Admiral Markets Review for 2020: 8 Key Findigs & Ratings

What can you trade?

Forex CFDs

Admiral Markets is a broker offering clients access to a wide variety of currency pairs, including majors, minors, and exotics. In total, there are 50 currency pairs to choose from:

Overall, traders are able to access a solid mix of currency pairs that is on-par with other leading brokers. Competitive leverage rate of up to 1:30 is available for Retail Clients (1:500 for professional clients), while Admiral Markets also provides several other unique features as part of its Forex trading accounts.

These include competitive spreads that start from 0 pips, no restrictions on stop distances, negative balance protection and super-fast order fulfilment that is executed within milliseconds. We particularly liked the negative balance protection feature, which helps traders minimise their volatility and market risk by preventing their accounts from sliding into a negative amount.

Admiral Markets prides itself on its customer-centric approach to trading and backs this up with a robust set of educational tools for traders of all levels. This includes webinars, seminars and a host of informative educational videos on Forex trading, as well as educational books and brochures.

Cryptocurrency CFDs

Cryptocurrency traders can also execute positions on 32 cryptocurrencies. This includes 22 Cryptocurrency Pairs with Fiat Currencies and 10 Cryptocurrency Cross Pairs with leverage of 1:2 available for Retail Clients and an ability to trade in any direction by going long or short on any cryptocurrency CFD. In addition to popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple, Admiral Markets also supports altcoins such as Dash, Ether and Stellar.

Commodity CFDs

With Admiral Markets, it’s possible to trade CFDs on the world’s most popular commodities including oil and gold with leverage up to 1:20 for Retail Clients and the ability to start trading with just 100 EUR. In addition, there are zero commission fees for traders, allowing you to save more on each trade. In total, there are 28 commodities to choose from, including:

• Agriculture (7)
• Commodity Futures (11)
• Energies (4)
• Metals (6)

Index CFDs

If you are focused on equity markets, then you can trade CFDs on 19 cash indices and 25 index futures, as well as over 3,700 individual stocks from a variety of markets around the world. There is zero commission involved and no minimum transaction size, while leverage is available up to 1:20.

ETF CFDs

As a retail trader, you can trade on 376 exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with USD-denominated ETF commissions at just $0.01 and a minimum trade size of $1. Competitive leverage rates of 1:5 are available and it is possible to earn dividends on long positions. Professional traders have access to over 500 ETFs.

Share CFDs

There are over 3,400 shares available to trade with Admiral Markets across a wide range of industry groups, from Communication Service to Utilities and everything in-between. All of the major stock exchanges are available, include the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), London Stock Exchange (LSE) and Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). Leverage up to 1:5 is available for retail clients, along with the potential to earn dividends, no commission fees or minimum transaction levels.

Social trading at Admiral Markets currently consists of the broker’s support for the trading signals service offered by MT4 and MT5. This social trading feature provides you with access to a sizable associated community of experienced traders that use the platforms.

The company’s clients can follow the trades of others within the MT4/5 community and copy them on their account automatically. There are fees for this service, but they depend on a variety of criteria.

What did our traders think after reviewing the key criteria?

Clients will generally pay a modest dealing spread whenever they enter or exit a trading position, which is normal. Spreads are very competitive due to their STP model, which gives its clients direct market access.

There is no fee charged when opening an account. However, Admiral Markets does charge an inactivity fee of €10 per month if you have not made any transactions in the previous 24 months. You are also able to transfer money between accounts of the same base currency at no charge, but you will pay a 1% exchange fee to transfer funds to an account with different base currency.

The Admiral Markets and MT5 account types have no commission, but they do have a minimum spread that is 0.1 for EUR/USD for example. Deposits are generally free, but deposits via some e-wallets like Skrill, Neteller and SafetyPay incur fees. Most traders also get to make two free withdrawal requests each month via bank transfer, Skrill or Neteller, although some wire transfer withdrawals will involve modest charges, in addition to any bank fees you may incur.

Furthermore, unless you have an Islamic account, you may be charged rollovers or swaps. It will occur when holding a long position on the lower interest rate currency in a pair overnight. It is primarily a concern for traders who hold trades overnight.

Admiral Markets provides a free demo account to hone your trading skills, although it does expire in the rather short time of 30 days.

The website lists a set of four live trading accounts which are broken down by the MetaTrader platform you wish to use. These are as follows:

Let’s take a look at some of these trading accounts in a bit more detail:

MT4 Accounts

MT5 Accounts

When it comes to trading platforms, Admiral Markets is a MetaTrader-forward broker. It offers compatibility with the full suite of MetaTrader platforms, including MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5).

Both trading platforms are available for download on Windows and OS X and are also available as a web-based client (MT WebTrader) that you can use in your browser. You can also download MT4 as an app for mobile trading on-the-go which is compatible with both iPhone and Android devices.

In addition, the MT4/5 platforms also have a free MetaTrader Supreme Edition plugin that extends the platform’s necessary capabilities and works on both live and demo accounts.

The official website is easy-to-read with black text on a white background. It has eye-catching imagery near the top and a bright blue menu bar that has links to essential areas of the site.

