What is "social trading"

n. 1 (context uncountable English) Shared or interactive trade in financial goods and services, through primarily online means. 2 (context uncountable English) Online financial trading conducted by means of a social network.

Social trading is the process through which online financial investors rely on user generated financial content gathered from various Web 2.0 applications as the major information source for making financial tradwiktionary January 20, 2011
Social trading introduces a new way of analyzing financial data by providing a ground to compare and copy trades, techniques and strategies. Prior to the advent of social trading, investors and traders were relying on fundamental or technical analysis to form their investment decisions. Using social trading investors and traders could integrate into their investment decision-process social indicators from trading data-feeds of other traders. These social trading networks can be considered a subcategory of online social networks.

Social trading allows traders to trade online with the help of others and some have claimed shortens the learning curve from novice to experienced Forex trader. Traders can interact with others, watch others take trades, then duplicate their trades and learn what prompted the top performer to take a trade in the first place. By copying trades, traders can learn which strategies work and which do not work.

Despite the influx of new social trading platforms in the early 2010s, numbers still continued to increase as brokers see them as new growth engines for converting new and retaining old clients. Social trading has increases participation in the market and led to a greater volume of trades going through.