Markets.com

Recommended for active traders who want the best value for money with low spreads, great execution stats & innovative charting tools

Markets.com is a global CFD and forex broker founded in 2008. It is regulated by several financial authorities, like the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) and the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Markets.com offers services and platforms under two brands. The Marketsi platform is for share-dealing and investing, while Marketsx is the platform used for CFD trading. In this review, we focus on Markets.com's flagship CFD trading services, using the Marketsx platform.

MARKETS.com is a brand and trademark used by Safecap Investment Limited (‘Safecap’) among other entities in different jurisdictions. Safecap is regulated by CySEC under licence number 092/03 and by the FSCA licence number 43906. Safecap is located at 148 Strovlos Avenue, 2048, Strovolos, P.O. Box 28132, Nicosia, Cyprus

CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 75.6% 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.

• Stock index CFDs: SPX and EUSTX50
• Stock CFDs: Apple and Vodafone
• Forex: EURUSD, GBPUSD, AUDUSD, EURCHF and EURGBP

A typical trade means buying a leveraged position, holding it for one week and then selling. For the volume, we chose a $2,000 position for the stock index and stock CFDs and $20,000 for the forex transactions. The leverage we used was:

• 20:1 for stock index CFDs
• 5:1 for stock CFDs
• 30:1 for forex

These catch-all benchmark fees include spreads, commissions and financing costs for all brokers. Let's see the verdict for Markets.com fees.

Markets.com accepts customers from almost every county. There are some exceptions, however, such as citizens of the US, Canada, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Russia, Brazil, Turkey and Belgium.

What is the minimum deposit at Markets.com?

The required minimum deposit at Markets.com is €/£/$250.

Account types

Markets.com does not offer separate account types. With a single registration, you'll have the option to try out a real and a demo account. After you've opened an account, both Marketsx and Marketsi will be available. The first one is for trading on the financial markets, while the second platform focuses on portfolio investments. In our review, we focus on Marketsx.

How to open your account

Account opening is very easy and fully digital. It took one day for our account to be approved.

Here are the steps of Markets.com's account opening process:

1. Give your personal and financial information.
2. Indicate your trading experience and fill out a test about your knowledge.
3. Verify your ID and residency. You can upload a national ID, passport or driver's license for verifying your ID. Utility bill or bank statements are accepted for residency verification.

Deposit fees and options

Markets.com charges no deposit fees.

Similarly to other CFD brokers, there are several ways to fund your account:

• Bank transfer
• Credit/Debit card
• PayPal
• Skrill
• Neteller

How long does it take to withdraw money from Markets.com? We tested the credit card withdrawal and it took 1 business day.

You can only withdraw money to accounts in your name.

How do you withdraw money from Markets.com?

• Click on the menu in the top right corner of your screen.
• Select 'Withdrawal'.
• Choose the method (bank transfer, credit/debit card or electronic wallets).
• Enter the withdrawal amount and initiate the transaction.

Markets.com provides many different trading platforms:

Look and feel

Markets.com's web trading platform is user-friendly and has a clean design. On the negative side, you cannot customize it to your personal preferences. You can however choose between layouts, and you can resize the windows, which is always a plus.

Login and security

Markets.com only provides a one-step login. We missed a more secure, two-step authentication.

Search functions

The search function is good. You will easily find what you're looking for and you will get relevant results for your search.

Markets.com review - Web trading platform - Search

Placing orders

While some more sophisticated ones are missing, you can use the following basic order types:

• Market
• Limit
• Stop

To get a better understanding of these terms, read this overview of order types.

Markets.com review - Web trading platform - Order panel

Alerts and notifications

We also liked the alert and notification function. You can set up email and SMS notifications as well as price alerts. On the other hand, there is no way to set a notification for order confirmations.

Portfolio and fee reports

Markets.com has clear portfolio reports that are easy to find under the 'My accounts' menu, where you can also download them. However, we missed a clear fee report, where we could easily see the swap charges.

Marketsi web platform

For its share-dealing and ETF service Marketsi, Markets.com uses Saxo Bank's TraderGO, but with some differences; for example, the 'Research' section is much more limited to basic news. However, the charting and the overall feel of the platform provides a good user experience.

Markets.com provides a good range of CFDs mostly in line with similar competitors. You can also trade with the most popular cryptocurrencies (i.e. Bitcoin Futures, Ripple, Ethereum and some others), but the selection is not as wide as at some other brokers.

Based on answers provided by customer support, you cannot change the default leverage of the products. This is a drawback, as we think it's best when you can set this for yourself. Changing the leverage is a very useful feature when you want to lower the risk of your trade. Be careful with forex and CFD trading, as the preset leverage levels are high.

