Openbook

Auto Forex-Trading with eToro OpenBook and CopyTrader

A risky but lucrative business, ForexTrading yields rich dividends for traders who take time to study the market and play by the rules. With Openbook – the new platform from eToro and its latest feature Copytrader, Auto Forextrading is now believed to be easier for pros as well as for fresh entrants in the domain.

What is Auto ForexTrading?

It refers to ForexTrading with automated trading platforms. The application does the job of a trader by monitoring the market status and making sound technical analysis. It also informs traders about the best points of entry and exit based on a sound analysis of past and present market data and monitoring the latest financial trends. The platform does all this round the clock without any apparent human assistance.

These days, various companies that provide Auto-Forextrading apps have come into existence. Built with utmost precision, most of these apps allow easy trading in foreign currencies. These help traders manage multiple accounts simultaneously, trade at any time of the day and monitor various currency pairs at the same time.

What is eToro?

It is a financial trading firm headquartered in Cyprus. Launched in 2007, it works jointly with some of the most successful Forexbrokers around the world. Although not a financial broking firm itself, it provides third party brokerage services to Forextraders. It connects traders with different brokers. It also provides them with stock indices, commodities and personal financial services online through a self-created electronic trading platform. The company is, first and foremost, a provider of Forextrading software apps and platforms.

Openbook is one of the most popular Auto-ForexTrading platforms from this firm.

Openbook Platform � An Overview

The term “Openbook” is quite popular in the financial industry. It refers to the aggregate volume of all latest trades the status of which is updated and displayed on real-time. Openbook from eToro is a social trading platform that lets its users gain valuable knowledge and insight about the market. It also allows users to follow another trader and track his/her activities thus learning from the process and making improvements. It can also let other eToro users track your activities and become your followers.

Using Openbook Platform

Individuals who sign up with eToro are automatically registered with its Openbook platform. They can gain complete access to the platform and use its various features, which comprise of:

Keeping real-time tabs on the activities of other traders
Find and follow the traders, based on preferences
Imitating various trading activities

Once you start using Openbook, your trading activities will be published and analyzed automatically. Although you can use the application with a Practice account, your profile and activities will only be revealed once you start trading in actuality. The platform updates all data automatically and constantly. In most cases, you can view live activity feed that has been updated in real time. The activities of traders you follow (filtered feed) is accurate at all times and displayed real time.

The platform is similar to the micro-blogging website Twitter and behaves in quite a similar fashion. As in Twitter, you have to click on the user-name of a trader and click on the “Follow Me” button to add that trader into your “Following” list. Once you have done this, you can sign into your Openbook account; choose “Friends” from the various feed options displayed on the top of the page. This will allow you to view the activities of the trader you have added into your Friends list. The Friends list is supposed to comprise of the profiles of all traders whom you find to be the most profitable in the Openbook network.

The application also follows Facebook closely. Just like in the Mark Zuckerberg social networking site, you can view the previous activities of a trader as also who they follow and who they are being followed by. You can also take a quick glance at the profits and losses of a particular trader at his Profile section. It contains a brief view of the risks taken by the person, profit percentage and transaction trends.

The Profit and Loss movement of the person is also displayed through a detailed line graph. It contains the trading patterns of the individual through a pie chart that covers a period from 1 week to 1 year. The chart contains the market behavior as well as risk appetite of the user. The chart also displays average holding time and rate of purchase direction for a particular trader.

The interface automatically displays trade details as long as you remain logged into the application. With Openbook, your trading activities basically consist of copying traders, modifying your lot size as per each copying activity and setting your own profit/loss amounts.

Openbook Features

Some of the most popular features of the Openbook are:

Market Leader

This allows you to currency pairs and spot the individual who has been making the most profitable trade during a particular period. For ex, you can check which trader has Euro-USD as his choice of currency pair and has managed to trade most profitable in the last three months or more. You can even find the geographical location of that trader according to a particular region, country or continent.

Copy.me

The latest feature of Openbook, it lets investors and traders identify the traders who perform the best and are recommended the most in the eToro community. Much like in online shopping, you can buy traders and assign a specific amount to each of them. Once you “shop” for them, you can copy from them. You can add them to your basket and pay via Paypal or through your credit card. This feature helps create a public investment portfolio in the easiest manner.

CopyTrader

It is a highly interesting feature that lets you copy the actions of several traders automatically. The feature follows a simple process known as See, Follow and Copy. The process almost works as if you are hiring a trader to work for you and watching the progress of his actions.

Advantages of Openbook Platform

Some of the key advantages of this trading software can be summed up as follows:

It provides you, the eToro user, with live trading feeds of the activities of other traders on the network
It helps you analyze and compare your trading patterns and performance with those you follow
It allows you to engage with other eToro users
It helps you achieve a loyal fan following on the network
It provides you with past and present trading activities of any trader you choose to follow
It lets you know which currencies have been exchanged
It lets you view the top traders and also communicate with them
It helps clients view the rate of success of traders and approach them on the basis of their profitable transactions

Earlier, users could know what percentage of trading population were making transactions on a particular pair. However, they were unaware of the percentage of success of these trades. Openbook highlights the trading results of various individuals thus allowing you to guess the success or failure of a particular trade. Although it is not a completely surefire system, the live feed of individual traders in Openbook gives traders a valuable insight into various styles of trading. It also lets them harness the skills of thousands of traders across the globe. The user-friendly interface of the app is easy enough to be understood and operated by first-time users as well as aged professionals in the field.

