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Markets remain cautiously optimistic on the US-Iran ceasefire holding. Stock markets around the world have enjoyed a few days of solid buying pressure, lifting the Dow Jones index back into the green for the year and all but erasing the war-induced dip on the S&P 500. Intel Corporation (INTC) blasted higher over the last couple of sessions after Google (GOOG) announced plans to expand its partnership with the chipmaker, committing to using several generations of Intel chips to power its AI ambitions. The Nasdaq Composite index and S&P 500 have now achieved seven consecutive days of gains and are both within 5% of their respective record highs. Asian Stock markets have similarly reversed course, with the Nikkei 225 up almost 7% so far this week and the Korean Kospi index boasting a 9% gain since last Friday. Crude oil prices have showed some degree of stability over the last few days, with the Brent and WTI benchmarks both sitting around $97 per barrel, although the situation on the ground is far from ideal. Saudi Arabia has reported that recent attacks carried out against energy infrastructure targets have reduced the Kingdom’s oil production by 600,000 barrels per day. Officials also confirmed a strike against the East-West Pipeline, which up until this point had served as a release valve for Saudi oil unable to leave via the normal routes. Kuwait has likewise reported fresh drone strikes against its energy facilities, as have other countries in the region, despite the ceasefire. Yesterday’s PCE Price index released in line with expectations, with headline year-over-year inflation remaining at 2.8% and the core index ticking down to 3.0% in February from 3.1% previously. Traders only have a few more hours to wait before US CPI data drops later today, marking the end of the week’s scheduled events. Interest rate traders are currently pricing in a near-zero percent chance of a rate hike during the next Fed meeting on the 29th of April and continue to fall in favour of a rate hold until the end of the year. By and large, markets are in standby mode, waiting for the next catalyst to provide a direction as the situation in Iran remains unresolved. #CEASEFIRE #INTEL #CPI
Most losing trend trades start the same way. The direction was right; the timing was not. A trader spots a rising market, buys near the top of the move, then watches a routine pullback stop them out before the trend carries on without them. Getting the direction right is only half the job. This guide covers the whole sequence: how to tell whether a market is rising, falling or going nowhere, how to confirm it with moving averages, RSI, ADX and MACD, and how to plan the entry, the stop and the exit before the trade goes live. A trend trading strategy means trading in the direction the market is already moving: buying while price prints higher highs and higher lows, selling while it prints lower highs and lower lows, and standing aside when it does neither. Read the direction from price structure and a moving average, check the strength with ADX, then enter on a pullback and exit when momentum turns. You are reacting to evidence, never forecasting a turn. The routine only becomes yours once you run it on a live chart, so pick one pair and walk it through this week, on a demo account if you prefer. Trend trading is a strategy that buys or sells in the direction of the market's existing movement instead of predicting where it will turn. In forex trading, that means going long while a pair keeps making higher highs and higher lows, going short while it makes lower highs and lower lows, and staying flat when it does neither. The trend trader's job is not to call the top or the bottom; it is to recognise the direction already underway and ride the middle of it. It is also one of the oldest documented ways to trade. AQR's research paper A Century of Evidence on Trend-Following Investing tracks the approach back to 1880, and industry estimates put the money run this way by hedge funds and CTAs in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Whatever else trend following is, it is not a gimmick. On the EUR/USD daily chart, the picture I look for is plain: price holding above a rising 50-day average, each swing low forming higher than the last. That is a trend worth following, and everything later in this article builds on reading exactly that. Read more：Best trading strategy guide: What every trader needs to know The main reason traders choose trend trading is that the logic asks so little of you. You do not need to forecast anything; you need to observe what price is already doing and act in the same direction. That single shift removes most of the guesswork that burns beginners. Three practical benefits follow from it: In my experience the difference shows up in how a position feels. A trade entered after the trend has proven itself is a calmer thing to hold than a falling knife caught on a hunch, because the market has already voted your way once. The honest trade-off: following means arriving after the start, so you will enter late, and some signals will fail. Trend traders rarely win most of their trades. The edge lives in the size of the wins against the losses, and I will put numbers on that further down. Reading direction is the first step of the whole strategy, and a few working habits beat memorised definitions. These four are the ones I actually use. Before anything else, pull the chart out to the daily or weekly view, and switch to a line chart if the candles are cluttering your read. The lower timeframes are full of reversals that mean nothing one level up. I once spent a fortnight trading EUR/USD off the 15-minute chart, convinced the pair was choppy and directionless; on the daily it had been in the same quiet uptrend the entire time. The higher timeframe sets the direction. The lower one only times the entry. Read more：How to Read Forex Charts for Traders The core read is how the swing points migrate. Higher highs with higher lows is an uptrend. Lower