Category: Broker Review

For this Admirals review, we opened a live account and deposited over €4,5oo.

We traded the popular instrument in each market to determine the actual spreads and placed 12 trades in total.

We contacted the broker’s customer support team to resolve the challenges we faced.

Finally, we withdrew our funds to determine if the withdrawal process was smooth.

What is Admirals

Admirals is a global Forex and CFDs broker founded in 2001 whose parent company is Admirals Group AS, based in Estonia.

The broker is licensed in Australia, the United Kingdom, Cyprus, Kenya, and Jordan. As a part of its global expansion strategy, Admirals has also acquired South African license in 2022.

Admirals offers thousands of instruments to traders in the following categories, Forex pairs, indices, stocks, commodities, bonds, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies.

The broker offers a diverse product range consisting of more than 8,000 tradable instruments compared to its competitors.

Here’s a summary of Admirals’ main features:

Licenses and Regulations

Admirals is licensed by 6 regulators globally, including the top-tier UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), the Jordan Securities Commission (JSC), the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) in Kenya, and South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA).

Here’s a full list of the licenses held by Admirals’ subsidiaries:

Is Admirals Safe

Yes, Admirals is safe to trade. The broker is regulated by the top-tier ASIC and the UK’s FCA, which have strict rules and enforcement procedures. The broker is also licensed by Cyprus’ CySEC, Jordan’s JSC, Kenya’s CMA, and South Africa’s (FSCA).

The UK’s FCA guarantees investors’ compensation of up to £85,000 if the broker goes bankrupt, while the CySEC guarantees investors’ compensation of up to €20,000 if the broker becomes insolvent.

Traders have to be registered under the relevant entity to qualify for compensation if a broker declares bankruptcy.

We did not encounter any major challenges when trading with Admirals.

For this review, we opened a Trade.MT5 account with Admirals UK Limited, licensed by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). We deposited money into the account, placed trades, and finally withdrew our funds.

We recommend that you open your account with the UK or Cyprus entities since they are the only ones that offer deposit protection to traders if either is available to you.

The FCA offers deposit protection of up to £85,000 if the broker becomes insolvent, while the CySEC offers deposit protection of up to €20,000.

Fees and Commissions

Admirals charges very low fees for trading the main instruments on offer: Forex pairs, indices, stocks, and commodities.

The broker’s average spreads for the popular instruments in each market were much lower than industry averages.

Some account types have very low spreads combined with a commission, while other account types have no commissions, but feature wider spreads.

Spread Charged in our Trades

In our tests, we traded the most popular instrument in each market. We placed 3 trades per instrument to get an accurate estimate of the average spread. We tested Admirals’ Trade.MT5 account, which charges a spread on all instruments. The spreads were quite low, as shown in the table below.

We executed all our trades via the mobile trading app MetaTrader 5 on our iPhone.

A deeper comparison of the spreads charged in our trades revealed that they were well below industry benchmarks. None of Admirals’ average spreads was above industry averages.

Other fees

The broker charges a monthly inactivity fee of €10, if there are no new or running transactions on an account for 24 months. The broker does not charge deposit and withdrawal fees.

Admirals Account Types

Admirals offers 5 account types with slightly different features. The accounts are known as the Trade.MT4, Zero.MT4, Trade.MT5, Invest.MT5, and Zero.MT5 accounts.

See the differences below:

Admirals also offers swap-free Islamic Accounts (Also check Forex Swap-Free Accounts). Such accounts do not attract a swap fee for positions held overnight, but trades held for more than 3 nights attract an administration fee.

For our tests, we chose to open the Trade.MT5 Account.

Account Opening

Admirals account opening is fast and efficient. We went through the entire process and completed it digitally.

Here are the 5 steps to opening an Admirals account:

1. Enter your country of residence, full name, email address, password and phone number.
2. Verify your email and phone number, then choose your account type, currency, and leverage.
3. Enter your date and place of birth and residential address including your city/town, street number, residence, postal/ZIP code.
4. Answer a few questions about your financial position including your income and net worth as well as your investing/trading experience.
5. Verify your account using either a national ID or Passport and a utility bill or bank statement.

The registration process took exactly 15 minutes, and our account was approved on the same day.

We registered our account on 25 February 2023, and it was approved on 25 February 2023.

For this test, we opened the Trade.MT5 account with Admirals UK Limited, which is UK’s FCA regulated.

Deposit and Withdrawal

Admirals offers fast deposits and withdrawals. Traders can deposit and withdraw from their accounts using the following payment methods, bank wires, credit and debit cards, and e-wallets such as Skrill and Neteller.

