CFD Brokers
CFDs are taking over the trading scene and most brokers offer diversify your trading portofilo with Contracts For Difference (CFD). This means that you have to get to work, making sure you know everything there is about CFD brokers, but you’re in lucky because the tough job was already done by us. We’ve prepared detailed reviews of the most important CFD brokers, including stats, rankings and unbiased opinions. Some CFD brokers suck and choosing the right one for you is no easy task but this page is here to help you do exactly that: find your next CFD Broker, from a big list of CFD providers. Protect your money and pick the right CFD broker for you!
CFD Brokers List – 2021
Trading successfully doesn’t come with an instructions manual. There are no exact steps that you need to take in order to reach the top of the financial ladder but there are certain prerequisites to begin your trading venture. You know, small things like a lot of work and dedication, countless hours of learning and trying out different strategies – however, all of that could be useless if your broker decides to pull a fast one and disappear with all your money or if they like to “move” price to where it isn’t supposed to be. And assuming you are here to learn how to choose the best CFD broker, not to hear me rant, let’s move right on.
How To Choose Your CFD Broker
Trading successfully doesn’t come with an instructions manual. There are no exact steps that you need to take in order to reach the top of the financial ladder but there are certain prerequisites to begin your trading venture. You know, small things like a lot of work and dedication, countless hours of learning and trying out different strategies – however, all of that could be useless if your broker decides to pull a fast one and disappear with all your money or if they like to “move” price to where it isn’t supposed to be. And assuming you are here to learn how to choose the best CFD broker, not to hear me rant, let’s move right on.
What Is A CFD Broker?
First of all, “broker” is a general term, which is loosely used. One time it can mean the company that is offering a trading platform for you to access the financial markets and other times it can refer to your account manager (your contact person at the said company). As a rule of thumb, the CFD “broker” or “brokerage” is a firm or company that allows traders to buy and sell Contracts For Difference (CFD) on specific assets (currencies, cryptocurrencies, stocks, indices, and commodities).
When trading with a CFD broker, the client will try to profit from the asset’s price movement/fluctuation but will never own the asset. In other words, if you are trading Cryptocurrencies with a CFD broker, you will not be able to withdraw the coins you trade. If you are trading CFD on stocks, you will not actually have a stake into the company that you are trading. Instead, you can withdraw fiat money (USD, EUR, GBP, etc.), assuming you make a profit, of course.
The First Things You Need To Check
No matter how you reach a broker’s website (say you’ve clicked on an ad or the broker was recommended by someone or any other way), you need to make sure you are not throwing money at a scam or a low-tier broker.
Among the first things you should check is whether the CFD broker is regulated or not. There are literally hundreds of brokers, all competing for your deposit but some are trying to push marketing in your face and make you forget about regulation. There’s a very wide choice of regulated brokers so you have no excuse to choose an unregulated one. Always check to see if they are regulated by CySEC, FCA, ASIC or any other major financial watchdog from the region where they are located. This is very important because if something bad happens, you can ask the regulatory body to mediate the problem.
Read other traders’ comments! If 5 of your friends say you are drunk – you probably are, so it’s time to call it a night and go home to take a nap. It’s similar with brokers: if you pull up Google, type the broker’s name and all you get is “Stay away” comments, then maybe you need to keep looking for other options. I am not saying that you should blindly trust everything people say on comment boards (we know people can be mean, especially if they lost some money trading, even if that’s not the broker’s fault), but just open your eyes and be extra-careful if you see loads of negative comments.
Once the “safety” check is done, move on to trading related stuff like spreads, fees, deposit/withdrawal methods and other things like “How many assets do they have”. Are you a “one trick pony”, meaning that you are specialized in trading major currency pairs, major stocks or only a certain cryptocurrency? If the answer is Yes, then you will have to find a broker that offers that specific group of assets and for all you care, that’s all they need to have. You don’t need to find a broker that offers CFDs on hundreds of assets or exotics like corn, sugar or platinum if you know you won’t be trading that. On the other hand, if you like to scan tens of markets and trade anything with a trending chart, then the range of assets they offer will play an important role.
The things discussed above (and much more) are included in our complete CFD broker reviews, which give you the best overview of a brokerage. Here’s a brief explanation regarding our ratings criteria:
User Friendliness – The broker will get a high score here if the website is well-structured, with easy to use the information and translated in more than one language (the more the better). A big part here is played by the trading platform, its functionality and ease of use.
Range Of Markets, Spreads, And Leverage – Range of markets refers to how many underlying assets are available for trading. The more assets, the more points. Spreads are an important part of trading because they will directly affect your profits, thus high spreads should be avoided (remember that you will pay spread on each of your trades).
Last but not least, leverage lets you control a bigger position with only a fraction of the investment. For example, if the leverage is 1:2, it means that with 100 bucks you can open a 200 bucks position. Usually, CFD brokers offer much higher leverage than just 1:2 but this can be a double-edged sword because it increases your risk as well.
Fees And Support – Here we will outline some of the most important fees, including but not limited to deposit/withdrawal and inactivity fees (if any). Of course, CFD brokers with higher fees will get fewer points. Support is another important category because sometimes you run into a problem and you want it solved quickly. You also need straightforward answers to your questions and that’s why it’s necessary for CFD brokers to have a solid support system, including Live Chat.
Deposits And Withdrawals – We will rate the broker depending on how easy it is to deposit and withdraw, although all brokers will make it extremely easy to deposit. We will enumerate all the methods for deposits and withdrawals and will try to give you an estimate of the time it takes. Brokers with lots of withdrawal methods and short processing times will get more points.
Extra Features – Things that are not commonly encountered on all CFD brokers will go under this category. It could be a very low minimum deposit (or very high), maybe huge leverage or deal-breaking fees. Anything extra and worth mentioning will go under Extra Features.
Search For Brokers
Contracts For Difference (CFD) have widely replaced Binary Options in terms of popularity and now some of the “old” binary brokers are turning to CFDs completely or partly (some of them are still offering BOs). What this means is that more brokers were already added to the CFD broker list and even more will follow. This ultimately translates into a huge pool of choices for you.
Learn About The Brokers
You need to learn what they are all about because at the surface almost all brokers are “the best” and “the biggest”. The first worry should be your money and the level of safety provided by the broker. A regulated broker has a much higher level of safety than an unregulated one, that’s why you need to see if a major financial authority is keeping guard. Some of the main watchdogs include CySEC (Cyprus), FCA (United Kingdom) and ASIC (Australia) but there are several others that may regulate a brokerage, depending on the jurisdiction.
Then you have to look at trading conditions, the number of assets, what platform are they offering (easy to use, advanced, pro, etc.) and you also have to take into consideration the minimum deposit and how much leverage they offer. If you only have $250 to invest but the minimum deposit at your chosen brokerage is $500, then you cannot have access to them even if they are good. The leverage is also important because it allows you to control risk – using leverage you increase potential rewards but also risk more money in the process. It’s a fine line between too much leverage and too little.
Choose The Broker
We take care of researching everything just mentioned above and much more, including but not limited to searching for complaints online and warning you if any of the regulators have issued any fines or announcements regarding a specific broker. Everything we find will be compiled into a comprehensive and unbiased review, as well as a rankings system that goes from 0 to 10. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do your own research, but the big chunk of work is done by us. Keep it safe and stay away from CFD brokers That Suck!