Admiral Markets Broker Review

FCA Regulation: UK residents will be onboarded through the subsidiary, Admirals UK Ltd, which is authorised and regulated by the FCA.  

Safety Features: Considered one of the best regulators in the world, under FCA regulation:

• All client money is kept fully segregated from Admirals’ own assets in an EEA-regulated credit institution. 
• The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) will pay compensation up to 85,000 EUR if Admirals ceases trading with a deficit in their segregated client money.
• Traders are afforded negative balance protection.  

However, the FCA restricts leverage to 30:1, prohibits Admirals from offering bonuses and promotions, and has banned all cryptocurrency CFD trading. 

Admirals offers a much broader range of tradable instruments than other brokers and really outshines its competitors in its commodity, share CFD, and cryptocurrency offerings.

All Admirals’ accounts have a minimum deposit of 250 GBP, which is slightly higher than other brokers. However, trading costs on the Trade MT4/MT5 accounts are around 5 USD per lot traded, while the trading costs on the MT4/MT5 Zero Accounts are around 7 USD per lot traded. These trading costs are some of the lowest in the industry.  

Account Trading Costs:

Trade.MT5

The Trade.MT5 Account has a minimum deposit requirement of 250 GBP, leverage up to 30:1, and no commissions are charged for Forex trading.  Spreads start at 0.80 pips for the EUR/USD, and it is available as an Islamic swap-free account.  

Zero.MT5

With a minimum deposit requirement of 250 GBP, the Zero.MT5 account has spreads starting at 0.0pips on the EUR/USD, and a commission of between 1.8 and 3 USD is charged per lot per side (see below for commission structure). 

Trade.MT4

The minimum deposit on this account is also  250 GBP. Spreads start at 0.5 pips (EUR/USD) on this account, and no commissions are charged.  Note that there are no Islamic swap-free options on this account.  

Zero.MT4

The minimum deposit is 250 GBP on this account, leverage is up to 30:1, and spreads start at 0.0 pips on the EUR/USD.  A commission of between 1.8 and 3 USD is charged per side per lot traded, dependent on the trading volume (see below for commission structure). This account does not offer Islamic swap-free options.  

Bets.MT5

In order to open an account, traders will have to make a deposit of 100 GBP. Traders can only speculate on 35 currencies and like the other accounts, Forex trading is available at leverage of up to 30:1. Spreads start at 0.5 pips on the EUR/USD and no commissions are charged. 

As a well-regulated broker, Admirals does not process payments to third parties. All withdrawal requests from a trading account must go to a bank account or a source in the trader’s name. 

Trading Account Currencies: Deposits to trading accounts can be made in most national currencies, which are subsequently converted into EUR, USD, GBP, CHF, BGN, CZK, HRK, HUF, PLN, or RON, or other applicable currencies. Having accounts denominated in GBP means that British traders will be able to avoid paying currency conversion fees on deposits and withdrawals. However, if during an internal transfer between a client’s accounts, there is a difference in base currencies, a fee of 1% of the transferred amount will apply.  

Deposits and Withdrawals: Deposits can be made via credit cards/debit cards, e-wallets (Skrill and Neteller), and bank transfers.  Credit cards/debit cards are processed instantly, but deposits via wire transfer can take 3 bank days to reflect. No commissions are charged on deposits or withdrawals, but should the base currency of a client’s trading account differ from the base currency of the transferred funds, the amount transferred will be converted to the base currency of the client’s trading account, and a 0.3% fee will be charged.   For those transferring funds via e-wallets in a different base currency, the first 5 transfers will be free, and thereafter 1% of the amount will be charged. 

Withdrawals are only available via wire transfer, with a processing time of 1-3 business days. A fee of 3 USD (or equivalent) is charged for domestic transfers and up to 20 USD for international transfers.

See below for more details:

Admiral Markets’ Trading App

Developed entirely in-house, the Admirals app is available on both Android and iOS. 

Features: We found that the Admirals’ trading app has a clean interface and is easy to use.  It has a sophisticated dashboard and intuitive home screen that allows you to add instruments to your watchlists,  view market analysis materials, and contact customer support from within the app.  It also has excellent search functionality and it’s simple to place orders, set price alerts, and view live prices and charts. Admirals has also updated its charts, and traders can tap with one finger to check the price for a selected period or tap with two fingers to check the price difference for a selected range:

Conveniently, we were also able to deposit and withdraw funds and upload and scan our documents.  

MT4/MT5 Mobile Applications

Both trading platforms are available on both Android and iOS mobile devices and tablets. Beginner traders should be aware that there is some loss in functionality when compared to the desktop trading platforms, including reduced timeframes and fewer charting options.  In addition, spotty connections can reduce the overall trading experience. Generally, it is better to be at your desktop to conduct day-to-day trading and use a mobile device to keep an eye on the markets or close open positions.

The Admirals MT4 and MT5 apps allow traders to work from anywhere, with functionality to close and modify existing orders, calculate profit/loss in real-time, and tick chart trading to further assists traders while on the move.

Overall, Admirals’ mobile trading support is better than that of other brokers, with support for the MT4/MT5 apps in addition to its own mobile app.