Admirals Minimum Deposit

Admirals has a minimum deposit requirement of $/€/£ 25 on its Trade.MT4, Zero.MT5, Trade.MT5, and Zero.MT5 accounts, while the Invest.MT5 account has a minimum deposit of $/€/£ 1.

Deposit

Admirals’ clients can deposit funds into their trading accounts via bank transfers, debit/credit cards, and e-wallets such as Skrill, and Neteller.

The table below has the details of our deposits:

Admirals does not charge deposit fees for its funding methods. Our Skrill deposit was not instant as we had to wait for 4 hours before the amount was credited to our account. Credit and debit card deposits are free and instant. We did not deposit via bank transfer.

Withdrawal

Admirals allows its clients to make withdrawals via the same payment methods available for deposits making it easy for investors to access their funds.

Admirals does not charge a fee on deposits, as well as on withdrawals, unlike most brokers who have withdrawal fees.

We did not encounter any difficulties during the withdrawal process, which was quite smooth.

Markets and Products

Admirals offers a wide selection of tradable instruments in the Forex, indices, stocks, commodities, bonds, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies markets.

Here’s the complete list of Admirals’ product offerings:

The broker offers a significant amount of stocks CFDs to its clients.

Trading Conditions

The trading conditions at Admirals are great. Traders can execute most trading strategies given that the broker allows high-risk strategies such as hedging and scalping.

There are no time limits for how long you can keep your hedging positions open. Admirals also allows traders to use Expert Advisors (EAs) for automated trading.

*The broker allows hedging strategies on all account types except for the Invest.MT5 account.

Leverage

Admirals clients have access to different leverage levels based on the entity under which their account is registered.

Traders can also change their account’s leverage levels after registration.

The table below shows the various leverage levels available to clients:

Bonus

Admirals does not offer bonuses to its clients (See No Deposit Bonus Forex for finding brokers that offer bonuses).

Trading Platform

Admirals offers the popular MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) platforms to its clients. Clients can trade via the broker’s website and the mobile and desktop MT4 and MT5 applications. The broker does not have a proprietary trading platform.

Traders who prefer the MetaTrader platform can choose between the MT4 and MT5 platforms. However, traders who prefer to trade on proprietary platforms have to find an alternative broker.

We found the MT5 platform to be satisfactory for traders who prefer to trade on a modern platform, while the MT4 platform is outdated.

Research and Tools

Admirals provides market research via the in-built features on the MetaTrader platforms. Clients can access premium research from Trading Central via the MetaTrader Supreme Edition, an available add-in on the platforms.

The broker has a Premium Analytics section, which gives its clients access to the Dow Jones News calendar, signals from Trading Central, and sentiment trackers from Acuity Trading. All these are freely available to their clients.

Admirals also has a Trader’s Blog where it publishes fundamental and technical analysis articles covering significant market moves several times each month. The broker also has a Forex Calendar and a Trading Calculator.

The broker also produces a weekly trading podcast that discusses past and coming fundamental events and provides market analysis and trading strategies.

Education

Admirals has a great beginners course titled Forex 101 that consists of nine in-depth lessons that acquaint new traders with the Forex markets’ dynamics. Traders have to sign up for a free demo account to gain access to lessons 4-9; the first three lessons are freely available.

The broker also hosts free weekly educational webinars that build on the course content. The course also focuses on risk management as a key pillar of trading, which is commendable.

Admirals also provides several detailed articles and tutorials that cover various trading topics. Traders also have access to a complete guide to the Forex markets called Zero-to-Hero.

Customer Service

Admirals’ customer support team was very helpful and gave us direct and accurate answers to our questions. We first contacted the support team via live chat and received a prompt and accurate answer to our question.

You can reach the Admirals customer service team via email and live chat. Our live chat query reached the customer support team within 2 minutes, which was quite impressive.

Our second query was submitted to the customer support team via email. We received a clear, detailed and accurate answer within an hour. We were impressed by the fast response time.

Here are the results of our test below:

Conclusion

Finally, we had a smooth experience with Admirals starting from the account opening, to the deposit, trading and withdrawal processes.

Admirals has high execution speeds and very low spreads on all instruments. Additionally, the broker does not charge fees for its deposit and withdrawal methods.

Traders should also avoid depositing funds into their trading wallets, which requires approval from the broker’s finance department. We encourage traders to deposit funds directly into their trading accounts, which is instant.

We recommend Admirals to all types of traders, from beginners to experienced professionals. This is a truly safe broker, given that it does not have an offshore license. The UK and Australian entities accept clients from all countries globally. Hence, clients from every country are truly protected.

