Finding brokerage services for forex and CFD has never been easy. Several brokerage service providers claim to provide exemplary services to their clients, but that’s not always true. No matter which of the Forex brokers you choose, there is always a high risk of losing money.
This Admiral Markets (AdmiralMarkets) review looks at an online-based brokerage firm established in 2001 and with its head office in the UK. While it primarily has its headquarters in the UK, Admiral Markets’ corporate owner is based in Estonia and has multiple operating affiliates.
Besides providing information resources to its clients, throughout this Admiral Markets review, we saw that the broker also consists of retail traders that constitute a considerable chunk of its market. With more than 4,000 assets that enable traders to have a seamless selection across different assets, the brokerage firm also gives its clients an excellent upgrade to MT4 and MT5 platforms - making it one of the better forex brokers we have seen.
Since it came into the forex landscape, the Admiral Markets Group has continually helped traders have a set of volatility protection tools to prevent imminent risks such as agency execution and market gap scenarios. Admiral Markets has continuously propagated at an incredible pace and steadily grown in its assets and services.
There has been a common misconception that brokerage firms having outstanding deals, such as Admiral Markets, often have some hidden drawbacks. Of course, this belief has some legitimacy level, but we still need to validate such claims.
At a glance, Admiral Markets offers a broad range of incredible trading tools, which make this idea somewhat a delusion of legitimate brokerage firms. Nonetheless, we are going to dig through everything and find out everything in this article.
Are Admiral Markets Regulated?
Contents
- 1 Are Admiral Markets Regulated?
- 2 Admiral Markets Safety
- 3 Admiral Markets USA Trading Platforms
- 4 MT4
- 5 MT5
- 6 Supreme Edition
- 7 WebTrader
- 8 Admiral Market Pros
- 9 Admiral Market Cons
- 10 Fees Review
- 11 Minimum Deposit
- 12 Withdrawal Fees
- 13 Inactivity and Deposit Fees
- 14 Commission Fees
- 15 Assets to Trade
- 16 Research and Education
- 17 Mobile Trading
- 18 Admiral Markets Review - Customer Support
- 19 How to Trade
- 20 Spot Forex
- 21 CFDs
- 22 Margin
- 23 Leverage Explained
- 24 Pip and Spread
- 25 Deals and Promotions
- 26 Limiting Risks When Trading
- 27 Customer Reviews
- 28 Is Admiral Markets a Good Broker? - Conclusion
It doesn’t take much of a review to find that the forex brokers Admiral Markets UK Ltd are authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) with the registration number being 08171762.
The brokerage firm is widespread globally, and throughout our Admiral Markets review, we found traders have claimed that they are good at fulfilling their promises.
Besides having a provision for modern browsers, the company also works with mobile apps configured to use anywhere across the globe. Within the application, the brokerage firm provides its consumers with reference material and informative resources meant to help traders stay updated with working conditions within the company, training information, and a regularly updated blog.
Admiral Markets has locations in over 40 countries worldwide, with its history tracing back to 2001. With monthly transactions going above $50 billion performed by 94,000 traders, Admiral Markets has proven efficacious.
Among the exciting features that we found appealing are the trading terminals MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5. Additionally, quantitative materials such as webinars, seminars, articles, and blogs support traders with professional analysis metrics, making the trading process a whole lot seamless.
Admiral Markets Safety
No doubt, the brokerage industry is proliferated with a ton of counterfeit platforms that promise to help you rake in hundreds of dollars overnight. However, the Admiral Markets trading review shows that this is not one of the forex brokers that you need to fear.
Admiral Markets was established as a forex broker in 2001 and has been in operation for almost two decades. It is regulated and supervised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC).
When you send a withdrawal request to this firm, it will be executed as you requested because regulated firms do not monopolize market prices. If this market wasn’t regulated, they could violate the regulatory rules, and your investment could be manipulated.
Besides holding your deposited funds in a segregated bank account, Admiral Markets use tier-1 measures to evaluate the overall bank’s financial well-being. This provision enhances the security of your money and helps you receive payouts from your investments.
Admiral Markets could well be on the way to being one of the best forex accounts that you could use.
Admiral Markets USA Trading Platforms
Admiral Markets has a collation of trading platforms – ranging from MT4, MT5, Web and Meta Trader, and a supreme category of the MetaTrader Edition. There are also specific android and Ios systems. Furthermore, you can use the online broker through other forex trading apps that allow Admiral markets live, and all of them have a demo account mode that you can use before trading with a trading account.
