Best CFD Trading Platform South Africa

FxPro Is A Good cTrader Broker Across A Range Of CFD Markets

FxPro is a well-regulated broker with a wide range of accounts, an excellent selection of trading platforms and offers the best cTrader platform experience on our list.

The major benefits of FxPro as a broker include:

• Wide range of stock CFDs
• Great selection of CFD trading platforms
• Competitive spreads
• Good range of accounts

View FxPro Review >>Visit FxPro >>

FxPro Account Types

FxPro offers several account types with spreads that vary depending on the platform chosen. These accounts are split between the MetaTrader platforms (MT4 and MT5), cTrader and FxPro’s own trading platform. There are no commissions for any account, other than cTrader for FX and metals.

The MT4 accounts uses either market or instant execution. The difference between market and instant execution is that instant execution involves a re-quote if the requested price is not available, whereas market execution will be filled at, above or below that price.

MT4 with market execution account is commission-free, with fees included in the spreads, averaging 1.6 pips, slightly wider than industry average. Then there is the MT4 Instant Account which uses instant execution. Fees are included in the spread, which also average around 1.6 pips on the EUR/USD, and trading is offered in micro-lots. Fixed spreads are available with MT4’s Instant account on 7 currency pairs: EURGBP, EURJPY, EURUSD, GBPJPY, GBPUSD, USDCAD and USDJPY.

The MT5 account offers market execution, and variable spreads averaging at 1.5 pips for major currency pairs, which is wider than other similar brokers. All fees are included in the spreads, and no commissions are charged.

FxPro’s cTrader account is a market execution account with spreads as low as 0.2 pips on the EUR/USD, and commissions of 7 USD round turn. These commissions only apply to FX and metals.

Then there is the FXPro Edge Account, which is also a market execution account that allows for trading on all instruments (Forex, metals, indices, cryptos, energies, equities, and shares). Spreads are around the same as for the MT4 market execution account with no commissions are charged.

Products

While FxPro has a limited selection of financial assets compared to other brokers, the broker excels in its Forex (69 pairs) and share CFD (over 2000 products) offering. You can also trade with fixed spreads on 7 currency pairs, including EURUSD, GBPUSD and USDJPY, a great way to minimise your potential risk from unexpected price movements.

FxPro Trading Platforms

FxPro offers 4 main trading platforms: the MetaTrader suite, MT4 and MT5, cTrader and their own, proprietary platform.

The FxPro Platform allows you to conveniently manage your funds and trade the full range of CFD asset classes directly from the FxPro App. It offers over 50 technical indicators and charting tools, detachable chart windows, useful trading widgets, a customisable layout and 6 chart types with 15 timeframes.

Where FxPro really stands out, is in its cTrader offering. First of all, FxPro’s cTrader software solution provides access to full market depth. Depth of market means best available bid and ask quotes are transparent, which ensure you can get the best available prices. The platform presents market data in three convenient ways:

• Standard Depth of Market
• Price Depth of Market
• Volume-Weighted Average Price (VWAP) Depth of Market

The platform automatically aggregates all available liquidity at the best possible prices and executes trade orders at VWAP.

Additional advantages of cTrader include tight spreads, fast order execution speed (as fast as 11.06 ms), guaranteed order execution, no restrictions on limit orders, no upper limit to order sizes and smart order routing.

FxPro also offers the two MetaTrader platforms, MT4 and MT5, which are great for Forex (MT4) and CFD (MT5) trading. Both platforms also include Trading Central as an additional plugin for trade decision support and financial market research.

Our Verdict on FxPro

We believe FxPro is among the best CFD brokers in South Africa offering the cTrader trading platform. FxPro also allows you to trade CFDs with a globally regulated broker, fast order execution speed, and access to trading platforms with great features and advanced trading tools.

View FxPro Review >>Visit FxPro >>

*Your capital is at risk ‘84.69% of retail CFD accounts lose money’

eToro Is Has A Great Social Trading Platform

eToro remains the most popular social trading broker with the best social trading platform to trade CFDs. The broker has a simple, well-designed trading platform that places copy trading and its social network at the heart of its trading experience.