We recommend Admirals for traders who are

• Experienced traders
• Beginners
• Run Scalping
• Hedging
• EAs trading
• Trading through MT4 / MT5
• Looking for a wide range of instruments

Admirals might not be a fit if you are

• Real Stock / Futures Trading
• Commission-based trading
• Prefer other platforms rather than MetaTrader

For this Markets.com review, we opened a live account and deposited over €4,500.

We traded the popular instrument in each market to identify the actual spreads and placed a total of 12 trades.

We contacted the broker’s customer support team to resolve the challenges we faced.

Finally, we withdrew our funds to find out if the withdrawal process was smooth.

What is Markets.com

Markets.com is a global Forex and CFDs broker founded in 2008 as GFC Markets but rebranded to Markets.com after its parent company Safecap Investments Limited merged with Playtech Plc (LON: PTEC).

The broker is licensed in the United Kingdom, Australia, Cyprus, South Africa, and the British Virgin Islands.

Markets.com offers thousands of instruments to traders in the following categories, Forex pairs, indices, stocks, commodities and cryptocurrencies.

The broker offers a wide range of over 2,200 tradable instruments compared to most of its peers.

Here’s a summary of Markets.com’s main features:

Licenses and Regulations

Markets.com is licensed by 5 global regulators, including the tier 1 UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

The broker is also regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), and the B.V.I Financial Services Commission (FSC).

Here’s a full list of the licenses held by Markets.com’s subsidiaries:

Is Markets.com Safe

Yes, Markets.com is safe to trade. The broker is regulated by the top-tier ASIC and the UK’s FCA, which have stringent rules and enforcement mechanisms. The broker is also licensed by Cyprus’ CySEC, South Africa’s FSCA and the B.V.I’s FSC.

The UK’s FCA guarantees investors’ deposit compensation of up to £85,000 if the broker goes under, while the CySEC guarantees investors’ deposit compensation of up to €20,000 if the broker becomes insolvent.

The broker is also a subsidiary of Playtech Plc, a publicly listed company. Hence, it is considered to be very safe given the transparency required of public companies.

For this review, we opened an MT5 CFD account with Safecap Investments Limited, regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC). We deposited funds into the account, placed trades, and finally withdrew our funds.

We recommend that you open your account with the UK or Cyprus entities since they are the only ones that offer deposit protection to traders if either is available to you.

Markets.com Fees and Commissions

Markets.com charges mostly high fees for trading the main instruments on offer, including Forex pairs, indices, stocks, and commodities.

The broker’s average spreads for trading the popular instruments in most of the markets listed above were much higher than those charged by its peers.

The fees for trading indices, stocks and commodities were much higher than industry averages. However, the fees for trading Forex pairs were lower than the industry average.

Spread Charged in our Trades

For our tests, we traded the most popular instrument in each market. We placed 3 trades for each instrument to arrive at an accurate estimate of the average spread. We tested Markets.com’s MT5 CFD account, which charges a spread on all instruments. The spreads were quite high, as shown in the table below.

We executed all our trades via the MetaTrader 5 mobile app on our iPhone.

A deeper comparison of the spreads charged in our trades revealed that most of the spreads were higher than industry benchmarks. Only one of Markets.com’s average spreads was below industry averages.

Other fees

Markets.com charges a monthly inactivity fee of $10 after three months if there are no new or running transactions on an account. The broker does not charge deposit or withdrawal fees.

Account Types

Markets.com offers 5 account types that offer slightly different features. The accounts are the CFD, investment strategy builder, MT4 CFD, MT5 CFD, and share dealing accounts.

See the differences below:

Markets.com also offers swap-free Islamic Accounts to Muslim clients. Such accounts do not have a swap fee for positions held overnight, but trades held for over 3 nights are charged an administration fee.

For our tests, we chose to open the MT5 CFD Account with Safecap Investments Limited.

Account Opening

Markets.com account opening is fast and seamless. We completed the entire process digitally within a few minutes.

Here are the 5 steps to opening a Markets.com account:

1. Enter your email and password, confirm the password, choose your account type and account currency.
2. Provide your full name, phone, date of birth, residential address including ZIP code/post code, city, country, and citizenship status.
3. Enter your country of tax residency, TIN number, do you have another tax residency and are you a US citizen?
4. Provide details of your profession and financial position including your education level, employment status, annual income, savings and investments, purpose and nature of trading, and the source of your trading funds.
5. Enter the number of trades you took over the past two years in Forex, shares, bonds, indices, and commodities including the number of leveraged trades.

The registration process took only 6 minutes, and our trading account was approved on the same day.

For this test, we opened the MT5 CFD account with Safecap Investments Limited, regulated by CySEC.