Whichever trading platform you choose, first of all, ensure they support the forex broker that you would like to use, and take advantage of the demo account.
MT4
MetaTrader 4 is the world’s number one in retail trading platforms with a full suite of forex and CFD trading capabilities. This platform is incredibly fast, reliable, and can be downloaded for apple and windows gadgets.
At a glance, it offers the following set of features:
- Automated API trading
- Indicators that you can tailor a comprehensive set of data on past transactions
- Advanced monitoring features such as charts
- Trading through one click
MT5
MetaTrader 5 is an improvement of the MT4 platform that is commonly used with expert traders. It comes with several advanced technical analysis tools and a dashboard that you can fully tailor to align your business needs.
The features offered by MT5 include:
- Free market insights and data
- Level 2 pricing
- Informative resources
- Live news updates
- VPS support
Supreme Edition
As the name insinuates, the MetaTrader supreme edition comes with incredibly powerful tools that enhance trade operations. Commonly used with dexterous traders, this leading edition attributes its success rate to powerful tools coupled with technical analysis features.
This version features advanced technology recognition capabilities, holding timeframes, and daily trading strategies. It also comes with global add-ons that help you simultaneously manage multiple currencies and trends.
WebTrader
WebTrader is an easy platform to access as long as you have an internet connection. It possesses price analysis software, seamless trade management, and users with a broad range of indicators such as pivot points and Bollinger Brands that come with a forex pip calculator.
Aside from popular strategies like 1-minute scalping and hedging, WebTrader comes with financial management tools such as guaranteed stop out levels meant to reduce losses and manage risks.
Admiral Market Pros
Admiral Markets boasts close to two decades of business and usage by over 94,000 traders across the globe.
It has a minimum deposit requirement of $200 – a relatively reasonable to most investors. Simultaneously, the company is regulated by the FCA and CySEC, which ensures that they don’t control the market and manipulate your investment.
Admiral Market Cons
This brokerage features MT4, MT5, MetaTrader, and WebTrader trading platforms recognized as automated trading solutions.
While these solutions offer impeccable compatibility and tailored features to traders, the MetaTrader WebTrader is generally a low-tier successor, mainly because it doesn’t have backward compatibility.
On top of that, a trader will be compelled to use the MT5 platform to use the assets provided by Admiral Markets.
All trading assets get affected, but the most affected asset is the equity CFD selection. This factor is undoubtedly the most considerable downside of Admiral Markets.
Fees Review
Let’s face it – brokerage firms are in business to make a profit. One of the things they capitalize on so much is the fees.
This makes it an incredibly contentious topic for most people. Investors end up paying colossal sums of money, consequently making them run losses. Nonetheless, brokerage firms need to maintain their state-of-the-art educational resources and financial analytical tools which need liquidity for operations.
That said, Admiral Markets neither charges withdrawal fees nor fees for inactive accounts. The only charges you’ll incur is the deposit fees.
Before delving into an in-depth outlook of the fees, let’s first examine how the company compares to other firms.
| Firm | Admiral Markets | Etoro | IC Markets | Xtb |
| Minimum Deposit | 200 | 200 | 200 | 0 |
| Withdrawal Fees | No | Yes | No | Variable |
| Inactivity Fees | No | Yes | No | No |
| Deposit Fees | Varies | No | Varies | No |
| CFD Commission | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Minimum Deposit
Admiral Markets demand that you deposit a minimum of $200 to open an account and start trading.
While some brokerage services feature a zero minimum deposit requirement, some firms charge more than this $200 threshold. At the same time, this fee covers premium services not available on other platforms.
In general terms, brokers who charge incredibly low ‘minimum deposits’ are often geared to mainstream audiences that do not need standard advanced features and trading tools.
As in the comparison above, Admiral Markets has a minimum deposit requirement evenly matched with other platforms except for Xtb – whose minimum fee is $0. However, when we examined other features of Xtb in terms of research tools and risk management, Admiral Markets turned out to be the most viable option.
As more brokerage firms proliferate the market, it’s not uncommon to witness those with high ‘minimum deposit requirements’ offering in-depth technical analysis and informative tools.
Withdrawal Fees
Every brokerage has its unique rules that govern how funds can be withdrawn from the trading accounts.
Admiral Markets allows you to transfer your money to a Skrill account, Payoneer wallet, Neteller account, or wire your money to your bank account. The wallets may, however, charge additional fees to withdraw to your local currency.
