I’m building an algorithmic copy trading platform. Here is the subscription-income idea

Nancy Pelosi is an interesting woman.

She was the first female speaker of the House of Representatives, making her one of the most influential women in American political history. She’s also an avid baseball fan, and has thrown the ceremonial first pitch at a few different Major League baseball games.

She’s also a better stock trader than almost all of Wall Street.

According to the Independent, Pelosi had earned 71% on her portfolio in 2024. This is more than three times the S&P500.

This isn’t just about “beating the market”. According to Reuters, she has earned more than prominent hedge funds, including Citadel, D.E. Shaw, and Millennium.

Talk about talent.

As an ordinary person without access to insider information nor the ability to pass legislation on companies, it’s very hard to compete with the likes of Nancy Pelosi, David Rouzer, or other members of congress.

So instead of trying to beat them, why not copy them?

What is copy trading?

Copy trading is exactly what it sounds like. We take the trades of a successful trader, like Profit Pelosi, and copy them.

For example, let’s say:

1. We estimate Pelosi to have a portfolio of $10 million
2. We have a portfolio of $10,000
3. Pelosi makes a trade of $1 million of NVIDIA

With copy trading, we’ll make the same exact trade, albeit in proportion to our portfolio’s balance. So because Pelosi’s portfolio is 1000 times more than ours, we’ll buy $1,000 of NVIDIA.

This gets a little complicated when we buy stock options (because we can’t buy fractional contracts like we can buy fractional shares). Nevertheless, the overarching idea remains the same.

Copy trading can reduce the work needed to define each trade, but copying a skilled or profitable trader does not guarantee similar future returns. Portfolio size, disclosed delays, instrument availability and execution can change the copied outcome.

And because of federal law, copying politicians is a lot simpler than you think.

How to copy politician’s trades?

By law, Politicians must disclose their trades publicly. So copying them is a lot simpler than you think. If you’re trying to copy someone in the House of Representatives, you would:

1. Go to the Office of the Clerk’s website
2. Click “Search”
3. Type in the Politician’s last name
4. Click the report

Within this interface, there are two types of disclosures: one that shows the politician’s assets and unearned income, and another that shows transactions. The combination of the two makes it possible to build a portfolio.

Now notice, the portfolio is NOT precise. The asset values are in ranges, and so are the transactions. So, you have to do a little bit of guesswork to generate a portfolio.

Moreover, these reports are submitted days to weeks after a transaction occurred. Sometimes a politician buys a stock right before a big move up, just like they might buy it before a move downwards. It’s always good to be aware that you’re not receiving real-time alerts on these stock trades.

Nevertheless, this information can be extremely useful for informing your investing decisions. I mean, what better encouragement can there be than knowing a politician bought $10 million of a stock you were eyeing?

However, copying politicians isn’t all you can do with copy trading. More importantly, we can copy successful investors. This includes highly profitable algorithmic traders.

What is algorithmic copy trading?

Algorithmic copy trading is a term I invented that takes copy trading one step further. Instead of just copying ordinary investors, algorithmic copy trading involves copying the signals and orders of algorithmic traders.

The NexusTrade mechanism described here shares structured strategy rules so another user can inspect them and adapt a copy. The subscription design would let creators charge for access to that work.

NexusTrade - AI-Powered Algorithmic Trading Platform

Learn to conquer the market by deploying no-code algorithmic trading strategies.

nexustrade.io

NexusTrade is a no-code platform that makes it easy for everybody to create highly sophisticated algorithmic trading strategies. It includes features such as paper-trading and backtesting to make it easy to create, test, and deploy automated trading strategies.

For example, I’ve used the platform to create a multitude of market-beating trading strategies.

I used OpenAI’s o1 model to develop a trading strategy. It is DESTROYING the market

It literally took one try. I was shocked.

medium.datadriveninvestor.com

However, not everybody has the know-how to create trading strategies. Furthermore, not everybody wants to learn — they’re too busy with their life to watch hundreds of YouTube videos and backtest thousands of strategies. They just want to make money, and are willing to accept the risk of copying a skilled investor.

But it’s not just the unskilled investor that benefits massively from copy trading. The copied trader can see some crazy benefits too.

How would strategy subscriptions earn revenue?

If you are a profitable trader who is self-assured of your skills, copy trading is a great way to earn extra income. Here’s how:

In this January 2025 roadmap, I planned subscription monetization for shared strategies. Subscription revenue would be separate from the creator’s trading returns, but enabling billing would not guarantee customers or income. Followers would still bear trading losses, and creators would still need to provide and maintain the promised service.

1. The trader will register their Stripe account with NexusTrade
2. They will deploy their portfolio live and switch the share settings to ‘monetized’
3. They will customize the subscription fee
4. They’ll click save and find people to copy them!

Hypothetical revenue: a $20 monthly subscription with 100 paying subscribers brings in $2,000 gross per month. Payment/platform fees, refunds, taxes and operating costs are not specified here, so that is not take-home income. Finding and retaining those 100 subscribers is a separate task from turning monetization on. This is an illustration of the planned January 2025 model, not an actual creator’s earnings.

The idea is to connect a creator’s rules with people who want to inspect and follow them. Whether it benefits either side depends on the strategy, costs, execution and ability to retain subscribers.

NexusTrade - AI-Powered Algorithmic Trading Platform

Learn to conquer the market by deploying no-code algorithmic trading strategies.

nexustrade.io