverage max 5:1
• CFDs on commodities (gold, silver, oil,copper, natgas, platinum)
• CFDs on stock indices (13 stock indices available: US Dollar Index, NSDQ100,SPX500 Dow Jones 30, France CAC40, EUSTX50, DAX, FTSE100, China50, Madrid, Tokyo225 etc.)
• ETFs – 83 ETFs are available mostly iShares

Charting technical analysis tools

Charting was almost flawless, there are all main chart types to choose from whether you fancy the classic candlestick, bar, line, hollow candle, mountain etc they have it all. Y

You can also switch between various time frames starting at 1 minute all the way up to 1Week. It was also easy to zoom in and out.

Again, it is not the Metatrader 4, but 8 out of 10 traders will be satisfied.

How does Copy Trading work

I’ll show next in this review, how to profit from Copy Trading.

Here is etoro copy trading review.

Once you have signed up for your free account (e.g. click on above button on this page), you can immediately log into the platform. You can start searching for the best traders who trade with instruments tha you are interested in and who have the potential to make you money in the future.

First of all, register your free eToro account.

Then log in to the eToro trading platform. There is a virtual amount of $100,000 waiting for you inside your practice demo account. No worries you can deposit your real money anytime later. Now set up your nickname and correct language (currently you can choose from all major world languages). Now on the left hand side there is a panel, please click on “Discover – Copy People” where you can find an overview of all traders who are active on eToro.

After that you’ll see an opening screen where you’ll find the best traders grouped into several groups:

• Promising Traders – Merchants that seem to become very popular among the eToro crowd in the near future (“future stars”)
• Trending Investors – Traders who are growing their portfolio profits very fast and are getting a lot of new copiers at the same time
• Most Popular – I strongly recommend you to to explore this category! These are the most profitable traders, their trades are being copied by other investors on this platform
• Stock Investors – traders who are mostly into equity stocks
• Local Popular Investors – popular local investors

Copying other traders on eToro

First of all, you can find any trader by his/her nickname (for example see my private list in this article) by typing his/her nickname in the top SEARCH field:

(Note: If you do not know who to look for, click Left on Discover – Copy people)

Once you click on selected profile,:

1. Click on COPY in the top right of the selected investor profile – if you want to invest only virtual money, click GO VIRTUAL .. if you want real then click DEPOSIT MONEY
2. Then you will pop up a window where there are specific amounts you can invest in its future
3. Either you choose a sum by clicking on a field like $500 OR choose a different amount and write it directly to the box
4. If you just want to try with virtual money, then right click on “USE VIRTUAL MONEY” – then enter a virtual sum, for example, $ 1,000

   

5. In the next step we set when the trade will be automatically closed, in case the market goes against your position and you start to lose: “Stop Copying if losing more than” .. for example, I use 15% (also use at your own risk) .. meaning if my investment of $350 for this guy drops below $52.50 then it will be stopped by system.
6. Check the box “COPY ALL OPEN TRADES” only if you want to copy its current open stores (I personally leave this box blank since I believe it is better to copy future trades only)
7. The status at which all your open stores are currently (whether you are in the losers or the profits you see always on the left after clicking on the PORTFOLIO in the left menu)

For each of the traders, Ifirstly recommend you to look first at their STATS tab.

• STATS shows you theROI in % per each calendar and also full year (Performance)
• RISK SCORE – some traders use risky strategies, therefore they have a high risk, some have Score in the range of 2-6 meaning mid risk trading strategy ( i prefer this personally)
• MAX DRAWDOWN – is a maximum loss that this trader has suffered in a given time period
• COPIERS – indicates how many other people are copying him/her. Trader earns money from eToro for each single copier, therefore he is motivated to trade profitably. In many cases we can say, the higher the number of COPIERS the more gain the trader has made during the selected time period. We suggest you dont blindly follow this number, as many people who are just copying dont use their brain! Sometimes you see traders who took a break from trading, yet they still have hundreds of copiers! Do your own due dilligence and you will be just fine.
• TRADING section shows you the trading style of a particular trader. At the top you can see the history of trades, meaning how many trades in total he has done on Etoro. + Further you can see what percentage of all his trades were profitable (quite important!). You can see here the split of his portfolio. You may even select the percentage and filter out only people trading forex, stocks or mostly crypto traders if you like.
• FREQUENTLY TRADED – At the bottom, you see the TOP 3 trades that this person is involved in (including specific stock titles or specific currency pair).

