AvaTrade is an internationally regulated forex and CFD broker that offers commissions free trading. In addition to 55 Forex Pairs, our AvaTrade review found a typical EURUSD spread is 0.9 and they offer 42 forex options and good risk management.
Updated: 10/06/2021
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AvaTrade is a market maker that offers commission-free trading with typical spreads of 0.9 pips for EURUSD. The broker offers a good choice of CFDs including 55 Forex pairs, 26 commodities and 23 indices and even bonds. AvaTrade the best choice for forex and metals options trading with risk management via their AvaOptions mobile platform. Traders can also trade with the popular MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 forex trading platforms.
The majority of clients trading with AvaTrade will be limited to one account type. If you are a client in the UK or Europe then you have the “Retail” account available for your use. If you are a client from outside the UK and Europe, then you will have the “Standard” account. These accounts are the same in that they are a market maker/dealing desk type of account with no commissions.
AvaTrade’s Standard and Retail Account are almost the same. The difference is who the account is available for and the level of leverage. The shows the nations each account is available for and the leverage.
The reason there are different account AvaTrade needs to comply with ESMA MiFID requirements for its European clients and FSRA requirements set by the Abu Dhabi Global Market for UAE clients. These countries allow two types of trading conditions, one for retail traders and one for professional traders.
The Standard/Retail accounts allow commission-free trading. For this reason, you will find spreads are wider than STP or ECN style, with no dealing desk style brokers which have tighter spreads but added commission costs. To open a trading account, 100 base units (100 USD approx) will be needed.
Traders in the UK, Europe and UAE) who work in the finance industry, manage a financial portfolio or make regular trades of significant size can apply for a professional account. With this account, you will be able to access leverage in line with the available traders with a Standard Account.
The most interesting feature of this account is that you will keep guaranteed negative balance protection. With most brokers, professional traders will lose negative protections in return for being able to trade with higher leverage.
A swap-free style account is available for Islamic traders that follow sharia law. With this account, there are no interests paid or received. In its place, the spread is widened by 1 pip for forex pairs when you open your position. If you keep your position open for 10 or more days, then you will lose Islamic privileges.
Islamic account features:
AvaTrade offers Vanilla Options or European style options for 42 forex pairs, along with spot gold and silver. With this broker, options trading gives you the right to buy (call) or sell (put) a specified amount for forex, gold or silver at a certain price at an agreed time in the future. Options are available for a day, week, one or more months and up to one year,
When trading options, a premium is paid for the right to the options. This is determined by the existing price of the instrument and the length of time in the future the option will expire.
Options account features:
The overall rating is based on review by our experts
Generally, forex brokers offer 3 types of accounts. These are standard accounts that are spread-only, ECN accounts that have commissions added to the spread and fixed spread which means spreads don’t or rarely vary.
AvaTrade only offers a fixed spread account for retail traders, which means trading costs are included in the spread. As a result, spreads will be wider than an ECN pricing and standard account with floating spreads however offer greater spread stability.
Comparing AvaTrades ‘typical’ spreads with other brokers typical or average spreads that brokers provide on their website, one can see that AvaTrade’s spreads are competitive but are rarely the best in the market. If you are after the lowest possible spreads, then it may be better to consider an ECN broker.
Data taken from broker website. Accurate as at 04/06/2021
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The margin requirements or leverage available with AvaTrade will vary depending on the type of trading account you are using and the subsidiary you are trading with.
Retail investor accounts signed up to the Australian or European branches will be restricted to leverage of 1:30 for forex, 1:10 for commodities, 1:5 for individual stocks and ETFs, 1:20 on indices. Under FCSA (South Africa) and ADGM (Abu Dhabi) regulation, retail traders can use leverage up to 400:1, while in Japan (JFSA) it is as low as 25:1.
If you want larger exposure, if you meet qualification requirements for a professional account, you’ll be able to trade with much higher leverage. Professional traders are considered to have the skills and access to capital to properly manage leverage and the high risk of losses, which is why increased leverage is available to them,
Cryptocurrency leverage for cryptocurrency trading also will vary depending on the type of account you have access to. Leverage for cryptocurrencies is tighter (2:1 in Europe, the UK and Australia) than other financial products because of its highly volatile nature.
Leverage for options is consistent with leverage available for spot forex, spot gold and spot silver.
