ETORO
eToro is a multi-asset platform, which is one of its strengths. You can trade stocks, ETFs, commodities, forex, and cryptocurrencies all in one place. It is also possible to trade with leverage on eToro, but I suggest you be very careful unless you know what you are doing.
eToro makes its profit through spread fees. This means that when you buy an asset, you pay a slightly higher price than its actual cost, and when you sell an asset, you sell it at a slightly lower price than its actual value. I will go through everything in the following guide to eToro.
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If you want to start investing, you will need to create a profile on eToro. It takes approximately 5 minutes; however, you must be ready to provide some personal information in order to verify your account due to financial service regulations. Before we proceed any further in this guide, please visit eToro and sign up for their platform by clicking on the "Join Now" button. You can visit eToro here.*
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*67% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money
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Once you have created your new eToro account, you will need to deposit funds in order to start investing. You can do it by clicking on "Deposit Funds" in the menu on the left. You can deposit funds through various options, such as credit card or PayPal, and they will be available immediately.
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If you already know what you want to buy, simply start typing the name of the stock, forex, crypto, etc. in the search bar. In the example, we search for "Apple." Once you have found it, you just click on it.
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If you do not already know what you want to invest in, you can go to the "Trade Markets" option in the left menu.
Once you are there, you can see that the different assets are categorized. As you can see in the picture, there is a Technology section that categorizes technology stocks. You can observe that the buy and sell prices are different, which is due to the spread fee. Below the Technology section, there is an ETF categorization. There will also be categories for Forex, Cryptos, etc.
Whether you choose an asset using the search bar or select one from the Trade Market, you will be directed to the page of that asset. Once you have accessed the page and selected the asset you wish to purchase. Just click on "Trade" in the top right corner.
Once you click on the "Trade" button, you will be directed to the following page. There are some steps you need to take in order to open the trade. First, you have to make sure that you are buying and not selling the asset. It should resemble the picture below, with the "BUY" button appearing darker than the "SELL" button. Clicking on the "SELL" button indicates that you are selling the asset. By selling the asset, you can make money if its value decreases, but you will lose money if its value increases. I would not recommend short selling unless you have some experience. Afterward, you have to decide how much you want to invest in this trade. As you can see in my example, I have chosen to buy Apple stocks for $500. Once you have chosen the amount, it is very important that you select a leverage of x1, which means you are only investing $500. Do not use leverage unless you are an experienced trader.
Once all of this is done, you just have to click on the "OPEN TRADE" button in blue, and you will now be the owner of $500 worth of Apple.
eToro is a multi-asset platform which offers both investing in stocks and cryptoassets, as well as trading CFDs.
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Please note that CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 67% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work, and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
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Past performance is not an indication of future results.
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Cryptoassets are volatile instruments which can fluctuate widely in a very short timeframe and therefore are not appropriate for all investors. Other than via CFDs, trading cryptoassets is unregulated and therefore is not supervised by any EU regulatory framework.
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eToro USA LLC does not offer CFDs and makes no representation and assumes no liability as to the accuracy or completeness of the content of this publication, which has been prepared by our partner utilizing publicly available non-entity specific information about eToro.