Wes Nolte, a 30-something South African-born chief technology officer based in London, describes his trading style as “diverse, risk-balanced, and bodacious”. It’s an approach that appears to work, given that he is one of the most-copied Popular Investors (PIs) on the pioneering global investment and trading platform eToro[1].
“I have a relatively low-risk trading strategy that diversifies across stocks – especially United States tech stocks – commodities, currencies and cryptos,” he says.
He is particularly fond of cryptos. “There is a good chance they will flatten the hierarchies that our society and culture, and so on, are built upon,” continues Nolte, whose eToro handle is Wesl3y[2]. “They are by their nature networks of peers, and could easily change our capitalist society, significantly shifting power from the few to the many.”
Nolte joined eToro in March 2015 and became a PI – a programme that allows top traders to build their own financial business and earn a 2 percent management fee – less than two years later, in January 2017.
He signed up to the platform having amassed knowledge from 17 years of trading. He had even bought and mined cryptos since 2013, but eToro offered him something extra.
“I was attracted to the platform for a number of reasons: I was curious about how a social network built around trading might work; because of the ease and speed of trading; the great user interface; the fact that it’s secure; plus the knowledge I can draw from and give to the community,” Nolte says. “Also I was interested in the PI programme, and how it enables top traders to earn a second income.
“On eToro I learnt about importance of diversifying. There are many types of traders on the platform – for example forex traders, commodity traders,
