In short. When you copy a trader, you get their risk, not their returns: the drawdown, the leverage and the trading style. Check them on a live real account with at least six months of history and a hundred or more trades: maximum equity drawdown, return excluding deposits, consistency month to month, average loss versus average win, signs of a grid or martingale. Before you start, decide at what drawdown you stop copying, and watch your own account yourself: your result will differ from the trader's.
How copying works
A copy service repeats the trader's trades on your account — usually in proportion to your deposit or with a multiplier you choose. That is how MetaTrader signals, crypto exchange copy trading and broker copiers work. You pay with a subscription, a share of profit or through the spread. The trader cannot withdraw your money, but every mistake they make is repeated on your account automatically.
What to check
| What | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Account | real, not demo; data comes from the terminal or the exchange, not from the trader |
| History length | 6–12 months and 100+ trades: on a short stretch luck and skill look the same |
| Maximum equity drawdown | the lower bound of what you will have to sit through; on balance it looks smaller because balance ignores floating losses |
| Return excluding deposits | top-ups must not look like profit |
| Monthly returns | a profitable year made in one month is one lucky month |
| Average win and average loss | an average loss many times the average win with 90% winners is almost always averaging down; profit factor and expectancy show whether the system has an edge |
| Position size and leverage | size grows after a loss — martingale: risk grows faster than the deposit |
| How long losing trades stay open | days and weeks — the trader waits for a reversal instead of a stop loss |
How to measure drawdown and why equity drawdown matters — in «How to calculate account drawdown»; all metrics in one place — in «How to evaluate a trading strategy».
Red flags
- Tens of percent a month and a balance curve as straight as a ruler.
- Less than three months of history, or a fresh account replacing one that «didn't work out».
- Equity drawdown far deeper than balance drawdown.
- Part of the statistics hidden, and screenshots or HTML reports instead of a live account.
- Position size grows after losses, losing positions pile up in a grid — more in «Grid EAs and martingale».
Your result will be different
- Delay and slippage. Your trade opens later than the trader's and at a different price; in a fast market and on short trades the gap shows.
- Size rounding. The trader runs a $100,000 account, you copy with $2,000 — a ratio of 0.02. Their 0.3-lot trade becomes 0.006 lots for you, and the broker opens at least 0.01: your risk on that trade is 1.67 times the trader's. The smaller the deposit, the more often the proportion breaks.
- The copying fee. The trader made +20% in a year, the profit share is 30%: you keep 14% before slippage.
- Entry point. Start copying at a peak, and the trader's first ordinary drawdown becomes your net loss.
Work out your risk in advance
The trader's maximum equity drawdown is 30%. Copying one to one with $2,000, be ready to see −$600 or more: a past drawdown is not a ceiling. Recovering from −30% takes +42.9%. With a 0.5 multiplier the drawdown is about 15%, but the return is halved too. The drawdown calculator shows the recovery for any drawdown.
Decide before you start when you stop copying:
- the drawdown on your account exceeds the trader's historical maximum;
- the trader changes style: size grows, averaging appears, stops disappear;
- your result keeps lagging the trader's — execution can't keep up.
How Davinchu helps
If the trader shares a Davinchu account link, you see live data: it comes from the MetaTrader terminal or from the exchange API, and trades and balance cannot be edited in the dashboard. The page shows the account type from its settings («Real» or «Demo»), the history start date, an «Online» or «Paused» status and whatever the owner opened: return excluding deposits, drawdown, monthly returns, statistics with profit factor and expectancy, trade history, results per EA by magic number, and with «Account number» — the number and the broker's server. If some fields are missing, ask why they are hidden. Registered users can press «Follow» — the follower count is shown on the page.
If you got an MT5 HTML history report instead of a link, open it in the MT5 report analyzer: the file is parsed in your browser and is not sent anywhere. It is a quick look at the trading style; make the decision on a live account.
Once copying is running and trades open on your MetaTrader account, connect it to Davinchu with the read-only EA:
- every copied trade lands in the journal and arrives as a Telegram message;
- drawdown is measured on equity, floating losses included, and daily, weekly drawdown and margin level alerts are critical — they arrive even during quiet hours; turn them on in the «EA settings» tab of the account settings;
- if the connection to the account drops for more than 10 minutes, you get an alert;
- your numbers are easy to compare with the trader's, so you notice in time when to stop.
How to set up the messages — in «MT5 notifications in Telegram». If you are a trader who wants to be copied, read «How to show trading results to an investor». The Free plan connects two accounts at no cost.