Setting Up Copy Groups: Leaders and Followers

Copy groups are the central organizing structure in MimikTrader. Each group defines a one-to-many relationship: one leader account whose trades are detected, and one or more follower accounts that receive matching orders. This article covers creating groups, assigning roles, configuring position sizing, and filtering which instruments are copied.

Understanding the Leader-Follower Model

The leader account is the account you actively trade on. This can be your personal Tradovate account, a demo account, or any connected account you designate. MimikTrader monitors the leader through a real-time WebSocket connection — the instant a fill occurs on the leader, matching orders are dispatched to all active followers in the group.

Follower accounts receive the copied trades. Each follower operates independently: it has its own sizing configuration, its own risk limits, and its own enable/disable toggle. If one follower is locked due to a risk limit breach, the other followers in the same group continue to receive trades normally.

Creating a Copy Group

1. 1

   Open the Copy Groups Section

   From the MimikTrader dashboard, navigate to “Copy Groups” in the sidebar. Click the “Create Copy Group” button.

2. 2

   Name Your Group

   Enter a descriptive name for the group. Use something that helps you quickly identify the strategy or account set — for example, “NQ Scalps — Funded Accounts” or “ES Swing — Evals.”

3. 3

   Select the Leader Account

   Choose one of your connected accounts to serve as the leader. The dropdown shows all connected accounts that are not already assigned as a leader in another group. After selection, MimikTrader will immediately begin monitoring this account for new fills.

   [Screenshot: Copy group creation form with leader account dropdown]

4. 4

   Add Follower Accounts

   Click “Add Follower” to attach accounts to this group. You can add as many followers as your subscription plan allows. Each follower is configured independently, so you can add accounts from different brokers, prop firms, or Tradovate logins.

Configuring Position Sizing

Each follower account has its own sizing mode that determines how many contracts are placed when the leader takes a trade. MimikTrader supports two sizing modes:

Fixed Contracts

In fixed mode, the follower always trades a specific number of contracts regardless of the leader's order size. If you set a follower to 2 fixed contracts and the leader trades 5 contracts of ES, the follower will trade 2 contracts. This is useful when an account has strict position size limits — common with prop firm evaluation accounts.

Multiplier

In multiplier mode, the follower trades a ratio of the leader's size. A multiplier of 1.0 means the follower matches the leader exactly. A multiplier of 0.5 means the follower trades half the leader's size (rounded to the nearest whole contract). A multiplier of 2.0 doubles the leader's position.

Symbol Whitelist

By default, a copy group replicates trades on every futures instrument. If you only want to copy trades on specific symbols, enable the symbol whitelist and add the instruments you want to include.

For example, if your leader account trades ES, NQ, and CL, but a particular follower account should only receive ES trades, add ES to the whitelist. Trades on NQ and CL will be ignored for that follower.

• The whitelist applies at the copy group level and affects all followers in the group.
• Use standard CME symbol names (ES, NQ, YM, CL, GC, etc.). MimikTrader handles the specific contract month mapping automatically.
• If the whitelist is empty or disabled, all instruments are copied.

Managing Group State

Group Active/Inactive Toggle

Each copy group has a master toggle. When a group is set to inactive, no trades are copied for any follower in that group — even if individual followers are enabled. Use this to pause all copying during non-trading hours or when making configuration changes.

Individual Follower Enable/Disable

Each follower has its own enable/disable toggle, independent of the group state. You can temporarily disable a specific follower without affecting others in the same group. A common use case is disabling a follower account that has hit its daily loss limit while keeping other accounts active.

Locked Accounts

When a follower account breaches a risk limit (daily loss, trailing drawdown, etc.), MimikTrader automatically flattens all positions on that account and locks it. A locked account will not receive any new trades until you manually unlock it. This prevents further losses after a breach and gives you time to review what happened before resuming trading.

Best Practices

• Create separate copy groups for different strategies or instrument types rather than mixing everything into a single group.
• Name groups descriptively so you can quickly identify them during live trading sessions.
• Test new copy groups on a demo account first before adding funded prop firm accounts as followers.
• Use the symbol whitelist to prevent accidental copies of trades on instruments that a particular prop firm account may not be allowed to trade.
• Review each follower's risk configuration carefully. Different prop firms have different rules, and each follower should be configured to match the specific account's requirements.