Stats › Active, passive and flows › Copied trade returns
Nobody has measured what a copier earns against what the leader earns on a named platform
| Measure | Joseph and co-authors, 2025 | Pan and co-authors, 2012 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copied trades | -61.24 basis points per trade | Significantly positive, p below 0.005 | Direct contradiction |
| Traders who never copy | +1.15 basis points | Not reported separately | Only one estimate |
| Traders who copy, own trades | -6.88 basis points | Not reported separately | Only one estimate |
| All trades | -7.67 basis points | -2.8% of position size | Different measures |
| Share of users profitable | Not reported | 16% | Only one estimate |
| Sample | 164,634 traders, window disputed in the paper | Over 5.8m trades, August 2010 to January 2012 | Overlapping data |
Both studies use data from the same platform over overlapping periods. The 2025 paper is an arXiv preprint and has not been peer reviewed; the 2012 paper was published at an IEEE conference. The point estimates for the 2012 study's trade types exist only as bars in a figure, so the positive mirror result is reported with its test and without its magnitude.
Two studies of the same platform disagree on whether copied trades even make money, one putting them at minus 61 basis points a trade and the other finding them significantly positive. Neither compares the copier's return with the leader's.
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