Inactivity and Deposit Fees
If you stop using your account and become inactive for a while, Admiral Markets won’t charge you any fee.
Some brokers charge inactivity fees to take care of your account onboarded on their expensive trading platform. Having a dormant account means you won’t be generating revenue for their company. Hence, they charge inactivity fees in an attempt to hit their revenue targets.
On top of being charged by your payment processor to deposit some funds, some brokerage firms require you to accrue a fee when you deposit—some charge fixed amounts of money specific to your deposit currency. In contrast, others require you to accrue a percentage of the deposit amount.
Thankfully, Admiral Markets has an added perk of not charging deposit fees.
Commission Fees
Brokers who require you to pay a commission often use it as a service charge to enable you to buy and trade financial assets using their platform. In such a case, the commission will differ depending on your trading type, investment, and level of trading account you’re using. On top of that, you won’t incur any fee if the order becomes unsuccessful.
Assets to Trade
Depending on the subsidiary you’re using, Admiral Markets has over 7,500 assets for its consumers.
Keep in mind that each subsidiary under Admiral Markets has a different trading instrument that works under a specific set of regularity restrictions. These assets differ depending on your country of residence and the account you’re using.
With over 40 currency pairs and at least 148 instruments, Admiral Markets offers an endless array of options to its consumers. It constitutes 3,000 global markets available through CFDs coupled with more than 3000 stocks and shares, over 30 cryptocurrencies, and at least 25 commodities.
There are also over 400 ETFs and bonds at low trading costs except spread betting and binary options. When you look at the average live spreads, Admiral Markets applies this on major forex pairs such as EUR/USD and GBP/USD.
For retail clients, the leverage goes up to 1:30, and it comes with an easy-to-use margin calculator with the following maximum stats:
- Forex – 1:30
- Commodities and indices – 1:10
- Bonds, ETFs, and stocks – 1:5
- Cryptocurrency – 1:2
Research and Education
Having informative resources is the backbone of successful trades.
Admiral Markets uses in-house analytics that provides a section for technical analysis for its consumers. While this provision is generally useful to traders, it’s an area that needs some adjustments since it is relatively disorganized and lacks a technical analysis section.
On top of the trading capabilities provided by the Trading central incorporated in the Supreme MetaTrader Edition, premium analytics that requires the user to sign in are also available.
The incorporation of in-house analytics further enhances auxiliary trading services coupled with essential topics covered in the blog. Besides, other research tools include a heat map, cryptocurrency Bubble-O-Meter, and an economic calendar.
Mobile Trading
Depending on your account type, Admiral Markets has a standard app available for both Apple and ios.
While you will not have MT4 and MT5 on your mobile, the Admiral Markets app ensures traders seamlessly get real-time updates on price feeds, chart types, custom indicators, and a trading journal. One notable perk of these mobile trading platforms is that you can customize them to suit your preferences.
Admiral Markets Review - Customer Support
Any brokerage firm relies on effective customer support to handle all investor queries.
Besides being available on email, webform, phone, and live chat, Admiral Markets offers remote assistance for technical glitches.
Operation hours aren’t specified on their website, but we assumed they operate within the conventional 24/5 period. Besides, an extensive FAQ section highlights commonly asked questions that address technical issues.
How to Trade
Like any other industry, learning how to trade begins with opening an account using a simple online application that processes forms for new account holders.
When we tried trading with admiral markets, the website’s landing page welcomed us to a page with a man in glasses – probably elated by an enormous amount of profit he just raked in. At the top right corner of the page are two tabs labeled “start trading” and “login.”
Since the FCA and CySEC regulate admiral markets, every new person onboarded on the system should pass a couple of compliance checks to ensure they comprehend the risks associated with trading. We were asked to have scanned color copies of passports, driving license or government-issued ID, and a bank statement for the past three months bearing the address.
We also answered a couple of compliance questions to confirm the level of trading experience we had. The entire process took slightly over 10 minutes to complete, after which we waited for another two days to pass the compliance test.
The next step is securing the deposit, after which you install the trading application of your choice. Keep in mind that you can try admiral markets using a demo account before putting your funding methods.
When it comes to executing the trading strategy, admiral markets have a lower threshold trade of 0.01 lot. This lot may vary depending on the account you’re using, and it can go up to a maximum of 200 lot.
Besides, admiral markets offer ECN and STP execution. You can expect incredibly tight spreads with a little more transparency over the price you’re incurring to perform the trades.
