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IQ Option has been around since 2013 and it’s known as a reliable online trading platform for many, offering everything there is for clients to trade with — and that pretty much explains why they’ve got millions of clients using their services. When you use IQ Option, you can trade between stocks, options, commodities, forex, ETFs and even cryptocurrencies. It is also regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySec), ensuring that clients get to trade comfortably and safely on their platform. According to this review on business24-7, IQ Options is one of the most trusted options brokers with a high tiered regulation and safety features which make is a 100% legit choice.

What Can You Trade?

IQ Option doesn’t boast about its broad trading platform for nothing; they’ve got five categories of trades available and within these categories are dozens of selections for clients to make. You can trade and switch around among 17 different types of cryptocurrencies or trade up to 300x leverage and invest with 90 forex trading pairs. You can also trade with price changes of 168 various stocks of up to 30x leverage in the Stocks CFDs category, which helps clients avoid any inconvenient short sale regulations. 

Should you be looking at Options, you’ll be glad to know that IQ Option also offers 53 different options, all of which lets you speculate on the changing price dynamics of the hottest trading assets. Finally, clients can also trade among 25 ETF assets and have up to 100x leverage. ETF trading service provided by IQ options allows you to track commodities, indexes, and a basket of assets, enabling investors to speculate based on particular sectors of the entire industry — with so much to offer, it’s no wonder IQ Option is one of the most popular online trading platforms for digital investors. 

Demo and Live Account

For beginners, investing while learning on the go probably isn’t the most sensible thing to do — but when you use IQ Option, you get to use a demo account and virtually experiment with an unlimited supply of funds that will replenish itself over and over. This way, you’ll get to take your time to learn all the basics before you start using your own money to trade. 

When you’re ready to start trading, you can make a minimum deposit of $10 to open up your actual, live trading account. As soon as you’ve got your live account started, you can access at least 70 kinds of assets on the platform. Over time, you can opt to step things up and upgrade yourself to a VIP account with a minimum deposit of $3,000.

Signing Up 

You can sign up using either your Facebook, Google+ account or simply sign up using your email account in IQ Option’s signup form. Once you’re in, you can choose to practice any trading strategies or begin trading on your live account. Since everything on the platform is pretty intuitive, you’ll find your way around it and get used to the features in no time — it’s that simple!

How Trading Looks Like

IQ Option provides its clients with an awesome interface. Its got a load of technical indicators such as the simple function of moving averages and or the more complex ones like Bollinger bands. Whenever you’re stuck, you can look for the customer support links or the chat application to get advice from the knowledgeable staff. Then, when you’d like to look back at your trading history for reference, you can just click on the link to access your previous records.

OTN Tokens

Thanks to IQ Option’s partnership with The Open Trading Network, clients are eligible for an added bonus that comes in the form of OTN tokens. The OTN tokens are released weekly and can be used on the IQ Option platform such that clients can use it to cover their commission costs. This way, clients can get rid of commission costs just by trading frequently, which in turn encourages greater trading volume to boost market performance. 

Additional Features

IQ Option prides itself on providing top-notch customer services, so you can expect no less than impeccable features when you’re using their online trading platform. Any queries can be directed to the customer service team and you can contact them via email, the online chat or a formal contact form. Their protocol is that they’ll get back to you within 46 seconds and all tickets should be resolved within 24 minutes — you can rest assured that they’ve always got your back, so your trading experience will be as smooth as it can be.

For payment options, clients can easily perform deposits and withdrawals through the diversity of payment services available. Clients can choose between debit services, credit options, online payment processors or even go for bank wire transfer. There’s a lot of flexibility here, which opens up IQ Options to a wide audience; they’ve made it such that anyone can hop on the investment market as long as they’re interested. 

Another added feature is that clients can trade on their mobile devices. The mobile application is available for Android and iOS users, and it’s wonderfully developed such that clients can switch over from desktop to mobile without much hassle. Not only are the features largely similar, but users can also choose to get push notifications from the app; you’ll get to tap into the investment market anytime and anywhere, making your trading process a seamless one. 

IQ Option is also famous for its trading competitions. These competitions, while sadly exclude European Union residents, are extremely interactive and enjoyable for traders to test their skill sets in this competitive environment. Within 30 minutes and with a virtual fund of $10,000, clients love participating in them because it allows them to pick up new tactics and learn to adapt their strategies under stressful conditions. 

For clients looking to learn more about trading, IQ Option provides them with a trove of educational and training materials to improve their trading abilities. The materials cover the basics, intermediate and advanced, so you’ll definitely find what you need here!

