Online platforms for trading stocks and forex have been around for years. More recently, platforms dedicated to so-called social trading emerged, which allow users to view the trading portfolios of others, much like the way one views friends’ profiles on Facebook, and to copy the moves of selected investors. This is all happening as social media in general is growing. Now, many of the non-social trading and investment platforms are adding social features like copy trading. For example, FXGrow, run by Cyprus-based Growell Capital, recently collaborated with I.S. Signal Trader to offer copy trading. This trend of trading sites partnering with copy trader platforms is only expected to grow. A copy trader platform allows users to set a portion of their portfolios to follow selected investors, copying everything from when and what they buy and sell to what stop losses they use. Traders whose moves are copied usually earn a commission from the platform. Most platforms also have certain standards that copy traders must achieve before they can be copied, and often assign risk scores to the traders that are open for others to copy, in order to help minimize losses. Like anything in the investment world, loss is always a risk. Copy trader platforms have soared, however, in popularity when it comes to forex trading because they allow new traders to get the wisdom and advice that was previously only available through financial advisors and other services, often for a high price. Most copy trader features also work on platforms that are trading CFDs, or Contracts for a Difference, which are tradeable instruments reflecting the changes in the assets they are based on, such as stock or currency prices. Because users are trading CFDs on these platforms, rather than the assets themselves, there is also more room for flexibility, including opportunities for leverage, and for binary options, through which users hedge on whether an asset will rise or fall in prices. Many see copy trader platforms as epitomizing the democratization and increased access that is happening all over the financial world, due to new technology that has changed the way people do banking, investing and other activities involving money.
FXGrow has collaborated with IS ##P Trader to offer mirror trading to its clients . The move follows a recent trend by social trading companies offering social trading functionality to their platforms .