The great thing about online foreign exchange trading is that it democratises the financial markets. Once a field for professionals only, now thanks to online platforms such as eToro the currency market and its inexhaustible opportunities have been opened up to anyone interested in financial investment. However, many beginner traders still find their first steps in the currency market to be challenging, and are even tempted to quit after a string of a few bad trades. After all, it takes time to acquire the knowledge and the discipline to trade responsibly and to achieve a consistent success rate. However, in the busy rat race of modern day life, most of the people that get involved in financial trading simply don’t have the time or the patience to do so.
So what is a novice trader to do? Absorb the losses and try to slowly improve, or just give up the dream of a career as a financial trader? eToro’s groundbreaking OpenBook application makes sure that you don’t have to do either.
The idea behind eToro OpenBook is that trading expertise can be shared. There is no reason for every trader to go through the same teething pains when they begin trading currency when there is a entire community of expert traders who have already paid their dues and know how to make consistent profits in the market. By connecting traders with each other, OpenBook unleashes the power of social networks onto the financial markets and enables users to trade smarter together. It is a place of sharing ideas and collaboration, like a giant lab of creative thinking about financial trading. Online social networks have already proven the extent of the effect they can have on the way people go about their daily lives, and OpenBook is set to make the same revolution in the way people trade financial instruments.
The advantages that OpenBook brings to the inexperienced investor are enormous. Instead of fumbling alone in unknown territory, novice traders can look at more experienced traders as guides and follow them as they make their trading decisions. This means that they can learn and gain experience from watching expert traders make their moves in the market instead of learning the hard way – making mistakes that are often costly and completely avoidable.
Through OpenBook traders can see live trading feeds of the entire eToro trading community, follow particular traders and even copy trades automatically. With all due respect to the standard educational materials provided by online trading platforms such as books, tutorials and courses (all of which incidentally are also provided by eToro), nothing beats actual exposure to live trading in the markets. With OpenBook, novice traders are constantly exposed to unending flows of live trading activity, and they don’t need to risk any of their funds to gain this essential live trading experience because other traders are doing it for them. Better yet, they can start making profits by following successful traders and copying their moves before they even start the learning process.
The obvious question that arises is then how can I know which traders to follow? This is a very important decision since as an inexperienced trader you don’t want to follow someone who doesn’t know what he/she are doing. Fortunately, OpenBook makes the choice rather easy. In the financial markets, a trader is only as good as his/her profits, and so OpenBook provides live updated rankings of eToro’s top profiting traders. On the ranking page, you also have the option of choosing the period for which you want to see the top profiting traders (1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year), which basically means choosing between rising stars vs. seasoned veterans. The most profitable trader of the week may turn out to be a very lucky guy, but not someone you’d want trust with your own funds.
Another way of going about choosing which traders to follow is to have a look at eToro’s Market Leaders. This is a feature that gives FourSquare style badges to users who out-trade their peers, with leaders elected by country and by trading instrument. So for example, if you’re interested or more familiar with trading a particular instrument, for example EUR/USD, and you live in France, it would make sense to go to the Market Leaders page and find the top profiting EUR/USD traders from your area.
This is a very effective method of finding traders who are compatible with your personal trading style because you can automatically eliminate traders who trade instruments that you have no interest in trading. Why look through the profiles of traders who mainly trade indices when you only want to trade commodities? The added geographic categorisation of eToro’s market leaders can help you overcome language barriers if you want to get in touch with the trader personally. You may also prefer to follow a trader who is a market leader when it comes to the currency of his/her own country – for instance a Swiss market leader who is leading the field in trading the CHF.
Whichever is your preferred method of top trader spotting, you can always click on any trader’s user name to view their profile. This gives OpenBook users a better idea of each trader’s trading style and enables them to take a look at their statistics – the instruments they usually trade, the leverage they usually use, the success percentage of their trades, etc. By looking at a trader’s profile you can both determine whether or not this is a trader you want to follow and also learn about successful trading strategies.
The personal trader profile is also the gateway to getting socially involved in the investment network. It is through the profile that you can view and comment on the trader’s trades, see who they are following and who is following them, and add them to your friends list by choosing to follow or copy them. You can even start a discussion on the trader’s discussion wall where they can answer your questions, give you expert tips and advice, and generally share the wisdom they’ve gained from years of trading.
Finally, if you see that following a certain trader’s position brings you consistent profits, you can choose to use OpenBook’s CopyTrader feature to copy their trades automatically. With CopyTrader you can set aside as much as 20 percent of your funds to copying any one trader’s positions while maintaining full control of your trades and full transparency. You will still have control of any copied trade and you will be able to stop copying a trader’s positions at any time.
New dawn
This is an amazing revolution in currency trading, because now instead of currency trading, you can people trade – ie build your own dream team of traders to trade for you! In a way, through the CopyTrader feature, OpenBook users have the chance to instantly promote themselves to a managerial level position in which they no longer have to trade themselves, but spend their time managing their team of traders instead. Like any manager, the users can recruit traders, distribute responsibilities in the shape of the percentage of their balance they entrust to each trader, and even fire traders that don’t perform as well as they expect. Where else can you go from being a newbie to being the boss in a matter of seconds?
With so many features and options, the uses of OpenBook are virtually endless, and the greatest thing is that by coming together as an investment community, everybody wins! Novice traders get to use the knowledge of experts to their advantage and expert traders get rewarded for their followers with the soon to be launched Guru reward program. eToro OpenBook is a true revolution in financial trading and we have not yet seen the full potential that this one-of-a-kind social trading network can achieve.
For more information www.openbook.etoro.com
