Copy Trading on Catapult: How to Pick Winners and Avoid Traps

What Copy Trading Actually Is

Copy trading on Catapult mirrors a top trader’s positions in real time with proportional sizing. If your copied trader opens a 2% position, your account opens the same 2% position. You don’t need to watch the screen or analyse charts — the platform handles execution.

This sounds like passive income, and done correctly it can be. Done incorrectly, it is one of the fastest ways to lose capital in trading.

How to Evaluate a Trader Before Copying

The leaderboard shows raw P&L. That is not enough information to make a copying decision. Here is what actually matters:

Sharpe Ratio

The Sharpe ratio measures return per unit of risk. A trader with a 40% annual return and a Sharpe of 2.0 is a far better copy candidate than one with 80% return and a Sharpe of 0.6. The second trader is taking reckless risks that will eventually produce a catastrophic drawdown.

Minimum threshold: Do not copy any trader with a Sharpe ratio below 1.0.

Maximum Drawdown

What is the worst single losing period this trader has experienced? If their max drawdown is 35%, you need to be prepared to see your copied allocation drop 35% before recovering. Many people copy a trader, see a 20% drawdown, panic and exit — locking in losses on what would have been a full recovery.

Rule: Only copy traders whose maximum drawdown you can psychologically and financially withstand.

Track Record Length

A 2-week track record means nothing. Look for traders with at least 3 months of consistent performance. Six months is better.

Session Diversity

A trader who only trades one type of session (e.g., 1-minute charts) is optimised for a single market regime. Look for traders who perform across multiple session types — they have more robust strategies.

Sizing Your Copy Allocation

The most common mistake: putting too much capital into a single copied trader.

Recommended approach:

• Allocate no more than 20% of your total Catapult balance to copy trading overall
• Diversify across 3–5 traders with different styles
• Start with 5–10% per trader and increase only after observing 30+ days of live performance

When to Stop Copying

Set clear exit rules before you start:

1. Performance trigger: If a copied trader draws down more than 20% from the point you started copying, reassess.
2. Time trigger: Review every 30 days. Are they still in the top 10%?
3. Behaviour change: Did their trading frequency or position sizing change dramatically? This can signal a strategy breakdown.

Copy trading is not set-and-forget. It requires monthly maintenance and clear exit criteria.

The Professional’s Use of Copy Trading

Top traders on Catapult often use copy trading as a hedge — allocating a small portion of capital to copy other traders whose strategies are uncorrelated with their own. If your primary strategy is mean reversion and you copy a trend-following trader, a sideways market that hurts your trading may benefit your copy allocation.

This is portfolio thinking applied to Catapult. It is how you build income that is resilient to changing market regimes.