The site’s main menu bar includes tabs entitled: About Us, Start Trading, Products, Platforms, Analytics, Education and Partnership. There are also phone and language buttons in the upper right section of each website page. There are also log in and Create Account buttons to help you get started right away. The bottom of the pages contains social media links, as well as legal information.

The quality of the overall trading experience it provides to customers is reflected in the number of awards Admiral Markets has won over the years. The main priority for this broker is to help clients make better trading decisions and provide a seamless experience.

It achieves this through a large library of educational resources, including seminars, articles, how-to tutorials, e-books and trading videos. We especially liked the ‘Zero to Hero’ trading course, which helps new traders learn to trade in just 20 days.

Admiral Markets provides its customers with the usual range of contact options on its website that you can use to contact the customer service team, including telephone, live chat (available 24/5) and an email contact form. A welcome albeit unusual customer support feature allows clients to drop by their offices in London to directly deal with issues. If you encounter any problems during the weekend, you can leave feedback or drop them a message over the weekend for when support resumes using the website form.

Admiral Markets offers traders plenty of payment methods, making deposits and withdrawals an incredibly straightforward and simple process. It offers many of the most popular deposit and withdrawal methods, including bank transfer, Visa and Mastercard, and Paypal.

In addition, it also supports e-wallets such as Neteller and Skrill and a host of lesser-known payment providers such as SafetyPay, Przelewy, Klarna  and iDEAL. To summarise, Admiral Markets offers more payment methods than many brokers and is almost certainly a market leader in this respect.

• Credit and debit card payments: Visa and MasterCard deposits are free and are processed instantaneously. Deposits have a minimum amount of £/€/$50, and there is a limit of £/€/$5,000 per transaction.
• Bank wire transfer: Wire transfers can be sent to and from banks anywhere without a transaction minimum or limit. They are free for deposits, and you get two free withdrawals each month, although your bank may charge for such transactions. Processing times can be up to three business days.
• E-wallets: supports Neteller and Skrill for deposits and withdrawals, but not PayPal. Transactions are instantaneous, but deposits incur a 0.9% charge. You also get two free withdrawals per month.

U.K. traders can make deposits directly in pounds sterling (GBP), as well as in USD, EUR, AUD, BGN, CHF, CZK, HRK, HUF, NOK, PLN, RON, RUB and SEK. Deposits made in other currencies that differ from your trading account’s base currency are converted to the base currency at prevailing exchange rates.

If you are considered a professional-client and are willing to deposit more than £15,000, then they will provide you with an offer to help make your trading conditions as competitive as possible. You just need to fill in a request form on their website to be considered for this promotional offer.

Another positive point is the company’s flexible onboarding policy. It makes it possible for traders to have accounts with more than one of their offices. Meaning that a UK-based retail trader looking to trade currency pairs might ordinarily be subject to a 30:1 leverage ratio if they trade through the FCA-regulated UK office, but if they open an account with the ASIC-regulated Australian office, then they could trade using 500:1 leverage.

Admiral Markets also offers useful analytics. These include fundamental and technical analysis reports, a trader’s blog, an economic calendar, a market sentiment indicator for major FX pairs and gold, and a market heat map that shows top moving assets.

When it comes to learning material, they provide considerable educational assistance for beginner traders. These include webinars and seminars, articles, tutorials, a risk management guide, a 21-day “Zero to Hero” trading course, and a forex 101 online course. You can also open a demo account to test your trading strategies.

The company also has several active and highly-popular social media accounts. The company’s busy Facebook Page presently has over 416,000 followers, while its Twitter account has almost 19,500 followers and 35,900 tweets. Its UK-focused YouTube channel has plenty of educational videos and an impressive 18,100 subscribers.

Admiral Markets is authorised and regulated by some of the world’s leading financial regulatory bodies, ensuring a safe trading experience for its clients:

These regulators require Admiral Markets to fully segregate traders’ accounts from company funds, adhere to strict anti-money laundering and capital requirements, comply with ‘know your client’ procedures, as well as a host of other stringent measures designed to protect traders.

In addition, traders in the United Kingdom are able to benefit from protection against defaults up to £85,000 through the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). Protection of up to €20,000 is provided for traders in the E.U. through the Investor Compensation Fund (ICF) of Cyprus. All in all, FXTM should be considered a trustworthy and secure broker to open an account with.

Admiral Markets is the winner of 40+ global awards, making it one of the world’s most decorated brokers. Some of its accolades include:

• Best Forex Platform: ADVFN International Financial Awards, 2019
• Best CFD and Best Forex: Broker – Brokervergleich.de, 2015-2019
• Broker of the Year: BrokerWahl, 2019
• Best CFD Broker: The Deutsches Kundeninstitut, 2019
• Fairest CFD Broker: Focus Money, 2019
• Best Forex Broker: The Onlinebroker-Portal.de, 2019

It goes without saying that Admiral Markets is clearly a well-respected broker in the industry and a leading CFD provider that you can trust to deliver an excellent overall trading experience.

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CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 75% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work, and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.