What is copy trading?

Copy trading is a way of automatically mirroring another person's trades in your own account. When the trader opens, changes or closes a position, the follower's account can do the same automatically, usually based on a chosen allocation or position size.

It is often grouped together with social trading, but the two are not the same. Social trading can simply mean discovering, discussing or sharing trades with other people. Copy trading goes a step further by automatically reproducing another person's trading activity.

How does copy trading work?

A user chooses a trader to copy and sets how much capital they want to allocate. From that point, eligible trades made by that trader can be reproduced automatically in the follower's account.

The follower usually controls the overall allocation and can stop copying, but they do not need to approve every individual trade.

What are the risks of copy trading?

Copy trading puts a lot of decision making in the hands of the person being copied. If they make a bad trade, the people following them can be exposed to the same decision at roughly the same time.

Actual entry and exit prices can still differ because of market movement, liquidity and execution. Copying someone also means relying on their decisions instead of reviewing every trade yourself.

How is Tribes different?

Tribes is built around shared ideas, discussion and individual execution. Someone can share a Call with a Tribe, explain their thinking and trade it themselves. Other members can choose whether they want to join, but every person chooses their own position size, confirms their own entry and controls their own exit.

Tribes is not a copy trading product. A shared idea can become many individual positions, but every person chooses their own entry, size and exit.