Trading Platforms Comparison:

MT4 and MT5

The benefit of Admirals offering third-party platforms such as MT4 and MT5 is that traders can take their own customised version of the platform with them should they choose to migrate to another broker.  Additionally, thousands of plugins and tools are available for both the MetaTrader platforms.   

While MT4 has great customisability, the platform feels outdated, and some of the features can be hard to find.  MT5 is more powerful and faster than MT4 when it comes to back-testing functionality for automated trading algorithms.  It also has a built-in news feed, market depth indicator, economic calendar, and trades can be made on the charts. 

Admirals has partnered with Trading Central to integrate its indicators (Forex Featured Ideas and Technical Insight) into the MetaTrader Supreme Edition. These two highly customisable tools provide pattern recognition and technical analysis for almost all financial instruments.  A VPS service is also offered to clients who maintain an equity amount of 5000 EUR (or equivalent) in their trading accounts. 

Metatrader Supreme Edition

Trading Central

A third-party tool, Trading Central’s professional analysts use the most advanced technical analysis tools in the industry to gather the most comprehensive and in-depth market information. This tool essentially supports traders without the technical know-how in making trading decisions. This dynamic product suite is available to traders through the MetaTrader Supreme Edition.  Trading Central is considered one of the best trading tools in the industry, and Admirals does well to offer this tool to its clients.

Global Opinion Toolset

Also included in the MetaTrader Supreme Edition is the Global Opinion toolset. These tools scan and contextualise millions of financial news stories and social media posts daily, giving traders a dynamic view of market sentiment. They can drastically reduce the length of time traders need to spend on daily research by flagging-up the best assets to trade and warning of changes in the market that may impact trade success.

Mini-Terminal

Additionally, a new mini-terminal facilitates trade management by making commonly-used trading features more accessible than in the native version of the software. A mini-chart feature also lets traders see multiple time frames and chart types in a single chart.

An additional Trade Terminal feature helps traders manage multiple orders concurrently, using the same advanced trade management features of the mini-terminal.

Tick Chart Trader

Tick Chart Trader allows clients to trade tick charts fast and accurately. An additional Indicator Package with the latest indicator technology delivers more chart information and trading signals within the trading tool.

Trading Simulator

Finally, a trading simulator is available to backtest strategies on historical price data. Until this feature was conceived, traders were limited to testing strategies with a demo account in real-time. The trading simulator enables traders to test multiple strategies on the same data set to find the optimal strategy for different market situations.

VPS

Admirals offers a VPS (Virtual Private Server) service for traders who deposit more than 5000 EUR in their trading accounts. VPS hosting allows traders to run automated algorithmic strategies, including expert advisors 24 hours a day 7 days a week on a virtual machine. VPS services have the advantage of never suffering connectivity issues and have extremely low latency due to their proximity to major international exchanges. 

Overall, Admirals offers a much more comprehensive set of trading tools than is available at other similar brokers.

Trading Tool Comparison:

• Trading News: The Trader`s Blog, which is open to all clients, provides daily economic news and context or analysis to help traders find new opportunities through insightful and practical market information. Other articles include a more in-depth analysis of a specific subject. 
• Market Heat Map: The Market Heat Map is a real-time visual method of following asset price movements and obtaining daily trading data from the FX and CFD markets. This tool highlights the most volatile assets, and thus presents various trading opportunities.

• Market Sentiment: The Market Sentiment tool is a visual interpretation of aggregated data from multiple service providers showing the relationship between open long and short positions. Market sentiment data is useful to help understand macro trends and the mood of the trading collective. This information is especially useful for traders holding positions for long periods.
• Premium Analytics: Launched in September 2019, Premium analytics was launched with free access for demo and live accounts.  With it, premium data feeds are used to deliver the best information to traders.  This video (33 minutes) is a full tour of the product.
• Weekly Podcast: Admirals delivers a weekly podcast that covers the most engaging and informative trading news and analysis possible. New podcasts will be available every Monday, covering the economic news and events of the past and coming week, as well as offering market analysis and trading strategies. 
• Forex calendar, or economic calendar: A list of scheduled events that could affect the currency markets.

The educational material available through Admirals is extensive and varied. Split into different sections, Admirals offers a structured course, a knowledge base, an overview of risk management, and frequent webinars.

Admirals also provides a free, structured Forex and CFD trading course called Forex 101, designed to help beginners learn how to trade. It is a collection of nine online lessons split into beginner, intermediate and advanced stages, and all lessons are taught by professional traders. The course covers everything from setting up MT4 to managing risk and is an excellent resource for new traders.

Admirals also provide expert-led webinars. Webinar topics include commentary on the upcoming week or educational webinars like Mastering the 4Ms of Trading, which help traders develop trading skills and build confidence.

Overall, Admirals’ education section is comprehensive, in-depth, and caters to both beginners and more advanced traders.  

Education Comparison:

Furthermore, remote support for technical issues related to MetaTrader or the MetaTrader Supreme Edition is available to clients during business hours.

For the purposes of this review, we found the customer service responsive, knowledgeable, and polite.