brokerreview

Saxo Bank Review

2020-03-12T20:46:00.001-07:00

1) Founded in 1992, Saxo Bank is a regulated bank and licensed in six tier-1 jurisdictions, making it a safe broker (low-risk) for forex and CFDs trading.
2) Saxo Bank is an exclusive broker, requiring a USD 10,000 minimum deposit (GBP 500 for the UK, SGD 3,000 for Singapore) to open an entry-level "Classic" account. Saxo Bank's Platinum and VIP accounts require USD 200,000 and 1,000,000, respectively. If the minimum deposit is a deal-breaker, consider IG or CMC Markets.
3) Minimum deposit aside, the entire Saxo Trader client experience is absolutely brilliant. Alongside access to trading 40,000 instruments, Saxo Bank offers reliable customer service and excellent pricing across the board. Better still, Saxo Bank's flagship platform, SaxoTraderGo, is terrific, including everything traders require to navigate the market.

Overall Summary

Feature	Saxo Bank
Overall	5 Stars
Trust Score	98
Offering of Investments	5 Stars
Commissions & Fees	5 Stars
Platform & Tools	5 Stars
Research	5 Stars
Mobile Trading	4.5 Stars
Customer Service	4 Stars
Education	4 Stars

Is Saxo Bank Safe?

Saxo Bank is considered low-risk, with an overall Trust Score of 98 out of 99. Saxo Bank is not publicly traded, does operate a bank, and is authorised by six tier-1 regulators (high trust), one tier-2 regulator (average trust), and zero tier-3 regulators (low trust). Saxo Bank is authorised by the following tier-1 regulators: Australian Securities & Investment Commission (ASIC), Securities Futures Commission (SFC), Japanese Financial Services Authority (JFSA), Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

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Feature	Saxo Bank
Year Founded	1992
Publicly Traded (Listed)	No
Bank	Yes
Tier-1 Licenses	6
Tier-2 Licenses	1
Tier-3 Licenses	0
Trust Score	98

Offering of Investments

Saxo Bank is a real multi-asset broker catering to investors and traders with more than 35,000 electronically-tradeable symbols across a wide array of international markets and asset classes (and an additional 5,000 bonds offline, for a total of 40,000 instruments). In 2020, Saxo Bank is our number one broker in this category finishing Best in Class for its Offering of Investments. The following table summarizes the different investment products available to Saxo Bank clients.

Feature	Saxo Bank
Forex: Spot Trading	Yes
Currency Pairs (Total Forex pairs)	182
CFDs - Total Offered	35000
Social Trading / Copy-Trading	Yes
Cryptocurrency traded as actual	No
Cryptocurrency traded as CFD	No

Commissions & Fees

Overall, Saxo Bank provides traders excellent all-around pricing. For trading forex and CFDs, Saxo Bank is our number one broker in 2020, earning first place in the Commission & Fees category.
Account types: Saxo Bank offers three account types. The entry-level Classic account requires a USD 10,000 minimum deposit, while the Platinum account for active traders requires USD 200,000. In 2020, Saxo Bank won our award for Best VIP Client Experience. Saxo Bank's VIP account, which offers the most savings on pricing, is reserved for elite investors who deposit at least USD 1,000,000. The exception to these steep requirements is in the UK and Singapore, where the Classic account is available with a deposit of only GBP 500 or SGD 3,000, respectively.
Spreads: Referencing Saxo Bank's Global Standard pricing data for the 30 days ending October 10th, 2019, the average spread on the EUR/USD pair was 0.6 pips. Saxo Bank's primary focus is its spread-only pricing, which is commission-free and applicable to all traders. That said, Saxo Bank's volume-based pricing includes a default commission equivalent of only 0.5 pips and could make sense for active traders.
Best execution: Saxo Bank is committed to the FX Global Code, an evolving interbank standard around enhanced disclosures and execution best-practices. The mission of the FX Global Code is to promote integrity and transparency across the global foreign exchange market.

