About a quarter of VARIANSE's cTrader clients now use its built-in copy trading service, the broker said today (Thursday). It also described three strategy providers who each attracted between about $500,000 and $2 million in investor allocations.
The cases show a broker using copy trading to bring in clients. Traders publish strategies, while introducing brokers, educators and trading influencers send their audiences to them.
Spotware, which develops cTrader, runs a separate program that routes leads from its 11 million users to participating CFD brokers.
VARIANSE was founded in 2015 and signed a multi-year sponsorship with Southampton Football Club on September 3. Its copy trading service is offered through VDX Derivatives, regulated by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) of Mauritius.
Fee Models Across Copy Trading Services
Providers on cTrader Copy can charge performance, management and volume-based fees, alone or in combination. Performance fees follow a high-water mark. Investors pay only on new net profits.
Scope Markets launched Scope Copy on MT5 in August with performance fees of 10% to 50% and the same high-water mark protection.
STARTRADER extended its STAR Copy service from mobile to the web in March, with a $50 minimum for copiers.
Spotware has also widened the strategy pool. In April it connected cTrader to Pelican Network, which brings more than 9,000 live strategies from about 70 brokers to its brokers.
Three Providers, Three Routes to Investors
In the largest case, a strategy developer who did not want to build his own copy trading technology published a strategy with a public trading record. Within about three months it had more than 2,000 followers and around $2 million in allocations, according to VARIANSE.
"A good trader can become more than just a trader," said Thuba Jumba, head of sales at VARIANSE.
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A discretionary trader focused on EURUSD and GBPUSD took roughly six months to reach more than 900 investors and about $500,000. He combined strategy fees with a multi-level referral network built through the broker's partner program.
The third provider ran a semi-automated gold strategy. He already knew high-net-worth investors and raised about $1.2 million from them after setting up a strategy profile.
Average tickets differ. Based on the figures VARIANSE gave, the first strategy works out to roughly $1,000 per follower and the second to about $550 per investor.
Investor Controls
Yiota Hadjilouka, chief operating officer at Spotware, said the product was built around "giving traders more ways to participate in the markets on their own terms."
Investors choose how much capital goes to each strategy and can stop copying at any time. An equity stop loss halts copying and closes copied positions once the account falls to a level the investor sets.
The service is not offered in every country. According to the broker's risk warning, between 74% and 89% of retail CFD accounts lose money.
