How to monitor and close an investment

Once you have opened an investment under a strategy of your choice, it is a good idea to monitor it to see how the investment is performing.

To monitor your investments:

• Tap on the Portfolio icon in your Social Trading app.
• Under Copying, you will see a list of the strategies you are copying and their performance.
• Click on an investment to see details of its performance.
• On scrolling down, you will be able to set up or edit the Stop Loss and Take Profit parameters for the investment.

For details on setting up automatic stop copying features and alerts, refer to the linked articles.

If you wish to close an investment, follow these steps:

• Tap Stop Copying on the chosen investment.
• Click Stop Copying again on the prompt displayed, to confirm.
• You will see an on-screen notification to confirm the closure of the investment.

For more details on what prices an investment is closed at, read our article below.

How does the Copy Dividens feature work?

When a strategy provider withdraws some of their funds as profit from their strategy, Copy Dividends provide investors with a proportion of that amount as profit as well. Copy Dividends are automatically transferred from the investment account to the investor’s wallet. This allows investors to earn as a strategy provider does, and doesn’t limit these payouts to the end of the trading period or until the investor stops copying a strategy.

Important to consider with Copy Dividends:

• If a loss is reflected, the Copy Dividends will not trigger for the investor.
• Any stop loss or take profit settings changes will be updated after deducting the Copy Dividends (an example of this is provided later).
• Your set alerts will not be updated due to a Copy Dividend.
• Copying coefficient does not change after a Copy Dividend.

The amount of profit provided will depend on how much the investor has invested into the strategy, but for the following example, we will assume that the investor is committing 10% to copy a strategy.

Here’s how Copy Dividends works:

• A strategy provider has USD 1 000 equity within a strategy and a 30% commission rate set.
• An investor invested USD 100 in this strategy, so his copying coefficient is 0.1 (10%).
• The strategy provider makes a profit of USD 500. This leads to the investment calculating its profit: USD 500 * 0.1 = USD 50. The commission share of 30% is then calculated: USD 50 * 30% = USD 15 as the strategy provider’s commission. USD 50 – USD 15 = USD 35 as the investor’s total profit share.

The strategy provider’s choice to withdraw funds from the strategy account there are two possible Copy Dividends scenarios:

Scenario 1

• The strategy provider wants to withdraw only part of their profit from the strategy – USD 200.
• At the time of withdrawal, a Copy Dividend will award the investor with a payout of USD 20 (pending the commission rate of the strategy), which reflects the strategy withdrawal of USD 200 multiplied by the copying coefficient of 0.1.

Scenario 2

• The strategy provider wants to withdraw all his profit from the strategy: USD 500.
• At the time of withdrawal, the Copy Dividend will award the investor with a payout of USD 35 (after 30% commission calculations). Since the investor’s share of Copy Dividends is only USD 35 it is not reflected as an exact 10% proportional share.

How do Copy Dividends impact stop loss and take profit?

Stop loss and take profit settings will only be updated after deducting the Copy Dividend. An investor has USD 1 000 as equity, and set stop loss as USD 400 and take profit as USD 1 600. If their Copy Dividend amounts to USD 300 then the stop loss is adjusted to USD 100 and take profit becomes 1 300. Alternatively, if the Copy Dividend amounts to USD 500, stop loss would’ve been deleted altogether while take profit would’ve been set to USD 1 100.

When Do I pay commission?

You only need to pay commission to the strategy provider if you have made profits from copying his strategy in a trading period. If the investment makes losses, you do not pay commission until the investment’s profits of the subsequent trading periods exceed your loss.

Commission is deducted from the financial result of the investment at the end of the trading period.

If you choose to close your investment early, commission will be deducted when you stop copying. However, it will only be paid to the strategy provider at the end of the trading period.

Percentage of commission is set up by the strategy provider once a strategy is created and cannot be changed.

Can I copy more than one strategy at the same time?

Yes, you can copy more than one strategy at a time as long as you have sufficient funds available in your wallet. These, however, will be considered separate investments.

To know more about copying, read our article here.

Can I start/stop copying when the market is closed?

Yes, you can. With our latest release, we have introduced the ability for investors to start and stop copying a strategy (at the last available prices) when the market is closed.

Useful points to remember:

1. If a strategy does not have any open orders – you can stop or start copying at any time.
2. If a strategy has open orders only in cryptocurrencies – you can stop or start copying it any time because cryptocurrency trading is available 24/7.
3. If a strategy has open orders on other instruments and you are choosing to start/stop copying when the market is closed there can be two possible outcomes:

          a.If there are more than 3 hours until the market for these instruments reopens, the investment will be opened/stopped at last market prices.

          b.If there are less than 3 hours until the market for these instruments reopens, the investment will not be opened/stopped and there will be an error notification. You can start/stop copying after the market reopens.