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Feature	Saxo Bank
Minimum Initial Deposit	$10,000.00
Average Spread EUR/USD - Standard	0.6 (as of Sep 19)
All-in Cost EUR/USD - Active	0.6 (as of Sep 19)
Active Trader or VIP Discounts	Yes

Platforms & Tools

No question, Saxo Bank's proprietary trading platforms SaxoTraderGO (web) and SaxoTraderPRO (desktop) set the industry benchmarks, thanks to their streamlined designs and robust trading tools. While both platforms are great, the web version is my preferred choice.

SaxoTraderGO: SaxoTraderGO is the broker's responsive web-based platform that is designed around simplicity, yet is rich with features. Charting is robust, offering 55 indicators and nearly 20 drawing tools, including Trade Signals from Auto Chartist.

SaxoTraderPRO: The broker's flagship desktop platform is SaxoTraderPRO, which resembles SaxoTraderGO in terms of look and feel. Functionality is similar; however, the PRO platform offers a larger selection of professional trading features. For example, PRO supports up to six monitors, streaming Level 2 order books, streaming time and sales, and algorithmic orders. Note, additional data subscriptions are required to use tools like the streaming Level 2 order book, which is a standard industry practice.

Usability: Saxo Bank provides a universal platform experience and is our number one broker, Best in Class, in the Ease of Use category. Menus have a similar feel, customized charts and watch lists automatically save and sync with the mobile app, and, all in all, great attention to detail can be seen throughout.

MetaTrader: For traders who insist on using MetaTrader instead of SaxoTraderGo, the option is available, but it isn't cheap. To use MetaTrader with Saxo Bank, a $20,000 minimum deposit is required, which also includes a $2,000 per month minimum spend requirement.

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Research

Saxo Bank combines quality in-house research with well-known third-party providers to offer an excellent research experience.

Range of content: Saxo offers a rich, diverse research offering across its websites and platforms. Research ranges from in-house analysts who publish daily analysis through Saxo Bank's Market Analysis portal to content provided by numerous third-party providers.

Usability: Saxo Bank does a great job of centralizing its research within the SaxoTraderGo web platform. Third-party research providers include Auto Chartist (automated trade signals) and streaming economic news from NewsEdge and RanSquawk. To find flaws, we had to get picky; for example, while there is an integrated economic calendar, it is not interactive.

SaxoTraderPRO: Saxo Bank's desktop platform offers even more research tools than its web counterpart, including screeners, level 2 order books, and equity research reports from FactSet.

Reports: Saxo Bank's research team delivers quarterly outlooks and yearly forecast reports in pdf format. Furthermore, related podcasts with accompanying blog posts are provided, complementing the daily coverage from within the Market Analysis section.

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Mobile Trading

Saxo Bank does a great job tying in high-quality trading tools and research into its mobile app, unifying the reliable SaxoTraderGO web-based platform experience.

Trading tools: The economic calendar, market news, and other research content, including pattern recognition analysis from Auto Chartist, all match the web-version of the platform.

Charting: The charting capabilities are rich with drawing tools, indicators, and customizations, again providing a nearly identical experience with the web-based version of the platform.

Syncing: In addition to syncing watch lists, mobile charts in SaxoTraderGO mobile also sync with the browser-based version of the platform. For example, if you draw trend-lines and add indicators in the web-version, they appear in the mobile app (and vice-versa).

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Customer Service

To score Customer Service, ForexBrokers.com partnered with customer experience research group Customerwise to conduct phone tests from locations throughout the UK. For our 2020 Review, 330 customer service tests were conducted over six weeks.

Results

Average Connection Time: <1 minute
Average Net Promoter Score: 7.8 / 10
Average Professionalism Score: 7.9 / 10
Overall Score: 8.21 / 10
Ranking: 7 th (22 brokers)

Final Thoughts

Saxo Bank does a brilliant job of unifying its desktop, web, and mobile platforms. Not only is the client experience seamless, but it is also rich with tools and research throughout.

Bottom line: For traders that can afford the high minimum deposit, Saxo Bank provides a complete package worth being a customer for, under a global brand that traders can trust. Saxo Bank finished Best in Class across an impressive twelve categories (more than any other broker) while holding first place across four of them year-over-year in 2020.

