# Anyone using in Etoro



## Quotealex (Aug 1, 2010)

From my understading, it is a micro brokerage firm with an investment social media site that allows you to copy the exact same trades of other members. I'm looking at some of the gains some members are making and I must say that I'm impressed with their performances.

As anyone used that brokerage firm? if so, I'd like to hear your comment on this service.


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## wendi1 (Oct 2, 2013)

Um. Before sending these guys any money, why don't you google "etoro sucks". 

You will get some unvarnished opinions. And while you're at it, google "surviorship bias".


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

2-minute google. Forex trading. Head office in cyprus. Unknown owners. Send them any money? _Copy.their.trades?_ haha


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## GoldStone (Mar 6, 2011)

You can do simple things that will make you wealthy.

or...

You can do complex things that will not make you wealthy.

An example of the former: Be a saver. Be a couch potato. Let time and compounding do their magic.
An example of the latter: Chase hairbrained ideas like Etoro.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

GoldStone said:


> You can do simple things that will make you wealthy ...
> 
> Be a saver. Be a couch potato. Let time and compounding do their magic



nae nae laddie, tis na the couch that gave ye such a fortune.




> [the Goldstone family TFSAs on 13 jan/2014:]
> 
> Mine: $54,586
> Hers: $56,299



i know it'll kill you to have to admit it
but the devil himself was picking right bonnie stocks in those accounts
they were never couch potatoes


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## GoldStone (Mar 6, 2011)

humble_pie said:


> but the devil himself was picking right bonnie stocks in those accounts


Not stocks. Stock. One stock. I was lucky enough to come across a small-cap stock that looked incredibly cheap and incredibly misunderstood by the market.

Those two accounts were quite small 3 years ago when I bought the stock. Just a small part of the overall portfolio.

Couch potatoes are allowed to have fun too. With a small % of their boring portfolios.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

actually i am very happy for you & for your wife. Those results are superlative. Your own account is up 64% year over year.

but gold you can't keep going on & on with a straight face about how it's only play money. This is serious money now.

it looks like your couch potato days are over. Please never darken the forum again with the CP words or else - alas - you risk to be labelled a hypocrite forevermore.


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## GoldStone (Mar 6, 2011)

Yes, it's serious money now. I sold 60% of the stock position that got us to this point.

BTW, I invested last year's 11K into another small cap that looked incredibly cheap. I lost 20% in a matter of weeks. I got out to lock an unclaimable loss. The stock lost another 30%. Small cap stock picking to boost TFSA is all fun and games, but it ain't a reliable foundation for building wealth.


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## richard (Jun 20, 2013)

I use etoro - for entertainment. When I see one of their ads I have a good laugh then I keep going.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

GoldStone said:


> Small cap stock picking to boost TFSA is all fun and games, but it ain't a reliable foundation for building wealth.



one could debate forever.

pembroke management in montreal has delivered small cap investing to 3 generations of high-net-worth families plus pension funds & other investors through their flagship canadian equity fund for nearly half a century ... 

then there's wil wutherich of steadyhand's small cap fund (actually a small to mid cap) ...

plus christine decarie with her blockbuster 16-year canadian small-cap index ... these are just a few names from one burg that say you maybe not-so-right ...

i for one think a blended approach is good. I happen to fancy a nice broth of options as well. What you're not seeing are the couch potatoes in the tfsa front ranks. They'll never be there.

& let us not start about how they'll never bring up the rear, either. We don't teach our children to avoid the rear by never competing. We don't tell them to never sit for exams because they might fail.


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## richard (Jun 20, 2013)

humble_pie said:


> i for one think a blended approach is good. I happen to fancy a nice broth of options as well. What you're not seeing are the couch potatoes in the tfsa front ranks. They'll never be there.
> 
> & let us not start about how they'll never bring up the rear, either. We don't teach our children to avoid the rear by never competing. We don't tell them to never sit for exams because they might fail.


