Copy trading

How copy trading works

Copy trading lets you follow another trader. You can copy a single trade you see in the feed, or use Auto Copy to follow a trader continuously with an amount you choose. Your funds stay in your own wallet throughout, and you can stop at any time.

Two ways to copy

Copying one trade and copying a trader are different things. Both start in the same place, a trader's post or their profile, but they behave differently once they are running.

How Auto Copy works

Turning copying on creates a standing authorisation on your own wallet so that it can open and close copied positions without you approving each one. That authorisation cannot withdraw, transfer or send your funds, and you can revoke it whenever you want. Markets never holds or moves your money.

You then pick a trader and set an allocation, which is the most of your cash that can be in their trades at any one time. You can also set a term of a number of days, or leave it running until you stop it.

When the trader opens a position, your wallet opens a matching one, sized to the same share of your allocation that the trade takes up in their portfolio, at the same multiplier they used. Copies usually follow a few seconds behind. If they add to a position, yours grows in proportion. If they take some off, yours reduces in proportion. If they close, your wallet closes yours.

You do not inherit the positions a trader was already holding when you started copying. Copying begins from that moment forward. If they later add to something they already held, you copy the amount they added, not the whole position.

Copying is attempted, not guaranteed. A copy may be resized, delayed, partly filled, or not made at all, and you can end up holding a position that differs from theirs or no position at all.

A worked example

Say you allocate $500 to a trader. They are running a $25,000 account, and they open a BTC long using $2,000 of margin at 5x. That is 8% of their account.

• Your margin is 8% of $500, which is $40
• Your multiplier is 5x, the same as theirs
• Your position size is $200

$40 of your allocation is now working. The other $460 stays ready for their next trades. If they double the position, yours grows to $80 of margin, as long as your allocation covers it. If they sell a quarter of it, yours reduces by a quarter at the market price. If they close, or are liquidated, your position closes too.

If you close a copied position yourself, it stays closed. It is not re-opened while they are still holding that market. If they close it and later take a fresh position there, you copy that one.

What your allocation is

• It is a ceiling, not a transfer. The money stays in your own wallet. Nothing is sent to the trader, and nothing is sent to Markets. The allocation caps how much of it can go into that trader's trades at once.
• It is held back from your available cash. While a copy is running, the part of the allocation that is not in a trade is set aside so you do not accidentally spend it elsewhere. Your profile shows it as IN COPIES.
• It is not a limit on what you can lose. It caps the margin committed, not the outcome. At 5x, $40 of margin controls a $200 position, and the loss that can come out of it is what a $200 position can lose.
• It is not a pot that drains. Profits and losses settle to your cash balance, not to the allocation, so the allocation figure stays where you set it whether the copy is up or down.

Because losses come out of your available cash rather than out of the allocation, your available cash can run low while your copies still show their full allocation set aside. To free that cash up, lower the allocation or stop the copy.

What copies, and what does not

Copied:

• A new position they open
• Adding to a position they already have
• Taking part of a position off. Yours reduces by the same proportion
• Closing a position, flipping from long to short, or being liquidated
• Their multiplier, on every copied trade

Not copied:

• Positions they were already holding before you started copying
• Their take-profit and stop-loss orders. Your copy follows what they actually do with the position, not the orders they have resting on it
• Anything they do that is not a change to a position you are copying

If you take over a copied position yourself, by adding to it for instance, it stops being managed for you and becomes an ordinary position of yours.

When a trade does not copy

Some of a trader's trades will not appear in your account. The most common reasons are below, and none of them means something has gone wrong with your copy. Market conditions can also prevent a copy: latency, price movement, volatility, thin liquidity, or an outage at a venue or on the network.

• You already hold that market. You can only hold one position per market, so if you already have BTC open, from your own trading or from another trader you are copying, a second BTC trade will not copy. Whoever got there first keeps it.
• Your share works out too small. The exchange will not accept an order under $10, so if your slice of a trade lands below that it is skipped rather than rounded up. This is more likely on smaller allocations and on markets that trade in coarse size steps.
• Your allocation is fully deployed. If everything you allocated is already in open copies, there is nothing left to open the next one with. Copying resumes as soon as some of it frees up.

The app does not yet tell you when a trade was skipped for one of these reasons, so a copy showing no trades can mean the trader has not traded, or that their trades could not be copied.

Copying a single trade

Copying one trade from a post is simpler, and you are in charge of the sizing. You see what the trader did, then choose your own amount and your own multiplier. Neither has to match theirs. The minimum copy is $10.

Before you confirm, you pick how the trade should finish. On Auto, your wallet closes your position when they close theirs, so you follow their exit as well as their entry. Alternatively you set a target, either +25%, +50%, or your own cash-out and stop-loss levels, and manage the exit yourself.

Setting your own target takes the trade off Auto for good. It cannot be put back on Auto afterwards, so the trader's exit will no longer close it for you. The app asks you to confirm before this happens.

Pausing, changing and stopping

• Change the allocation at any time, up or down. Lowering it below what is already in trades does not close anything. It means nothing new opens until the amount in trades falls back under the new ceiling.
• Pause to stop copying new trades while keeping the copy in place.
• Stop to end it. Stopping does not close your open positions. You keep them, and from that point you manage them yourself. The trader's exits no longer close them.

