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How to buy
If you live in Philippines, a great way to invest in GameStop shares is, without any doubt, this popular broker.
eToro*, one of the main brokers around the world, is registered and licensed, among others, by the United Kingdom's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
We recommend eToro because you can create an account for free with this broker, and its fees for trading online are very low. Besides, eToro is available in your language, accepts users from Philippines, it is really easy to manage, and its friendly interface is ideal for those who are starting to trade with cryptocurrencies and stocks.
How to sign up, step by step
The first thing you need to do is click here and fill in the fields on the right: enter your name, email, and set a password.
Now check your email inbox: you should have received an email from eToro, click on “Verify my email” and your account will be verified.
Once on eToro, you just have to click on “Deposit funds”, in the page menu.
There, you can choose how much money you want to add to your account (the minimum is $ 200) and the payment method:
As you can see in the image, the first deposit can be made by credit card, PayPal, or bank transfer.
If you have a choice, we do not recommend bank transfer because it takes longer, and it can be very frustrating to see the price of GameStop rising while you wait for your transfer to be done.
How to make your first trade
When eToro has confirmed the receipt of your credit, you just have to search for “GameStop” in the search bar, click on “Invest” and choose the amount in dollars you want to invest.
*67% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money
Cryptoassets are highly volatile unregulated investment products. No EU investor protection. Your capital is at risk.
Contents
GameStop business explained
GameStop Corporation is an American company founded in Dallas in 1984 specializing in the video game industry. It is one of the largest video game retailers in existence, operating more than 4,800 stores in the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe.
It went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 1988 and since then has traded on the stock market like any other company. It has had some very good years and some not so good years, which, although it cannot be said to have been completely bad, have been years of decline.
This company stayed off the radar for a long time until January 2021 when its share price skyrocketed by more than 1,500% in just 3 days, only to return to its average the following week. As you can imagine, all this movement generated huge gains for those who positioned themselves in the right direction.
GameStop, Reddit and Wall Street
Behind these absurd moves, a large number of people belonging mainly to a Reddit forum called WallStreetBets were involved. This forum, as its name suggests, is all about “Wall Street betting”, although in the case of GameStop what they were looking for was to beat the whole Wall Street game.
This is how the idea spread from WallStreetBets to other forums on Reddit, motivating more and more people to buy GameStop shares. The end result was a buying frenzy that drove the price up to the level it reached and then back down to the mean.
Upon investigation, it was learned that it was a user who had bought about $50,000 worth of Reddit stock who initiated the move after the company had a dismal outlook. Having achieved his goal, he probably withdrew by selling the shares at a very high price, taking huge profits out of the market.
But, just as there were those who gained, there were those who lost a lot because in the buying frenzy, many entered too late. And by this we mean when the share price stopped rising and started to fall.
The commotion was such that the term meme stock has been coined to describe stocks that have sharp price movements motivated by social networks.
About Contracts for Difference
If you already have been on eToro, you must have noticed that the acronym CFD appears over and over. Before we come back to this, you should know that cryptocurrency trading on eToro is only CFD when you are short-selling or leverage above x2 (and this is not even an option on eToro).
We will also refer to concepts like short-selling and leverage, in case you are interested in day trading cryptocurrency or other more advanced practices.
Even if you don't have a positive balance, you can still bet on eToro with CFDs. For example: you have the certitude that the GameStop will fall, so perhaps you think that it is better to wait until it does and then go in. Nevertheless, if it really goes down, it is possible to make some profits out of that.
You can accomplish that by “going short”. Here's how it works:
- You ask someone to lend you, for instance, 100 units of GameStop, which cost $ 5,000 at the moment (these numbers aren't real)
- You sell them at their price at the moment, $ 5,000
- The GameStop goes from $ 50 to $ 30 (as you calculated, the price decreases)
- Again, you purchase the 100 units, but at the current value, $ 3,000
- You give back the 100 units
- The $ 2000 difference is yours
Keep in mind that it sounds much more complex than how eToro CFDs actually work: we can summarize this whole operation by saying that by trading in GameStop you can also make money if you foretell the downs.
Differences between futures and CFDs
What are the main differences between Futures and CFDs?
- Counterparties
- Futures: operations are made with another trader.
- CFDs: you do not operate with another individual, the counterparty is the brokerage platform.
- Date of expiration:
- Futures: there is a date of expiry. At that moment, your operation is ended even if you are in losses.