Major highlights of eToro as a broker include:

• Huge social trading network
• Great copy trading platforms
• Good for beginners
• Good range of CFD products

View eToro Review >>Visit eToro >>

eToro Account Types

eToro only offers a Standard account, which allows for commission-free trading.

Spreads with this account start at around 1 pip for major forex pairs, which sits at the industry average.

Please note that while there are no funding costs, there are other fees including a withdrawal fee ($5 USD per withdrawal), currency conversion fees for wires and a $10 monthly inactivity fee after 12 months with no login activity.

Minimum deposit is $50 to open an account and you can also open a swap-free Islamic account which requires a $1000 deposit.

Products

eToro offers a wide range of financial instruments but really stands out for its stocks and ETFs. Here, the broker offers almost 2,700 stock CFDs and 263 ETFs, which gives traders plenty of trading options.

eToro Trading Platforms

eToro has a proprietary trading platform that is well-designed and easy to use, available both as a web trader and as a mobile trading app.

The eToro mobile app is highly customisable and has great functionality with the ability to trade from the charts, transfer, withdraw and deposit funds, search for instruments and create watchlists. These features are often more popular among beginners who haven’t yet developed advanced trading strategies. The platform also offers full support for eToro’s CopyTrader, and CopyPortfolios, two unique social trading tools.

CopyTrader allows traders to browse through the profiles of other eToro traders, checking their monthly and annual performance. eToro also applies a risk score to each trader in addition to other stats available for each profile. Users can then allocate a portion of their capital to copy other traders.

Copyportfolios bundles together all tradable assets under one chosen market strategy to minimise long-term risk and create diversified investments. Think of this platform as more of a fund manager, top-down approach to trading.

Our Verdict on eToro

Overall, eToro has the most best social trading platforms for CFDs, allowing South African-based clients to copy top-performing traders. eToro’s copy-trading platform is a multi-assets platform allowing copy trading CFDs and copies forex trading.

*Your capital is at risk ‘68% of retail CFD accounts lose money’

ThinkMarkets Has the Top Mobile CFD Trading Platform

Multi-regulated and multi-award-winning CFD broker, ThinkMarkets stands out for its industry-leading mobile CFD trading platform, ThinkTrader. Indeed, the broker offers many benefits including:

• Top-performing mobile CFD platform
• Broad range of tradeable markets
• Extensive suite of trading tools
• Competitive spreads

View ThinkMarkets Review >>Visit ThinkMarkets >>

ThinkMarkets Account Types

ThinkMarkets offers two retail accounts, suitable both for beginners and more experienced traders.

The broker’s Standard account is commission-free, with low minimum average spreads of 0.4 pips for Forex, one of the more competitive of its kind, industry-wide.

Think Zero, on the other hand, is commission-based with spreads starting at 0 pips for major currency pairs. Commissions are USD $7 round-turn, which is around the industry average.

A major benefit of both ThinkMarkets accounts are access to high maximum leverage of 500:1 for forex trading.

There is no minimum deposit to open a Standard account while the Think Zero account requires a USD $500 deposit.

Products

ThinkMarkets offers a wide variety of products to trade across Forex, indices, futures, commodities, shares, ETFs and cryptocurrencies. Of particular note are the 3670 shares available over 13 global exchanges and 352 ETFs, the latter of which are more complex derivatives to trade.

ThinkMarkets Trading Platforms

ThinkMarkets has a great range of trading platforms, including the full MetaTrader suite (MT4 and MT5) and its own, excellent ThinkTrader platform.

Available for mobile, tablet, web, and desktop, ThinkTrader’s mobile app is par-excellence. The app offers in-app deposits and withdrawals, real-time news from FX Wire Pro, and one-click multiple order closing. Charting features include over 125 indicators, 50 graphical objects and 20 chart types. Then there is the TrendRisk scanner to assist traders in finding opportunities over different timeframes. All in all, a great platform to trade on the go.

ThinkMarkets also offers MT4 as a great Forex trading platform and MT5, a faster and more powerful platform, designed to trade on centralised exchanges such as the share market.

For social trading, the broker provides access to ZuluTrade, a peer-to-peer social trading application where traders can choose among thousands of registered traders from 192 countries.