If the minimum deposit is a deal-breaker, I recommend IG or CMC Markets, which provide a similar brilliant experience with less stringent account minimums.

About Saxo Bank

Established in 1992, Saxo Bank (majority-owned by China-based Geely Holding Group) is one of the leading retail forex and multi-asset brokerages with regulated entities across 15 international jurisdictions, including the UK, Denmark, and Singapore. Catering to both retail and institutional clients, Saxo Bank processes over one million transactions per day and holds €46 billion in assets under management (AUM) servicing 860,000 clients as of June 30th, 2019, following its acquisition of BinckBank.

Saxo Bank offers traders nearly every electronically traded asset class, including spot FX, FX options, non-deliverable forwards (NDFs), Contracts for Difference (CFDs), stocks, stock options, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs) including cryptos, futures, contract options, and bonds. Read more on Wikipedia about Saxo Bank.

Saxo Bank Trading Features

Feature	Saxo Bank
Virtual Trading (Demo)	Yes
Proprietary Platform	Yes
Desktop Platform (Windows)	Yes
Web Platform	Yes
Social Trading / Copy-Trading	Yes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)	Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)	No
cTrader	No
Charting - Indicators / Studies (Total)	55
Charting - Drawing Tools (Total)	19
Charting - Trade From Chart	Yes
Watchlists - Total Fields	12
Order Type - Trailing Stop	Yes

Saxo Bank Research Features

Feature	Saxo Bank
Daily Market Commentary	Yes
Forex News (Top-Tier Sources)	Yes
Weekly Webinars	Yes
AutoChartist	Yes
Trading Central (Recognia)	No
Delkos Research	No
Social Sentiment - Currency Pairs	Yes
Economic Calendar	Yes

Saxo Bank Mobile App Features

Feature	Saxo Bank
Android App	Yes
Apple iOS App	Yes
Trading - Forex	Yes
Trading - CFDs	Yes
Alerts - Basic Fields	Yes
Watch List	Yes
Watch List Syncing	Yes
Charting - Indicators / Studies	41
Charting - Draw Trend Lines	Yes
Charting - Trend Lines Moveable	Yes
Charting - Multiple Time Frames	Yes
Charting - Drawings Autosave	Yes
Forex Calendar	Yes

XTB Review

2020-03-12T20:26:00.003-07:00

1) Founded in 2002, XTB is publicly-traded and regulated in one tier-1 jurisdiction, making it a safe broker (low-risk) for forex and CFDs trading.
2) XTB's xStation platform suite provides excellent usability and offers a robust selection of trading tools and research. Also, thanks to a more extensive range of CFDs, XTB is a viable option for cryptocurrency trading.
3) XTB provides outstanding customer service. In 2020, XTB finished 1st place (out of 22) in our national testing from locations across the United Kingdom.

Overall Summary

Feature	XTB
Overall	4.5 Stars
Trust Score	92
Offering of Investments	4 Stars
Commissions & Fees	4 Stars
Platform & Tools	4 Stars
Research	4.5 Stars
Mobile Trading	4 Stars
Customer Service	4.5 Stars
Education	4 Stars

Is XTB Safe?

XTB is considered low-risk, with an overall Trust Score of 92 out of 99. XTB is a publicly traded company that is authorised by one tier-1 regulator (high trust), one tier-2 regulator (average trust), and one tier-3 regulator (low trust). XTB is authorised by the following tier-1 regulator: Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Trust Comparison

Feature	XTB
Year Founded	2002
Publicly Traded (Listed)	Yes
Bank	No
Tier-1 Licenses	1
Tier-2 Licenses	1
Tier-3 Licenses	1
Trust Score	92

Offering of Investments

XTB provides traders access to CFDs on 1703 stocks, 103 ETFs, 21 commodities, 42 indices, 25 cryptocurrencies, and 49 forex pairs. Furthermore, the broker also provides nearly 2100 cash equities (i.e., non-leveraged), including 150 ETFs, as part of its securities offering. The following table summarizes the different investment products available to XTB clients.

