Admiral Markets Review

Founded in 2001, Admiral Markets Group has offices around the globe, including Admiral Markets UK Ltd., which is based in the UK and comes under the regulation of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). It offers up to 44 Forex currency pairs, as well as CFDs for indices, commodities and shares.

The company was founded in Estonia, and globally is authorized to provide cross-border brokerage in the 28 EU countries, as well as having offices in Australia and Cyprus. It even offers multiple trading accounts in different currencies for those people who trade in different markets and want some protection from currency fluctuations.

Admiral Markets offers a full range of education products, including webinars, seminars, risk management advice and advanced trading topics. But it doesn’t stop there, as there are detailed analytics available covering much more than the customary technical analysis.

For instance, one covers fundamental analysis, giving critical scrutiny of the economic events that affect the markets and individual financial instruments. Another is a “heat map”, which shows you which stocks you may want to be following at any time. The market sentiment tab allows you to see other traders’ positions, showing the proportion of long and short positions.

Admiral Markets currently has nearly 100,000 active clients globally, with a monthly trading volume of $50 billion. In the UK it offers three types of accounts. The most popular one is called Admiral Markets, and can be opened with a deposit of as little as £200. It gives full access to the stock and bond CFDs, energy, metal and index CFDs, and 31 currency pairs. The spreads are competitive, starting at 0.8 pips, and leverage is 1:500.

The second account type is called Admiral Prime. The minimum deposit on this one is £1000, and it gives access to all 44 currency pairs as well as metals CFDs. Leverage is 1:200, and spreads start at zero – instead there is commission charged. Both of these accounts use the MetaTrader 4 platform.

For those who want to use the newer MetaTrader 5 platform, Admiral Markets offers a third account which is called the Admiral MT5. With slightly fewer trading instruments than the Prime, spreads start at 0.2 and again a commission is charged.

Platforms

As mentioned, MetaTrader 4 is offered for the first two types of accounts. Each has access to the MetaTrader 4 Supreme Edition Add-on, which includes additional features such as a built-in calendar and market analysis tools, alerts, etc. The Admiral Markets account also includes Autochartist which can automatically search for trading opportunities according to parameters that you set.

As the name implies, Admiral MT5 is based around the MetaTrader 5 platform, and up to 1:100 leverage is available. All three accounts can be traded on your mobile, with Android and iPhone versions.

MetaTrader is a well-known trading platform amongst currency traders, and has the advantage that there are many different add-ons available, called Expert Advisers (EA), that will enhance the information on screen and even take actions, such as automatic trading. EA’s are available on many different forums, and custom EA’s can be easily ordered from one of the many expert programmers.

Markets

Somewhat confusingly, Admiral Markets has decided to have completely different trading instruments on each of its three accounts, so considering the markets that you want to trade will have some material impact on which account you choose to open.

The popular Admiral Markets account, which can be opened with a minimum deposit of £200, lists 31 currencies, and seven commodities in the form of four metal CFDs and three energy CFDs. You can also trade 14 index CFDs, 37 stock CFDs and two bond CFDs. The minimum order size is a micro-lot, which is 100th of a standard lot.

The other two accounts require a minimum deposit of £1000 to open. The Prime account offers 44 currency pairs for trading, the most of any account, and 3 spot metal CFDs; the MT5 account has 26 Forex pairs and 2 spot metal CFDs. Note that you don’t get Autochartist with either of these two accounts.