I may receive a referral reward if you sign up through my link. It costs you nothing extra.
Disclosure: I may receive a referral reward from High Capital Group if you become a client through my link. It costs you nothing extra.
Dan Leman spent years as a full time investor, and he kept hitting the same wall. It seemed that to get into the best investments, you needed to bring multiple 7 figures to the table. That frustration is the reason High Capital Group exists, and the story of how it got solved is worth knowing before you decide whether copy trading is for you.
Dan was investing full time, and he could see the quality of the investments that were out there. What he could also see was that the good ones seemed to be reserved for people with far more money than he had to commit. The retail investor, the ordinary person with a few thousand dollars, was offered what was left.
He decided to fix the problem, first for himself and then for other retail investors like him. The company describes what followed as many long and frustrating years, because most top tier traders were happy trading for large hedge funds and institutional investors. They had no reason to take on small private accounts.
Then Dan met Norman Hart. According to the company's own account, Norman was everything Dan had been searching for. He has an honours degree in economics. His skills had been responsible for tens of millions of dollars in investment. Companies had paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars just to use the software he designed. And Norman wanted to help people.
He did have one condition, and it is my favourite detail in the whole story: all he wanted to do was trade. Together they formed Oak Valley Investments, which is now High Capital Group, with a mission to bring otherwise unavailable, high return investment opportunities to the retail investor.
Having a good trader is half the answer. The other half is a way for someone with a modest amount of money to benefit from his trading without handing that money to anybody. That is where copy trading comes in.
Under the High Capital Group set up, you open your own account with a highly reputable, regulated forex broker and deposit your money there. The company never has access to withdraw it. Your account is then set to mirror Norman's trades automatically. The minimum investment is US$1,000, which is a very different number from multiple 7 figures, and this is the heart of what changed. You stay the owner of the account and the money, and the trading is done by someone with a long record.
A story like this is only worth something if the numbers can be checked, so here is what the company publishes. Its targets are a 10% average monthly return after fees and a maximum drawdown below 15.0%. Its record shows one losing quarter out of 33 and a profit factor of 4.99. Results before 2018 are from the old legacy system, and the current system's record starts in 2018.
Those results are verified in real time by a third party, FX Blue, and you can see them on the Past Performance page without taking anyone's word for it. What the record cannot do is tell you the future. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results, and a good record does not make the next quarter a good one.
The company's own FAQ is direct about it: yes, you can lose money. It calls the service a very high return investment, which means there are things you can do to limit risk but it is still possible to lose. Leverage of at least 30:1 is required on the account, which raises the risk further. The fee is 30% of profits, paid only after you make money, and nothing upfront.
It is also an investment for a particular kind of person. The company says it may suit high net worth individuals looking to diversify, professional investors, financial planners and new investors looking to enter the market. If you cannot afford to lose the money, or you want to place your own trades, it is not the right fit, and I would rather say that than have you find out later.
Plenty of investment companies tell a founder story. What I find useful about this one is that it explains a specific problem, the cost of entry to good investments, and then points to a specific mechanism that addresses it, with a record you can inspect. You can read the whole founder story in Dan's own words on the About page, and you can see how the account set up works step by step on the Get Started page.
Whatever you decide, take your time. Read the record, read the FAQ and ask questions by email at support@highcapitalgroup.com. An investment that is right for you will still be right after a week of checking, and one that is wrong will usually show itself in that time.
The idea behind High Capital Group is simple to say: the best investment opportunities should not belong only to people with seven figures. Whether the service delivers for you depends on markets that nobody controls, and that is the part no founder story can promise.
Risk warning: past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Forex trading carries risk and you can lose money. Only invest money you can afford to lose. Client money is held by a regulated broker in the client's own account.
Forex trading carries risk and you can lose money. The return and drawdown figures are targets, not promises, and past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Your money is held in your own account with a regulated broker. Only invest money you can afford to lose.