Feature	XTB
Forex: Spot Trading	Yes
Currency Pairs (Total Forex pairs)	49
CFDs - Total Offered	1894
Social Trading / Copy-Trading	Yes
Cryptocurrency traded as actual	No
Cryptocurrency traded as CFD	Yes

Commissions & Fees

XTB offers a Standard (for UK and Ireland residents only) and a commission-based Pro account. Each account comes with its own execution method and spread model, in terms of commissions and fees. Overall, spreads are competitive. Regardless of the account type used, traders can use either the xStation 5 platform or MT4.

Spreads: XTB lists target spreads on the EUR/USD for its various account types, which include two pips for the Basic account, 0.9 pips on MT4, 0.7 pips for the standard account, and 0.3 pips for the commission-based Pro account, as of October 2019. My choice would be the standard account with an average spread of 0.78 pips during Q3 2019 for the EUR/USD pair at XTB.

Standard vs. Pro: With minimum deposits at XTB that start at 250 base currency (i.e., £250, €250, or $250), the Pro account is the most competitive option in terms of lower spreads. It has a commission of £2.5, €3.5, or $4 per side on standard lots (100k), depending on the currency of the denominated account.

Designated professionals: For active traders (and those in the EU who meet the definition of elective professionals), XTB will rebate a portion of the spread (from 10% to 30%) back to you when you reach certain volume thresholds.

Active trader discounts: Five discount tiers that are tied to volume, starting from over 50 lots per month, to more than 1000 at the highest level, in terms of monthly volume requirements. This active trader program is known as XTB's lower spread group and helps the company compete with brokers such as FXCM and FOREX.com that have active trader offerings or liquidity rebates from CMC Markets.

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Feature	XTB
Minimum Initial Deposit	$0.00
Average Spread EUR/USD - Standard	0.78 (as of Q3 19)
All-in Cost EUR/USD - Active	0.78 (as of Q3 19)
Active Trader or VIP Discounts	Yes

Platforms & Tools

XTB’s flagship platform offering, xStation 5, delivers a great experience for web, mobile, tablet, and even iOS and Android smartwatches. Tool highlights include heat mapping (view top movers by color), sentiment analysis (see which percentage of XTB clients are long or short), and trader statistics (view trade-by-trade results, win/loss ratio by long or short, performance by traded market, and more).

xStation 5 Web: The web-based version of xStation 5 is HTML 5 based, providing forex and CFD traders a very modern, clean design. A unique feature with charting, charts include a countdown timer showing the remaining time left in each candlestick, and right-clicking within a chart reveals an extensive list of drop-down items for fast access to trading and analysis. In total, 29 drawing tools and 34 technical indicators are available.

MetaTrader: While xStation 5 is the primary reason for choosing XTB to begin with, XTB does also offer the full MetaTrader 4 suite. Since xStation 5 does not support automated trading, MT4 must be used.

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Research

XTB offers a diverse range of research across its platforms and websites. Beyond streaming headlines from top-tier news providers, an economic calendar, and in-house staff that publish technical and fundamental analysis, a premium service (formerly known as TRADEBEAT) is offered that provides market sentiment, exclusive strategies, educational resources, and trade recommendations for subscribers.

Helping to boost its ranking as a multi-asset broker in this category, XTB provides a stock screener that lets you filter basic fields to sort through over 1700 tradable single-stock CFDs, a useful research tool for scanning symbols to trade. Alongside a screener, signals included within the news panel include price analyses from Thomson Reuters, Barclays, Citi Group, and others.

Combined with other premium tools such as the heatmap and market sentiment, XTB’s research tools are diverse and comparable to research offerings from other multi-asset brokers, such as IG and Saxo Bank.

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Mobile Trading

The xStation mobile app from XTB provides traders a cleanly designed app that is easy to use and includes live chat support. That said, there is room for further innovation in what is already a good foundation for its mobile app.

