How to Find the Best Traders to Copy

Choosing who to copy is the most important decision in copy trading. A great platform and tight risk controls cannot save you from blindly following a reckless trader. The good news is that with broker-verified stats you can evaluate traders on evidence instead of marketing. Here is what to look at.

Start with the leaderboard, but read it carefully

RelayTrades ranks traders on a leaderboard built from broker-verified statistics: realized (closed-trade) profit and loss, win rate, return, trade count, and follower count. The key word is verified. These numbers come from real closed trades in the trader’s connected brokerage account, not figures they typed in. That makes the leaderboard a starting point for comparison rather than a hype reel.

The metrics that actually matter

• Length of track record: a few profitable weeks tell you little. Look for months of history across different market conditions.
• Worst drawdown: how far the account fell from a peak. A trader with smaller, recoverable drawdowns is often easier to stay with than one with huge swings.
• Win rate in context: a high win rate paired with large losers can still lose money, and a lower win rate with bigger winners can be fine. Read it alongside the profit and loss.
• Consistency: steady results beat one lucky month. Be skeptical of a single enormous gain that dominates the record.
• What and how they trade: stocks, ETFs, or options, and how often. Make sure it fits your account size and your risk comfort.

Red flags to avoid

• A very short history paired with eye-popping returns.
• Returns that look too good to be true, which usually means outsized risk you would inherit.
• Deep drawdowns that suggest all-in sizing or no risk discipline.
• Any promise or guarantee of profit. Honest traders never guarantee returns.

Verified stats tell you what happened, not what will happen. Past performance is not indicative of future results, so evaluate evidence and then control your own risk.

Match the trader to your own plan

The best trader on the leaderboard is not automatically the best trader for you. A high-frequency options strategy can be a poor fit for a small account or a low risk tolerance, even if its returns are strong. Pick traders whose style you understand and could stomach during a losing streak, then copy them with proportional sizing and your own risk limits in place. Spreading across a couple of genuinely different strategies can also reduce the impact of any single one going through a rough patch.