Potential Clients

IQ Option doesn’t offer its services to many countries due to local regulations, but it does still have an international focus with a goal to cater to as many world traders. For the most part, traders can trade in currencies like USD, EUR, CNY, GBP, TRY, MYR and IDR among many more. Aside from offering many languages to choose from, clients can get a secure trading experience with IQ Option’s “Know Your Customer” and its Anti-Money Laundering rules. This prevents any scam accounts to be credited because clients must provide personal information and photo identification before withdrawals or deposits can be made. 

IQ Option is the most, if not one of the best, advantageous broker platforms for clients. It has an impressive record of serving millions of traders from all over the world and they’ve got great transparency in their business procedures. It’s the preferred online broker platforms for clients because of how secure it is to use their amazing functions, suitable for both newbies and expert traders. If you’ve been searching for an ideal broker platform to trade cryptocurrencies on and you’re willing to experiment with forex and others, look no further because this will be the perfect online service for you!

If you need more information about IQ Options you can check out this relevant articles:

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If you want to see a short video overview of how you can sign up and start trading on IQ Option than you can check out this video below:

eToro was founded in the year 2007 and has around 10,000,000 clients all over the world. It primarily pays particular attention to social and copy trading. Additionally, eToro also provides the same services in the cryptocurrency space.

Implementing copy trading for a client is quite easy on the eToro platform. There are some traders on the eToro platform who follow risk control rules and allow their trades to be copied. In this way retail account holders are permitted to mimic the different trades and strategies of these successful clients automatically as they are carrying them out.

According to this review on business24-7 many other brokerages have similar capabilities but most of them have not incorporated social media communication as well as eToro has. There is no guarantee that copy trading will make a profit or loss in itself.

eToro might have a couple of weaknesses in comparison to other trading platforms, but their platform is extremely well geared towards those who are familiar with forex and cryptocurrency trading. The price of trading on eToro is fairly higher than others for forex trades, a fact which together with their only online customer service, might spur you on to stay or trade somewhere else.

eToro uses an online chat and ticket to solve queries raised by clients like trade issues or account queries. They do not provide more in order to help you sort out trades and such. This lack of top-notch support for customers is most probably driving them away.

To open an account will cost you $200. If you are in the US or Australia, you only need $50 to do the same. eToro has high withdrawal fees, in the amount of $25 plus banking costs. While these withdrawal fees might be annoying, the lack of proper technology for connecting might be a bigger annoyance for traders who are more advanced.

Their platform does not allow adding third party algorithms or software, such as MT4. Reason being that eToro has no API interface. Due to these shortcomings, coupled with high spreads and a small catalog of products, prospective clients could leave for other brokerages.

Pros:

• Social or copy-trading platform
• Strong and clear charting
• Skilled cryptocurrency catalog

Cons

• Standalone version is unavailable
• Very little Customization
• No streaming news

Trust

eToro has authorization through the Cyprus Securities & Exchange Commission (CySEC) as well as being compliant with ESMA (European Securities and Markets Authority) rules. To some, the fact that eToro is domiciled in Cyprus, might be a matter of concern, as not so long ago in 2012, the country experienced a financial crisis.

eToro is also licenced under the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority). eToro’s fine print stipulates that they may hold client funds in banks outside of the European Economic Area, a matter which increases risk in the event there is a bank default. However, they do offer EU and UK broker default protection up to €20,000 or £50,000.

eToro offers no stop-loss protection or extra insurance covering. Their order-entry interface has no risk management features, besides stops and trailing stops.  Because stop losses for crypto trading cannot be less than 25%, it further increases investor risk and limits customization. Due to ESMA rules of August 2018, clients cannot lose more than 100% of their account value.

Certain security measures are taken which includes multi-factor authentication and standard SSL encryption.

Desktop Experience

The eToro platform runs on the web and is designed to offer ease of use. Though there is no standalone version, the platform does offer a simple interface. Their charting is full-featured offering 66 indicators and a number of drawing tools. Performance data from CopyTraders and CopyPortfolios is available. The news link does not offer any satisfaction as it opens up into a social forum. Watch lists are customizable and can be saved. eToro offers no MetaTrader or other third-party alternatives.

Mobile Experience

eToro offers an excellent mobile version that allows easy syncing amongst different platforms for different mobile versions like iOS and Android. The indicator menu is categorized into 5 basic types which are similar to the web version. It offers limited customization and fewer charting options. In contrast to the web version, the watchlist does not include client positioning data. Furthermore, users can set custom price alerts regarding the market events and account issues.