highs with lower lows is a downtrend. Highs and lows overlapping inside a band is a range, and no indicator changes that verdict. In the EUR/USD run I keep returning to, the swing lows stepped up through 1.1462, 1.1531 and 1.1604, each one holding above the last. That staircase is the trend; everything else is confirmation. Connect the successive lows of a rise, or the highs of a fall, into a single line. While price keeps respecting that line, the trend is intact and pullbacks toward it are entry territory rather than a reason to panic. A clean break of the line is often the first warning that the direction is changing, arriving well before any indicator says so. On the same EUR/USD chart, one line under those three swing lows told the story faster than any oscillator on my screen. The most expensive habit in trend trading is finding trends that do not exist. Earlier this year EUR/USD spent six weeks stuck between roughly 1.1380 and 1.1450. I talked myself into two breakout longs inside that band and paid 19 and 26 pips to relearn an old lesson: when the highs and lows overlap and the averages go flat, the market is ranging, and the honest read is no trend at all. Standing aside is a position. A whipsaw is a sharp move in one direction that quickly reverses, triggering entries or stops on both sides. Whipsaws are most common in ranging markets and are the main cost of trading a trend that was never there. Once I have read the direction from the chart, four indicators do the confirming, and each has one fixed job: moving averages set the direction, ADX scores the strength, RSI and MACD read the momentum. None of them predicts anything. They confirm what the structure already shows, and I want at least two of them agreeing before money goes in. What follows is the strategy-level use of each. Parameter tuning and deeper mechanics belong in the dedicated indicator guides. Read more：The best forex indicators every trader should use in 2026 A moving average smooths the price over a set period to reveal the overall direction. Price holding above the average leans bullish, price below it leans bearish, and the line itself often behaves as dynamic support or resistance where pullbacks stall. In the shared example, the rising 50-day average sat underneath the entire climb, catching each dip before the trend resumed. RSI measures momentum on a scale of 0 to 100, showing whether price has stretched too far, too fast in either direction. For a trend trader its main use is reading whether the current leg still has fuel or is due a pause. One warning from experience: in a strong trend, RSI can sit in the overbought zone for weeks. Selling a healthy uptrend just because RSI printed 70 is one of the classic beginner errors; in trending conditions that reading is often simple strength, and the midline matters more than the extremes. ADX measures the strength of a trend, not its direction, on a scale of 0 to 100. A rising reading says the move has force behind it; a low reading says the market is drifting. That distinction is the filter that keeps trend traders out of ranges. The rule I actually trade by: readings above 25 mark a trend worth following, and below 20 I treat the market as ranging and wait. During the EUR/USD climb, ADX held at 31; through the six-week range that whipsawed me, it never got past 17. The indicator was telling the truth both times. MACD compares a short and a long moving average to read momentum and trend change. It is built from three parts, the MACD line, the signal line and the histogram, and its job in this strategy is confirmation: telling you whether the trend you are riding is still accelerating or quietly running out of road. Trend trading is a sequence, not an indicator sitting on a chart. The order matters: read the direction, wait for the entry, fix the risk, manage the exit. Here is the sequence with the numbers from the EUR/USD example running through it. Read the direction from the swing structure and the moving average, then score the strength with ADX. On the example chart the case was complete: swing lows stepping up, price above a rising 50-day average, ADX at 31. Direction unclear or strength below the threshold means the trade is to wait, and that answer comes up more often than beginners expect. One selection note: major pairs such as EUR/USD tend to trend more cleanly than exotics, with fewer false signals, so learn the routine there first. If you are still finding your feet, start with the beginner's guide to trading forex before adding a strategy on top. Chasing a trend that has already run is how good analysis becomes a bad entry. After confirming the direction, wait for price to come back to you: a dip to the rising average or a support level, or a momentum signal resetting, RSI turning back up through the midline, a fresh MACD cross. In the example, EUR/USD pulled back to the 50-day at 1.1573, held it for two sessions, and I bought at 1.1581. Not the bottom of the dip, and that was fine; the plan never required the bottom. A pullback is a temporary move against the prevailing trend, such as a dip within an uptrend, that pauses the move without breaking its structure. Trend traders use pullbacks to enter at better prices in the direction of the trend. The stop goes where the trend's structure breaks, and it is chosen before the entry, never after. For the example trade that was 1.1528, just under the prior swing low, making the risk 53 pips. Size then follows from the stop: risking £100 on a £10,000 account, one per cent, the stop distance worked out to about 0.19 lots. The order matters here too. Structure sets the stop, the stop sets the size, and no step runs backwards from the profit you would like to make. Read more：What is a stop-loss order and how to set it This is the part most guides skip, and it is where the money is actually made or given back. My routine is to trail the stop under each new swing low as the trend steps higher, then exit on evidence of the trend weakening: price closing below the 50-day average, MACD crossing back down, RSI