New trading innovations and social media platforms: Part 4

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Alpari TraderConnect

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Rather than taking the route of setting up a proprietary social platform, Alpari has taken the approach of offering a social add-on to their existing online trading platforms and the popular Metatrader platforms. This makes it remarkably easy to set up and integrate into your existing trading activities.

Once you are signed up, you can share your insights and signals with others on the network. Each trader has a profile with their statistics on it to help others on the network determine whether they are worth following and/or copying, or not. One of the main advantages of this platform is that it has advanced user analytics to help traders to review their activities to determine where they are going right and wrong.

Tradeo

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This is a broker-independent social trading platform, which means that you can use it with any broker, although it does have some preferred or ‘Gold Choice’ partners. Traders can see the trades of the signal providers they wish to follow, and can also link their accounts to theirs in order to copy their trades automatically, in much the same way as on platforms such as eToro’s Openbook or ZuluTrade.

Where Tradeo stands out is in its overlaying of social trading signals onto the range of charts and graphs on the platform, allowing you to see these activities in a graphical context. Also, it allows traders to have multiple active accounts, which gives greater scope for diversifying their strategies and more choice to those looking to follow them.

FX Copy

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Like Tradeo, FX Copy is a broker-independent social trading platform, although it is owned by Enfinium, whose Enfinium and Vantage FX brands are heavily promoted to users of the platform. At the moment, it works only as an add-on for the popular Metatrader 4 platform, but there are plans to add bridging connections to other trading platforms in the near future.

Using the service, traders can follow, interact, and learn from other trades, copy the trades of the most successful traders on the network, view detailed statistics and analysis of the performance of every trader, execute trades directly from the platform in real-time, and see live rates, activity feeds, and community open positions.

It is free to join, and anyone can sign up and start sharing their trades or viewing the trades of others. However, if you want to use the auto-copy feature, you need to be signed up with GO Markets, Vantage FX, or Enfinium.

eToro OpenBook

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Having pioneered both social and copy trading, eToro are still leading the way in terms of social trading innovations. In keeping with the approach of their other platforms, eToro’s OpenBook is aimed at simplifying the process of trading and making it accessible to a wider market than the majority of trading platforms.

As a result, things are kept basic – such as the information about the traders you may be copying – and this makes it perfect for those who do not want to be swamped in charts and statistics. It’s fully integrated with eToro’s WebTrader platform and brokerage service, which all but eliminates problems such as slippage or pricing variations that can occur when using a multi-broker social trading platform. While more experienced traders may prefer a multi-broker platform with a higher level of detail, eToro is perfect for people who are just starting out in trading and investing, offering a gentle learning curve and an intuitive interface.