Research Tools And Insights

The research tools at eToro are not as organized and are only accessible through a blog that is in itself only a number of general articles, which are outdated. The mobile app indicates that analyst research is only available through funded accounts. The general blog topics covers titles like cryptocurrencies more in detail than others like market analysis or forex. In fact, crypto craze news from 2017 overshadows much of the current events. A couple of the articles cover topics like instrument-specific fundamental or technical analysis.

Education

eToro has a link to a trading academy in the footer of the website. Another link to a live webinar provides a page that’s shas no archives or any programs on it. Their educational portal only has 11 basic Powerpoint presentations. All of the advanced technical courses opened into listings of candlestick patterns. There are no educational materials but only brief descriptions of the platform and instruments in the FAQ section. It also has a YouTube channel with videos on the how-to section of the platform.

Special Features

eToro concentrates much of its strength on social and copy trading including portfolio copy and automated client trading. They also provide balance protection to their professional clients even though it is not required under ESMA rules. In comparison with other forex brokers, eToro might appear to be less favorable if its strength is not taken into consideration. Introducing an API interface will hugely reduce these weaknesses they have. For those wishing to piggyback on the portfolios of others or on proprietary algorithms the platform seemed to be just the right place.

eToro launched a blockchain wallet for smartphones on March 7, 2019, offered in 31 US states. 15 different cryptocurrencies are provided for in the U.S while 16 are offered in several countries. In the U.S only cryptocurrencies are accessible, whereas in other countries you can trade forex, CFDs, stocks, and cryptocurrencies.

Investment Products

With 19 commodity CFDs and 47 currency pairs, their product catalog is comparatively small. They cover over 1500 shares and 77 cryptocurrency CFDs  in their product line. When trading you can do so on both the long or short side but you should familiarize yourself with the fine print as each location and type of order incurs a different holding fee. With CopyPortfolio they are able to broaden the product catalog as the algorithms are able to access markets not directly accessible as CFDs. Though they maintain a program that is aggressive in order to avoid conflict of interest, they also act as a counterparty, as they set bid and ask values not matching consolidated market feeds.

Commission And Fees

Spreads for minimum forex and commodity is very high. They ask 3.0 pips for EUR/USD and 75.00 pips for S&P 500 trades. Also take into consideration that their spreads can widen tremendously depending on market conditions. Their overnight and weekend fees are also high, which can reduce profit margins significantly. They have recently introduced commission-free stocks with overnight holds during the week costing 24cents per $1000 of leveraged exposure for a long trade. Although this fee triples over weekends, there is no overnight fee for non-leveraged exposure on along trade.

An extra $25 fee is charged on top of credit card or bank fees for withdrawals, which is one of the highest from European brokers. You may not withdraw anything less than $50. All withdrawal and other relevant fees are disclosed on a fee page containing few omissions. For inactivity you will incur a fee of $10 per month after being dormant for 12 months. eToro does offer clients a club program with discounts and some extra services dependent on your account size.

Customer Support

eToro offers 24×5 support with an exceptional FAQ section. They list no phone numbers for direct communication except for the Australian branch. There is a help center link that leads you to a FAQ as well as to a help database. However, the phone number link on that page routes back to the contact page. Very frustrating indeed. eToro has and maintains an active social media account like Twitter and Facebook for marketing and analysis entries.

What You Need To Know

eToro is perfect for beginners who want to start trading based on the performance of a robotic advisor or by piggybacking on their most successful clients. Since only a few strategies work in all market conditions, it can be a risky business. Advanced professionals who understand the risk of alternative copy-based strategies are most likely to take defensive action when so required. If you are a retail or a professional customer seeking a wider range of broker services or prompt customer service and competitive prices, eToro might not be the solution for you.

In the video below you can watch a video overview of the eToro platform, how to open an account and how you can start trading within minutes:

Plus500 is a well-known broker, one of the best online financial firms for trading. They trade in a range of financial markets at low spreads, and no commission charged. They are an authorized broker licensed by Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and have been registered in the U.K. since 2008.

Plus500 provides trading on various different assets including forex, stock indexes, equities, commodities, cryptocurrencies, ETFs, bitcoin, CFDs and options. They were the first to offer bitcoin CFDs in 2013. They do not charge any commissions on trades as all costs are contained within the spread for over 2000 trading instruments on their platform.

Since 2013 they were included on the AIM section of the London Stock Exchange, with a $2.25 billion market ownership and clients in more than 59 countries of the world.