Deposit and Withdrawal

Markets.com offers free and fast deposits and withdrawals. Traders can use the following payment methods to deposit and withdraw from their accounts, bank wires, credit and debit cards, and e-wallets such as Skrill, PayPal and Neteller.

The broker does not charge a fee on deposits and withdrawals.

Markets.com Minimum Deposit

Markets.com has different minimum deposit requirements depending on the account type chosen by a client. The investment strategy builder account has a minimum deposit of $/€/£ 10 while the CFD and MT4 CFD accounts have a minimum deposit requirement of $/€/£ 100.

The share dealing account has a minimum deposit of $/€/£ 200 while the MT5 CFD account has a minimum deposit of $/€/£ 500.

Deposit

Markets.com’s clients can deposit funds into their trading accounts via bank transfers, debit/credit cards, and e-wallets such as Skrill, PayPal and Neteller.

The table below shows the details of our deposits:

Markets.com does not charge a fee on deposits. The broker asked us to provide our ID in order to process our PayPal deposit. Our Skrill deposit was also scrutinized to ensure that we were using our own account.

We deposited a total of EUR 5,000 into our account, but EUR 3,000 was to our CFD account denominated in Pounds, which reduced our total deposit to EUR 4,862.53 after the necessary conversions.

Withdrawal

Markets.com allows its clients to withdraw funds from their accounts using the same payment methods available for deposits, which makes it easy for traders to access their funds.

Markets.com does not charge a fee on withdrawals unlike many brokers who have withdrawal fees.

We did not encounter any difficulties during the withdrawal process, which was quite smooth. However, our PayPal withdrawal of EUR 2,000 was split into two with EUR 1,633.67 going back to our credit card and EUR 366.33 being sent to our PayPal account.

We finally received the entire withdrawn amount with the broker explaining that the above split was in-line with its withdrawal policies.

Markets and Products

Markets.com offers a massive number of tradable instruments in the Forex, indices, stocks, commodities and cryptocurrencies markets.

Here’s the complete list of Markets.com’s product offering:

The broker offers a significant number of stocks CFDs to its clients.

Trading Conditions

The trading conditions at Markets.com are excellent. Traders can execute most trading strategies since the broker allows high-risk strategies such as hedging and scalping.

Traders can keep their hedging positions open for as long as they would like. Markets.com also allows traders to use Expert Advisors (EAs).

The broker allows hedging strategies on all account types.

Leverage

Markets.com clients can access different leverage levels depending on the entity under which they register their account.

Traders can also change their account’s leverage level after opening the account.

The table below shows the different leverage levels available to clients:

Bonus

Markets.com offers a 20% deposit bonus to its clients registered under the Australian and British Virgin Islands entities.

The bonus program is based on the following criteria:

Markets.com Trading Platform

Markets.com offers traders two proprietary trading platforms known as Marketsx and Marketsi. The broker also offers the popular MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) platforms.

The Marketsx and Marketsi platforms have premium features such as Trading Analysts Recommendations, Bloggers Opinions, Insider Trades, Hedge Funds Investment Confidence, Trends In Trading, Advanced Alerts, Acuity News Alerts, Acuity News Trading Sentiment, Signals, Advanced Charting, Related Instruments, Financial Commentary, Thomson Reuters Stock Report and Dow Jones News.

The MT4 and MT5 platforms offer the standard features that made them extremely popular among investors but offer none of the above premium features, which are only found on the broker’s proprietary platforms.

Traders who prefer to trade on proprietary platforms can choose between the Marketsx and Marketsi platforms. Traders who prefer the MetaTrader platform can choose between the MT4 and MT5 platforms.

We found the MT5 platform to be satisfactory for traders who prefer to trade the popular MetaTrader platform, while the Marketsx platform was the best of the two proprietary platforms.

Research and Tools

Markets.com provides its clients with trade ideas that indicate clearly where to buy or sell a certain instrument and the expected price targets. However, the broker does not provide the reasoning behind the trade signals.

The broker also provides stock trading recommendations from analysts and experts at top-tier banks such as J.P.Morgan and Goldman Sachs. The analysts are ranked according to their past performance, helping traders chose the best performing experts.

Traders get access to the insider trades sentiment section that has a record of trades made by company insiders such as CEOs and top managers. The hedge fund sentiment section provides details of portfolio adjustments made by the top hedge fund managers in the past quarter.

We found the broker’s fundamental company data to be quite shallow as important financial ratios and past earnings results are not provided.

The broker’s Marketsi platform is licensed from Saxo Bank and bears a close similarity to Saxo’s TraderGO platform. However, the news feed is quite different.

