Markets.com Review (2020 Guide)

Markets.com Spreads

Markets.com is a dealing desk broker or market maker. This explains why the broker only offers a standard account. While spreads may seem wide compared to STP / ECN brokers with no dealing desk, it is important to remember there are no commissions costs.

57 currency pairs are available consisting of majors, minors and exotics. Below is a sample of the minimum spreads for a range of popular currency pairs:

One of the key features of this CFD broker is its transparency. Markets.com provide “real execution stats for informed decision making”. The provides execution statistics so you can see what is happening with your orders, they want you to be confident that the price quote will be delivered or bettered. To achieve this, the broker provides quarterly updates on slippage results from its execution infrastructure.

In 2019, 86% of orders had no slippage or positive slippage. This can be broken down in 71.25% of orders being delivered at the quoted price, 14.96% of clients orders changing in their favour and 13.79% slipping negatively. 2020 has been a little more volatile, perhaps a reflection of the climate caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2019 Markets.com was awarded Europe’s most transparent broker at the 2019 Global Forex Awards.

Leverage

Markets.com is an internationally regulated broker which means leverage  (sometimes called margin)for forex varies depending on which entity you join Markets.com from and the regulator for that country.

Leverage with Markets.com In Europe And The UK

If you join Markets.com in the UK then you will be regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and if you join from Europe (outside the UK) then you will be regulated by the Cyprus Securities Exchange Commission (CySEC). Both these regulators fall under the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) umbrella which means FCA and CySEC have to comply with ESMA leverage requirements.

ESMA allows two tiers for regulation. Tier 1 is for retail traders and Tier 2 is for professional traders. Tier 2 allows for more generous regulation as professional traders are considered to have the skills and resources when trading with high leverage.

Leverage For Markets.com Clients In All Other Regions

Markets.com uses regulation from the Australia Securities Investment Commission (ASIC) for Australia traders, Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) for all traders in Africa and British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission for all traders outside the above mentioned. Maximum leverage for these regulators is consistent with leverage available for those defined as professional traders by ESMA.

Markets.com Leverage Summary

Trading with leverage involves high risk as CFDs are complex instruments. Traders should ensure they trade responsibly when using any forex broker that offer leveraged trading.

Trading Platforms

Markets.com offers a choice of 4 trading platforms for trading forex and other CFDs and a specialist platform for trading stocks CFD.

Marketsx – Web Platform And Mobile App

This is Markets.com proprietary trading platform developed to meet the needs of Marketsx clients.  Marketsx is a web trader platform meaning it is available through browsers on Mac, Windows and even Linux platform. Marketsx is also available via iOS and Android app stores for mobile trading.

Marketsx offers several features that distinguish it from other platforms on the market. These include:

• Ability to log in to your platform via Facebook, Google and Apple accounts
• One-click trading and on chart trading which allows you to save time by executing your trades with the click of a button and directly through the charts.
• 14 different tools to give you greater insights into markets and trading instruments so you can make better trading decisions and find more trading opportunities. 8 of these tools help you get a feel for general market sentiment, 2 of them help with technical analysis and 4 tools help with fundamentals.

Perhaps the main feature that differential Marketsx in a crowded market is the range of market sentiment tools. Sentiment tools help relay the market’s thoughts about an asset, these are generally best for short term decisions. Tools include

• Bloggers Opinions – Rank/compare and follow tips from 50,000 of the best performing financial experts and bloggers
• Hedge Fund Activity – Gain insights and decisions from leading hedge fund managers
• Insider Traders – Follow which major inside shareholders are buying and selling of their company
• Trading Analyst Recommendations – Learn what key analyst think of major US stocks
• Traders Trend – Learn the major trading trends on the Marketsx platforms. Markets.com version of social trading
• News Alerts – News sentiments for indications on asset price movements
• News Trading Sentiment -Find out the best news buzz based on keywords
• Signals – This combines other sentiment tools to give trading insisted in snapshot form without needing to leave your charts

Technical Tools available with Marketsx include:

• Daily Technical Analysis levels And Ideas – Daily Email for Marketsx traders covering major indices, forex pairs and commodities.
• Advanced Charting With TradingView – 88 Technical Indicators, 10 TimeFrames, Regular and Multi-Chart types, View 8 charts at once, 9 Chart views (candles, area, bar, line, Renko, Kagi, Baseline, Point & Figure or Heikin-Ashi charts) to help with trading technical analysis

Fundamental Toos include:

• Financial Commentary – Tool that provides market insights to what may affect forex movements
• Advanced Alerts – Receive alerts direct to you mobile, email or via Marketsx platform so you can stay on top of market activities
• Thomson Reuters Stock Reports – If you a stock trader, Thomson Reuters provides downloadable reports on key stocks
• Dow Jones News on Marketsx – Receive news fees on the most important news events around the world that can impact your trading

Note: Guaranteed trailing stops and stop-loss features are in development.