Disclaimer: Past performance is not an indication of future results!

How to trade the markets on your own

You can of course trade the markets on your own. There is a wide range of tradable assets at your disposal. Click on tradable assets section.

All you have to do is click on the left panel >> TRADE MARKETS

If you came for forex trading, click on CURRENCIES

How to trade stocks with eToro

You have two options:

• Trade real stocks, without leverage >>
  1. You are buying underlying stock with leverage 1:1
  2. Minimum investment per trade is $500
  3. You can set STOP LOSS & TAKE PROFIT levels
  4. Decide between investing $XY amount or buy XY stocks
• Trade CFDs on stocks with leverage up to 1:5 >>
  • Leverage 1:2 or 1:5 if you are in Europe
  • Minimum investment per trade is just $100
  • You can set STOP LOSS & TAKE PROFIT levels
  • Decide between investing $XY amount or buy XY stocks

Invest in CopyPortfolios™

Do you want to invest like a hedge fund ? … then read this. These are pre-made portfolios of assets grouped into bundles where each bundle represents multiple markets.

Examples:

• CryptoPortfolio – consists of crypto assets
• Driverless – invest into self driving cars stocks
• CannabisCare – tries to monetize the recent medical cannabis hype by investing into the stocks of the top performing medical cannabis companies
• PanicMode – this portfolio is for investors that have anxiety of the future .. I guess this portfolio should stay strong in case of the next economic crisis

Main Features:

eToro demo account

Before you decide to deposit real cash, you can play on practice demo account with $10.000 virtual cash. We tested eToro demo account and luckily all functionalities and perks that are at disposal in real version were also available demo! Meaning, you can let the trades run overnight, copy top investors, place your own trades and strategies without any problem.

Demo account seems to be available without time restriction, so it is completely up to you whether you deposit in 10 days or later.

How to deposit real money

1. Login to your PROFILE
2. Click the “Deposit Funds” button at the bottom left
3. Currently the minimum first deposit amount is $50. Select the payment method and enter the AMOUNT you want to deposit into eToro. We recommend either your local deposit options or the Skrill or credit card method (Visa, MasterCard etc.) the money will be available immediately within few minutes and you are ready to start trading. Another good way is to choose PAYPAL or Skrill according to whether or not you already have an account. eToro gives you also plenty local deposit options that vary country to country. When WIRE TRANSFER is selected, it may take several days for money to arrive, and further banking fees may apply.

Minimum deposit

Minimum deposit is $50.

Nevertheless if you deposit $200 or $50 this will be enough to copy just 1 trader! So keep it in mind.

My personal trading strategy is always about “risk diversification” so when I trade I rather diversify the risk of loss and choose 4-5 solid investors to copy with $200 per head. That is $1000 investment spread across 5 investors.

Again, that is just my way of trading, if you dont like this approach, you can invest the absolute minimum and invest $200 into one trade.

But why would you put all your eggs into one basket ?

Or you can of course do your own trading with your own strategies inside the platform and don’t copy anyone.

Deposit methods available

1. Wire Transfer
2. Paypal (available in EU, Australia and partly Asia)
3. Credit card (in EU it is Visa, Mastercard, DinersClub, Maestro)
4. UnionPay
5. Skrill
6. Neteller
7. Yandex
8. Webmoney

How to make a withdrawal from eToro

You earned a nice profit and now want to withdraw money from eToro right ?

All regulated brokers have to comply with strict regulation rules concerning KYC (Know Your Customer). That means you will need to verify your account either before your first deposit or before withdrawal.

A note about deposit vs withdrawal method match

Your deposit and withdrawal methods should match. It is the criteria set by the law in order to prevent some nasty stuff like money laundry etc. Therefore think before you deposit, if you use the paypal or card number 123 then you will be able to withdraw to that same card number 123..