- CFDs: on the contrary, there is no expiration date. It is possible to get back to a good position before exiting.
- Options for trading:
- Futures: very little variety
- CFDs: a lot of variety, there is a huge diversity and types of CFDs
- Minimum investment:
- Futures: you have to invest much more
- CFDs: very low
- Trading costs:
- Futures: being higher figures, rates are, commonly, proportionally lower
- CFDs: higher (although not excessively)
- Leverage:
- Futures: you can't leverage
- CFDs: completely available
Leverage
Do you know the term “leverage”? We'll put it simply: trading lets you invest more money than what you really have. For instance, if you have $ 100 and you put them with x2 leverage, the amount of your investment will be $ 200.
Leverage, Take Profit and Stop Loss
Let's say that you are sure that GameStop will rise, and you consider “going long, but you only have $ 1,000 available. However, it is possible to put more money and get higher profits.
Perhaps you could go to your bank, request a loan, put something as collateral, wait for it to be accepted, wait for the money, send the money to eToro, confirm that it arrived, and then acquire GameStop… But maybe once you have made all that, your prediction could've been confirmed already and GameStop price is so high that it is not worth investing.
Leverage is just like a credit, but it is only a few clicks away! eToro allows you to invest (and earn) much higher amounts than what you actually have on the platform. As in the image below, you will see the different options you have:
Trading with other assets allows you to use more leverage. The reason is that leverage is most common in short-term operations or day trading, and cryptocurrencies tend to be a medium or long-term investment. Let's talk a bit more about how leverage works:
- If you want to invest $ 1,000 and you use leverage x2, you will be starting with $ 2,000 (remember that$ 1,000 are a “loan” from eToro).
- A few days later, GameStop price does rises, as you thought, and now the price of your investment is $ 2,400 (20% more), so you decide to sell back.
- Once the $ 1k from leverage is deducted, you will have $ 1,400 left; which means you've earned $ 400, since the other $1,000 was yours initially.
In conclusion, by investing $ 1000 you can make a profit of 40% (in the case you earn $ 400). That is quite good.
Still wondering where the catch is? The thing is, you can also lose money. If everything goes as you planned, you will earn more money in less time; however, if the value of the asset goes down, you will also lose more in less time.
For example: if instead of increasing by 20%, the price falls by 10%, you do not lose $ 10, but twice (the leverage) that figure, that would be $ 20. For that reason, when using leverage it is crucial to take into account Take Profit and Stop Loss.
Take Profit is used as a form of reducing risks when trading. When you enter, you can set a profit limit and ask that your position is automatically closed when the asset reaches a price.
If you bought GameStop shares at $ 100, you program eToro to close once it reaches $ 120. That way, you make sure you won't change your mind and decide to wait a bit longer in case it keeps going up, which could make you lose it all.
Stop Loss is even more necessary, especially if you use leverage, because a reduced loss with leverage can be tragic for your wallet. Consider that eToro will recommend a limit for Stop Loss, but you should set it lower than that.
These are the financial assets you can operate with in this broker
We already know about cryptostocks, there are way more financial instruments available in this broker.
About ETFs
Have you heard about Exchange-traded funds or ETFs? They are passively managed funds, known for merging the advantages of stocks and mutual funds: they can be exchanged regularly at market price, but include a much wider diversity of assets and considerably lower rates.
Index Funds
Index funds are most adequate for those who want to invest for the long term, especially for beginners. If you don't need to use the amount of money you'll invest in less than five or ten years, index funds are the safest.
Unlike a lot of people think, beating the benchmark is far from being a piece of cake and very few fund managers have done it, apart from some specific cases.
In practice, all that glitters is not gold: if a fund manager achieves to beat the benchmark, it is only for a short period or on a specific occasion. Or perhaps they would charge very high fees and indexing would be a better decision anyway.
Index funds offer these two great advantages: most of the time, they beat active managers in the long term, and the rates are minimal.
Commodity market
Most people invest in raw materials due to their stability. While other assets tend to fluctuate more, commodity prices vary less and offer safety against inflation or market volatility. Nevertheless, prices do depend on supply and demand in the market, so if the fear of possible inflation provokes greater demand for a certain good, its cost will also increase.
Consider that the only intended profit from the investment in raw materials will be the hypothetical capital gain after selling them: unlike shares, these don't give returns or pay interest.
Commodities are generally classified into hard raw materials, which include precious metals as gold, silver, or copper, as well as industrial metals, and oil; and soft raw materials, which are basically agricultural goods, like soy, cocoa, corn, or rice, for instance.