falling through 50. In the example, that combination arrived after the pair topped at 1.1727, and I closed at 1.1694 for 113 pips. The exit gave back 33 pips from the peak, which is normal. A trend exit trades the last scrap of the move for confirmation that the move is over. Yes, but not in the way most beginners expect it to. Research from AQR Capital Management puts the historical win rate of trend-following strategies at roughly 30% to 40%. The strategy is profitable across a century of data anyway, because the average win is much larger than the average loss: losses are cut early at the structure break, winners are left to run, and a handful of long trends pays for the crowd of small failures. The institutional record backs the arithmetic. Trend following has been run at scale by hedge funds and CTAs for decades, through markets that buried plenty of flashier ideas, which is about as strong an endurance test as a strategy can pass. The honest entry requirement is psychological. Most of my trend trades lose a little; a few win a lot, and there is no way to know in advance which is which. If you need to be right often, this strategy will grind you down. If you can accept being wrong often and paid rarely but well, it works. Trend trading endures, but three things catch people over and over, and no amount of indicator stacking removes them. Here is each one, with how I limit it. A reversal turns the trend around and leaves with-trend positions on the wrong side of the market. They cluster around fading momentum and major data releases; a number like the US CPI can flip or fake a trend inside a minute. My limits are mechanical: the stop sits at the structure break so a reversal ends the trade rather than the account, and around major calendar releases I cut size or stand aside entirely. Every indicator in this article is computed from past prices, so every signal arrives late by construction. In a slow trend that lag is a fair price for the confirmation; in a fast reversal it means the exit signal can fire long after the best exit has gone. The limit is to never trade the indicator alone: price structure, the swing points and the trendline, moves first, and the indicators are there to agree with it, not to replace it. A false breakout pokes through a key level, triggers the entries waiting there, then snaps back inside the range. They are most common in sideways markets, which is exactly where my two failed longs in the spring came from. The limit is patience at the level: wait for a close beyond it, or the retest that holds, instead of buying the first push through. Missing the rare genuine breakout by a few pips costs far less than funding every false one. Trend trading is a strategy that involves capturing gains from an asset's momentum by trading in the direction it is already moving, whether up, down or sideways. Rather than predicting reversals, trend traders read the direction from price structure and use indicators such as moving averages and ADX to confirm the trend and its strength before entering. Research from AQR Capital Management indicates that trend-following strategies have a historical win rate between 30% and 40%, challenging the common belief that they succeed most of the time. The strategy stays profitable because the average win is far larger than the average loss, so the edge comes from asymmetry rather than accuracy. There is no single most profitable formula. The durable core is reading the direction with moving averages, entering with the trend on a pullback, and protecting profits with a trailing stop that exits when the trend reverses; profitability comes from executing that sequence consistently. Zoom out to the higher timeframe, where a new trend forms first, then drop to a lower timeframe to time the entry on a pullback. Checking that ADX is rising helps filter out ranging conditions that fake early trends. There is no single best timeframe; it depends on your trading style. Position and swing traders read daily and weekly charts, short-term traders work from hourly charts, and signals are most reliable when the direction agrees across timeframes. The concept is simple but the execution is not. The hard parts are waiting for a real trend, sitting through frequent small losses and exiting decisively when the trend reverses, so the skill that gets paid is discipline rather than prediction. Trend trading comes down to trading the direction instead of the forecast. Moving averages set the direction, ADX scores the strength, RSI and MACD read the momentum; the entry waits for a pullback or fresh confirmation, and the exit fires when the trend visibly weakens. The edge is asymmetry, many small losses against fewer, larger wins, so the win rate will never look impressive and never needs to. The indicators only confirm what the swing structure already shows, and discipline does the rest. Run the sequence on a demo account until reading the staircase of highs and lows feels routine, then trade it small. The chart has to justify every trade; the strategy just automates the follow-through. The RADEX MARKETS editorial team consists of seasoned financial professionals and market observers. Dedicated to delivering objective market summaries, macroeconomic insights, and educational content, the team strives to keep traders well-informed in a fast-paced financial environment. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning: Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment. Related concepts:
The United States and Iran have agreed to a two-week ceasefire, suspending a planned bombing campaign that would have targeted large swathes of Iranian infrastructure. Financial markets have been quick to react this morning, with crude oil prices plummeting below $100 per barrel and Asian stock markets undertaking a bold push higher. Brent Crude is now hovering around $95 per barrel, while WTI, in a rare inversion, is currently trading at a slight premium at $96 per barrel. Oil markets are currently in a situation known as backwardation, meaning shorter-dated contracts are more expensive than longer-dated deliveries because markets expect the ongoing conflict to be resolved by the summer months. Coupled with different expiration dates for the two benchmarks, with WTI currently trading the May contract and Brent having already rolled over to the June contract, the reason for the premium in American oil becomes clear. Markets are predictably bullish going into today’s session, with the Nikkei 225 quickly rising 5% and the Korean Kospi index surging over 6% upon hearing the news. Futures for the Dow Jones and S&P 500 are 2% in the green, while Nasdaq futures are currently up over 3%. Precious metals continued their ascent, tipping gold above $ 4,800 per ounce and lifting silver 5% higher to $77 per ounce. Currencies are reacting equally strongly, with foreign exchange flows now fleeing the safety of the US dollar. The Euro came within a hair’s breadth of $1.17 earlier today, while the Pound was able to reclaim $1.34. The yen and Korean won both leapt higher, the latter gaining almost 2% against the greenback, erasing four weeks of losses in the process. Even cryptocurrencies are finally showing a degree of interest in world affairs, with Bitcoin rising up to $72,000 per coin and reaching a three-week high. While the conflict in Iran will undoubtedly continue to dominate the news cycle, traders would do well to keep an eye on a few key economic releases in the latter half of the week. Given the market closures around the Easter holiday, last Friday’s NFP release was understandably muted, despite surprisingly upbeat figures. US payrolls increased by 178 thousand in March, almost triple the expected figure of 60 thousand, while unemployment ticked down to 4.3% from 4.4% the month prior. The Fed will now have to grapple with the other side of the coin on Thursday with the release of the PCE price index, which is expected to show inflation holding steady at 2.8% YoY in February. The release precedes CPI figures on Friday, which are predicted to show a sharp uptick to 3.3% in March. The FOMC minutes from the latest meeting are scheduled for release later today, but so far FedWatch is not showing any signs of anything other than a rate hold at the end of the month. #CEASEFIRE #OIL #GOLD
If you are new to the world of trading then soon enough you will come across someone talking about risk on/risk off, but what exactly does this mean and how does it affect how the markets behave? Let’s dive into this and explain in layman’s terms all about risk on/risk off. Risk-on vs risk-off is a concept used in forex trading to describe whether investors are actively seeking risk or avoiding it. It reflects the overall mood of the market, which is one of the most powerful forces behind price movement. Markets are not purely driven by logic or data, they are driven by human behaviour, emotion, and expectations. When traders feel confident, they look for higher returns and are willing to take on risk. When uncertainty appears, they quickly shift focus toward protecting capital. In simple terms: This shift between risk-on and risk-off explains why: Forex is not just about currency pairs; it’s about global capital flows. When sentiment changes: If you understand risk sentiment, you understand why markets move—not just how they move. In forex trading, risk-on means traders are buying riskier assets, while risk-off means they are shifting into safer ones. Let’s strip this back even further. This is when: Investors are far more willing to take risks to earn higher returns. This is when: Investors prioritise safety over profit. Imagine you get a promotion at work, extra money for you and your family: Your workplace is laying jobs off: You are the same person but with a completely different mindset; the markets work in the same way as in any real-life scenario. A risk-on market occurs when investors are confident about economic growth and are willing to take on more risk to achieve higher returns. Everybody likes a risk on type of market. Currencies that typically strengthen: These currencies are tied to: When the global economy is doing well, these currencies benefit. Currencies like USD, JPY, and CHF often weaken because: Risk-on markets are not just about growth; they are about confidence in the future. Even if conditions are not perfect, if traders believe things will improve then the markets can still rally. A risk-off market occurs when fear, uncertainty, or negative news causes investors to reduce risk exposure. Often new traders can get caught out as they are not aware of the markets movements and we often see a sideways markets just before a risk off sentiment change. Currencies that strengthen: During risk-off: This creates strong, fast moves in forex markets and can catch unsuspecting traders out. Not everything behaves perfectly. Sometimes: This is where experience matters. If in doubt sit on your hands and watch and learn. These currencies are influenced by: They don’t always follow the script, which is why traders need context. Markets don’t randomly switch direction - there are clear triggers that influence a trend switch. One of the strongest drivers: Liquidity drives everything, but it’s often overlooked by beginners so make sure you look at this carefully. Now let’s bring this into the real world and have a look in detail at the recent crazy events going on in the world and see how this affected the markets. Geopolitical tensions created: Market Reaction: What we see here is classic risk-off behaviour. Oil rising sharply creates a mixed environment: Markets don’t always behave cleanly espeically with such fast moving news driven markets. Investors moved capital away from riskier economies. Result: Despite risk-off conditions and many traders’ expecting gold to rise sharply the opposite happened: Why? The lesson here is that in extreme markets, even safe assets can fall. Forex is connected to: Even if only trade the forex markets understanding correlations across other markets improves your trading decision-making. OK, so let’s look at some real-life