Out of everyone in the country who is over 18, how many have a TFSA that is bigger than a couch potato who made maximum contributions? I'm sure there's some stats that can tell us what percentile they end up in. I'll be teaching my children to count the results, not the methods  (especially if the method might look like hard work)


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

^^^^

I'm not sure who would have the stats and be willing to pass them on ... not to mention who would want to extract the stats to publish it.

IAC - some of the approximations that are easily as at hand are:

a) MoneySense TFSA contents where at beat, two of the seven top "might" be couch poatato types but it would be seem a stretch.
http://www.moneysense.ca/save/tfsa/the-great-tfsa-race

b) Financial Posts large TFSA series has none of seven.
http://business.financialpost.com/tag/tfsa-bragging-rights/

c) there's a CMF TFSA thread ... I wanted to check it as I recall few posts from couch potatoes. I would think that CMFs thread would be the best proxy as it attracts people who are interested in investing plus are more likely to make a priority using the TFSA contribution room. From what I recall of the thread, the cp stype was under represented.


If you can think of a good place to get the stats/results - that's great.


Just bear in mind, that your criteria of "made maximum contributions" is restricting your sample size.

As of a survey written about in Jan 2013 - only 47% of those who had a TFSA contributed in 2012.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/glob...l-underused-sorry-mr-flaherty/article7416281/

At 47% making contributions of 47% having a TFSA for an estimated population of 35 million - the extremely optimistic number would be something like 7.7 million. It's likely a lot lower as making a contribution is not necessarily that same as the maximum contribution for that year (or having used the previous year contribution limit). 


This Dec 2013 indicates the number of Canadians with TFSAs is growing but the average contribution $3,625 suggests there's a lot of unused contribution room out there.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/glob...t-many-hazy-on-details-study/article16053061/


The articles also raise the issue of where to get reliable stats as the first article claimed 47% of Canadians have a TFSA, an Aug 2013 article quoted the same 47% but the second article claims 48% towards the end 2013, up from 23% in 2012. So unless tons of people opened TFSAs in late 2012, the numbers appear suspect.


Cheers


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## richard (Jun 20, 2013)

Eclectic12 said:


> Just bear in mind, that your criteria of "made maximum contributions" is restricting your sample size.


The criteria of "picked a stock that went up 100%" restricts the sample size a lot too. 

I happened to keep US indexes in my TFSA, so based on my experience a couch potato today could have around $31,000 to $38,000 in the TFSA. I just want to know what percentage of eligible Canadians have more than that so I can see how far behind the front ranks I am and whether I failed the test


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

richard said:


> The criteria of "picked a stock that went up 100%" restricts the sample size a lot too.


Since I'm not aware of anyone making that restriction - I don't see how it could. Where the restriction is in place, it will restrict the sample size. And just like the "max'd out contributions" restriction - I'd expect a lot of people's experience would be arbitrary filtered out.




richard said:


> I happened to keep US indexes in my TFSA, so based on my experience a couch potato today could have around $31,000 to $38,000 in the TFSA.
> 
> I just want to know what percentage of eligible Canadians have more than that so I can see how far behind the front ranks I am and whether I failed the test


 ... at least twenty ... though as you say, without some way to get numbers - it does not tell us much about the bigger picture.

Cheers


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

richard said:


> Out of everyone in the country who is over 18, how many have a TFSA that is bigger than a couch potato who made maximum contributions? I'm sure there's some stats that can tell us what percentile they end up in.


i don't know of a single authority that could keep stats like that. I mean, it's impossible.

me i believe that almost everyone who has a TFSA is a winner. The few exceptions are those whose account balances are below the total contributions that they have injected. 

these are the parties who could profitably reflect - in fact they should reflect imho - upon the well-known benefits of a passive couch potato strategy.

but everybody else with even a smidgen of tfsa gain is a winner.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

Regarding Etoro these guys attend same trade shows as Gambling Programs and try to get these same affiliates to work for them ,Based on that I would consider them a gamble and not something I would get myself into .So many groups like this online and now the Binary Options are also crazy.