Currency market
Foreign exchange trading or Forex consists, as the name says, in the trading of currencies. It's the conversion between currencies, and the aim is, evidently, to obtain a benefit out of this.
If you want to trade euros and dollars, you purchase euros at their price in dollars, with the expectation that the euro will increase compared to the dollar. Therefore, if you bought each euro for 1.15 USD and you sell them back when they cost 1.20 USD, you'll be keeping that margin.
Perhaps you already inferred this, but operating with foreign exchange requires investing a lot, because prices never increase that much, or using a lot of leverage, which you know is a risk. In case you are just starting to trade, it is not a good idea to begin with the currency market, because it is very risky and intricate.
You can exchange with almost all well-known currency pairs on eToro. Still, take into account that in Forex trading sales are always made through contract for differences, thus the underlying asset won't be yours.
How to deposit funds into your eToro account
Within the payment methods that eToro accepts you will find: bank transfer, PayPal, credit card (Visa, MasterCard, Diners, Visa Electron and Maestro), Neteller, and Skrill. Making a deposit with eToro is so simple: click “Deposit funds”, set an amount and pick the payment method you prefer.
Remember that for security reasons, you need to be the holder of the account or the credit card.
The minimum first time deposit is $ 200, and there is a maximum limit for unverified accounts. Thus, if your intention is to deposit larger sums, you will need to verify your account previously.
You can make the payment in any currency you want and eToro will automatically convert it to USD. But it is better to use USD anyway since the platform charges a commission for the conversion.
Investment strategies
There are lots of ways to operate cryptocurrencies: from buying and waiting to day trading using price fluctuations to your advantage.
My recommendation for those who are beginning to invest is going for a middle point: when you open your position, place a stop-loss 15-20% under the top price, and let the magic happen.
This means that if, for example, you acquire a cryptocurrency at $ 10, it reaches $ 20, and after that it decreases to $ 12, your position will be closed at $ 16-17 and you will have made a decent profit.
I know it's tempting to look to sell when the cost is at its peak, but unless you're a fortuneteller, that's impossible. The above method is much more realistic and, well applied, it can work very well for you.
Later on, you will be able to apply more complex techniques, such as going short or using leverage.
How to use eToro
We mentioned previously that eToro is very friendly and intuitive. Anyone can start investing without previous experience or long explanations.
Everyone who has used social networks like Instagram or Linkedin, knows enough to operate with the eToro interface.
Let's talk about the sign-up process and the different tabs you will find on the page.
First of all, you will have to enter all the information that eToro asks for: first and last name, address…
To complete your registration, you will have to answer some questions about your experience as an investor.
But don't feel intimidated, it is not a test that you have to pass. They only intend to find out how much you know and which assets to recommend for you.
Let's see what the different sections of the platform are.
“Set Price Alerts” allows you to set alerts on the price of certain assets. You just have to click on the three points at the end of the line and you will be able to program a price alarm. It is a very useful tool for when you want to buy an asset which price is decreasing, but it seems to you that it will decrease even more.
In “News Feed”, traders interact and share opinions, tips, and other valuable information.
“Instruments”, “People” and “CopyPortfolios” are within “Discover”. And we already discussed the kinds of assets that are available on eToro:
- Cryptocurrencies
- ETFs
- Shares
- Raw materials
- Forex
- Index funds
The term “social trading” comes to life within “People”: that is where you can duplicate the trading strategies of the best investors. You'll be able to see all their profiles and historical performances.
Through the search engine, you can find the users that you find more interesting: by risk level, types of financial instruments, average earnings… Just indicate the amount of your investment and eToro will be in charge of replicating the movements made by the selected investor, in proportion. “In proportion” means that if you have $ 1000 and the trader puts 10% of his or her balance in an asset, the platform will invest also 10% of your money (in this case $ 100) in that same asset.
In this section you will also see the three most popular types of CopyPortfolios, which are Top Trader, Market, and Partner.
Sometimes you might prefer copying to CopyPortfolios than to individuals, since you avoid putting all your eggs in one basket, or in other words, risk is more diversified. There are all kinds of portfolios that you can recognize easily and are divided by sectors. Therefore, if you suspect a specific industry, such as biotechnology or pharmacy, has a good chance of prospering, you can find that specific portfolio and invest in it.
Common questions
* Please note that CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. Disclaimer: 67% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work, and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.