examples of how to trade risk on/risk off markets. Risk-On Risk-Off Sentiment shifts quickly so have a browser open with a reputable news outlet where you can monitor up-to-date world news. Check: Best approach: Trying to trade against sentiment is risky and soul destroying. Don’t go there, I have the t-shirt and scars to show for it! The market will beat you up and will always win. Avoid this at all costs. Sometimes: Markets are not always predictable. Adaptability is essential. Don’t feel pressured into entering risky trades, you will get burnt if you do. Most trading losses come from misunderstanding context, not from the charts you look at. Understanding risk-on vs risk-off helps you: It gives context to everything. Risk-on vs risk-off is one of the most powerful frameworks in forex trading and if you understand how it works, then the more successful trader you will become. Not because it predicts the future but because it explains the present market conditions. Markets constantly shift between: Your job as a trader is quite simple: Identify which one is in control and trade accordingly. Or: It describes whether investors are seeking risk (risk-on) or avoiding it (risk-off), which influences currency movements. USD, JPY, and CHF are considered safe-haven currencies because they tend to rise during uncertainty. Geopolitical events, economic downturns, and market shocks typically trigger risk-off behaviour. Yes, sentiment can change rapidly based on news or economic data. No, it’s a framework used to understand market behaviour.
Over the years, I have met plenty of beginners who want to trade but lack the time to watch charts, or the experience to make sense of them. Copying an established trader can sound like the obvious solution, but it also raises sensible questions: is it legal, how does it work, and does anyone else control your money? Many traders claim to be good traders, but this is a results game and surprisingly there are not too many traders out there willing to share their success. This guide explains how trades are replicated in your own account, the UK regulatory framework, the risks and potential returns, and the practical steps required to get started. Copy trading links your account to another trader so their positions are replicated automatically, normally in proportion to the funds you allocate. It lowers the entry barrier, but it does not guarantee a profit, the trader's losses are copied just as faithfully as their winners, and UK users should choose a firm with the appropriate FCA authorisation. The FCA generally classes automated copy trading as portfolio or investment management. Before risking real money, consider running a complete copy-trading cycle on a demo account to see how the process works in practice. Copy trading is a method of trading that links your account to another trader's account. When that trader opens, adjusts or closes a position, the same action is carried out automatically in your account, scaled according to the funds you have allocated. Your money remains in your own brokerage account, and you can pause or disconnect the copy relationship at any time. The experienced person being followed is commonly called the lead trader, strategy provider or signal provider. The person copying them is known as the follower or copy trader, although the term "copy trader" is sometimes used for both sides of the relationship. Copy trading is also described as automated trading or mirror trading, but they are not quite identical. Mirror trading usually replicates a predefined strategy or algorithm, whereas copy trading follows the decisions of a particular trader. A copy trader can mean either the follower whose account automatically replicates another person's trades or, less commonly, the lead trader whose positions are being copied. The intended meaning normally depends on the context. Social trading allows you to view other traders' positions, results and market discussions, but you still decide which trades to place yourself. Copy trading sits within the broader social-trading model and automates that final step by replicating the selected trader's positions in your account. In short, all copy trading can be considered a form of social trading, but not all social trading involves automatically copying trades. Read more：What is forex trading? How it works for beginners Copy trading works by connecting your brokerage account to a selected strategy provider. The platform then converts that trader's actions into proportionally sized positions in your account. The process normally follows five stages: The main difference between the two columns is where the final decision sits. Automatic copying prioritises speed and consistency, while semi-automatic copying gives you the opportunity to accept, reject or adjust each proposed trade. Copy-trading providers may receive a fixed subscription fee or a percentage of the profits generated by their followers. Your total cost can therefore include the spread, commission, overnight funding and any provider fee. These charges must be deducted when judging expected returns; a strategy that looks profitable before costs may be far less impressive afterwards. Copy trading is widespread in forex because currencies trade around the clock during the working week and can produce frequent price movements. This creates plenty of opportunities, but it also means copied positions may open while you are away from the screen. Leverage makes the allocation particularly important. If the provider uses aggressive leverage, you are copying more than their chosen currency pair, you are also copying their risk level, scaled into your account. Read more：What Is Leverage in Forex and How Much Should You Use? Copying trades through contracts for difference means you speculate on an asset's price without owning the underlying currency, share, commodity or index. The copied positions remain subject to the same leverage, margin requirements, spreads and overnight funding charges as any other CFD trade. Copying changes who makes the initial