MetaTrader 4 And MetaTrader 5

Marketsx is a great platform as it has a wealth of tools to help you with your investment making decisions. This is its biggest strength however in some circumstances you may prefer to use MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5 trading platforms.

Fortunately, Markets.com allows you to get the best from Marketsx and also MetaTrader. All traders that sign up for a Marketsx account will have access to Marketx platform, this allows you to get many of the trading tools Marketsx offers. To get access to MT4 or MT5 you then sign up to access for MetaTrader. This will be a different account meaning you won’t be able to transfer your trading data between the two platforms but you will be able further your choice of trading features and use each platform when best suited.

Some reasons to use MT4 or MT5 over Marketsx include:

• You wish to use automation or algorithmic trading. Marketsx does not offer this but MT4 and MT5 have Expert Advisors (EAs)
• You want to integrate 3rd party tools for extra charting or possibly social trading
• You want to access MetaTraders large trading community
• You want greater customisation ability – this can be through customising your chart layouts or through coding with MQL4 and MQL5
• MetaTrader has features not available in Marketsx

MetaTrader 4 is the most popular trading platform worldwide. It is best for traders looking to trade forex and other CFDs that don’t go through an exchange when trading. In 2018, MetaQuotes announced new developments for MT4 will cease meaning this platform may not be the best option if you do not have previous experience with the platform.

MetaTrader 5 can be considered an upgrade on MT4, it not only offers more features but also allows you to trade a greater range of CFDs. MT5 has faster speed due to its 64-bit processing and more advanced backtesting than its predecessor.

If you do choose a MetaTrader platform, it is worth noting that some of the add on apps can be expensive to unlock and Markets.com do not offer a VPS service. A VPS service can help traders get the most from Expert Advisors so you may need to arrange your own.

Marketsi – Share Dealing Platforms

This is a direct market access share dealing platform.  The platforms provide the following key features:

• Share dealing
• Research tools to help traders assess global shares
• Investment Strategy Builder

Investment Strategy Builder

This is a quantitative investment tool designed to help clients trading in stocked developed dynamic portfolios based on selected criteria. Filters allow clients to search for stocks based on options such as market cap and PE ratios and fine-tuned further using signals such as technical or fundamental signals. One such example is the use of analyst ratings for stocks when these change clients portfolios can be updated to reflect this change.

Other Contracts For Difference and Financial Products (CFDs)

Markets.com offers over 2,200 instruments when trading CFDs. This makes the broker a great option if you are looking to diversify your investments. The Marketsx tools provide lots of sentiment, technical and fundamental tools that will give you lots of insights when trading these products.

CFDs available for trade include when using Marketsx include:

• 57 Forex Pairs – 7 Majors, 28 Minors, 22 Exotics (MT4 has 58 pairs, MT5 has 54 pairs)
• 33 Cash Indices And Futures – 11 Cash, 22 Futures
• Over 2000 Shares CFD across 19 Global Exchanges (MT4 has 276 share options, MT5 has 234 share options)
• 26 Spot and Future Commodities (MT4 and MT5 have 16 Commodities)
• 59 ETFs
• Over 20 Blends – CryptoBlend, US Technology, BuffetBlend, BrexitWinners, BrexitLosers, Fashion, Social Media
• 4 Bonds/Treasuries
• 7 Cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin futures, BTC/USD Spot, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, Dash, Litecoin, Ethereum (MT4 And MT5 have 5 Cryptos)

Share Dealing

Markets.com offer Marketsi account and platform which allows share dealing across 7000 stocks made up from 19 global exchanges including ASX (Australia), NYSE And NASDAQ (USA), NYSE EuroNext (France), Bolsa de Madrid (Spain), Frankfurt stock exchange (Germany) and others.

