WhoTrades Live allows traders to look at real-time portfolios that you can learn from, follow, subscribe, and invest in directly. But first, and most importantly, is to understand what your investing or trading goals are. When you get on the WhoTrades Live page, you’ll see a box that says “Adjust Filters Automatically” where upon clicking you’ll receive a brief, four-question survey to give you the best portfolios that fit your individual goals and interests. The first question will ask for your overall investment goal. This goes on a spectrum from capital preservation all the way to speculative trading. If capital preservation is the goal, this means you’re risk averse, maybe due to circumstance (nearing retirement) or simply by personal nature. On the other side, speculative trading is where you’re geared toward taking on higher risk in the pursuit of higher gains. This might be a legitimate strategy if you feel you have a legitimate edge in whatever you’re trading and have asymmetric risk/reward in your favor. There are also more moderate risk options, such as investing out of a desire for a source of income or growth. This question has the effect of adjusting the “Period” filter on the left-hand side. If you choose “preserve my savings,” then the period will be set to one year or higher (relates to average, and therefore expected, future portfolio turnover). If “growth,” then it’ll adjust to six months. If “a source of income,” then three months. If “speculative trading,” then one month. Note that some portfolios will fulfill multiple options on this question. The next question pertains to how long you plan to invest, or what your holding period might be. For most, this is probably 5+ years. This question has the effect of adjusting the “Yield” filter. If you choose “less than 2 years” this will be interpreted as a more speculative trading style and yield will go down as low as minus-20%. If selecting “2-5 years” yield will be capped at a loss of 10%. For “5+ years” yield downside will be set to 0%. In other words, it will filter out all portfolios that don’t have at least positive returns. Question three will pertain to your investment experience, which adjusts the “Drawdown” filter. If you just started and select the relevant option (“none”), the drawdown will be set to 10%. This reflects the notion that someone new to trading should probably start out with portfolios that are more likely – but not guaranteed – to be safer. If you’re still a beginner, but not total beginner (“not much”), then the drawdown will be adjusted up to 20%. For those with intermediate experience (“I know what I’m doing”), this will be increased to 30%. For those who are advanced (“I’m an expert”), the drawdown will be upped all the way to 50%, meaning it'll be less likely to filter out more speculative portfolios. The fourth and final question will ask you how important liquidity is to you. What is liquidity? It’s a measure of how quickly and easily it is to get in and out of a position. Large cap stocks, for example, tend to be very liquid, as trading volume is so high. For more exotic instruments, which tend to be thinly traded, and even many bond markets, liquidity is low and getting in and out of positions is difficult. Your response to this question will adjust the “Trades count” filter. If liquidity is “not important,” then the filter will accept nearly all portfolios (just as long as they’ve made at least one trade). If it’s “somewhat important,” then it will filter out portfolios that have made fewer than three trades. If it’s “very important,” then the filter will only accept portfolios that have made seven or more trades. The following selection of portfolios was found by selecting (1) “growth” (investment goal) (2) “2-5 years” (expected holding period) (3) “not much” (investing experience) and (4) “somewhat” (importance of liquidity): You get a list of four portfolios. If you uncheck the “Well-known traders” box on the left menu, this will notably expand the list, and you will find hundreds of portfolios to look through. They will be ordered by highest yield over the past six months to the lowest, based on the parameters you set forth on the left-hand side. You can also adjust these filters automatically to get more precise in what you might be looking for. When you click a portfolio name, you’ll see a few options: - Autofollow: This allows you to follow the strategy and execute the same trades on your personal brokerage account - Copy portfolio: This allows you to replicate the portfolio on your brokerage account. - Follow: You will receive updates about this portfolio’s trades. You can also choose “View details” to see the specific securities owned in the portfolio – and in what proportion in percentage terms. You will be able to view the performance over various time periods – one month, three months, six months, and one year. (Six months is the default setting.) This will help in better understanding what the trader is doing and whether you want to follow the strategy, or move up to auto-following or copying the portfolio. Conclusion WhoTrades Live provides thousands of portfolios that you can view, follow, copy, and learn from more broadly. You can take the mini-questionnaire at the beginning to find portfolios and strategies that best serve your interests, or alter the filters manually. From there, you can find the best that the service has to offer in order to meet your individual trading and investing goals.