trading decision. It does not remove or reduce the normal costs and risks attached to CFDs. Suppose a strategy provider has a £10,000 account and you allocate £2,000 to copy them. Your allocation is equal to 20% of the provider's account, so each eligible position is scaled to approximately 20% of the provider's trade size. The provider opens a one-standard-lot EUR/USD buy position. Based on proportional scaling, your account automatically opens 0.20 lots. For this example, we will assume that one standard lot of EUR/USD has an approximate pip value of £8 after currency conversion. At 0.20 lots, your pip value would therefore be around £1.60. If EUR/USD rises by 50 pips before the provider closes the position, your gross result would be £80. Now suppose the provider charges a 20% share of profitable copied trades. The performance fee would be £16, leaving you with £64 before accounting for the spread or any other brokerage costs. Pip values fluctuate with exchange rates, and the precise copying method can differ between platforms. This example is intended to show how proportional scaling works rather than predict an exact result. The calculation works identically when the trade loses. If EUR/USD falls by 50 pips instead, your copied position loses approximately £80. A profit-share fee would not normally be charged on that losing position, although spreads and other trading costs would still apply. Copy trading replicates the complete outcome, not just the provider's profitable trades. Read more：What is a pip in forex trading? How to calculate and use it Copy trading can make the markets more accessible, particularly for beginners who lack the time or confidence to trade independently. Its value, however, comes from the practical features of the system rather than any promise of easy profits. Copy-trading platforms allow you to observe how an established trader selects markets, sizes positions and responds to changing conditions. Because their previous trades and performance record are usually visible, you can compare their decisions with the results instead of relying on promotional claims alone. Once copying is active, eligible trades can be opened and closed without you watching the market continuously. You still need to review the account and the provider's behaviour, but you are not required to sit in front of charts waiting for every entry and exit. Copy trading removes some of the early technical work involved in identifying and executing trades. A beginner can gain practical exposure while learning about position sizes, drawdowns and market behaviour, although copying should support education rather than replace it. Most established platforms publish information such as historical returns, maximum drawdown, number of trades and average holding time. These figures make it easier to compare providers using measurable evidence, although past performance can never guarantee future results. Read more：TOP TRADERS You may be able to follow providers who specialise in currency pairs, commodities or indices that you do not yet understand well enough to trade independently. This can broaden your market exposure, but it should not be mistaken for diversification if several providers are taking similar positions. In my experience, every one of these benefits rests on one very important condition: you must have chosen the right person to copy from. Copy trading is legal in the UK when the service is provided through a firm with the appropriate Financial Conduct Authority authorisation. The FCA classifies fully automated copy trading as portfolio or investment management when trades are executed without further input from the account holder, which means the service provider must meet the corresponding regulatory obligations. If you must approve every trade manually, the regulatory classification can differ. Before opening an account, check the firm's name, Firm Reference Number and permitted activities using the FCA Firm Checker or Financial Services Register. Make sure the contact details and website address match, because fraudulent firms sometimes copy the names and credentials of authorised businesses. Promotions promising guaranteed returns, unusually consistent profits or an opportunity that supposedly carries little risk should be treated as serious warning signs. The FCA specifically advises consumers to be cautious when an investment sounds too good to be true or creates pressure to act quickly. Where copied positions involve CFDs, UK retail protections apply in the same way as they would to positions you selected yourself. These include: These protections reduce certain risks but do not prevent trading losses. They also depend on your account being held with the correctly authorised entity; opening an account through an overseas branch may place you under a different regulatory framework. Within these UK rules, the next step is understanding how to choose a platform, assess a trader and set up your first copy allocation. Getting started involves more than selecting the trader with the highest recent return. The platform, provider, allocation and exit conditions all need to be decided before the first position is copied. Begin by checking that the firm has the appropriate regulatory authorisation for the service it provides. For UK traders, verify the legal entity and its permissions through the FCA rather than relying on a badge displayed on the platform's website. Compare the platform using practical criteria: The full broker-selection process is covered in our guide to choosing a forex broker, but regulation and control over your copied positions should be the starting points. Read more：RM SOCIAL A high return over several weeks tells you very little about how a provider behaves across different market conditions. Ideally, look for at least 12 months of visible trading history, while recognising that an even longer record offers more evidence. Pay particular attention to: The first figure I check is maximum drawdown. Returns show what the provider has made; drawdown gives