Introduction
FXTM, also known as Forex Time, are not yet one of the most well-known brokers in the forex industry, but having won numerous awards in recent years and coming up with several innovative ideas, they are really starting to get people’s attention.
One of their most innovative programs is their forex investment program, known as FXTM Invest, because this enables people to copy the signals and earn a share of the profits of their most profitable traders.
Therefore it is possible to earn money from forex trading without ever having to place any trades yourself.
How It Works
Some copy trading programs have complex profit share arrangements, but the Forex Time Investment Program is very easy to understand.
All you need to do is analyze the trading records of some of their most profitable traders, referred to here as Strategy Managers, choose which ones you want to invest money with (and how much you want to invest) and then bank a share of their profits if they are successful.
If the traders generate a profit during this time, then they will earn a percentage of your profits as compensation, generally around 30-33%, but it can be as high as 50%. If they lose money, then you do not need to pay anything at all.
Example
To give you an example, let’s say you open an account with FXTM and deposit $1000 into your account.
You then scan through the list of 600+ Strategy Managers and find two that you want to invest money with because they have a long record of success, use sensible profit targets and stop losses, and don’t tend to have a lot of drawdown.
So you then invest $500 into Strategy Manager A, who has a profit share of 30%, and $500 into Strategy Manager B, who has a profit share of 40%.
If over the course of the next month, Strategy Manager A earns a profit of 5% and Strategy Manager earns a profit of 20%, your total profit / return on investment would be as follows:
Profit from A = $500 x 5% x 30% = $7.50
Profit from B = $500 x 20% x 40% = $40
Total profit = $47.50
Return on investment = 4.75%
Of course this is just a hypothetical example. It is also possible for one or both of these traders to have lost money during this time, so you can still lose money from this copy trading service.
However it is important to note once again that you only have to pay your strategy managers any compensation if they are profitable, which gives them extra incentive to find a winning strategy.
Positives
There are now quite a few copy trading programs that you can use, but here are some of the key benefits of the FXTM Invest program:
- over 600 Strategy Managers to choose from
- only pay compensation to traders if they are profitable
- detailed trading records and statistics
- no hidden fees or charges
- no knowledge or experience of forex trading required
- monitor results in real time via website or FXTM app
- start investing with 100 USD/GBP/EUR
- withdraw funds instantly
- profitable traders can earn money as a Strategy Manager
As noted above, it is easy to scan through the various Strategy Managers / signal providers and get a detailed analysis of each one because the trading records indicate the profit chart over time, as well as the total return %, maximum drawdown, risk level, days open, profit share and overall ranking of each one.
In addition, you can also take a closer look at each trader’s profile page to see their weekly, monthly, 3-month and 6-month performance, as well as their average daily win / loss, profitable / unprofitable days, greatest win / loss, consecutive winning / losing days, average trade length, win percentage and their favorite pairs to trade, for example.
So although it takes a lot of time to do some research, the ranking system and detailed trading records will hopefully help you to find the most profitable Strategy Managers.
Another major benefit is that you can start investing with as little as 100 USD/EUR/GBP, and once you have invested money into one or more Strategy Managers, you can monitor results in real time on your desktop computer, or you can use the FXTM app to track results on your tablet or phone, for example.
There are no hidden fees or charges and you can withdraw funds instantly at any time. The only fees that you pay are the compensation payments to the signal providers, and that only applies if they are profitable.
Finally, I have discussed the FXTM Invest copy trading program primarily from an investor’s perspective so far, but it is worth making the point that if you are a profitable forex trader yourself, you can choose to become a Strategy Manager, set your own profit share and generate additional revenues from any investors that choose to copy trade your signals (if you are profitable).
Negatives
In order to provide a balanced review of FXTM Invest, it is worth highlighting some of the drawbacks of this particular copy trading investment program, which are as follows:
- not as many signal providers as some other companies
- limited number of profitable Strategy Managers
- profit share can be as high as 50%
As you can see, there are no major issues with FXTM Invest, but when you consider that ZuluTrade has 100,000 signal providers, FXTM is considerably smaller with just over 600 Strategy Managers.
Similarly, as with many other copy trading services, there seem to be more losing traders than winning traders, which always provides a challenge when selecting which traders to follow, and although the profit share fees are generally very reasonable, some traders charge as much as 40-50% to follow their signals.
However the signal providers on FXTM Invest appear to be more like fund managers due to the structure of the profit share compensation scheme, and the ones that are profitable are incentivized to continue producing profits for their followers in order to keep earning additional revenues. So this is beneficial from an investor’s point of view.
FTXM Invest Strategies for Selecting Traders to Copy
FXTM Invest has an in-house ranking system that ranks traders based on their total profit, which obviously acts as a useful guide and does sometimes highlight some of the best traders, but as with many similar copy trading programs, it is not always the best strategy to invest all of your money with the top ranked traders.
That’s because in some cases they may only have been trading for a short while, and may only have reached the top by using risky strategies and a lot of leverage, which is why they have the maximum risk level.
That’s fine if you had invested in them from the start, but in the long run this kind of approach simply isn’t sustainable and will often result in total blowouts at some point.
So it is often a better strategy to find strategy managers that have been trading for a long time, preferably over a year, and look for ones that have a steadily rising profitability chart with a low maximum drawdown.
You don’t really want to be investing in managers that look for lots of small gains, but use very large stop losses because this can result in huge losses when a trade goes badly wrong, which is inevitably will at some point.
Finally, the profit share percentage can make a big difference to your profits in the long run, so it is generally best to avoid those Strategy Managers that have a 40-50% profit share. Many of the top traders have a profit share of 30-33%, which is a lot more reasonable.
Profit Potential
To give you an idea of the kind of profits you can make, you only have to look at the list of the top ranked Strategy Managers, and look at their total profit.
For example, the top-ranked trader at the time of writing, Reversal (Hadi Ghadimi), has been on FXTM for over a year now, and in that time has generated a total profit of 751.36%, with a profit of over 90% in the past 6 months.
Similarly, Castle (ClemFX), the number 2 trader who has been trading on the platform since September 2019, has an overall return of 218.48% in that time, which is another excellent return. Their profit share is only 20% as well.
There are traders on FXTM that have been trading for much longer, such as fourth ranked Strategy Manager mitaa78782, who has a total profit of over 5300% from the past three years.
Of course it should be pointed out that there is absolutely no guarantee that these three traders will continue to be profitable in the future. I am just using them to highlight the profit potential of FTXM Invest.
Final Thoughts
Overall I like this service a lot. It is very easy to open an account with FXTM, and unlike many professional fund managers, you don’t need a lot of money to start investing (just 100 USD/GBP/EUR).
It is also really easy to understand the profit sharing arrangement because you simply invest a sum of money into your chosen Strategy Managers and pay them a fixed percentage of the profits that they subsequently generate, with no hidden fees or charges.
Finally, I like the fact that you can fully analyze the trading records of each trader and build up a profile of each one because this makes it easier to find those that match your risk profile and profit objectives.
It would be nice if there were more Strategy Managers to choose from because there are still only 600+ traders to copy, but there are still more than enough forex traders that do appear to be profitable.
Indeed if you are a skilled forex trader, you can apply to become a Strategy Manager yourself and earn extra revenue from any followers that choose to follow you, which is another added benefit of FXTM Invest.
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