As far as features go, research within the xStation mobile app is formidable. Top movers, market sentiment analysis, and a news calendar with click-to-expand charts are all available. Drawbacks include watch list updates do not sync with the web platform and despite a cleanly built charting package, which includes drawing tools in horizontal mode, charts contain only ten indicators.

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Customer Service

Results

Average Connection Time: <1 minute
Average Net Promoter Score: 9.1 / 10
Average Professionalism Score: 9.7 / 10
Overall Score: 9.40 / 10
Ranking: 1 st (22 brokers)

Final Thoughts

A diverse selection of tradable securities, outstanding customer service, and a unique proprietary trading platform suite, xStation 5, summarizes the highlights of XTB’s all-around competitive offering. Its weak spot is its mobile app, which even then still meets the industry standard as far as features go. XTB continued its multi-year winning streak finishing Best in Class across two categories, including Crypto Trading, and Customer Service (1st place) in 2020.

About XTB

Founded in Poland in 2002, XTB has grown to become a well-known forex and CFDs broker, serving over 230,000 clients globally as of its 2019 Half-Year (HY) report. XTB was listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in 2016 after a successful initial public offering that valued the company at nearly $350 million. As of October 2019, the market capitalization of the company's shares (WSE: XTB.PL) stood at $96.63m, converted from Polish Zloty to US Dollars. XTB maintains offices in over a dozen countries across Europe and is licensed by numerous regulators, including the UK’s FCA, Poland’s KNF, Germany’s BaFIN, Spain's CNMV, France's AMF, Cyprus' CySEC, and Belize's FSC.

XTB Trading Features

Feature	XTB
Virtual Trading (Demo)	Yes
Proprietary Platform	Yes
Desktop Platform (Windows)	Yes
Web Platform	Yes
Social Trading / Copy-Trading	Yes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)	Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)	No
cTrader	No
Charting - Indicators / Studies (Total)	51
Charting - Drawing Tools (Total)	31
Charting - Trade From Chart	Yes
Watchlists - Total Fields	7
Order Type - Trailing Stop	Yes

XTB Research Features

Feature	XTB
Daily Market Commentary	Yes
Forex News (Top-Tier Sources)	Yes
Weekly Webinars	No
AutoChartist	No
Trading Central (Recognia)	No
Delkos Research	No
Social Sentiment - Currency Pairs	Yes
Economic Calendar	Yes

XTB Mobile App Features

Feature	XTB
Android App	Yes
Apple iOS App	Yes
Trading - Forex	Yes
Trading - CFDs	Yes
Alerts - Basic Fields	Yes
Watch List	Yes
Watch List Syncing	No
Charting - Indicators / Studies	30
Charting - Draw Trend Lines	Yes
Charting - Trend Lines Moveable	Yes
Charting - Multiple Time Frames	Yes
Charting - Drawings Autosave	No
Forex Calendar	Yes

Plus500 Review

2020-02-19T17:17:00.002-08:00

1) Founded in 2008, Plus500 is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange’s (LSE: PLUS) and is part of the FTSE 250 Index. Plus500 is regulated in two tier-1 jurisdictions and three tier-2 jurisdictions, making it a safe broker (low-risk) for forex and CFDs trading.
2) I view the Plus500 web-based trading platform as extremely user-friendly, making it excellent for beginner forex and CFD traders. Beginners aside, the Plus500 platform offers only basic features and, overall, lacks in depth when it comes to trading tools and research. Lastly, MetaTrader is not offered.
3) When it comes to pricing, Plus500 appears to offer competitive spreads on most of its major forex pairs, while minor pairs are a mixed bag. Discounts are not offered to active traders or VIP clients.

Overall Summary

Feature	Plus500
Overall	4 Stars
Trust Score	98
Offering of Investments	4 Stars
Commissions & Fees	4 Stars
Platform & Tools	3.5 Stars
Research	3.5 Stars
Mobile Trading	3.5 Stars
Customer Service	.1 Stars
Education	3 Stars

? Is Plus500 Safe

The bottom line is that Plus 500 is regulated, licensed, and is a safe broker to trade forex and CFDs with. Plus500 is considered low-risk, with an overall Trust Score of 98 out of 99. Plus500 is publicly traded but does not operate a bank. Plus500 (or one of its subsidiaries) is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 509909), Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (Licence No. 250/14), ASIC (AFSL #417727), FMA in New Zealand (FSP No. 486026), FSCA in South Africa (Provider #47546), and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (License No. CMS100648-1).