me a much clearer idea of what I may have to endure to pursue those returns. Allocation means deciding how much of your total trading capital one provider is allowed to control through copied positions. Never allocate the entire account to a single trader, regardless of how polished their performance chart looks. For example, someone with £5,000 of trading capital might begin by allocating £250 to £500, around 5% to 10%, to one provider. The appropriate amount depends on personal risk tolerance, platform minimums and the provider's historical drawdown, but a small initial allocation gives you room to observe real execution without placing the whole account at risk. Once activated, the platform monitors the provider's account and replicates eligible trades according to your allocation. Entries, adjustments and exits can then take place automatically, even when you are not logged in. You should still set two safety rails yourself: These limits should reflect your own risk tolerance, not the provider's preferences. Their account size, financial circumstances and ability to absorb losses may be completely different from yours. Copy trading does not require constant screen time, but it is not a set-and-forget investment. Check the account weekly for unusual positions or changing risk, with a fuller monthly review of performance, costs and drawdown. Consider pausing or disconnecting when: One losing period does not automatically mean a strategy has failed. However, if the provider changes their behaviour or breaches your predetermined risk limit, hoping they recover is not a monitoring plan. The beginner's copy trading checklist is a final review to complete before allocating money to any provider. Work through every row and answer it with evidence; if you cannot complete one, that is the part of your preparation that is not ready. Start with regulation by checking the precise company that will hold your account. A familiar trading name is not enough; it must match the authorised legal entity and contact details shown by the FCA. Next, examine the provider's track record. Look beyond headline returns and confirm that the history covers different market conditions rather than one recent winning run. The maximum drawdown shows the largest fall from a previous account peak. Compare it with the loss you could tolerate without panicking, interfering with positions or abandoning the plan halfway through. Your allocation determines how much damage one poor provider can do to the wider account. Set the amount as a controlled share of your capital and avoid increasing it simply because the first few trades happen to win. Calculate the full cost of copying, including the spread, commission, overnight funding, subscription charges and profit share. These deductions can create a meaningful difference between the provider's displayed return and the result that reaches your account. Finally, write down your exit plan before copying begins. It should state the drawdown, strategy change or risk increase that will cause you to pause or disconnect, along with what will happen to positions that remain open. The checklist may look conservative, but every row corresponds to a way I have watched beginners lose money. Copy trading transfers another person's decisions into your account, but it does not transfer responsibility for the result. The following risks should be considered before any provider is selected. Copying can encourage you to depend entirely on the provider instead of understanding what they are doing. If their strategy deteriorates, you may continue following simply because you do not have enough knowledge to recognise the change. Unexpected news, interest-rate decisions or geopolitical events can move markets faster than positions can be adjusted. A provider who normally trades conservatively may still suffer several losses in quick succession, and each one will be replicated in your account. Read more：Forex Volatility: Measuring and Trading Currency Pair Swings Fully automated copying allows positions to open and close without your individual approval. Unless you set allocation limits and a copy stop-loss, your account may take on more exposure than you realised while you are away from the platform. Technical failures, delayed signals and differences in execution can prevent your position from matching the provider's result exactly. Slippage or a missed exit may therefore leave you with a larger loss, or smaller profit, than the one shown in the lead account. A provider may change markets, increase leverage or abandon the method that produced their previous record. Your account then becomes exposed to a different strategy from the one you originally agreed to copy. Copy trading is easy to market as effortless income because the automation is real: you can follow someone without analysing and executing every trade yourself. The misleading part is the suggestion that automating the process somehow makes the underlying decisions profitable. There is no reliable, market-wide statistic showing what percentage of all copy-trading followers make money. Platforms cover different products and calculate their results differently, so a narrow study or promotional figure should not be presented as a universal outcome. What we do know is that copy trading through CFDs remains exposed to the poor outcomes associated with leveraged retail trading. FCA rules require CFD providers to publish the percentage of their own retail accounts that lose money, and the prescribed warning states that the vast majority of retail CFD accounts lose money. That figure relates to each broker's CFD customers, not specifically to copy-trading followers, but it provides a more honest reference point than social-media screenshots. If a promoter guarantees returns, promises a fixed monthly income or claims that losses are impossible, stop before depositing anything. Check the firm independently through the FCA Firm Checker and treat pressure to act quickly as another warning sign. This risk list is not intended to warn everyone