Once a copy has been stopped it is finished. Copying that trader again starts a new copy, on whatever terms they are offering then. You can copy up to 10 traders at once, and a copy can run for up to two years if you set a term.

Fees, and what the trader earns

Copied trades are charged under the app's standard trading fee schedule, the same as any trade you place yourself. See the Fees & costs page for current rates.

The trader you copy can earn two things:

• A share of the trading fees on the trades their copiers place. This starts at 10% and rises to 15% for the most-copied traders, and is paid out daily.
• A profit share, if they have set one. Some traders take a percentage of the profit you realise copying them. Where a trader has set one you see the rate before you confirm, and that rate is fixed for your copy from that moment. If they raise it later, your copy keeps the rate you agreed. You can stop copying them at any time.

A profit share reduces what you keep. It applies to new profit only, measured against the highest level your profit with that trader has ever reached, and profit is counted after trading fees and funding. If you are down, none applies, and the same profit is not charged twice when you recover it. An amount properly applied is not refundable, and a later loss does not reverse it.

For example, at a rate of 10%: you are up $200 copying a trader, so $20 goes to them and the high-water mark is set at $200. You then give back $80, leaving you up $120, and nothing applies while the mark stays at $200. Later you climb to $260, so only the $60 above the old mark is new profit and $6 applies, not $26. The mark then moves to $260.

A profit share is measured separately for each trader you copy, not across your account as a whole, so it can apply for one trader over a period in which your account overall goes down. It is paid on gains and not on losses, which can give a trader an incentive to take more risk than they otherwise would. Markets does not set, endorse, review or assess any trader's rate, and a rate is not an indication of skill, quality or likely results.

FAQs

Does my money leave my wallet?

No. Copy trading is self-custodial. Your funds stay in your own wallet, Markets never takes custody of them and never handles them. Copied trades are initiated by your own wallet, under an authorisation you give it and can revoke at any time. That authorisation can open and close positions. It cannot withdraw, transfer or send your funds anywhere.

Can I lose more than I allocated?

Your allocation limits the margin committed to a trader at any one time, not the size of a loss. Copied trades use leverage, so a position is larger than the margin behind it, and losses are measured against the position. A market moving against a leveraged position can also liquidate it. Treat the allocation as how much you are putting to work, not as the most you can lose.

Will my copy be identical to theirs?

Close, but not identical. Your trade is placed a few seconds after theirs, so your entry price will differ a little, and in a fast market it can differ by more. Your position is scaled to your allocation rather than matching their size, and some of their trades may not copy at all.

Do I need to keep the app open?

No. The authorisation you give when you turn copying on is what lets your wallet act without you approving each trade, so copying continues whether the app is open, closed, or your phone is off. It also means trades are placed without you reviewing them one by one, which is worth being comfortable with before you start.

What multiplier will my copy use?

On Auto Copy, the same one the trader used on that trade, on isolated margin, so a copy of a 3x trade is 3x rather than whatever you last used on that market. On a one-off copy from a post, you pick your own.

Can I copy two traders who both trade Bitcoin?

You can copy both traders, but you can only hold one BTC position at a time. Whichever of them opens BTC first is the one you follow on it, and the other's BTC trade is skipped. The same applies if you already hold BTC from your own trading.

I am copying someone and nothing has happened. Why?

Usually one of four things: they have not opened anything new since you started; you already hold the markets they are trading; your share of their trades works out below the $10 minimum order; or your allocation is already fully committed. Remember that you do not inherit positions they were already holding.

What happens if I close a copied position myself?

It stays closed. It is not re-opened while that trader is still holding the position. If they close it and later open a fresh one on the same market, you copy that.

Does stopping a copy close my positions?

No. Stopping means no new trades are copied. Anything already open stays open and is yours to manage, including closing it, and the trader's exits no longer close it for you.

Can everyone be copied?

Most traders, yes. Accounts set to private cannot be copied, and you cannot copy yourself. Some markets are not available to copy.

Can I set my own take-profit or stop-loss on an Auto Copy?

Auto Copy follows the trader, so it does not carry your own targets. If you want to manage the exit yourself, copy a single trade from a post and set a target instead of leaving it on Auto.

How do I see what my copies are doing?

The Copies tab on your profile lists every trader you are copying, what you allocated, which markets are live and the profit or loss on each. Positions opened by a copy are marked as copies in your positions list, so you can tell them from trades you placed yourself.

Is copy trading advice?

No. Traders on Markets are not vetted, endorsed or recommended by us, and how a trader has performed in the past tells you nothing reliable about how they will perform next. The app lists, ranks, sorts and features traders, and shows figures about their trading. None of that is a recommendation, an endorsement or a rating by Markets, and it is not a statement that a trader or a strategy is suitable for you. Figures shown come from the records available to us, may be incomplete or delayed, and may exclude activity that happened outside the app. Copying is a decision you make yourself, and the outcome is yours.

Important notes

Trading with leverage carries a high risk of loss, including the total loss of the funds committed, and losses can happen quickly. Copied transactions are initiated automatically without you reviewing each one, and replication is attempted on a reasonable-efforts basis and is not guaranteed.

The behaviour, limits, rates and examples described here may change. The examples use round numbers to illustrate the mechanics and are not predictions, quotes or offers. Figures shown in the app always take precedence over this page. See the Terms of Use for the terms that govern copy trading, fees and payouts.