Beginner · 10 min read
How to choose a trader worth copying
The biggest mistake new copiers make is sorting the leaderboard by 12-month return and copying the top name. High headline returns often come from high risk — and high risk eventually produces the drawdown that erases the headline. Professional allocators evaluate managers on a very different checklist. You should use the same one.
1. Maximum drawdown: the number that predicts your pain
Max drawdown is the largest peak-to-trough fall in the trader's history. It answers the question: if I had copied at the worst possible moment, how much would I have been down? A trader making +60% a year with a −45% max drawdown is not conservative — you would have needed nerves of steel (and most copiers bail at the bottom, converting a temporary drawdown into a permanent loss).
Rule of thumb: only copy a trader whose historical max drawdown you could genuinely sit through without panic. If seeing your $5,000 become $3,500 would make you exit, don't copy anyone with a 30% drawdown history.
2. Consistency beats magnitude
Look at the monthly returns table, not the total. A trader with 20 profitable months out of 24, averaging +1.5%, is usually a far better copy than one with three +30% months and a lot of red. Consistency indicates a repeatable process; lumpy returns often indicate luck, concentration, or leverage.
The Sharpe ratio compresses this into one number — return per unit of volatility. Above 1.5 is genuinely good. Above 2.5 over a multi-year record is exceptional.
3. Read the process, not just the numbers
A trader worth copying can explain what they do in two sentences, and their history should look like that explanation. If the bio says 'conservative dividend investing' but the trade log shows leveraged oil futures, walk away. On Asport Traders, strategy drift is grounds for suspension — but your own reading is the first filter.
- Does the stated strategy match the actual instruments traded?
- Is the win rate consistent with the style? (Trend followers win 40–50% with big winners; mean-reverters win 70%+ with small ones.)
- How long is the track record? Twelve months is a minimum; a record spanning at least one rough market period is worth far more.
- How do they behave in losing months — do position sizes shrink (discipline) or grow (revenge trading)?
4. Diversify across traders
Never put your whole allocation behind one person. Copy three to five traders with genuinely different strategies and markets — for example a conservative equity compounder, an FX trend follower, and a multi-asset macro book. Their bad weeks won't line up, which smooths your overall curve more than any single 'best' trader could.
Put it into practice
Browse the leaderboard with what you just learned — every stat in this guide is public on every trader profile.