away from copy trading. It focuses your attention on the two links in the chain that remain under your control: choosing the person and sizing the allocation. Read more：10 Forex risk management tips every trader should know Yes, copy trading is legal in the UK when it is offered by a firm with the appropriate Financial Conduct Authority authorisation. Fully automated copying is generally treated as portfolio or investment management, as explained in the Copy Trading in the UK section. Copy trading can be profitable, but neither the provider's previous results nor the copying system guarantees that it will work for you. Fees, slippage, allocation, market conditions and the timing of your participation can mean that a profitable provider produces a much weaker, or negative, result for a follower. Platform minimums vary, with some services allowing an initial allocation of roughly £50 to £200. The more important question is what percentage of your total trading capital the amount represents; a beginner might initially allocate only 5% to 10% to one provider rather than concentrating the whole account. Copy trading is high risk when it involves leveraged forex or CFDs, and substantial losses can occur quickly. Provider decisions, leverage, fees, slippage and platform failures can all affect your account, so review the Risks of Copy Trading and complete the Beginner's Copy Trading Checklist first. Screen providers using measurable criteria, including the length of their visible record, maximum drawdown, leverage and typical holding period. The Step 2 screening list provides a fuller breakdown but remember that a recent hot streak is not evidence of persistent skill. Yes, you can normally break the copy link at any time and either close the existing positions or take control of them manually. Decide your disconnection conditions before copying begins rather than trying to invent them after a loss. Copy trading automates trade execution, but it does not remove the need for judgement. I still regard choosing the provider, sizing the allocation and setting the disconnection conditions as the follower's responsibility. In the UK, copy trading is legal when offered through a firm with the appropriate FCA authorisation, but profit is never guaranteed and the provider's losses are copied just as faithfully as their winners. Before committing money, work through the beginner's checklist and make sure you can explain every decision you have made. I would then run one complete copy-trading cycle on a demo account before considering whether to risk real funds. As I said at the start of this article, finding a good trader who is successful and is willing to share their trading is not as easy as it sounds. Many traders claim to be good but in reality, they are not. Do your research, check their results before deciding to copy anyone's trades. Lee W. is a seasoned professional trader with over 10 years of experience. Passionate about sharing valuable expertise and unique market insights, Lee W. now serves as an external and independent market analyst for RADEX MARKETS. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning: Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment. Related concepts:
The gap between Brent Crude and West Texas Intermediate has suddenly collapsed. Seaborne oil contracts hit highs of $118 yesterday but have since fallen to just $100 per barrel as of this morning, compared to prices of around $97 per barrel for WTI. The abrupt correction follows comments from President Trump on Tuesday suggesting that hostilities between Iran and the US may indeed be drawing to a close. The remarks match those delivered by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to the EU yesterday, in which the leader stated his country had the “necessary will to end this conflict, provided that essential conditions are met”. Over the last five weeks, the spread between the two benchmarks has served as a general marker for the severity of the ongoing conflict in Iran; the fact that the war premium has all but vanished is significant. Yesterday marked the end of Q1, so it was as good a time as any for US stocks to rally, and rally they did. In one of the most upbeat trading days of the year so far, the Dow Jones gained over a thousand points on Tuesday, gaining 2.5% over the course of the day; the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite meanwhile rose 2.9% and 3.8% respectively. It was a brutal quarter for all three indices, but yesterday’s performance considerably softened the blow. The jubilation carried over into Asian stock markets this morning, with the Nikkei 225 rising 4.5% and the Korean Kospi index surging over 7% by lunchtime. No new developments have yet emerged to contradict recent positive developments and US futures remain cautiously in the green as a result. In another sign that escalation in the Middle East may have halted, precious metals enjoyed their best day in weeks on Tuesday. Gold gained over $150 to reach $4,668 per ounce, while silver managed to reclaim $75 after a 7% rally. While gold prices are still more than 10% below pre-conflict levels, and silver is closer to 20% down over the same period, both metals have finally established a degree of positive momentum upon which to build. Over in the foreign exchange markets, the dollar made a significant step down from recent highs yesterday, pulling the DXY back below 100 and giving major currencies some long-awaited breathing room. The Korean won spiked all the way to 1,530 for a brief moment yesterday, representing a 6.5% depreciation against the dollar in March, before the Korean government passed a currency stabilisation bill which was able to lift the won back to more reasonable levels. The yen has similarly come down from recent highs, falling back under 159 yen per dollar last night. Finally, cryptocurrencies continue to exhibit a shocking lack of interest in international affairs, with Bitcoin remaining around $68,000 per coin at the time of writing. An April Fool’s joke perhaps. #BRENT #IRAN #GOLD