Disadvantages of Openbook Platform

A major disadvantage of this system is the possibility of risk. Although risk is minimal with this platform, it is not possible to determine the possibilities of whether or not you will have a successful trade. When it comes to investing, nothing can be guaranteed. There is always room for human error where your analysis and choice of currency comes to the forefront. In times of volatility, even a slight delay in trading on your part can badly affect your transactions.

However, Openbook is a perfect learning tool for people who are not so good or have only begun trading in Forex. For pros in the field, it works as an intelligent resource that lets them watch the activities of other traders and learn from them. The various features that the application offers gives a clear idea that the makers of eToro platforms want their users to make money as quickly as possible from their online trades. The more you spend time with this tool, the more you are going to learn about it as also the ways by which you can conduct trade.

Copytrader � An Interesting Openbook Feature

Launched in 2011, Copytrader is an interesting feature that makes Openbook a complete trading platform. It lets users understand the activities of other traders; learn from their trading patterns and copy-paste their successful actions. This powerful feature allows users to imitate others’ trading activities with a single click.

Using Copytrader

It is very easy to use this interesting Openbook feature. People fresh into Forextrading or having little knowledge about the domain can use the application very comfortably. Here is how to use the application:

Choose a trader to copy
Set the amount
Copy the trader’s activities and manage your profile

The eToro Openbook provides its users with a number of options to select the most appropriate traders for them. Firstly, you can use the Openbook rankings which rate traders on the basis of their performance during a particular time period. The ratings can depend on your chosen parameters. It seems to be a wise move to choose traders who have the highest percentage of winnings during the period. However, this approach does not only display the trader’s ability to analyze the market. It does not take into account the ability of that individual to capitalize on the movement of the financial market.

Once you have zeroed in on a trader, click over the button named as “Copy Trader” and copy him. Determine the percentage of the money of your account that you wish to assign to the trader you copy. According to experts, it is best to use only a small percentage of your account (about 5%) on a trader that you are beginning to copy. You may consider increasing your margin once the trader proves reliable as per as profit is concerned. In order to promote responsible and profitable trading, CopyTrader allows you no more than 20% of your account to set on each trader you copy. It minimizes possibilities of risk for you and also ensures diversity in your trading and investment portfolio.

Once you have copied a trader, you can click on the “View My Trades” button and view his/her trading activities. You will be able to view every new activity of the trader on a real-time basis. CopyTrader helps you execute trades in less than a second from the time of trade of the trader you copied. With this unique feature, you can open and close identical trading positions at the very instant your chosen trader makes a transaction.

If you want to stop copying the person, you can do that by closing the CopyTrader row on your trading platform.

Although CopyTrader allows you to imitate the successful actions of another trader, you have to do it with caution. Firstly directly copying the trade details of another person would be unwise. Secondly, the trader you copy may have an account larger than yours. Incompatible account sizes will affect your overall trade. That is why, you have to change the lot size and put your own profit/loss amounts once trade details are displayed into your interface.

CopyTrader is available on live as well as demo accounts on eToro social trading network. This helps first time users, usually novices, try out the platform without a risk of losing money in reality. Incidentally, eToro offers first time users of its platform with a deposit bonus that is as much as $10,000. This works as a big encouragement for all fresher users in the online trading community of eToro.

Advantages of Copytrader

This powerful feature of the Openbook platform offers multiple advantages to users:

It helps people who do not have enough time or knowledge to deal in online Forextrading.
It allows real-time copying of the successful actions of top traders, investors and brokers
It updates data after every three minutes
It allows users to configure the setting to display the percentage of traders that they want to be displayed
It lets you copy up to five investors at a particular point of time
It allows round-the-clock trading and allows business to be conducted at any time of the day
It is a free service and comes with an eToro registration and a minimum deposit of $300

If you are a new trader and want to learn the ropes from pros in the field, CopyTrader simply allows you to do that. While freshmen in the field can pick up the tricks of the trade by imitation, even experienced professionals can gain a greater deal of accuracy by observing the actions of top Forextraders.

One of the major advantages of Copytrader is the fact that it allows you to imitate successful actions of real people. You can be assured that the transactions are being conducted not by an automated system but absolutely real people who have no other intention but making money for themselves. You can rest assured that you are putting faith on the intuitions and trading strategies of successful traders who are only driven by their own ambition and hope for making a profit. This makes your trades a safer bet, particularly if you are new to ForexTrading. With Forexrobots or paid trade agents, you are always likely to be less sure about the services.

Disadvantages of Copytrader

Along with numerous advantages, the feature has also some disadvantages. To begin with, it allows you to engage in fewer trades than you ideally should have. You may also risk money if you do not follow the trends too closely. There is also a possibility that you may not develop your own trading skills and rather fall back on imitating activities of successful traders every time you want to trade. The fact that you can pick the strategies of a top trader every time can make you lethargic to conduct your own research. You can be reluctant to come up with your own trading strategies and putting them at work.

The eToro OpenBook is undoubtedly an innovative platform that brings together Forextraders and investors from nations across the globe. It is neither revolutionary nor a surefire application. But it has got enough features to be the first choice for novices as well as pros in ForexTrading industry. The platform has been awarded with the prestigious “2010 Most Innovative Trading Platform” as well as “Best of Show” from Finovate Europe 2011. With good reason!

To start using eToro openBook click below:

For more info about eToro go to etoro review or www.eToro.com