Admiral Markets Review – Minimum Deposit, Spreads, MT4/5

Admiral Markets Review – Admiral Markets scam or safe?

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Admiral Markets Review Background – International presence

The Admiral Markets brand, as we now know it, first came to attention in 2001 in St Petersburg, Russia. Originally operating under the name of Admiral Investments and Securities Ltd, the Admiral Markets name was then introduced in 2007 and has remained ever since.

There have been some great developments made by Admiral Markets in their 20+ year history to become the now strong global player. Any broker that has in interest in onboarding traders from various countries, and continents, will usually need more than one entity and regulation.

Acquisition of the Estonian regulation in 2009 was the starting point into mainland EU regulation, and remains to this date the core regulator for the parent Admiral entity, Admiral Group AS.

2011 represented a milestone year for Admiral in a global sense, with the acquisition of ASIC regulation giving a strength in the APAC market that wouldn’t have been possible without (Admiral Markets pty being holder of AFSL no. 410681). Admiral Markets Malaysia offering is particularly strong and the broker seems to have a strong interest and commitment in South East Asia, alongside Australia. The same year also saw the opening of the Admiral Markets Germany office in Berlin, which has continued to develop into a core country of the broker. German traders are well served through Admiral Markets and local presence certainly helps in this case.

More licences 2 years on – Tier 1 European Admiral Markets UK Regulation adds to their reputability

From a regulatory position, Admiral Markets are doing everything correctly. 2013 brought with it 2 new regulations, from the Tier1 FCA for Admiral Markets UK Ltd (FCA registration number 595450), and the now forex industry powerhouse of Cyprus (Admiral Markets Cyprus Ltd, CySEC license number 201/13). The European offering is then comprehensive, with a UK based entity for GBP denominated trading, alongside the CySEC regulation for mainland Euro based trading. When you add to this the EFSA, Admiral Markets have a really solid base for onboarding users in Eastern Europe and the local currencies and nuances of this region.

If you are dealing with Admiral Markets UK Ltd as a UK tax resident, you will have access to the FSCS compensation scheme (up to £85k per investor). When trading with any of the Admiral Markets entities (which one you are linked to is usually determined by your country of origin but in certain cases you can opt for one regulation over another based on preference), you can be confident that you are working with a safe and well regulated brand.

Admiral Markets Canada, IIROC Regulation Is The Latest Addition

Admiral Markets Canada regulation is now formally in place with IIROC, confirming Admirals position as a leading global player in the forex and CFD trading industry.

This addition is a key indication that the broker continues to seek supporting traders in new territories, and building on the foundations that have been put in place over the past 20 years as you can see from this quote from Admirals CEO below.

“Obtaining this license in Canada is a strategic benchmark for the company being our first license achieved in the region of North- America,“

“This is a part of our long-term strategy and positioning ourselves globally. Furthermore, with this success we tick an important goal on our roadmap for our 2030 strategy,” 

CEO of Admirals, Sergei Bogatenkov

Admiral Markets Canada Ltd is the company holding IIROC regulation as can be found here. This is good news for all the Canadian traders out there who are seeking a CFD broker with a strong reputation.

Admiral Markets is now a broker that in 20 years has grown to handle clients in more than 130 countries worldwide. There is a great record from customer satisfaction surveys, and numerous award wins to solidify our view that Admiral Markets is a broker than can be trusted.

Now it’s time to look into the fee structure and the general offering to see whether the product is good enough to warrant your time and money.

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Admiral Markets Fees – What are the costs of trading?

As with most brokers, the fees with Admiral Markets vary depending on which of the accounts you are using. Here there are 2 main account types offered, the ‘Trade’ or ‘Zero’ type accounts. We will look into the other differences between the Admiral Markets accounts during the relevant section of this review.

Admiral Markets Spreads

You will find a very comprehensive overview of every pair here with Admiral Markets directly https://admiralmarkets.com/start-trading/contract-specifications

Commissions

You will find the usual role reversal on the account types here as if you are trading with ‘Trade.’ Accounts, commissions are 0, whereas with the ‘Zero.’ accounts are around $3 per lot traded on both the MT4 or MT5 accounts.