When you open a Marketsi account then you will benefit from zero commissions during the first three months. Commissions thereafter will be:

• EU Shares = 0.1% (minimum €10)
• AU Shares = 0.1% (minimum A$10)
• US Shares = 2c (minimum $15)
• UK Shares = 0.1% (minimum £8)

Spread Betting

Traders in the UK have the extra option of spread betting. Spread betting is similar to CFD trading in that one is speculating on movements of the underlying asset and both are leveraged products however  there are a few key differences to note:

• There is no exchange of a contract (you are purely betting on price movements of assets)
•  You bet in points, not in lots
• There are no commission fees
• You can bet how much the underlying asset moves

Spread betting is popular in the UK as there are no capital gains taxes as you don’t own the asset. This presents an opportunity to save when it comes to profits. Unlike with CFDs, losses cannot be claimed with your tax return.

Markets.com allows spread betting with all their financial instruments.

Customer Support And Customer Services

Markets.com has a solid variety of outreach for customer support including live chat which is available 24/5 time from 10 pm Sunday to 10 pm Friday and an online query form. Phone support is also available with local contacts available in several European countries, Australia and South Africa (for Africa) and a range of languages such as Italian, French, Arabic and Spanish.

The Markets.com has a ‘Knowledge Centre’ section where a range of education and learning materials is available in 4 different ways.

XRAY

XRay is a live streaming service available directly through the Marketsx trading platform. As it is directly integrated into the platform, you never need to navigate away from your charts and trades. XRay has the following key features

• Leading Financial Experts: Here you will be able to listen to leading financial experts around the world discuss the markets.
• Live And Interactive Webinars: This feature allows you to ask experts questions and receive answers live
• Insights On The Markets: XRay covers a wide range of topics including strategy, markets events and market analysis for greater trading knowledge

Insights Trading News

Markets.com in-house team of financial analyst discuss market news on a range of categories including CFD Trading, Commodities, Equities, Forex, Elections, Morning Notes to give you extra insight into your trades.

Financial Analysts

Markets in-house team take a deeper look at financial, political and news issues that are likely to have an impact on your trades. Here analysts try to provide insight where basic background information is not enough.

FAQ

This section tries to answer all your question regarding Markets.com features, platforms and trading concepts such as Forex and how CFDs work.

Demo Account

To help you get the most of your Markets.com trading experience, a demo account is available which give you access to all the features available in the platform. This account is valid for 3 months and has unlimited virtual cash. This makes Markets.com offering one of the best available as most brokers only offer 1 month and limit the amount of virtual cash.

Minimum Deposit and Funding Methods

Markets.com offers a range of deposit methods including wire transfer, Visa and MasterCard credit cards. Skrill, Netellerm PayPal, Local Bank Transfer, Ideal, SoFort. Regardless of the chosen method for deposits, your initial deposits and minimum deposit thereafter will always be 250 USD/EUR/GBP.

When making a withdrawal Markets.com has the following minimum amounts

• Credit/Debit card: Min. 10 USD/EUR/GBP
• Wire Transfer: Min. 100 USD/EUR/GBP. There is a 20 EUR minimum requirement within the EU
• Skrill/Neteller: Min 5 USD/EUR/GBP
• PayPal: Min 10 USD/EUR/GBP

Markets.com charges no fees for deposit or withdrawals. Do note that some deposit methods are no available in some countries.

Regulations And Risk Management

Markets.com was founded in 2008 and is owned by Safecap Investments Ltd which is a subsidiary Playtech PLC, an FTSE 250 company that is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Markets.com is a broker that can be trusted as Markets.com are regulated by several tier-1 entities.

The Markets.com group offers regulation

• Markets.com (Europe): Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC),
• Markets.com (Outside Europe, Africa and Australia): the British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission (FSC),
• Markets.com (United Kingdom): Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
• Markets.com (Australia): the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)
• Markets.com (South Africa): Financial Sector Conduct Authority of South Africa (FSCA)

Risk Management

Guaranteed Negative Balance Protection

Markets.com offer guaranteed negative balance protection to all its clients. This applies to both retail and professional traders. Professional traders will especially appreciate this feature as most brokers don’t provide negative balance protection to professional accounts.

Guaranteed Stop-Loss Orders

Markets.com offers trader from France guaranteed stop-loss orders as this is a requirement of the French regulator Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF).

Investor Compensation Scheme

Traders with Markets.com in the UK and Europe have access to up to EUR 20k (CySEC) and GBP 85k (FCA) compensation ins the event the broker is unable to pay what you are owed.

Protecting Yourself Online

Markets.com provide guidelines regarding how to protect yourself online from scams or fraudulent websites.