How to verify your trading account

You need to prepare these documents to ensure smooth trading account owner verification:

1. Passport or National ID copy (both sides in high resolution)
2. Address proof (any sort of Utility bill – electric, gas, mobile phone or account statement with blurred amounts is OK)

Also note that withdrawal fees may apply.

Last steps before you start trading

Click on the person icon in the left upper corner, when you are logged in.

1. Decide whether you want to keep your profile PUBLIC or PRIVATE (I recommend private, as you can change it later on to public profile if you wish)
2. Set the Language

>> Finalize your user profile

1. First of all please add your address
2. Identification number, is your ID obtained from your government
3. Tick the box saying you are not USA citizen (if you are from USA you are not allowed to continue, as USA government does not permit retail trading at this moment)
4. Clicking on NEXT we come to KYC test

>> A note about KYC (know your client) test

Last but not the least, in order to start trading you will have to fill and submit the KYC form. It is the prerequisite set by the law and eToro as a solid and regulated company must comply with the law of course.

Comparing eToro with Competition

We compared eToro vs. Plus500 for you.

Is eToro a Scam?

Many people in online forums ask, whether eToro is a scam or not. Well based on what we saw during the testing, eToro is NOT a scam. At the end of 2018 when I reviewed eToro, communication with their customer support team was smooth and fast and the platform was working fine too without requotes, hunting for stop-loss or other shady practices that you encounter with brokers from some small tiny unregulated jurisdictions like Belize or Seychelles.

Remember that many eToro broker reviews that can be found across the web were written by traders who gave up on trading, who had no trading strategy, no prior education, they know nothing about risk and money management and just gamble.

On the other hand there are tons of reviews that are positive and these are from traders who use their brain and copy the right persons with a clear strategy in mind. During 2019 review we have faced no difficulties with eToro broker. We do all the reviews with the end customer in mind, therefore we want to review depositing, trading and finally also withdrawal process. All was smooth in eToro’s case.

Nowadays forex scam is not happening among regulated brokers and eToro is CYSEC and since last year even ASIC regulated forex broker which is pretty serious regulator if you ask me.

Open FREE eToro Demo Account

78% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

eToro review summary

The main goal of this review was to demonstrate how eToro trading platform works and how to make copytrading feature profitable for you.

In my opinion eToro works great for traders who want to trade forex, crypto or even real stocks on a solid trading platform.

We recommend eToro specifically for forex, real stocks and crypto trading, as it seems that this company invests a lot into these offerings. According to my information just during this year they have added most popular crypto currencies into their trading portfolio + they have launched real stocks trading and added many new forex currency pairs.

When we talk about the eToro platform itself, I personally think it is very intuitive, meaning you will find anything very quickly without a lot of search. All items were found during the review exactly where you would expect it to be!

Especially the newbies who have not yet developed a sense of complex perception of trading,will for sure benefit from intuitive and easy to absorb visual processing of trading data across the whole eToro platform.

I think you will basically need maybe one afternoon of playing with demo account to understand how things work on eToro platform.

Reading the eToro’s reviews across the fx forums I think the main eToro’s success comes from smartly implemented copytrading feature, low min.deposit and good customer support. Min.trade requirements are micro lots btw which makes sense if you are just starting out.

Advanced forex traders who decide to join eToro, could benefit from being copied by others (remember that eToro pays you for each copier). So if you are good at multiplying money by trading, you should give eToro a try.

Veterans and very experienced forex traders may find eToro more expensive than their favorite ECN brokers UK and they could be also missing Metatrader 4 or cTrader trading platforms.

Risk Disclaimer:
eToro is a multi-asset platform which offers both investing in stocks and cryptoassets, as well as trading CFDs.Please note that CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage.79% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work, and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.Past performance is not an indication of future results. Trading history presented is less than 5 complete years and may not suffice as basis for investment decision.Copy trading is a portfolio management service, provided by eToro (Europe) Ltd., which is authorised and regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission.Cryptoasset investing is highly volatile and unregulated in some EU countries. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply.eToro USA LLC does not offer CFDs and makes no representation and assumes no liability as to the accuracy or completeness of the content of this publication, which has been prepared by our partner utilizing publicly available non-entity specific information about eToro.

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