Education

Markets.com has an entire section known as the Knowledge Centre that provides ongoing education to traders. The centre has Analysis, News, XRay, and Webinar segments. The XRay segment is a live stream service that offers daily market analytics and discussions of market-related developments.

However, the XRay service is only available on Markets.com’s proprietary trading platforms. The broker’s news segment offers fresh content and discussions of breaking news stories and their impact on the affected assets.

The broker offers 60-minute webinars that are useful for beginners and a few introductory articles on market fundamentals. We think this section could be more detailed to be at par with industry leaders.

Customer Service

Markets.com’s customer service team was accommodating and gave us direct answers to our questions. We first contacted the team via live chat and received a prompt but inaccurate response to our question.

You can reach Markets.com’s customer service team via email and live chat. The customer service team answered our live chat query within 1 minute, which was very impressive.

We submitted our second query to the customer support team via email and received a clear and direct answer within two hours.

Here are the results of our test below:

Conclusion

Finally, we had a positive experience with Markets.com starting from the account opening to the deposit, trading and withdrawal processes.

Markets.com has spreads that are higher than industry averages, except for Forex spreads, which were below industry benchmarks. The broker’s response time for live chat requests was quite fast with email queries being answered quickly as well.

However, traders should ensure that their queries are well understood by the customer support agents, especially for live chat requests.

The broker offers fast deposits, but traders must provide documents proving their ID and residential address. Traders should be aware that inter-account transfers from GBP denominated accounts to EUR accounts will result in lower amounts than expected.

We recommend Markets.com for traders who are

• Forex traders and Stock traders
• Beginners in trading
• Experienced traders
• Scalping or hedging traders
• EA trader
• High-risk strategies trader

Markets.com might not be a fit for

• Comission based trading
• Trading Futures or Index

For this ActivTrades review, we opened a live account and deposited over €5,000.

We traded the popular instrument in each market to identify the actual spreads and placed a total of 12 trades.

We reached out to the broker’s customer support team to resolve the challenges we faced.

Finally, we withdrew our funds to evaluate whether the withdrawal process was smooth.

What is ActivTrades

ActivTrades is a global Forex and CFDs broker founded in 2001 with its headquarters in London, United Kingdom.

The broker is licensed in the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, and the Bahamas.

ActivTrades offers almost a thousand tradable instruments in the Forex, indices, stocks and commodities segments.

The broker offers a substantial number of tradable instruments as compared to industry leaders.

Here’s a summary of Activtrades’ main features:

Licenses and Regulations

ActivTrades is licensed by 3 global regulators, including the top-tier UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Securities Commission of the Bahamas (SCB), and Luxembourg’s Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF).

Here’s a full list of the licenses held by ActivTrades’ subsidiaries:

*ActivTrades Plc UAE license was recently revoked, leaving the broker with 3 global licenses.

Is ActivTrades Safe

Yes, ActivTrades is safe to trade. The broker is regulated by the top-tier UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which has stringent rules and enforcement mechanisms.

The UK’s FCA guarantees investors’ deposit compensation of up to £85,000 if the broker declares bankruptcy. The broker also offers supplementary insurance up to $1,000,000 for qualified clients.

The broker is also licensed by Luxembourg’s CSSF and the Securities Commission of the Bahamas (SCB).

We had a smooth experience when trading with ActivTrades.

For this review, we opened an MT5 Individual account with ActivTrades Europe SA, regulated by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) in Luxembourg.

We recommend that you open your account with the UK or Luxembourg entity if it is available to you.

Fees and Commissions

ActivTrades charges low, average and high fees for trading the main assets on offer. The fees charged for trading Forex pairs, and stocks, are lower than industry benchmarks.

The broker charges average fees for trading commodities such as gold.

However, the average fees charged on indices such as the FTSE 100 are much higher than industry averages.

The two accounts offered by ActivTrades charge a spread on trades with zero commission.

Spread Charged in our Trades

For our tests, we traded the most popular instrument in each market. We placed 3 trades for each instrument to arrive at an accurate estimate of the average spread. We tested the MT5 Individual Account, which charges a spread on all instruments.

We executed all our trades via the MetaTrader 5 mobile app on our iPhone.

A closer look at the spreads charged in our trades shows that they were mixed. The spreads on Forex, stocks and commodities trades were lower than industry averages. However, the spreads charged on indices were much higher than industry averages, as shown below.

Other fees

ActivTrades does not charge any other non-trading fees such as deposit and withdrawal fees or account inactivity fees.

Account Types

ActivTrades offers 2 account types with slight differences. These are the Individual Account and the Islamic Account.

The differences are outlined below:

ActivTrades offers swap-free Islamic Accounts to Muslim clients only. Such accounts do not attract a swap fee for positions held overnight in line with Sharia Law.