One notable element of admiral markets is that it’s one of the few brokers who claim to have no requotes. In other words, you won’t have to worry about slippage – getting a trade execution different from the price which you ordered.
As often seen with most brokers, admiral markets have margin requirements that have immense disparities depending on the instruments you’re using. Simultaneously, the instruments come with a couple of handy risk mitigation capabilities like stop losses, negative balance hindrance, and limit orders.
Inarguably, learning forex trading can often be difficult. When this learning difficulty is compounded by the perception that people visiting forex sites are dexterous traders, it becomes as complex as missile engineering.
Nonetheless, we’ve compiled common terminologies used by admiral markets in this review to make your work straightforward.
Spot Forex
Spot forex refers to a more straightforward buying and selling of a real currency. You can, for instance, buy some amount of Japanese Yen and exchange it for Euros. Once Yen’s value increases, you can exchange the Euros for Yen, consequently receiving much more than your initial investment.
CFDs
The contract for Difference means the price fluctuations of financial instruments. In forex trading, you can buy and sell colossal amount o currency without using an asset.
Aside from forex, you can also use stocks, bonds, indices, commodities, and cryptocurrencies. In any case, you can trade-in price fluctuations of these instruments without having to purchase the assets.
Margin
Admiral markets give you a wallet within which some money is retained when opening a trade.
On the contrary, several traders lack the necessary margin to generate sufficient profit since they use up most of their money. Instead, many brokers give their clients leverage to cover up for this “margin.”
Leverage Explained
We’ll start by explaining an example to make leverage more comprehensible.
If you have $10,000 and tie up $1,000 – 10% of your account value – you’ll have a scenario where a small portion is controlling a much larger segment. This amount of money is your leverage.
The effect that leverage has on your gains is that it could compound profits or magnify losses. If you buy $10,000 worth of gold using CFDs within the admiral markets platform and the gold rises by 10%, you’ll rake in $1,000 in profit. Consequently, your overall value will rise to $11,000.
A close examination reveals that your investment rises by a 10% margin, which means that if the price of gold falls by 10%, your investment amount will fall by $1,000. Leverage works on both ways depending on the trend your investment takes, which means your investment could compound or lead to losses.
Pip and Spread
A pip is a metric value of 0.0001 of the quoted price, excluding all Japanese Yes pairs. If you bid a USD/GBP par that rises from 2.28889 to 2.228899, the difference represents one pip.
On the other hand, the spread refers to a difference between the purchase price and the sale price of a pair. For most currencies, the spread is commonly low, and sometimes even goes less than a pip. On the contrary, pairs that don’t trade frequently can have spreads significantly higher. Whichever the case, the value of the par must go above the spread for the trade to become profitable.
Deals and Promotions
Admiral markets are typical for offering zero-deposit offers and up to a 50% deposit offer to new clients. However, these promotions have been recently incepted as they were not there during the time of acquisition.
Besides, the promotion terms and conditions vary depending on the jurisdiction within which you’re trading. The European Union, for instance, has tightened its regulations on welcome offers.
Limiting Risks When Trading
Admiral markets have a provision to issue a stop-loss order when you place an order once the stock attains a certain price. This strategy is meant to limit trader loss on a security position.
Unless the trade is placed against another using leverage, risks associated with trading are often enormous. It is, therefore, important to stop losses to protect yourself from huge risks.
Customer Reviews
Despite having a huge chunk of positive reviews that encompass admiral markets’ success and compliance, some users have complained about having problems with withdrawing funds from forex brokers such as Admiral Markets. We further examined these claims’ legitimacy, and we found out that such problems are often associated with unverified accounts and inconsistent communication between traders and their personal managers. Therefore, you need to ensure that you take note of the Admiral Markets reviews you read.
Keeping in mind that this withdrawal challenge is geared towards enhancing security, admiral markets has proved to be a quality brokerage firm. The seriousness of the company, the platform’s convenience, and impeccable working conditions enable users to trade seamlessly.
Is Admiral Markets a Good Broker? - Conclusion
We spent slightly over a month examining our admiral markets review in great detail. Although we found some drawbacks such as the need to use MT5 to perform a trade on all assets and technical hitches resulting in withdrawal problems, admiral markets turned out to be a great platform.
This brokerage has a good track record of offering forex and CFDs coupled with an incredible customer support team that works round the clock during business days. Overall, this review has shown that Admiral Markets is an incredible platform and forex broker you should consider. Remember, however, to take advantage of the Admiral Markets trading demo account before opening a full account.