Markets.com also offers CFD Blends, which are practically a combination of several CFDs organized along themes like 'cryptoblend,' 'Brexit winners' or 'Brexit losers.' The composition of the CFD portfolios is transparent, and you can also check their past performance. We liked this function.

Real stocks

Markets.com's Marketsi platform focuses on real stocks. The stock selection is similar to eToro, but there are no ETFs.

The real stock selection covers the important European and US markets, but lacks many exchanges globally, like the Canadian or the Singapore markets.

Trading ideas

Markets.com provides trading ideas. These recommendations are clear, stating whether to buy or sell, as well as the target prices. They do not provide any reasoning behind the recommendations, however.

You can find recommendations from analysts. These are experts from top-tier banks (J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and some others) who provide stock recommendations. We liked that analysts are ranked based on their past performance.

You can also see what bloggers on Seeking Alpha or The Motley Fool write about some of the stocks.

In addition, there is an Insider Trades sentiment section where you can see how insiders, such as company management or other stakeholders traded with the stock in question.

Hedge Fund sentiment is also available, where you can see how the leading fund managers have adjusted their positions over the previous quarter.

Markets.com review - Research - Recommendations

Fundamental data

There is a menu for fundamental data, but it contains no real useful data on fundamentals like financial ratios or past financial reports, only some basic company data. You can take a quick look at some basic financial data when you click on the relevant tab of an asset.

Markets.com review - Research - Fundamental data

Charting

Markets.com has good charting tools. Besides the basics, you can add more than 80 technical indicators. For some stocks, you can access technical recommendations from Trading Central, a third-party technical analysis firm. On the negative side, you cannot save charts.

Markets.com review - Research - Charting

Economic calendar

When it comes to fundamentals, there are detailed macro data in the economic calendar, where you can also access predictions, trends and analyses. In addition, you can also see the currency pairs the events in the economic calendar influence. We really liked this tool.

Markets.com review - Research - Charting

News feed

Under the News Sentiment, you can find the relevant news for each asset. In addition, you can see whether the sentiment of the news is positive, neutral, or negative.

Markets.com review - Research - News Sentiment

Marketsi's research tools

The Marketsi platform is provided by Saxo Bank and it is nearly identical to TraderGO. The news feed is lower-quality, but charting feels the same. Head to our Saxo Bank review to learn more about these features.

You can contact Markets.com via:

• live chat
• phone
• email

Markets.com's customer service was always quick and reliable when we tested it. For example, when we asked about fees, they also mentioned the financing rates. You can rate your agent at the end of the conversation, which is a good way to give feedback. The tone was also professional.

If you prefer the phone, you can call a local phone number, so there is no need for an international call.

On the negative side, customer service is not available on weekends, so it is only 24/5.

Markets.com is the trading and investing arm of a group called TradeTech, which itself is owned by Playtech, a company listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Is Markets.com regulated?

Yes, among others it is regulated by many financial authorities:

• Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK
• Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in Australia
• Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) in Europe
• South Africa's Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) in Africa
• BVI Financial Services Commission (FSC) in the rest of the world.

Is Markets.com safe?

To be certain if a brokerage is safe, we highly advise that you check two facts:

• how you are protected if something goes wrong
• what the background of the broker is

How you are protected

Markets.com operates several subsidiaries; the one that will serve you depends on your residence. The investor protection amount you get depends on the country of the subsidiary you are signing up with.

For example, if you reside in the UK, you will sign up with TradeTech Alpha Limited and get investor protection for up to £85,000. TradeTech Alpha Limited is regulated by the FCA, the UK regulator.

Markets.com provides negative balance protection for retail clients under CySEC and FCA regulation. This means your balance can't go negative if you trade with leverage, which limits some of your risk. Professional and non-EU clients are not covered with any negative balance protection.

Markets.com is Good broker for CFD trading.

Account opening is seamless and fast, it has good research tools and great customer service and is regulated by multiple top-tier financial regulators, like the UK's FCA and ASIC in Australia.

On the other hand, trading fees are high and product selection covers mostly CFDs and forex. We also missed some important features on the trading platforms, like two-step authentication and price alerts on the web.

All in all, Markets.com is a good choice. As the account opening is super easy and there is no inactivity fee, feel free to try it.

• Free and fast deposit and withdrawal
• Easy and fast account opening
• Great tools for learning and research
• No withdrawal fee
• Low minimum deposit
Credit/Debit card available
• Free withdrawal
• No deposit fee
• User-friendly
• Good search function
• Price alerts

• High trading fees
• Limited product portfolio
• Platforms lack important features
• High CFD fees
• No clear fee report available
• No two-step (safer)
• Limited customizability (for charts, workspace)