For our tests, we chose to open the Individual MT5 Account.

Account Opening

ActivTrades account opening was quick and smooth. We went through the entire process and completed it digitally.

Here are the 5 steps to opening an ActivTrades account:

1. Enter your country of residence, title, given name, last name, email, password, and phone number.
2. Provide your date of birth, nationality, tax identification number, residential address, time at current address
3. Enter your trading experience based on how long you have traded contracts for difference (CFDs).
4. Provide your employment status, employer, industry, job title, annual income, the value of savings, intended deposits over the next 6 months, source of funds, and trading preferences.
5. Lastly, choose your trading platform and your account currency.

The registration process took 6 minutes only, and our account was approved in 1 working day.

We opened the account on 26 February 2023, and it was approved on 28 February 2023.

We provided a copy of our ID and a bank statement to verify our account.

For this test, we opened an MT5 Individual account with ActivTrades Europe SA, regulated by Luxembourg’s Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF).

Deposit and Withdrawal

ActivTrades offers free and fast deposits and withdrawals. Traders can deposit and withdraw from their accounts via bank transfers, credit and debit cards, and e-wallets such as Skrill, PayPal, and Neteller.

ActivTrades Minimum Deposit

ActivTrades has a minimum deposit requirement of US$500 on its Islamic accounts. The Standard account requires a minimum deposit of US$1,000.

Deposit

ActivTrades’ clients can deposit funds into their trading accounts via bank transfers, debit and credit cards, and e-wallets such as Skrill, PayPal, and Neteller.

The table below shows the details of our deposits:

The broker processed our deposits quickly and with zero fees. We did not test the bank wire option.

Withdrawal

ActivTrades allows its clients to make withdrawals via the same payment methods available for deposits making it easy for investors to access their funds.

ActivTrades does not charge a fee on withdrawals.

We did not face any challenges when withdrawing our funds.

Markets and Products

ActivTrades offers various tradable instruments in the Forex, indices, stocks, and commodities markets.

Here’s the complete list of ActivTrades’ product offering:

The broker’s collection of stock CFDs is quite impressive, placing it among the top brokers who offer a wide variety of tradable instruments.

Trading Conditions

The trading conditions at ActivTrades are great. Traders can execute most trading strategies as the broker allows high-risk strategies such as hedging and scalping.

ActivTrades also allows traders to run automated strategies powered by Expert Advisors (EAs).

There are no time limits for how long traders can keep their hedging positions open.

Leverage

ActivTrades offers its clients various leverage levels depending on the entity under which their account is registered.

Traders are allowed to change their account’s leverage levels after registration.

The table below shows the different leverage levels available to clients:

Bonus

ActivTrades does not offer bonuses to its clients.

Trading Platform

ActivTrades has a proprietary platform known as ActivTrader. We found the platform easy to use with an intuitive design. However, the platform does not support automated trading and is only available as a web trader.

The broker also offers the popular MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) platforms. Clients can access the two platforms via the desktop and mobile MT4 and MT5 applications.

ActivTrades MetaTrader 5

The broker’s SmartTools suite offered via the MT4 platform consist of seven unique add-ons that transform the MT4 platform into a superior platform. Retail individual traders should use this tool to get an edge in the markets.

ActivTrader

ActivTrades MetaTrader 4

The MetaTrader 4 (MT4) platform offers a suite of Smart Tools that drastically improves its functionality. Traders can also access third-party plugins that support automated trading, unlike with the proprietary ActivTrader platform. However, the MT4 platform does not have all the instruments offered by the broker.

We found the ActivTrader platform to be best suited to manual traders, while traders who use automated strategies might prefer the MetaTrader 4 & 5 platforms, which are a better fit.

Research and Tools

ActivTrades provides market research via the Smart Tools suite found on the MetaTrader platforms, which provides high-quality trading insights from analysts, pattern recognition indicators and much more.

Traders also have access to short market analysis pieces published by the broker’s in-house analysts, which could be more detailed and specific. The ideas lack the depth and research quality offered by top brokers.

The broker provides an economic calendar on its website under the ‘Markets’ tab but does not provide historical data. Traders can track various economic releases and plan their trading activities accordingly.

The broker’s research offering was a bit underwhelming.

Education

Activ Trades Review found several learning resources to its clients. The broker provides one-to-one lessons to new traders that are quite helpful. This is a unique service that most brokers do not offer.

Traders have access to a video library with tutorials about how to use the MT4 platform and general educational videos.

The broker also hosts educational webinars to discuss advanced trading topics, which are recorded and available on the website. The broker used to host in-person seminars before the coronavirus pandemic struck.

