How to invest in the stock,forex market using eToro (past three)

Monitoring your performance

Clicking on ‘Trading’ takes you to a whole new (and very important) part of eToro: the ‘WebTrader’.

This is the actual trading area and your nerve-centre. Here you can monitor all of your current open positions and close them, and also access a record of your trading history. This is what my WebTrader looks like:

My WebTrader showing Open Trades

All of your copied traders (and in fact any of your own investments) will be listed in your WebTrader. You can see your overall return on the investment in a trader, and also click on the person to see what positions they (and you) currently have open, and how these are performing individually. Usefully you’re able to close individual copied trades without uncopying a trader altogether.

Following users

It’s worth noting that you can also just follow traders (without copying or investing in them) so their updates show up in your news feed, as with Twitter. It’s a good way to gauge whether you think they’re worth copying and tune into useful information.
I recommend following @AnnieToro as she’s the eToro English community manager and is extremely knowledgeable and helpful.
If you become one of my followers or copiers (@misterg23) you’ll be able to write on my wall with any questions you may have. I’m always happy to help! I also upload trader review videos which people find useful.

Helping others out :)

Trading well yourself

Once you’ve familiarised yourself with the eToro platform and (hopefully) had some success copying other people, you can start thinking about placing your own trades.
The good news is that you don’t have to be a financial genius with decades of experience to make money trading yourself.
The bad news is that you do need to think a bit harder and do your research. Any shortcomings are squarely on you now!

I strongly recommend that you start by trading just stocks. Leave the commodities, indices and currencies alone for now as – trust me – these carry much more risk and higher costs.

Focusing your energies on the stock market also gets you used to the ‘WebTrader’ and the whole process of opening and closing positions without too much pressure. You probably have a fair amount of existing consumer knowledge here too.

Which stocks should you choose?

Well, that’s up to you partner. I cannot offer specific investment advice. All I will say is that it pays dividends to do your homework, read the news frequently and listen to earning announcements. Only invest in stocks or companies that you believe are in a strong and healthy position to resist market shocks, and ultimately have room to grow.
If you’re really serious, you might also want to read up on the price/earnings ratio to identify undervalued/overpriced stock. and sign in etoro
What I can do though is take you through the steps of placing a trade on eToro.

How to place a trade

Click on ‘Markets’, then ‘Stocks’, then ‘Sector’. Choose a sector, for example ‘Consumer goods’.
You will then be presented with a list of all consumer goods stocks tradable on eToro, along with their respective prices and change over the past day.

eToro markets

Let’s pretend we want to buy some Apple stock, say $50 worth. Just click on ‘AAPL’ (this is the ticker used for Apple on the stock exchange) to display a chart showing the company’s stock prices over the last year. You’re able to change the period shown down to the past week.

Apple stock price information

You will also see the ‘Live Feed’. This displays all the latest news and insightful discussions surrounding the Apple share price and the company’s activity in general.

Stock live feed

If you want to invest in Apple (on the basis that you believe the share price will rise over the medium/long term), click on ‘Invest’ in the top right corner.
Then enter the amount (eg. $50) and click ‘Select’. Note that the minimum amount you can invest in any stock is $10.

Placing a trade

Now all you need to do is confirm your trade to be placed, and that’s it! You’re now invested $50 in Apple

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How to invest in the stock,forex market using eToro (past two)

 

How to invest in the stock,forex market using eToro (past one)