Contributor, Benzinga
September 11, 2023
Admirals
Overall Rating:
securely through Admirals's website

74% of retail CFD accounts lose money.

Admirals (formerly Admiral Markets) is a well-reputed low-cost, multi-regulated, multi-assets contract for difference (CFD) and forex broker catering to wholesale and retail traders of different levels. Admirals offers a comprehensive suite of MetaTrader-based trading platforms ranging from MT4/MT5 and MT WebTrader to the more sophisticated MetaTrader Supreme edition and StereoTrader, setting it apart from other MetaTrader brokers. Although these trading platforms are designed to serve expert traders, Admirals provides ample resources for beginners via its robust education materials, premium research content and demo account. 

Seasoned traders can also take advantage of the educational and research resources to advance their trading strategies. Admirals provides various account options with competitive leverage and tight spreads, including zero-spread accounts and spread betting accounts tailored for U.K. traders. An Islamic forex trading account is available for traders of the Muslim faith. Admirals also supports copy trading and fractional share investing, enabling traders to diversify their portfolio by investing in stocks with as low as £1 regardless of the prevailing share price. 

Admirals’ range of premium analytical features is also outstanding. It includes global market updates, trading news, fundamental analysis, market heat-map, market sentiment and trading central signals. However, the platform is unavailable for U.S. traders. Read on for a review of the broker, including the pros, cons, core product offerings and how it can help you turbocharge your trading career. 

Pros
  • Full range of investment options, including spread betting
  • £1 for cash stocks £100 for spread betting and £250 for CFDs
  • Supports fractional sharing and copy trading with full account controls
  • Multiple top-tier regulations, including AFSL in Australia and FCA in the UK
  • Robust and cutting-edge trading platforms — MT4/MT5, MT WebTrader, MT4/MT5 Supreme Edition, StereoTrader, a proprietary mobile app
  • Low to zero-tight spread and competitive leverage
  • Swap-free Islamic account for traders of the Muslim faith
  • Comprehensive educational materials and premium research content
  • Dedicated support and premium analytical tools
  • Free demo trading account — up to five allowable
  • Negative balance protection
  • Multiple free deposit options
Cons
  • Unavailable for U.S. traders
  • No round-the-clock customer support
  • A monthly inactivity fee is applicable after 24 months of account dormancy
  • The demo account expires after 30 days

Admirals Ratings at a Glance

Customer Service
Customer Security
Minimum Investment and Pricing
Mobile App
User Experience
Overall

Admirals Product Offering

Admirals is a well-established and reputable full-service forex and CFD broker. Full-service brokerages provide a wide range of services to traders and investors, including access to various financial instruments, cutting-edge trading platforms, comprehensive suites of trading tools, excellent research, analysis and educational resources and customer support. Here's a breakdown of Admirals’ offerings.

Investment Product

Admirals offers over 4,000 global assets via the CFD. Among them are 83 forex pairs encompassing 54 exotic pairs, 5 major and 24 minor pairs. Besides the tight spread and competitive leverage, forex traders enjoy lightning-fast execution and features like trading calculators (a pip calculator). There are over 3,400 stocks from 17 global stock exchanges, including the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), London Stock Exchange (LSE) and Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). Stock traders can also buy and own shares of companies directly, benefiting from low commissions and fee-free trades offered by certain exchanges. Additionally, Admirals supports fractional share trading, enabling investors to make micro-investments in global industry leaders, including blue-chip dividend-paying stocks. 

Admirals’ 42 stock indices, comprising 19 cash indices and 23 index features, also present an alternative for traders focused on the equity market. It encompasses some of the popular global indexes, including the US Dow Jones 30, S&P 500, NASDAQ and Germany's Dax 40. There are 29 popular commodities comprising 11 commodity futures, 7 agriculture, 4 energies and 6 metals. Also available to trade are 2 bond futures and 362 ETFs from 9 global exchanges. Overall, Admirals offers more tradable assets than most competitors.

Trading Platform 

Thanks to its partnership with MetaQuotes, Admirals offers comprehensive suits of the MetaTrader platform, including MT4, MT5, MetaTrader WebTrader, MetaTrader Supreme Edition and StereoTrader. Additionally, it provides Parallels, enabling Mac traders to use MetaTrader platforms on their Mac devices. MT4 is the foremost global retail trading platform for online forex and CFD trading. It is fast, reliable and easily downloadable on Mac and Windows. MT4 boasts features like advanced charting, multiple timeframes, customizable indicators, rich historical data, automated trading via API and one-click trading.

The MT5 is the more sophisticated evolution of the MT4 and is ideal for well-established multi-asset traders. Its advanced technical analysis tools and fully customizable interface make it an all-around powerful and versatile platform. MT5 boasts level 2 pricing, a live news feed, more timeframes (21 compared to 9 for MT4), more advanced charting capabilities with numerous indicators, a built-in economic calendar and market depth. Additionally, it supports netting and hedging accounts modes. The MetaTrader WebTrader is MetaTrader's web-based platform, readily accessible anywhere with an internet connection. 

It facilitates straightforward trade management, price analysis and popular strategies like one-minute scalping and hedging. Users can access popular indicators like Bollinger Bands and pivot points as well as risk management tools like guaranteed stop-out level. The MetaTrader Supreme Edition (MTSE) is an advanced suite of plugins for MT4 and MT5 that has been developed by Admirals and is designed to enhance the trading experience. It hosts numerous features unavailable in the standard platform. These include advanced technical analysis from Trading Central, better charting tools, improved strategy testing using Trading Simulators, market analysis and drawing from global opinion and real-time news. 

Admirals’ StereoTrader is especially ideal for scalpers and day traders. Its core functionalities include one-click trading, advanced order types and rich historical data for history trading. Admirals also offers a Virtual Private Server (VPS), enabling traders to execute trades without interruptions anywhere and anytime using their favorite MetaTrader platform. The VPS boasts ultra-low latency, 24/7 terminal uptime and access to Equinix data centers. It can be helpful when running automated strategies, especially if you're a high-volume trader. 

Admirals offers a broader range of analytical tools to help you make well-informed trading decisions and navigate the financial markets effectively. For instance, the Forex Calendar can help you keep track of vital financial announcements and global events that may impact underlying economies and create price movements. The Trading News can also provide insights into rumors of mergers, shifts in central bank policies and other developments that could impact share prices and exchange rates. 

With the Market Heat Map, you can monitor price movements, track daily trading intelligence and observe significant market shifts in upward and downward directions. You can track long and short trading possibilities, volatility, daily trends and essential metrics. The Market Sentiment widgets show the correlation between the long and short positions of other traders, acting as bull and bear signals that provide valuable insights into market sentiment. 

Admirals offers a Premium Analytical portal, which you can access for free with your dashboard. The premium analysis encompasses technical analysis, economic calendars, market news and global sentiment indicators from over a thousand financial media sources. The Premium Analytics tool sources news and sentiment from financial firms, including Acuity, Dow Jones and Trading Central.

Account Types

Admirals offers multiple account options based on the MT4 and MT5 platforms. Available account types in the MT4 platform include Trader.MT4 and Zero.MT4 with varying tradable instruments, spreads and commissions. With the Trader.MT4 account, you can access up to 37 forex pairs, 230 stocks, significant stock indices, commodities and bonds. Spreads for this account start from 0.5, and the commission is $0.02 per share for single shares and ETF CFDs. There's no commission for other instruments.

As the name suggests, the Zero.MT4 has zero spread and offers a limited range of instruments, including 45 forex pairs, a few cash indexes and a handful of commodities (metals and energies). There are no bonds, stocks, ETFs. The commission fees vary across different asset categories, ranging from $1.80 to $3 per 1.0 lot for forex and metals, $0.05 to $3 per 1.0 lot for cash indices and $1 per 1 lot for energies. The account options for the MT5 include Trade.MT5, Invest.MT5 and Zero.MT5. 

Admirals’ Trade.MT5 and Zero.MT5 account types share similar spreads and commissions with their MT4 counterparts. However, unlike the Trade.MT4, the Trader.MT5 enables you to access almost the full range of instruments available on the brokerage. The Zero.MT5 also provides similar assets to Zero.MT4; however, with the Zero.MT5 account, you can access nearly the full range of currency pairs (80). The Invest.MT5 offers only stocks and ETFs with commissions starting from $0.02 per lot. 

Admirals also provides a swap-free Islamic forex trading account to accommodate the unique needs of traders of the Muslim faith, plus a professional account for institutional or wholesale traders. Admirals offers demo accounts with $10,000 in virtual funds to help beginners with little to zero experience master the fundamentals before trading with real money. The demo mimics real-time market data with about a 15-minute delay. You can opt for the practice account during the sign-up process. After receiving your login credentials, you can explore the MT4 and MT5 platforms, experimenting with leveraged trading across various instruments.

Educational and Research Resources 

Admirals offers abundant educational and research materials to accommodate traders of different levels, including beginners learning the ropes and experienced traders seeking to advance their skills or turbocharge their trading strategies. The articles and tutorials section constructively covers forex and CFDs, including basic, fundamental and technical analysis, trading strategies and software, tips and psychological tricks. The webinar section provides valuable insights into broader economic trends like inflation, its influence on the financial market and how to trade it. You can also learn trading discipline and strategies from the webinars. 

In addition, Admirals offers forex and CFD seminars where traders can learn the basics before diving into trading analysis and strategies, risk management and decision-making processes. There are two courses, Zero to Hero and Forex 101. The former is a 20-day course that'll help you learn forex trading within that duration. The latter is a three-step program encompassing nine videos, which can help you understand forex and CFD trading before diving in. It also includes notes and quizzes. Admirals also offers more robust educational packages at a fee. There's also an ebook on blockchains, a weekly trading podcast, risk management content and an excellent glossary for traders.

Admirals Customer Service

Admirals provides customer support through various channels, such as AI chatbot, live chat, email, and phone. Both the AI chatbot and live chat functions offer instant assistance from either the bot or customer support representatives, ensuring real-time solutions.

Typically, the AI chatbot effectively handles a wide range of common queries, seamlessly transitioning to a human representative only when confronted with inquiries beyond its scope. If you prefer direct interaction with a customer service representative, you also have the option to utilize phone support.

Generally, the response times are approximately one minute in either case, and our customer service representative teams are exceptionally proficient, experienced, and professional when it comes to managing inquiries via live chat or phone call conversation.

For less urgent inquiries or matters requiring detailed explanations, we strongly advise to reach out to our customer support team via email. Additionally, the Admirals official website hosts a comprehensive FAQ section and Help Center with detailed information.

The FAQ section is linked to the Help Center, which contains numerous articles covering topics such as regulations, settings, financial transactions, trading instruments and conditions, knowledge base, taxation, dividends, and the most frequently asked technical questions with corresponding answers. This ensures that you can promptly locate the information you need, all thanks to our user friendly help center.

Admirals maintains an active presence on popular social networking and messaging platforms, including X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and Telegram. These channels provide an alternative means of communicating and engaging with the support team and the trading community to share trading knowledge and learn from others. Admirals has a Trustpilot rating of 4.3/5 from 1,500+ reviewers. Comments were overwhelmingly positive, reflecting its excellent product and service offerings and efficient customer support.

Admirals Customer Security

Admirals highly emphasizes safeguarding users' assets and personal data, employing stringent security protocols to ensure a secure trading environment that aligns with regulatory standards. The broker is regulated by reputable regulatory bodies in multiple jurisdictions, including the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the U.K., the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) in Cyprus, the Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) in Australia, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority in (FSCA) in South Africa and the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) in Kenya. 

These regulators enforce strict standards for capital adequacy, financial reporting and protection of client funds, ensuring transparency and security for traders at high levels. In keeping with these requirements, Admirals stores traders' capital in a segregated bank account within the EEA-regulated credit body. This practice ensures that the funds are identifiable and available at all times and cannot be used by the Admirals team for any purpose. Financial services compensation schemes and deposit guarantee schemes provide additional protection, safeguarding clients' funds in the unlikely event of the broker's bankruptcy.

The broker utilizes advanced encryption protocols to ensure the security of clients' data during information transfer through its website. MetaTrader platforms offer one-time password authorization and the broker implements dual-factor authentication using SMS or Google Authenticator for added security. Admirals also provides Negative Balance Protection, which safeguards clients from losing more than their deposited amount during times of widespread market volatility or due to leverage.

Admirals Minimum Investment and Pricing

Admirals maintains affordable and transparent trading costs. The platform earns money via the spread, which starts from zero pips. The average live spread for major pairs like EUR/USD and GBP/USD is 0.6 and 1.0 pips, respectively. Remember, the spread is floating and can go lower or higher depending on market conditions, volatility and liquidity. Under typical market conditions, it averages around 0.8 pip. And for major indices like the US Dow Jones, it is around 1 pip. Forex leverages vary from 1:30 to 1:20, while stock indices offer leverages from 1:20 to 1:10. For stocks and ETFs, the leverage ranges between 1:5 to 1:2. It is 1:5 for bonds.

Institutional or wholesale investors can access leverage between 1:500 to 1:10. The minimum for all account types is $100, except Invest.MT5, which is $1. A $10 monthly inactivity fee is applicable after 24 months of account inactivity. Admirals provides multiple free deposit options, including bank transfer, Visa and Mastercard, Skrill, Neteller and Poli. Available withdrawal options include bank transfer, Skrill and Neteller. Traders are allowed 1 free withdrawal request monthly, after which withdrawal fees become applicable. Overnight trading charges and currency conversion fees may also apply. Detailed information about all applicable fees is available on the deposit and withdrawal section of the website. 

Admirals Mobile App

Admirals’ fully functional mobile app is available for iOS and Android devices. It boasts a secure, highly intuitive and customizable interface. Admirals ensures users can access the most popular instruments while enjoying features like custom indicators, live price feeds or market quotes and news releases when using the app. 

Admirals User Experience

Admirals offers an excellent user experience with its multi-account options, including commission-free and zero-spread accounts, which helps keep trade costs minimal. Its full range of MetaTrader suites accommodates diverse traders seeking a robust platform to facilitate profitable trading via excellent technical analysis and risk management strategies. For instance, MT4 is ideal for beginner forex traders. It offers suitable charting tools, indicators and other market analysis tools. The MT5, MTSE and StereoTrader are more advanced platforms for veteran multi-asset traders. 

Additionally, Admirals offers several analytical tools, including forex calendar, global market update, trading news, market sentiment and heat maps and other premium analytics from Trading Central. These help traders to quickly identify opportunities, plan and execute successful strategies and gain a competitive advantage in the market. Beginners and intermediate traders can gain a comprehensive understanding of the financial market through Admirals’ extensive educational and research resources, including webinars, podcasts, seminars, coursework, ebooks, articles and trading tutorials. The broker provides a risk-free demo account, enabling novice traders to explore the platform's tools and experience its user-friendly interface before transitioning to a live version. Benzinga considers Admirals highly recommendable.

Admirals vs. Competitors

Admirals has a few similar competitors, like the IG and Plus500, all offering a wide range of financial instruments for trading, including forex pairs, stocks, indices, and commodities. However, Admirals stands out with its comprehensive suite of MetaTrader-based trading platforms, including the MetaTrader Supreme edition and StereoTrader. While IG and Plus500 provide their proprietary trading platforms, Admirals focuses on delivering powerful and customizable MetaTrader platforms.

Regarding pricing, Admirals offers competitive spreads and a choice of account types, including commission-free and zero-spread accounts. Similarly, IG and Plus500 offer various account types with competitive pricing structures. Admirals offers one of the best and most extensive training, educational and research materials compared to most brokers, including IG and Plus 500. This resource helps novice and intermediate traders advance their trading skills and risk management strategies. Overall, Admirals’ comprehensive suite of MetaTrader platforms, extensive educational resources and customizable trading tools set it apart from its competitors.

Admirals Overall

Admirals stands as a prominent online trading broker dedicated to enhancing trading conditions for its clients with transparency and integrity. Its comprehensive suite of trading platforms and analytical tools enables traders to seamlessly identify and take advantage of trading opportunities in the marketplace. The proprietary mobile app also facilitates on-the-go trading access, enhancing the user experience. 

The broker further champions user experience through excellent customer support, competitive pricing, including commission-free and zero-spread accounts and a risk-free demo account for newcomers. Its emphasis on security and regulation, supported by well-reputed authorities, ensures clients' funds and data are safeguarded. Overall, Admirals excels in providing advanced technical analysis tools, educational resources and a secure trading environment for traders' success. However, it's unavailable for U.S. traders. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Q

Is CFD trading profitable?

A

CFD trading can be profitable, but it also carries inherent risks and success depends on a trader’s skill, knowledge and risk management strategies.

Q

Are CFDs complex investments?

A

Yes, CFDs can be considered complex investments due to their leveraged nature and the potential for significant financial losses.

Q

How do I choose forex pairs?

A

When choosing forex pairs, consider factors such as market volatility, trading hours, economic indicators and your trading strategy to find pairs that align with your goals and risk tolerance.

User Reviews

Kate Marth

How do you use this product to boost your finances?

Got me so disappointed as i tried to get help, Damn This people took so much from me, i was referred to Hoskey Team by a frnd via hoskeyteam@proton .me or hoskey44april@ gmail .com are Expert Wizard in technology and i was able to Recover all invested Fun

Kate Marth

How do you use this product to boost your finances?

Got me so disappointed as i tried to get help, Damn This people took so much from me, i was referred to Hoskey Team by a frnd via hoskeyteam@proton .me or hoskey44april@ gmail .com are Expert Wizard in technology and i was able to Recover all invested Fun

Kate Marth

How do you use this product to boost your finances?

Got me so disappointed as i tried to get help, Damn This people took so much from me, i was referred to Hoskey Team by a frnd via hoskeyteam@proton .me or hoskey44april@ gmail .com are Expert Wizard in technology and i was able to Recover all invested Fun

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