ActivTrades Demo Account

Traders also have access to a demo account where they can practice trading and test their strategies.

Customer Service

ActivTrades’ customer service team was accommodating and gave us direct and accurate answers to our questions. We first contacted the team via live chat and asked them to approve our request to add extra instruments to our account.

We received a fast response from the agent, saying that they will approve the request soon and that the UK100 was closed from CET 2:00 – 22:00 on that day.

You can also reach the ActivTrades customer service team via email. We sent the team an email asking whether they allow scalping and hedging strategies and how long they would take to process our withdrawals.

We got a response two working days later saying that they allow both scalping and hedging strategies. Also, withdrawal requests made before 12:30 PM UK time are processed on the same day, but one cannot withdraw intraday profits until the next business day.

Here are the results of our test below:

Conclusion

Overall, we had a smooth experience with ActivTrades. However, we could not trade shortly after our initial deposit, but the issue was resolved quickly after contacting the support team.

We tested four deposit methods, all of which did not attract charges, but only the Neteller deposits were instant. The rest took a maximum of 1 hour to be credited to our account.

To trade Apple Inc CFDs, we had to request the broker to add stock instruments to our account, for which the broker charges a Market Data fee of 1 EUR/month.

The withdrawal process was seamless as the client only needs to indicate the amount they want to withdraw. The broker’s systems will automatically distribute the corresponding amounts via the different payment methods used.

We got fast responses to our queries via the live chat function, while email queries are answered within 1 working day, and traders should be aware of the same. We recommend traders use the live chat function to contact the broker.

We also recommend ActivTrades to all traders, from beginners to advanced traders.

We recommend  ActivTrades for traders who

• Experienced traders
• Beginners
• Run Scalping
• Hedging
• Use automated trading strategies
• Trading through MT4/MT5 platform

ActivTrades might not be a fit if you are

• Real Stock / Futures Trading
• Commission based trading

For this Tickmill review, we opened a live account and deposited over US$ 8,000.

We traded the popular instrument in each market to identify the average spread and placed 12 trades in total.

We contacted the broker’s customer support to resolve the challenges we faced.

Finally, we withdrew all our funds to discover if there are any issues with withdrawals.

What is Tickmill

Tickmill is a global Forex and CFDs broker, founded in 2014.

The broker is headquartered in London but is licensed by regulators in the UK, Cyprus, South Africa, Seychelles, and Labuan (Malaysia).

Tickmill has offices in each of the countries where it is regulated.

Some of Tickmill’s key features are listed below:

Licenses and Regulations

Tickmill is licensed by 5 global regulators including the top-tier UK’s FCA, the CySEC, FSCA, Labuan FSA & South Africa’s FSA.

Here’s a full list of the licenses, which are held by Tickmill’s subsidiaries:

Is Tickmill Safe

Yes, Tickmill is safe to trade. Tickmill’s regulation by the FCA and CySEC means that traders registered under the two entities are entitled to deposit compensation schemes of up to £85,000 and €20,000 respectively.

We did not encounter any major issues when trading and making withdrawals with Tickmill.

For this review, we opened an account under Tickmill UK Ltd which is regulated by Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for our tests where we deposited money, placed trades, and withdrew our funds.

We recommend that you register your account with the UK entity, if it’s available to you, as we consider FCA regulation as the best since it provides compensation of up to £85,000 if the broker goes bankrupt.

Fees and Commissions

Tickmill charges low fees for stock index trades, while forex and commodities fees are average to high.

Spread Charged in our Trades

In our tests, we chose the popular instrument in each market. We placed 3 trades for each instrument to get a complete picture of the average spread. We tested the Classic Account which only charges a spread without commissions. Overall, the spread is stable as shown in the table below.

We traded through MT4 on our iPhone which we video recorded the trades. You see this them here.

Comparing the spreads charged in our trades to industry benchmarks, we found the spread on stock indices to be quite low, but the spreads on Forex and commodities were in-line with industry averages or higher.

Other fees

Tickmill does not charge non-trading fees such as account inactivity fees as well as deposit & withdrawal fees.

Tickmill Account types

Tickmill offers 3 account types, that is, the Pro, Classic, and VIP accounts. See the differences below:

Tickmill also offers swap-free forex accounts. The main difference with Islamic accounts is that instead of daily swap rates, there is an administration fee charged if you hold for more than 3 nights.

For our tests, we chose to open a Classic Account.

Account Opening

Tickmill account opening is fast and straightforward. We opened an account to test the entire process, which was fully digital.