One impressive aspect of AvaTrade offer is a large range of trading platforms.
The popular MetaTrader 4 (MT4) is available and still a leader when it comes to platforms for trading forex despite its age. This platform is used by more traders than any other so brings with a strong reputation and large community which can help for social trading, sharing ideas, buying and selling signal and advisors and finding skilled developers to write scripts.
The successor MT4 is MetaTrader 5. While not yet as popular as MT4, it brings with it more powerful processing capability, a greater range of trading tools and the ability to trade exchange-traded derivatives such as stocks and ETFs. If you are new to trading and deciding between MT4 and MT5, then MT5 can be a smart choice as MT5 offer a longer-term solution as MT4 will phase out since MetaQuotes no longer offers new development for MT4.
AvaTradeGo is not a “true” trading platform in the sense trades are not executed by the platform itself. Rather, AvaTradeGo is a mobile app that allows you to manage your MetaTrader 4 trading account with the ability to trade using the MetaTrader underlying platform.
Available via iOS and Android, the platform allows you to easily see your trades, create watch lists, analyse charts and obtain live feeds and prices in order to make trading decisions. The platform does have a few useful custom resources, such as:
AvaOption is AvaTrade’s solution for options trading. Like AvaTradeGO, it is built on the MetaTrader 4 platform but offers extra features essential for trading options. Trading of options can be complicated, so AvaTrade’s features that simplify the trading process offer helpful benefits.
Tools to simplify the trading process include:
The default options trading strategies feature is very useful. With this tool, your order ticket will be populated with details related to the options contract, which you can then modify by changing the price and expiration date.
This feature is available for both mobile and web browser.
In addition to expert advisers for trading automation via MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5, AvaTrade offer DupliTrade (with MT4), ZuluTrade and MQL5 – Signal Service.
These are all social trading or copy trading tools that have features that allow you to automate the trading process by mirroring other traders’.
AvaTrade offers a solid range of financial derivatives for trading. AvaTrade contract for difference (CFD) range stands out because they offer bonds, treasuries, and options which are only available with a few brokers.
While AvaTrade has a good collection of stocks compiled from NYSE, NASDAQ and London Stock Exchange along with Indices and ETFs covering the US, Europe and Asia, the absence of options from Australian markets is noticed. No share options from the ASX is available now ASX200 indices.
The table below shows the range of CFDs available for trade.
AvaTrade offers some 13 different types of cryptocurrency assets. Most interesting is the availability of crypto pairs to different currencies and a cryptocurrency index.
Please note: Due to changes in FCA regulation in the UK, AvaTrade’s UK based branch is no longer able to offer crypto trading to UK residents. If you are in the UK and want to trade cryptocurrency, you will need to sign up with the broker’s other subsidiaries that operate in Australia or Europe.
Available Cryptos:
AvaTrade allows vanilla options trading for 42 currency pairs plus gold and silver via their AvaOptions platform. The options period can be set for up to one year will be cash-settled using the intrinsic value and closed when expired using intrinsic value.
AvaTrade offers a range of risk management tools that take go beyond the standard tools many brokers offers. These include:
AvaTrade offers guaranteed negative balance protection to all clients. While most CFD brokers only offer it to retail clients in the UK and Europe to meet regulation requirements, AvaTrade offers negative balance protection to all their clients, including professional traders.
Negative balance protection is an excellent feature for retail traders who are gaining trading experience and learning how CFDs work.
AvaTrade will exit you from your trades when your equity falls below margin requirements.
AvaTrade has the following policies
AvaTrade offers a unique feature on its AvaTradeGo mobile trading platform that is similar to easyMarkets dealCancellation. AvaProtect is an order type that protects you against any losses for a period of time for a small fee.
Introduced in Jan 2020, AvaProtect is an opt-in feature that allows you to buy guaranteed protection for a pre-determined timeframe. Should this trade prove to be a losing one during this defined period, you will be reimbursed in liquid cash for any of these trades losing trades. Protection of up to 1 million is available and can be used with retail, standard and professional accounts.
While this is a great tool, if you are using MetaTrader 4 or 5, you will not be able to access this tool as it’s only available with AvaTradeGO.
The minimum deposit to open an account and start trading with AvaTrade is $100.