Feature Plus500
Year Founded 2008
Publicly Traded (Listed) Yes
Bank No
Tier-1 Licenses 2
Tier-2 Licenses 3
Tier-3 Licenses 1
Trust Score 98
Offering of Investments

Feature	Plus500
Year Founded	2008
Publicly Traded (Listed)	Yes
Bank	No
Tier-1 Licenses	2
Tier-2 Licenses	3
Tier-3 Licenses	1
Trust Score	98

Plus500 offers 2033 CFDs, including on 50 currency pairs, which is slightly higher than most forex brokers. All of Plus500’s products are CFDs. Plus500 allows cryptocurrency to be traded as a CFD, but not as the actual asset with wallet storage.

Feature	Plus500
Forex: Spot Trading	Yes
Currency Pairs (Total Forex pairs)	50
CFDs - Total Offered	2033
Social Trading / Copy-Trading	No
Cryptocurrency traded as actual	No
Cryptocurrency traded as CFD	Yes

Commissions & Fees

Plus500 has a minimum deposit of €100 and does not give discounts to active traders or VIP clients. Plus500 appears to offer competitive spreads on most of its major forex pairs, while minor pairs are a mixed bag.

Forex pairs: In our analysis, some forex pairs had spreads that were priced competitively, while spreads on other pairs were more expensive. For example, in August 2018, the USD/CAD seemed to be priced competitively at Plus500 with an observed spread of 1.3 pips. Meanwhile, other pairs offered, such as the USD/CHF and NZD/USD, had higher spreads than some competitors, with the spread on USD/CHF at four pips, and NZD/USD at 3.6 pips.

Spreads: On the EUR/USD, the spread in the platform was listed as fixed at 0.00006, which is 0.6 pips, yet it is essential to note that while fixed spreads are not variable, they are subject to adjustments. During October 2019, the spread from Plus500 for the EUR/USD was 0.6 pips. Because Plus500 doesn’t publish “average” spreads, which can help traders get an idea of what spreads are like at a broker, it is challenging to compare Plus500’s prices to other firms at any given time.

Feature	Plus500
Minimum Initial Deposit	€100
Average Spread EUR/USD - Standard	0.6 (as of Aug 2018)
All-in Cost EUR/USD - Active	N/A
Active Trader or VIP Discounts	No

Platforms & Tools

Available for desktop, web, and mobile, the Plus500 platform can be an excellent choice for casual investors due to its ease of use; however, MetaTrader is not offered, and the Plus500 platform provides only the essential, necessary tools required for trading. The few advanced features available within Plus500's flagship platform include trailing-stops and gaurunteed stop-loss orders (GSLO), which can be helpful risk management tools for traders.

Ease of use: If you have never traded before, the Plus500 WebTrader (browser-based) platform could be a place to start before graduating to a more advanced platform. Both the desktop and web-based versions of the platform are cleanly designed and focus on simplicity. Note: For desktop, a Chrome app version of the Plus500 platform is available, whereas the Windows 10 version was no longer available and did not work during our testing even after updating the already installed desktop software.

Charting: Plus500's WebTrader platform provides robust charting with offers over 100 optional technical indicators alongside the ability to save chart templates. Also, there are 21 drawing tools in the charts to aid in technical analysis.

Default watchlists: Plus500 continues to make small improvements to its WebTrader and desktop platform, such as the addition of default watch lists including a Risers & Fallers and Popular assets category, to help traders identify trending markets.

Advanced trading: Unfortunately, MetaTrader is not offered at Plus500 (see: Best MetaTrader Brokers 2019). Also, Plus500 is not built for active traders as the range of research and trading tools trails most other multi-asset brokers. For example, both algorithmic trading and social copy-trading are not supported at Plus500.