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## dsaljurator (Jan 12, 2012)

If you're interested in getting exposure to the forex market through copy trading you should check out Currensee, who were recently purchased by OANDA. You can't currently use Currensee with OANDA's canadian division, but that will likely change as the integration of the two companies get's further along, unless it's not already enabled for regulatory reasons or something. The fee's are a little crazy to me, but if i was interested in getting exposure to forex, the way that they do it at Currensee seems like a much better model than what they are doing at etoro.


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## GoldStone (Mar 6, 2011)

humble_pie said:


> one could debate forever.


Indeed. One of us is very stubborn and loves to argue. each:



humble_pie said:


> pembroke management in montreal ... then there's wil wutherich of steadyhand's small cap fund


I think I failed to communicate my point clearly. I said that small cap stock picking is not a reliable foundation for building wealth. By that I meant DIY heavily concentrated bets. My concentrated bet worked beautifully for me... once in a row. I don't expect to pull it off repeatedly. My second bet lost 20%.



humble_pie said:


> What you're not seeing are the couch potatoes in the tfsa front ranks. They'll never be there.
> 
> & let us not start about how they'll never bring up the rear, either. We don't teach our children to avoid the rear by never competing. We don't tell them to never sit for exams because they might fail.


This thread is about Etoro, not CP. I never said that CP is The One And Only Right Way To Invest. Please kindly refer back to my post #4. I mentioned CP as an example of a simple strategy that reliably builds wealth. An example. I could have used a different example. Blue chip dividend investing works for many. The key message was, choose simple strategies that work. Avoid complex strategies that don't work, e.g. Etoro.


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## fxturtle (Oct 28, 2012)

From what I see, Etoro have very wide spreads compared to other brokers. I am with Pepperstone.


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## eToro Team (Jan 23, 2014)

*Spreads*



fxturtle said:


> From what I see, Etoro have very wide spreads compared to other brokers. I am with Pepperstone.


Hi Guys,

Glad to see this conversation here. People talking and making investment decisions in a social way. It's exactly why we've made the eToro Opebook Social Investment Network. :encouragement:

In response to your comment fxturtle: The network is completely free, as is copying the investor of your choice. So our spreads are on the upper end or the industry standard in order to cover the added value costs.

If you're looking for first hand experiences of people using eToro, you can also try the people who are already on that network. Also feel free to contact me personally, my username in eToro is @Matisyahu3.

Best regards,
Mati Greenspan
eToro Team


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

omg who let the Toro in ??

another sign that market froth has gone over the top.


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

GoldStone said:


> I was lucky enough to come across a *small-cap stock that looked incredibly cheap and incredibly misunderstood by the market*.....part of the overall portfolio.....Couch potatoes are allowed to have fun too. *With a small % of their boring portfolios. *




But when others are lucky in their riskier strategies, or having fun as you call it, or even just explaining [not promoting] a method different from cp, you are always critical. 

There was this man that turned $20K [a 'small % of his boring portfolio'] into $300K+ with just 2 stocks, in what might also qualify as having been 'small-caps that looked incredibly cheap and incredibly misunderstood by the market.' 

*Your response:* 'Did MoneySense profile anyone who reduced their TFSA to zero, by making all-in bets on penny stocks?'

http://money.ca.msn.com/investing/m...tfsa-race-the-dollar300k-penny-stock-investor

Not sure who let the bull in, LOL. :chuncky:


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

.
*toro! toro!*


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## rourkem (Aug 17, 2014)

I have tried this actually. Their demo account looks nice. I'm currently trying their Openbook system, which will allow you to copy a trader doing his thing in real time.


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## rourkem (Aug 17, 2014)

Is anyone else using their OpenBook system currently? I was just looking for some feedback please.


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