Others

There is an inactivity fee that is applicable if you are found to not be using your account or making trades for 24 months or longer, this is charged at €10 per month. Otherwise there is fee free deposits on almost all payment types with the exception of a small fee for deposits or withdrawals via e-wallets. You will find further details on this in the specific section focused on payment methods of this Admiral Markets review.

Admiral Markets Fees Review Summary

The overall fee structure that is offered by Admiral Markets is on a par with some of the best in the forex industry. There has been an introduction of fee free stock and ETF trading with Admiral Markets in recent times so the overall offer seems to be growing from strength to strength each time they review the fees.

Forex spreads are where the broker really excel but the range of other products is very wide and also worth a look. If you are trading with Admiral Markets you certainly will be getting a good deal on your commissions, spreads, or other fees.

Admiral Markets Fees Rating – 4.8

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Admiral Markets MT4 & MT5 – Trading Platforms Review

When comparing between Admiral Markets trading platforms and other brokers for the purpose of this review, Admirals have more of a focus here on the well established platforms offered by MetaTrader.

There is also the MT WebTrader provided for in browser trading which is particularly useful for those who prefer the desktop trading experience but without the requirement to download any software.

The WebTrader interface is not as intuitive as some of the other platforms offered by Admiral Markets as you might expect. The necessity to run a lean application at speed via browser means that certain of the usual ‘bells and whistles’ are not quite as apparent.

That being said, it does everything you need and as you can see from our account below, gets the job done without being flashy.

MetaTrader 5 (MT5) is now arguably the top multi-asset platform if you were to ask traders and investors from around the globe to choose.

Any broker offering MT5 therefore is now in a pretty strong trading platform position. Along with advanced charting and trading tools, you will find a good array of options for auto trading via trading robots. Level II pricing, free market data, news and VPS support are a few of the other added extras that might make you think about trying MT5 out for size, even on a free demo basis.

The range of devices supported on either platform is very thorough, included alongside the usual PC desktop support is Mac, iPhone, and Android. When we are reviewing MT4 and MT5 platforms, often the brokers are providing something very similar so we need to look into the specifics of the wider offering. What then have we uncovered in the review that sets Admiral Markets platforms apart?

Admiral Markets MetaTrader Supreme Edition Plugin

The MT5 and MT4 Supreme Edition are both free with Admiral Markets for live, or demo accounts. If you are considering taking a more detailed look into what is provided, a free demo of the services is a nice entry point but we focus on the main features below for you.

In short, it is not a completely new platform but some additional, and advanced tools, to assist you in your trading and amplify the experience. One of the core additions is a premium analytics portal that brings the news direct to you from a variety of leading financial firms such as Dow Jones, Trading Central and Acuity. This is backed by technical analysis, a nice economic calendar (always needed), and global sentiment indicators which have been compiled from more than 1 thousand sources of financial information.

Of these additional features quoted by Admiral Markets, the main ones we see benefit in are the ‘Market Radar’, the ‘Sentiment Indicators’, and for those trading Cryptocurrencies, the not so catchy named Bubble-O-Meter. What these do is in fact pretty simple but the value of them cannot be underestimated, especially for a quick glance at shifting trends and sentiment.

Market Sentiment and Shifting Momentum

Markets To Trade

If you are planning to trade in a number of other asset classes including stocks, indices, cryptocurrencies and other CFD based products, you will find a very strong range of options with Admiral Markets. Usually you find that what we would call the ‘proper’ forex style brokers do not have a strong multi-asset offering but in this review Admiral Markets really do buck that trend.

You will find a strong depth of currency pairs (50), alongside CFDs on indices (44), commodities (28), cryptocurrencies (32), ETFs (380), and stocks (3441). There are also cryptocurrency cross pairs as an option if you would rather not trade against any of the fiat currencies.

The above offering then was already a thorough enough offering from Admiral Markets to satisfy the majority of traders but on review they have rather recently added a whole host of real asset options to be traded alongside their CFD counterparts.

New Account Type Added for Admiral Real Stocks

The new account is the InvestMT5 account and offers real stocks and ETFs from 15 global exchanges, including 3000+ US stocks, 146 companies from the ASX in Australia, 182 from Xetra Germany, 135 from Sweden, and 340 from the UK LSE, to name a few. Commission structure here varies depending on the market you are investing in but on average you would be looking at around 0.1% of the trade value as a commission and a minimum of $1, €5, or £8.

The above price points for stocks are largely in line (or slightly better) than what you would expect to pay from some of your local banks stocks offerings, but with a much wider product range to look at, the convenience of being able to invest and trade in a variety of countries simultaneously without having to transfer funds from one account to another is a great advantage. Trading with Admiral Markets Australia, UK, Germany, or even Malaysia can all be done with a simple internal transfer between currency wallets. Then if you are not really interested in investing, but are interested to trade, the Stocks CFDs can fulfil those requirements without the same costs to trade.

Popular Instruments Highlight Product Range

The 5 most popular instruments traded on Admiral Markets over the past 12 months are EUR/USD, DAX30, DJI30, GBP/USD, XAU/USD. That variation incorporates 2 forex pairs, 2 trading indices CFDs, and 1 commodity. This goes to show that Admiral Markets are really an online broker that does a lot of things really well, and is now very much multi-asset at volume. It must be said that we cannot think of another broker off head that offers this range of other assets at depth alongside such a competitive forex pricing model, it is usually one or the other. You can now trade your forex majors at 0.1 pips and your stocks and ETFs in one place.

Platforms Summary

Admiral Markets MT4 and MT5 offering is solid as you would expect. All devices and operating systems are supported across the range and at execution speeds that allow you to extract the most value from your opportunities.

There is strength for Admiral Markets on the multi-asset product range to support a solid additional offering of premium analytics tools that give easily interpretable insights at real time.

Whilst it would be great to see Admiral Markets adopt no commission stock investing, we understand that the broker needs to be able to make money in some areas. The forex spreads offered do not give much to the broker so there must be a bit of give on some assets in order for Admiral Markets to continue to be able to add educational and resource support to the platform.

In short summary, if you are already a MetaTrader fan, Admiral Markets may just be your happy place.

Admiral Markets Platform Rating – 4.6*

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Mobile Trading apps for Android, iOS or trade on MT4, MT5 mobile

Admiral Markets for mobile offering comes in the shape of a dedicated Admiral Markets app for iOS and Android, alongside the option of using your login on MT4, or MT5 apps directly.

Seeing as the MT4 and MT5 platforms are market leaders, it may have been felt that the broker did not choose to provide a custom alternative that may have had less functionality.

Overall, the Admiral Markets app range offered is as one of the better options. MT5 on mobile is a superior beast to MT4 and if you are trading multiple assets you will need to be using the MT5 version. The only issue here is that MT5 is not backwards compatible to MT4 setups so if you already have custom setup, you will need to start re-implementing that on Admiral Markets MT5.

Admiral Markets App Rating – 4.1*

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Admiral Markets Deposit & Withdrawal Options

There can be some variation when looking at the different supported deposit and withdrawal options. If you are trading with Admiral Markets UK, Admiral Markets Australia or Admiral Markets Cyprus you will notice this a little.

The choices you have with the broker are vast and all but Neteller and Skrill are free for deposits. Withdrawals are free on all payment types for 2 withdrawals per month. If you are making more than 2 withdrawals in a calendar month then there will be some fees for this depending on the type of method chosen.

Admiral Markets support deposits and withdrawals via Bank Transfer in the following currencies with a processing time of up to 3 working days EUR, USD, AUD, GBP, BGN, CHF, CZK, HRK, HUF, NOK, PLN, RON, RUB, SEK.

Digital Variations Across Admiral Markets Entities

When trading with Admiral Markets UK, digital payments such as Skrill, Neteller, Paypal, Klarna, SafetyPay, iDEAL are supported in fewer currencies but with instant processing. On the withdrawal side, processing is also classed as instant but is only supported at the moment to Skrill, Neteller and Paypal from the list above. Whilst withdrawals are free, if you are depositing via Skrill or Neteller, you will find a 0.9% fee, with a minimum of 1€. Paypal is not on the supported list if you are trading with Admiral Markets Australia, but you will find Trustly support as an alternative. The list is shortened on the digital side to only include Skrill if you are trading with Admiral Markets CySEC arm.

Visa and MasterCard deposits are also classed as instantaneous, with a strong number of currency deposits accepted from the list here EUR, USD, GBP, CHF, PLN, HUF, BGN, CZK, HRK, NOK,  RON,  SEK,  AUD, SGD.

Overall, a really strong range of deposit and withdrawal options from Admiral Markets provided across the range of usual suspects. With processing instantaneous unless using bank transfers you will have the maximum flexibility in terms of managing your trading account cash flow and in a multitude or currencies.

Admiral Markets Payment Methods Rating – 4.9*

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Admiral Markets Demo Account

The Admiral Markets demo account is slightly limited in a way that other brokers are not if you are still at the very start of your trading journey. Most noticeably, you will find a 30 day window on which to trade without risk, unless you then proceed to open a live account. If you do decide to open a live account then your demo account options will be extended indefinitely so this need not be a negative if you are getting close to trading ready.

The functionality of the demo account is strong, and it will give you a good understanding of what trading with Admiral Markets is like in a real environment. The broker states that “STP technology allows you to trade in live market conditions, removing the risk of conflicts of interest”.

It is a great advantage that you can demo trade on both of the platforms Admiral Markets aswell across the multiple assets offered. Demo trading can be performed on forex, stocks, indices and CFDs to help improve trading strategies surrounding a new asset you may be considering trading for the first time. We would certainly suggest if you are new to any of the assets, have a test on Admiral Markets for 30 days, if you still require some additional practice to perfect something, open a live account but continue trading demo before actually using your live account funds.

Admiral Markets Demo Account Rating – 4.3*

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Admiral Markets Account Types

Admiral Markets UK offer five account types across the range but in reality there are 3 on the MT5 side, and 2 on the MT4 side. There is the Trade, Invest and Zero accounts on MT5 and Trade, or Zero options on MT4. If you are planning on trading real stocks or ETFs, the account you need will be the ‘Invest.MT5’ account. Market Depth (or Level II pricing) is also only supported on MT5 accounts. As yet, Admiral Markets Australia do not have the Invest account available so the choices are reduced to Trade and Zero, MT4 or MT5.

It is the case across the board where the Trade and Zero accounts are very similar apart from one key point, pricing structure. Spreads are higher on the ‘Trade’ branded accounts, but the ‘Zero’ accounts have a commission per lot payable. Minimum deposit levels requirements are the same across both.

Admiral Markets Minimum Deposit

In Australia, the ASIC regulated arm of Admiral Markets minimum deposit is set to 100 of the currency in operation across the board when considering all the 4 account types available. There is then no difference in requirements for you on the deposit side when you are making your choice over the account types. The account you choose will come down to preference on the fee structure, higher spreads or trade with set commissions, and whether you would like to have access to the Level II pricing (we really like this option).

Admiral Markets leverage options in Australia are also the same across the range, up to 1:500. Negative balance protection is provided across the suite of accounts, and hedging is allowed. If you are looking for the Admiral Markets Islamic Account, you will need to choose the Trade MT5 option.

Deposit in more than 14 currencies

Admiral Markets UK and Admiral Markets CySEC arms both have minimum deposits set at 100 EUR, GBP, or USD. When depositing in other currencies, the amounts typically work out to a similar level as the above when exchanged. Leverage for retail traders using the European regulation or Admiral will be set to 1:30 unless you are considered as a professional qualified trader, in which case the leverage can be increased on a par to the Australian entity.

When depositing into the ‘Invest.MT5’ account, you will have a minimum deposit of just 1 GBP, EUR, USD or equivalent. This however in reality will make it almost impossible to open a position, due to the minimum fee applied to purchasing real stocks being higher. There is then flexibility provided by Admiral Markets, but you will need to determine what position you wish to open before understanding a little more about how much you will need to deposit in order to be able to trade at your desired level.

Account Types Summary

In summation, Admiral Markets have done really well in enabling their account types to be open to all levels of traders. With a minimum deposit of €$£100 across the accounts, the decision then lies with you as a trader over how you would like to be charged for your access to markets. The amount of additional support provided is strong and the product range of assets across the accounts is to be admired by their peers.

Admiral Markets Account Types Rating – 4.7*

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Admiral Markets Bonus/Offers

Admiral Markets provide a cashback model program similar to other brokers to entice professional classified traders to their platform. It is a nice supplement which is only available to users that are trading through a minimum of 100 lots. If you are considered professional classified and are planning to deposit more than $20’000AUD, you also have the option of requesting a personalised bonus.

Please note that any users found to not be qualifying as professional will not be eligible for any of the Admiral Markets bonus offers, regardless of regulation territory.

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Admiral Markets Customer Support

Due to the fact that the broker has clients based in 130 Countries, and many different time-zones, they are operating support 24 hours a day, 5 days per week. Admiral Markets customer support is provided via phone and live chat aswell as email. These can all be provided in a strong variety of languages which is absolutely necessary when handling the volume of Nationalities that the broker works with.

The main customer support telephone number is +442035041364. You can also reach the broker via email using [email protected]. They are pretty swift and detailed in their responses during business hours via this method but if it is something urgent, we would suggest you try something a little more real-time. If you experience any technical issues related to MT4, MT5 or MT5 Supreme Edition, the team at Admiral Markets offer a remote technical support service to help.

There is also a good FAQ section on their website covering a lot of the simple queries that you might want answers to.

Admiral Markets Customer Support Rating – 4.7*

Trader Education Resources

Seminars, Webinars, and a free Trading Course – Real Commitment

Admiral Markets have a series of webinars, seminars, books, and online articles and videos, designed to help you to understand different trading modules. Forex 101 is their trading course that is available in 19 different languages. There are 9 lessons here in total, the first 3 can be accessed with no account whatsoever, whereas the remaining 6 lessons get unlocked once you open a demo account. The most important of these lessons in our opinion will come in step 3, ‘creating your game plan’ and ‘risk management’. Risk Management is an absolutely vital part of trading.

Seminars are a bit of an anomaly at the moment whilst there is global social distancing in place, but webinars are more than able to pick up the slack from in person meetings. You will usually find two to three weekly webinars hosted by the team there which can be very useful in developing knowledge. Take a look here for the latest sessions https://admiralmarkets.com/education/webinars

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Admiral Markets Group Review Summary

Our view during the Admiral Markets review has largely been positive with the broker scoring admirably. The product range of instruments provided is strong, the platforms are supplied from industry leaders, and the fee structure is very competitive.

The Admiral Markets minimum deposit is very affordable at just $100, and to receive some of the best forex spreads offered anywhere in return is an example of inclusivity.

Inclusivity is also represented in their employee gender breakdown so from a socially responsibility position, this is an online broker that cares. In what is usually quite a male dominated industry, having a 32% female employee base undoubtedly gives Admirals some additional insights into how to support female traders in their own journey.

The total experience of trading with Admiral Markets, from the regulation standards, deposit options, range of educational support and ongoing customer service creates a positive feeling about Admirals for the future.

In the past 20 years, the broker has strengthened the proposition every couple of years or so, and with 18 offices now operating across the globe, we are quite interested to see what is coming in the years ahead.

Admiral Markets Review Rating – 4.6*

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