Different instruments have different trading hours.
 

If I am copying multiple strategies, are they considered to be separate investments?

Yes, each time you hit ‘Open an investment’ on a strategy page on the application, you create a new investment.

Copying multiple strategies at the same time is possible. Each investment will have its own allocated funds and its own copying coefficient. Profits and commission are also calculated per investment.

Note: It is also possible to copy one strategy multiple times.

If I have multiple investments, how does one affect the other?

While it is possible to have multiple investment (in different or the same strategy), one investment doesn’t affect another in any way.

Each investment has its own invested funds, copying coefficient and copied orders. Profits made on an investment will be used for calculation of commission to be paid to the strategy provider for copying the strategy.

How do I stop copying a particular strategy?
 

These are the steps taken to stop copying a strategy:

1. Log in to your Social Trading app.
2. Find and select the particular strategy.
3. Once opened you will see an option to Stop Copying at the top of the main area.
4. Confirm the action and you will no longer be copying this strategy.

Possible scenarios when you stop copying a strategy:

• If an investment has any open orders: open orders will be closed by the current market prices, the copying action will stop.
• If an investment has no open orders: the copying action will stop.

Note: If you are choosing to stop copying when the market is closed (for example, during the weekend), there can be two possible outcomes:

• If there is more than 3 hours until the market reopens, the investment will be stopped at last market prices.
• If there is less than 3 hours until the market reopens, the investment will not be stopped and there will be an error notification. You can stop copying after the market reopens.

Auto-stop of Investments

If a strategy’s equity drops to 0, a strategy experiences a stop out. When this happens, the strategy will remain active giving the strategy provider opportunity to deposit more funds into it to continue trading. In this case, equity of existing investments in the strategy drop to 0 too and the copying coefficient is reduced to 0.

If a strategy provider makes a deposit and later trades, the investments will continue to reflect a 0 copy coefficient with 0 volume.

In order to avoid a lot of investments with 0 volume and a 0 copy coefficient, a strategy that has experienced a stop out will automatically close these investments within 7 days of the stop out. This is an automatic process designed to better reflect the true number of active investments in a strategy.

For more information about strategies, we recommend you read about what goes into a strategy for more information.

Can I close a specific order that was copied from a strategy I invested in?

No, when an investor starts copying a strategy, all orders made by the strategy provider in the strategy are copied in the investment followed. An investor cannot close some or specific orders within the investment, but can stop copying the strategy altogether to close all orders within.

A strategy is an account that records orders made by a strategy provider.

An investment is an account made when an investor starts copying a strategy.

For more information, follow this link for the starter’s guide to being an investor.

Why is my equity negative in my investment account?

If a strategy’s equity becomes 0 or less, all open trades in the strategy are automatically closed (this is known as stop out). Sometimes this change is bigger than the strategy’s equity at the time, so results in a negative balance for the strategy. When this happens, the strategy’s equity is reset to 0 by a specially scripted command, NULL_command.

When a strategy reaches a negative equity because of stop out, investments copying that strategy may reflect a negative equity as well. In this case, the investor should stop copying the strategy, so their equity in the investment can be reset to 0 by the same command, NULL_command.

Important: Exness does not take the negative results of a wallet balance into account after closing an investment, as the negative balance is compensated.

We recommend reading on the copying process for an investor for more information.

Are there any drawbacks to being an investor?

This depends on your own preferences, and style of trading, but there are a number of things to be aware of if you’re an investor:

• Commission: When your copied investments turn profitable, the commission rate set by the strategy provider is paid for out of the investor’s share of the profit. Commission is an essential incentive to strategy providers to make the best trades.
• Timing: It is possible for an investor to start copying a profitable strategy, but not make profit because the strategy did not grow while the investor was copying; this is due to the timing of the copy action made by the investor.
• Control: An investor has the ability to copy a strategy or stop copying a strategy – they have no control over the trades made by a strategy provider, and this may frustrate more hands-on traders.
• Risk Management: As an investor, you are not immune to risk and must consider your risk management strategies within the context of Social Trading. It is the responsibility of the investor to consider their own risk tolerance.

All of these drawbacks can be mitigated with good risk management, and careful consideration. We recommend reading more about what goes into a strategy so that you can better manage them.