Here are the 5 steps to opening a Tickmill account:

1. Enter your country of residence, preferred communication language, client type, your name, email, and phone number.
2. Enter your address including country of residence, state, city, street name, house number and ZIP code.
3. Answer a few questions about your nationality employment and financial status
4. Choose and confirm your password.
5. Verify your ID and residency using either a National ID or Passport and a bank statement.

The registration process took about 20 minutes and our account was approved in 1 day, which was impressive.

We registered our account on 29 January 2023 and it was verified on 30 January 2023. Our account was approved the next day after submitting all the necessary documents.

Unlike other brokers, Tickmill allows you to choose the entity under which you want to open an account giving you the option to choose the UK entity, which we did.

We video recorded our account opening process. See the video below

Tickmill account opening

Deposit and Withdrawal

Tickmill offers free and fast deposits and withdrawals. There are various options for funding your account, including bank wires, credit and debit cards, and e-wallets such as Skrill and Neteller.

Minimum Deposit

Tickmill’s minimum deposit is $100 for bank transfers, credit/debit cards, Skrill and Neteller. However, the VIP account has a $50,000 minimum deposit.

Deposit

Tickmill clients can deposit funds into their trading accounts using debit/credit cards, bank transfers, and e-wallets such as Skrill, and Neteller.

The table below shows the details of our deposits:

All the deposit methods offered by Tickmill are instant and free, except for bank transfers, which take 1 working day and usually incur a $25 fee charged by the bank.

Withdrawal

Tickmill processes client withdrawals quite fast with zero charges on each withdrawal.

We withdrew our funds via the four payment methods we used to make our initial deposits to test all the available withdrawal options.

Tickmill allows you to withdraw your funds using any of the payment methods used to deposit funds without following a particular order. We made our first deposit using Skrill yet our first withdrawal was to our credit card.

Markets and Products

At Tickmill, you can trade CFDs on Forex, stock indices, commodities, and German government bonds.

Popular asset classes, such as stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, bonds and options are missing.

Here’s the complete list of Tickmill’s product offerings:

Trading Conditions

The trading conditions at Tickmill are good. You can run most types of trading strategies as the broker allows high-risk strategies such as hedging and scalping.

There are no time limitations for keeping your hedging positions open. Tickmill also allows the use of Expert Advisors (EAs).

Leverage

Tickmill offers different leverage levels to its clients depending on the entity under which they registered their account:

The table below outlines the various leverage levels available to clients:

Tickmill Bonus

Tickmill offers a no-deposit bonus worth $30 to its new clients.

However, the bonus is only provided by Tickmill Ltd and does not apply to clients from certain countries.

Here are the full details of the bonus scheme:

Trading Platform

Tickmill’s trading platform is based on the popular MetaTrader 4 platform (MT4). The broker does not offer any other trading platform making it ideal for MT4 lovers.

WebTrader

Tickmill MT4

The MT4 platform is decent enough and can be customized to a high degree. However, the design is getting old, and we would have loved to see the broker offer the MetaTrader 5 platform (MT5), which is the newer version of the platform.

In our test, we placed all our trade through the MT4 app on our iPhone.

Research and Tools

Tickmill provides user-friendly research tools including

• Autochartist
• Myfxbook Copy Trading
• Economic Calendar
• Forex Calculators
• Tickmill VPS
• One-Click Trading

Education

Tickmill does a good job in education. They offer

• Webinars
• Seminars
• Ebooks
• Video Tutorials
• Infographics
• Forex Glossary
• Fundamental Analysis
• Technical Analysis
• Market Insights

Customer Service

Tickmill’s customer support team was helpful and provided relevant answers to our questions.

You can contact Tickmill via Email, and Phone calls. However, we could not reach anyone by phone as our calls went unanswered.

We were disappointed to find out that the broker does not have a Live Chat function, which is a crucial support channel offered by most brokers.

See the results of our test below:

We did note that the account opening and verification process was smooth and we did not encounter any issues during the process.

Tickmill Customer service channels:

Conclusion

Our overall experience was smooth. Tickmill allows traders to trade with almost any trading strategy including scalping, which is great for day trading and EA trading. Tickmill also allows traders to change their leverage levels and…

As compared to other brokers. Tickmill offers a limited number of markets and instruments, and we hope that they will add shares CFDs, cryptocurrencies, and ETFs in the future.

We recommend Tickmill for traders who run EAs, scalping and prefer the MT4 platform, as well as those interested in trading with FCA-regulated brokers.

We recommend Tickmill for traders who are

• Experienced traders
• Beginners
• Run Scalping
• Hedging
• EAs trading
• Trading through MT4

Tickmill might not be a fit if you are

• Real Stock / Futures Trading
• Commission based trading
• Prefer other platforms rather than MT4