Our Verdict on ThinkMarkets

Overall, ThinkMarkets is a respected broker that offers a one of the best mobile trading apps, ThinkTrader. With this platform you can trade 3,500 CFD products at competitive trading fees using cutting-edge technology and advanced trading tools.

View ThinkMarkets Review >>Visit ThinkMarkets >>

*Your capital is at risk ‘71.89% of retail CFD accounts lose money’

Plus500 CFD Trading Platform Has Risk Management Tools

A trustworthy, multi-regulated CFD provider, including a listing on the London Stock Exchange, Plus500 has great risk management tools including Negative Balance Protection and Guaranteed Stop Loss order types to protect against volatility in the risky environment of CFD trading. The broker also has award-winning customer service, which is available 24/7, a rarity for CFD providers. As such, Plus500 is a good choice for beginner traders.

Highlights of Plus500 include:

• Risk management features
• Reasonable trading fees
• Simple account structure
• Well designed mobile trading app

View Plus500 Review >>Visit Plus500 >>

*Your capital is at risk ‘76.4% of retail CFD accounts lose money’

Plus500 Account Types

There is only one account available, which is it’s Standard account.

This account is commission-free, with very competitive minimum spreads of 0.6 pips for EUR/USD, especially for a Standard account.

There are low cost barriers to start trading, with no additional funding costs and no minimum deposit to open an account.

An Islamic account is also available which is swap (or interest) free. Unlike many broker who replace the swap fee with ad administration fee or widen the spread, Plus500 do neither. This makes the Plus500 Islamic account better compliant with sharia requirements.

Products

Plus500 offers a wide range of financial instruments, including 71 Forex pairs and over 1100 stock CFDs, in addition to commodities, indices and cryptocurrencies.

As alternative, more complex derivatives, the broker also gives you access to 98 ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) and 308 options.

Plus500 Trading Platforms

While Plus500 only offers one in-house trading platform, the platform is sleek and well-designed. Available as a mobile app or on the web with no need for any downloads, Plus500’s platform is notably equipped with a number of useful risk management tools and features.

One of these risk management features is negative balance protection. Under Plus500’s guaranteed negative balance protection policy, retail investor accounts cannot lose greater amounts than the initial deposit.

This feature is of great benefit when other features (stop-outs, margin calls) can not always protect you in a highly volatile market environment.

The platform also features fully customisable order types such as stop limits, stop loss, trailing stops and, particularly, guaranteed stop losses. As a risk management tool, a guaranteed stop loss sets an absolute limit on potential losses and also minimises the risk of slippage. If you have made an incorrect prediction of market movement, your active position will be automatically closed at the specified price.

Our Verdict on Plus500

Overall, Plus500 offers not only one of the best CFD platforms for risk management tools, the broker also offers a simple account structure, competitive trading fees and a user-friendly trading platform.

View Plus500 Review >>Visit Plus500 >>

*Your capital is at risk ‘72% of retail CFD accounts lose money’

XTB xStation Has Good ETFs and Equities CFD Trading

XTB appeals to traders looking for a wide choice of tradable instruments, with over 2100 financial products, particularly equities and ETF CFDs. These can all be traded on the broker’s excellent xStation trading platform.

The major strengths of XTB are:

• Tight spreads
• Simple account structure
• Over 1800 share CFDs and 144 ETFs
• Versatile proprietary platform

XTB Review >>Visit XTB >>

XTB Account Types

XTB is another broker that has a simple account structure, only offering a Standard account.

This account has zero commissions and minimum spreads starting at 0.5 pips for major forex pairs.

If you cannot pay or receive interest due to religious reasons, there is an Islamic account that adheres to Sharia Law. Average minimum spreads are 0.7 pips with this account for major currency pairs.

It must be noted that there are deposit fees, depending on your funding method. These fees are 2% for PaySafe or Skrill, 1.5% for Safetypay, 1% for NETELLER and no fees for Visa/Mastercard or bank transfer.

Products

XTB features an extensive range of Forex, indices, commodities and cryptocurrencies markets to trade. In terms of CFDS, the broker particularly stands out with 1879 stock CFDs and 144 ETFs (as CFDs), the latter as a complex derivative trading option.