Pros

• Plus500 offers bitcoin, ethereum and other crypto currencies
• No extra charge or commission for trading
• Offers access to around 2000 trading instruments

Cons

• Limited amount of educational material
• The tools offered by Plus500 cannot be paired with other trading tools
• Though there are 2000 trading instruments available, there are not a lot of tools to analyze with

Trust  3.9/5

Though Plus500 offers no deposit insurance, they are registered with many trusted accountability and visibility partners like the FCA, ASIC, FSCA, CySEC, MAS, FMA, and the ISA. They are required to make sure that funds from clients do not get mixed up with corporate funds.

In this way it ensures that should Plus500 become bankrupt, all client money will be protected. Under the financial services compensation scheme (FSCS) any downfall of funds up to £50,000 will be compensated for. An amount up to £85,000 will be compensated for in case the custodian bank holding client’s funds is liquidated. Negative balance protection is another solution offered by Plus500 where the client will not lose more money than what they have invested.

Desktop Experience  3.2/5

No matter what browser you use, the Plus500 WebTrader platform is easy to access. It has a clear and simple layout which makes it easier to analyze and monitor trades. Their technical analysis charts can be viewed in full screen. They also have over 100 indicators applicable to numerous time frames. Though Plus500 offers access to many platforms, MetaTrader is one exception that they do not offer, even though Metatrader has better functions and is easier to customize. Plus500’s WebTrader is easily understood with more than 2000 trading instruments to analyze and monitor trades with, and everything can be done in the same window with just a few clicks.

Mobile Experience

The Plus500 application is also available for all types of mobile devices like the Android, iPhone, and iPad. It is similar to the desktop version as it has all the features offered on the desktop application. Over 2000 trading instruments can be accessed on the mobile version. This platform has different security measures like fingerprint unlock, amongst many. Traders can use the available tools to analyze and monitor trades similar to the desktop application. What might be a concern though is the lack of advanced security measures, especially taking into consideration that these applications directly link to funded accounts. The MT4 mobile application cannot be used from here even though it is better customizable.

Research Tools And Insights  1.5/5

In regard to research, analysis, commentaries and tools, the platform has very little to offer. There are no news feeds, research articles or videos. They do however provide access to an earnings calendar and customizable charts for conducting technical analysis. Additionally, Plus500 has a  “Trader’s Sentiment”, an indicator that shows the percentage of Plus500 clients purchasing a particular instrument.

Education  0/5

Many brokers offer online courses, videos, eBooks, and articles to educate people on the different markets they wish to invest in. Plus500 does not offer anything of this sort. Generally, brokers also post the Key information Document featuring all the basics and tools required for trading, but Plus500 doesn’t provide any such document. They expect the individual to be familiar with the workings of the trading markets.

Special Features  0/5

Plus500 does not have the special features typically offered by a broker. They do not allow automated trading through trading algorithms. They also do not provide back testing or managing third party funds through PAMM or MAM platforms. They only offer a Webtrader platform with access to trading apps for iPhone, iPad and Android. Its clear to see that they target only those clients who need to execute trades without a lot of extra functionality.

Investment Products  4/5

They don’t charge commission on trades, as all costs are contained within the spread for each of its more than 2000 instruments. They also do not offer volume discounts for large volumes. Spreads are the same for one lot or for a 1000 lots. You also do not incur charges for withdrawals or for terminating an account. However, should your account be inactive, a fee will kick in after 3 months. As a beginner you can open an account with a minimum of £100.

As a trader you can qualify for a professional account offering you a higher leverage. With this account you can increase maximum leverage 10-fold, from 1:50 to 1:500.

They offer access to options trading, however these are not standardized, as they can be customized for risk tolerance.

Commissions and Fees  4.1/5

Plus500’s spread is one of the lowest on the market. In exchange the trader pays with limited research and analytical tools and a substandard trading platform.

Customer Support  3.6/5

Plus500 offers both online chat and email support around the clock. No service phone number or toll-free number is available to contact them regarding queries. Any inquiries made through the email support system or through the online chat system gets a quick response. The customer support is still good since the online chat offers prompt and correct response or provides links to resources. It also has a wide variety of FAQs and the customer service response to the requests are quick and clear.

What You Need To Know

According to this review on business24.7 Plus500 is one of the most effective, cost-conscious traders there are. Their profits are made only through the spread and no extra fee is charged; however, they also do not have additional features like auto trading, the Metatrader 4 and expert advisors. There are additional security measures if you trade with the UK version of Plus 500, through FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) regulation. Plus500 permits traders toaccess and place options on several markets, which is similar to the exchange-traded version except it is non-standardized. This implies the options from Plus500 are customizable and modified accordingly for your risk tolerance and strategy goals.

Below is a short video overview about the Plus500 trading platform, how to open an account and how to start trading in minutes.