eToro
When it comes to Social Trading and Copy Trading in forex, eToro is your primary choice. The trading platform interface is super slick and intuitive, allowing you to copy the experienced investors’ trades or to share your own ones while receiving a commission. The number of instruments is overwhelming - over 3,000, including forex, CFDs, and exchange-traded securities. Users from all over the globe praise eToro’s Smart Portfolios and indemnity insurance of up to EUR 1 million per client.
Regulation
Pros and Cons
Leverage

eToro Review 2023

eToro specializes in social trading and investments. You can follow a trader or traders of your choice or choose to invest in any number of pre-determined portfolios. The firm is aiming more for investors than for short-term traders or scalpers. It offers an unusually wide range of stocks (around 3,000) from markets around the world, both in CFDs and cash. Trading in stocks and ETFs is free, while fees for trading FX and CFDs are slightly higher than the market average, although given the expected longer holding period this is probably not significant. You can only access eToro through its proprietary platform, which is available in both web and mobile form. It’s intuitive and relatively easy to use. The company has been in business for 15 years and has some serious regulation in the US, UK, Europe, and Australia, making it a safe choice. 

Note: clients in the US can only trade stocks, ETFs, and cryptos through eToro.

Is eToro a good broker?

eToro is probably the pre-eminent broker for social trading and a good choice for those who want to invest rather than trade. If you want to follow someone else’s trading (or find people to follow you!), or put your money into stocks or funds for a period of time, it’s top-notch. The platform is intuitive and simple and the company is as safe as any broker around. 

The broker is not the best choice for those who want to trade aggressively, e.g. buy now and sell in 10 minutes for a 5-pip gain. 

What is eToro?

eToro is different from most other brokers. Rather than aiming at the go-it-alone crowd, it specializes in social trading and investments. Its motto is “Empowering a global community of investors.” Note they say “investors,” not “traders.” Its target audience is a) people who want to follow other people’s trading and conversely b) those who want to make some extra money by having others copy their trades. You can follow a trader or traders of your choice. Or you can let eToro and its partners manage your money by putting it into one of their professionally managed portfolios of stocks, bonds, commodities, FX, cryptos, or some combination of them. 

On the other hand, scalping is expressly forbidden and there’s no capacity for automated trading (robots). 

eToro sometimes acts as a market-maker, sometimes as an agency broker, depending on which entity your account is with. For example, the UK and European entities are both market-makers but can also act as agency brokers if the firm decides it’s necessary for risk management

Broker pros and cons

Pros:

  • Specialized in social trading, which it does masterfully
  • Wide range of investment portfolios and ETFs
  • Many stocks from around the world available in both cash and CFD

Cons

  • Not aimed at short-term traders (no scalping)
  • Automated trading & robots not available
  • Customers have to use their proprietary platform (which is good, but you might not be used to it)
  • Not much education available 

Is eToro safe?

The company has been in business for 15 years. Although it isn’t publicly listed and doesn’t have a bank parent, it has some serious regulation in the US, UK, Europe, and Australia, although people onboarded from elsewhere may be under the Seychelles entity. So I’d say it’s as safe as an online broker can be. 

Certain premium clients who are trading with the European or Australian entities are automatically covered by eToro’s private insurance policy. This is a 1 million EUR/GBP/AUD per client insurance policy provided by the legendary Lloyd’s of London in the unlikely chance that eToro goes bust. Moreover, clients’ funds in their eToro account are held in US banks and are FDIC-insured up to $250,000 per account. 

As far as I can tell, the company’s only run-in with the authorities was a relatively minor incident in 2013, when CySec fined eToro a small amount for unspecified “weaknesses” in “the organization/operation structure.” These flaws have since been rectified and there’s been no trouble since then.

Can I trust eToro? Yes, as far as we can tell. (Remember though that there are no guarantees in life except death & taxes.)

Is eToro regulated?

Yes, eToro is regulated in several countries by some of the world’s strictest regulators. The regulator you’ll be covered by depends on where you live:

  • eToro Europe: Cyprus’s CySEC
  • eToro UK: Britain’s FCA
  • eToro Australia: ASIC
  • eToro USA: the US SEC, FINRA and SIPC 
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