XTB Trading Platforms

Like Plus500, XTB is another broker that only offers a proprietary trading platform and xStation 5 is intuitive, powerful, and fast.

xStation 5 offers many advanced trading features. It introduces XTB sentiment data directly into the platform, so traders can view the percentage of clients trading long or short and on which instruments.

The platform also offers powerful charting tools, one-click trading, stop loss functionality, multiple order types, price alerts, and real-time performance statistics so you can evaluate your trading moves and identify areas for improvement.

Another useful feature of the platform is the trader calculator, which helps you calculate the margin, the commission, and other important parameters for each trade.

xStation 5 is available as a web trader or on mobile for Android and iOS devices.

Our Verdict on XTB

XTB offers many advantages to CFD traders, including a wide range of stock CFDs and ETFs at tight spreads and low fees and a powerful proprietary trading platform to trade them on.

XTB Review >>Visit XTB >>

Avatrade Trading Platforms Have Good Crypto CFD Trading

With a good range of crypto products, high leverage, the ability to trade cryptos against Fiat currencies and 24-7 customer support, AvaTrade is the best broker for bitcoin and cryptocurrency CFD trading. You can trade these products and many more on AvaTrade’s 4 proprietary trading platforms including some of the best trading tools in the industry.

AvaTrade’s highlights include:

• Low trading fees
• Powerful and unique proprietary platforms
• Great cryptocurrency CFD trading
• Social and copy trading platforms

View AvaTrade Review >>Visit AvaTrade >>

Avatrade Account Type

Avatrade offers only one Retail trading account.

This account is commission-free and you will obtain reasonably competitive spreads, starting at 0.9 pips for major Forex pairs, slightly below the industry average.

The minimum deposit requirement is USD $100 in your base currency, (approx 1750 RAND) to open an account. There is also a special 20% bonus should you deposit at least USD $200. This only applies for the first time deposit as long as you don’t use Skrill or NETELLER.

Products

While Avatrade’s range of tradable products is around the industry average, it also offers specialty instruments such as vanilla options, ETFs, bonds, and particularly cryptocurrencies, providing excellent asset diversification.

AvaTrade stands out in its delivery of cryptocurrencies, which includes 16 crypto products that can be traded against Fiat currency pairs (USD, EUR, JPY etc) at leverage of up to 25:1. The broker also offers the Crypto 10 index, an innovative crypto fund designed to track the overall performance of a basket of 10 leading cryptocurrencies, as a point of difference.

Avatrade Trading Platforms

AvaTrade offers a great range of trading platforms including the full MetaTrader suite and 4 powerful and unique proprietary trading platforms.

MT4 and MT5 are both popular third-party trading platforms, suited for different trading purposes.

For Forex trading, MT4 is still the most widely used platform, with a range of great charting features and trading tools. MT4 also offers algorithmic trading via DupliTrade as a platform plugin.

MT5, meanwhile, is a more powerful trading platform, offering additional charting tools and the ability to trade products on centralised exchanges such as equities.

AvaTradeGo is the broker’s mobile app that offers a sophisticated dashboard and intuitive home screen that allows you to view educational videos and market analysis materials. The mobile app also features AvaProtect, which is a unique risk management tool that allows ‎you to purchase protection against losing trades for a specified time, and if a trade is closed during that period any losses will be fully refunded. A smooth and user-friendly mobile app, AvaTradeGo also integrates with Avatrade’s social trading platform, AvaSocial.

AvaTrade Webtrader has a clean user interface and intuitive design. The platform is further enhanced by Trading Central, one of the most popular third-party trading tools on the market, which can be fully integrated into the platform and provides advanced technical analysis and instant pattern recognition.

AvaOptions is a platform specifically designed for options trading. Vanilla options are available on 42 currency pairs, gold and silver. While trading options can be a complex undertaking, the AvaOptions platform simplifies the process.

AvaTrade also offers social trading in the form of third-party platform, ZuluTrade and its own, AvaSocial platform.

Our verdict on AvaTrade

Overall, AvaTrade has many selling points, chief among them a great cryptocurrency trading experience and a wide range of powerful trading platforms with advanced trading tools and social trading capabilities.

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