Broker reviews: Compare online trading brokers

Best brokers based on personal reviews and experiences

When you have decided you want to start trading, the next important step is choosing a good broker. There are certainly large differences between the brokers and once you have opened an account with one broker it is unlikely you will switch to another one. Therefore is it important to imform yourself beforehand and make a rational decision.

Important factors when choosing an online broker

What are the tradeable instruments?

What is the level of the maximum leverage?

What is the minimum position size?

CFD software

Regulation

Welcome bonus

Trading devices

What are the tradeable instruments?

Most brokers offer trading in different indices (like the S&P500, Nasdaq, Nikkei, DAX), commodities (gold, oil, wheat, gas, etc.), and currency pairs. Besides that, there are a number of brokers that offer trading in individual stocks. Some have only the most famous multinationals, others have thousands of stocks, like the broker Plus500.

What is the level of the maximum leverage?

The highest possible leverage can also vary for each broker. The level of the leverage is usually between the 10 and the 400. The highest leverage is generally applied to currency pairs. Individual stocks ususally have a lower leverage.

What is the minimum position size?

Especially for beginning traders and investors with little available capital it is important that the minimum position size is as low as possible. Most of the time this can be found on the website of the broker.

Trading platform

Each broker has a different trading platform. Some are very complicated and offer many possibilities. These are more difficult to understand for the beginning trader however. Others are more basic and easier to use. Therefore it is important to select broker with a trading platform that suits your wishes, and your knowledge and experience level.

Regulation

It is important to know where a broker is regulated. It is safest if the broker is under supervision of a reliable financial authority. For example the British FCA, the Dutch AFM, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission, or the Australian Securities & Investments Commission. This way you can be more certain that your money is safe with a reliable party and that you have somewhere to go to in case of complaints or disputes.

Spread

The spread is the difference between the bid and the ask price. The magnitude of the spread is determined by the broker. The spread is how the CFD brokers make their money, because the difference between the bid and ask price is the commission for the broker. CFD brokers often apply different spread to different investment categories. For example, the spread on individual shares will me slightly higher in most cases than the spread on indices or Forex pairs. But also between brokers there are differences in terms of the spread and it is thus an important factor to consider when choosing your broker. The size of the spread can be seen on the website of the corresponding broker.

Welcome Bonus

Most CFD brokers offer a welcome bonus to its new customers. Most of the time this is in the form of a deposit bonus (you receive a certain percentage on top of your first deposit), in other cases you get a fixed bonus when you open an account, other brokers even give a combination of these. Please not however that these bonuses are withdrawable only after you have traded a certain volume or a certain number of trades. Although the registration bonus shouldn’t be the decisive factor, it is definately important to consider when choosing a new broker.

Conclusion

There are dozens of brokers on the interenet, making it incredibly difficult to choose the best one for yourself. So to make it a little easier for you we have tested and reviewed most of them and have written an extensive review of only the best of them on our website. The brokers on this website are all reliable, popular, and high-quality brokers.

The broker we liked best and therefore rewarded it with the highest score is Plus500. They are regulated by the British Financial Conduct Authority, offer low spreads, and have the largest number of tradeable instruments available.

The fact that we liked this broker the best doesn’t mean that everyone else will prefer it as well, so make sure to have a look at the other brokers as well.