Yahoo Finance 
Don’t know anything about shares? Copy trading has changed the game for novice investors
New technology hasn’t just made accessing the share market easier than ever before, it’s made mastering it a breeze, too.
You’ve decided it’s time to think about investing, but there’s just one problem; where the hell do you start? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. The world of investing can feel like the ultimate secret club; a mysterious world filled with tips and insider knowledge, and one that feels totally impenetrable to anyone who doesn’t spend their life studying the finance section or with their eyes glued to a rolling stock ticker.
And that’s exactly what stops most people investing in the first place. It’s too hard, too complicated - hell, too scary - and so it's easier just to leave it to the experts and save your money in a low-interest bank account instead.
A UK study from RFi Group found millennials especially preferred to use simple saving accounts rather than investing, despite the minuscule returns they offer. Why? Because more than 40 per cent of young people surveyed said the investment world was simply too difficult to understand.
That’s costing an entire generation money, and lots of it. While a dedicated bank saving account will return a paltry one per cent in interest on your money, Australian shares return an average five per cent per annum - and sometimes much more.
But if you don’t know your money markets from your moving average - your bears from your bulls - then don’t stress, because new technology has made playing the markets so much easier.
From spare-change investment apps that do the hard work for you, often without you even noticing, to technology that predefines investment portfolios to choose from, so you only have to decide how much risk you want to take, investing has never been so easy.
But perhaps the single most game-changing development, one that has handed the keys to the investment kingdom to novice money men and women everywhere, is copy trading. Think about it like sitting an end-of-year exam you haven’t studied for, only before you start, the professor hands you all the correct answers to cheat with. It really is that easy.
Investment apps like eToro allow users to literally copy the trades of their best performing investors, matching their money moves as they make them, all while only investing - and risking - as much as you want to.
Think about that for a moment; a pool of expert investors to choose from, and their wins are your wins. You buy when they buy, and sell when they sell, in real time, and all without you having to study a single stock.
You can choose to copy all of an investor’s existing trades, or simply copy their new ones, and you decide how much you want to invest. If they buy $1000 of a stock, you can buy $100 worth. And when that stock climbs, you’ll both make the same percentage on your investment. Better still, you can pause or stop copying whenever you like.
The point is, technology has not only made accessing the markets easier than ever before, but it’s made mastering them simple, too.
So if you’re putting off investing, don’t. Your future you will thank you for it.