AvaTrade range of options for deposits is limited. While some brokers offer 5 to 20 options for deposits, AvaTrade stick only offers essential options. While this may not suit everyone, most traders should be fine with this.
Deposit options
When making deposits, there is a minimum deposit requirement of 100 units (i.e. AUD/USD/EUR 100). If you are only planning to trade small amounts, then this may be an issue for you. Transfer times are as follows:
AvaTrade follows a strict Know Your Customer (KYC) process for withdrawal, this is to keep AvaTrade compliant with anti-money laundering processes.
Withdrawals will be returned to your account within 24-48 hour once KYC verification is complete. If you made your deposit with a credit or debit card, then 200% of the amount of your first deposit must be returned to the credit or debit card before you can withdrawal to other accounts. If you made your deposit with other methods, then 100% must first be returned to that account.
AvaTrade has a quarterly inactivity fee of $25 admin fee when there is no trading activity on the account for 3 months.
AvaTrade customer support team are available via live chat, webmail (via contact us page) and phone 24/5. The support team is multi-lingual, with a local number for phone support available in 21 European countries, Australia, 2 African countries, 7 Asia countries, 4 South American nations, 2 Countries in the Middle East and Mexico in North America. There have no contacts in the USA and Canada.
AvaTrade offers an exceptional range of educational resources to help you develop your trading skills, regardless of what level you trader may be.
If you are new to trading, you will find the “Trading For Beginners” education very helpful. Here you will find 59 chapters or webpages explaining a wide range of trading concept. This content is a mix of written, AvaTrade produced YouTube video and even infographics. These 59 chapters are neatly divided into 3 sections:
Once you have completed the above, you can move onto Professional Trading strategies. This follows the same format as Trading For Beginners but covers more advanced trading concepts. Here you can find 27 topics including chapters for just about every type of technical indicator you should know.
If you prefer something a little more structured and stored on your hard drive, a free ebook called “Forex First Steps” can be emailed to your inbox by completing the registration form.
AvaTrade also offers videos and webinars if you prefer to learn visually. Topics covered include:
AvaTrade also has a section in their education suite explaining the order types available with MetaTrader and types of economic indicators.
AvaTrade’s range of in-house developed Market Analysis is limited however a blog is released each business day looking at market events that may concern your trades and an economic calendar is available.
AvaTrader runs an online commercial trading academy for those wanting to learn to trade. While most people will need to pay to access this content, AvaTrade clients can access this content for free.
Here you will find trading academies for Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced traders plus a Trader’s Gateway including a TV channel and in-depth technical analysis and fundamental analysis content. If you want to take your trading to the next level. You will benefit from this content.
AvaTrade is part of the AVA Group of companies and was founded in Dublin, Ireland, 2006. They have 5 offices around the world including Ireland, Australia, Japan, Abu Dhabi and the British Virgin Islands.
AvaTrade offers is a regulated broker with a number of tier-1 oversights. These include (entity followed by the regulator and licence number):
Regulation is important as it ensures your funds are safe and the broker is acting in a professional manner that is respectful to clients in terms of their business conducts, financial products and trading conditions.
AvaTrade will not accept clients from the following countries –
AvaTrade has a number of features that lead us to look at them favourably. The broker can be trusted as they are overseen by tier-1 regulators in 6 different countries and offer a diverse and interesting collection of CFD products including over 50 forex pairs, options for forex, bonds and a large collection of cryptocurrencies in addition to shares, indices and ETFs.
The other features the broker offers then increase their appeal include the availability of MetaTrader trading platforms, handy social trading tools, negative balance protection, AvaProtect for risk management (if you are using AvaTradeGo and a wealth of educational tools. As a market maker, the broker only has a commission-free trading account, which means you are after the highest possible spreads then you may prefer a broker that uses an STP or ECN trading model. This would be its main weakness.
Justin Grossbard has been investing for the past 20 years and writing for the past 10. He co-founded Compare Forex Brokers in 2014 after working with the foreign exchange trading industry for several years. He also founded a number of FinTech and digital startups including Innovate Online and SMS Comparison. Justin holds a Masters Degree and an Honours in Commerce from Monash University. He and his wife Paula live in Melbourne, Australia with his son and Siberian cat. In his spare time, he watches Australian Rules Football and invests on global markets.
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