In Social Trading, copying is a process where a strategy provider’s trades are copied to the investor’s account, after factoring in a copying coefficient.

Note: For Social accounts (Social Standard, Social Pro),  the copy coefficient is calculated when  an investment is created and  is recalculated at the end of the billing period and when the trader deposits into the strategy account. In both cases, investment orders will be closed at current prices and re-opened with a new volume corresponding to the recalculated copy coefficient. 

For Pro accounts, the copy coefficient is calculated individually for each new order, while the coefficient for previously opened orders is not recalculated and they are not affected..

Read more on calculating the copy coefficient for a strategy.

Copying scenarios

Let us look at a few scenarios an investor may encounter:

1. Start copying without open trades:

An investment is created and a strategy does not have any open trades at that point in time. 

For Social Accounts: Once copying starts, the system calculates a copying coefficient. When the strategy provider opens a trade, the trade is immediately copied to the investment account at the same opening price with this copying coefficient.

For Pro accounts: The system calculates the copying coefficient when the strategy provider opens a trade. The trade is then copied to the investment account at the same opening price with this copying coefficient.

2. Start copying with open trades:

An investment is created and a  strategy has a few open trades at this point in time. 

For Social accounts: Once copying  begins, the system calculates a copying coefficient. In this case, the copying coefficient is calculated differently because it also includes the spread cost of the strategy provider’s open trades.

Trades already open are copied to the investment account.

• If the market is open, orders will be copied with the current market price which may be different from the opening price of the trades on the strategy provider’s side.
• If the market is closed, and there are more than 3 hours until the market re-opening for the instruments on which there are existing open trades, orders will be copied onto the investment using the last market price.

Note: If  there are less than 3 hours to market re-opening for the instruments on which there are existing open trades, the investor will not be able to start copying. Copying will be available once the market is open.

For Pro accounts: Trades that are already open at the start of copying are not copied to the investment account. Only new trades opened by the strategy provider after the investment is created will be copied

3. Stop copying with no open trades:

If an investor chooses to stop copying a strategy with no current orders on a strategy, the investment will be closed. The system calculates the performance fee and transfers funds from the investment balance to the investment wallet. The performance fee calculated will be sent to the strategy provider at the end of the billing period.

4. Stop copying with open trades:

If an investor chooses to stop copying a strategy while there are still open trades:

For Social accounts:

• If the market is open, the orders on the investment account will be closed with the current market price as the closing price.
• If the market is closed, and there are more than 3 hours until the market re-opening for the instruments on which there are existing open trades, orders will be closed using the last available market price.

Note: If there are less than 3 hours to market re-opening for the instruments on which there are existing open trades, the investor will not be able to stop copying. Stop copying will be available once the market is open.

For Pro accounts:

• If the market is open, the orders will be closed with the current market price as the closing price.
• If the market is closed, the orders will be closed once the market opens.

The system then calculates the performance fee and transfers the funds from the investment balance to the investment wallet. The performance fee calculated will be sent to the strategy provider at the end of the billing period.

5. Subsequent copying after opening an investment

When the strategy provider opens new trades, they will be immediately copied to the investment account using the same opening price as that of the strategy provider. This also applies when the strategy provider closes an order, the order will also be closed on the investment account with the same closing price. The copying coefficient used for calculation is the actual copying coefficient, calculated and updated according to the copy coefficient formula.

Example

Let’s take a look at an example to illustrate how copying and copy coefficient works:

A strategy provider has 500 USD in a trading account.

• Investor 1 invests 1,000 USD
• Investor 2 invests 1,500 USD

For Social accounts: 

Copy coefficient (K) = equity investment / (equity strategy + sum (open master orders spread cost))

For Pro accounts: 

Copy coefficient (K) = equity investment / (equity strategy + master order spread cost)

If the SP opens an order of 2 lots, let us calculate how it will be copied to each investment: