Good Money Guide EU: Investing, Trading & FX Comparison

I’ve been using Spreadex now for at least 20 years now. I’ve worked with them professionally and know them socially. So in my updated 2024 review of Spreadex, I’m going to highlight what sort of broker they are and what type of traders will get the most from their trading platform and service.

There are two types of broker in the derivatives world, those who spot a gap in the market and try to exploit it, and those that are in it for the love of the business. With my broker’s hat on, and in my expert opinion, they are the latter. You can tell by the quality and turnover of their staff, the fact that Spreadex generates the majority of their business from referrals rather than a massive digital market budget and the longevity of their service, that if you are going to trade, they are a broker worth putting your business through.

Market access

First off, what can you trade? Spreadex started off offering financial spread betting, which (as I hope you’ll know if you are reading this review) is a tax-free way to trade the financial markets. Trades are structured as bets so you don’t have to pay capital gains tax on your profits. However, as the appeal of trading with a UK-based broker (for regulatory and financial security purposes) has increased, Spreadex introduced CFD trading for non-UK residents a few years ago.

You can trade over 10,000 markets with Spreadex, so, if you are more adventurous than most who just seem to want to tap away on Tesla and Netflix these days, they also have a huge range of smaller-cap shares to trade. A lot of brokers don’t offer these, as the majority of clients stick to the top ten traded instruments and tend to add markets when clients request them. However, going back to my point earlier about service, Spreadex has a huge range of markets available to trade, before you need them, not after you ask for them.

They also have a very good range of indices, with access to Asian and European markets, as well as the major UK and US markets. Options trading is fairly limited – you can only trade on the FTSE 100 (UK100) and DAX 40 (German 40), but you can write options (go short) with Spreadex, whereas some brokers only allow you to buy options.

You can trade the usual commodities, currencies, bonds and fixed-income markets (I don’t know why I still find the phrase Bund, Bobl and Shatz funny when looking at treasuries watchlists after all these years). If you want to have a punt on themes rather than individual assets Spreadex has a wide range of ETFs for placing sector bets on things like Healthcare, Cannabis, CyberSecurity and so on so you don’t have to buy a load of individual shares.

However, most of the ETFs are US based, there are not that many UK or European ETFs which can be traded in the morning without having to wait for the Americans to get out of bed. There are also a few ETFs, that track markets like Saudia Arabia (where an outright index isn’t always available).

Spreadex Pricing, Charges & Fees

There isn’t much to say about pricing when it comes to reviewing decent brokers these days because they are all about the same, and that is to say, very competitive. Spreadex earns money by widening the spread from the bid/offer price and including commission in that. For UK stocks, this is 0.1%, so for example, if you buy 10,000 Lloyds shares with Spreadex, the spread will be 49.21/49.33 instead of 49.26/49.28. So £10,000 worth of Lloyds would cost you £4,933 instead of £4,928. So a £5k trade will cost you £5, a £10k trade will cost you £10, a £100,000 trade will cost you £100, and so.

With US stocks Spreadex have also recently capped the spread on larger stocks at $3.5 to make trading the US market cheaper. For example, they mark up spreads by 0.15% for stocks like Tesla, but the spread is capped at 3.5. So, if Tesla shares are $16922.5 offered, then if they were marked up by 0.15% the Spreadex offer price would be $16948 (rounded). But because spreads are capped at $3.5, you would buy at $16926. So if you are trading at £1 per point as a spread bet that is a saving of £22 on roughly a £17k trade versus a broker who charges the same but hasn’t capped their spreads.

If you are holding positions in the slightly longer term Spreadex charge 3% over under SONIA, which is not quite the cheapest, but still very low compared to other brokers like eToro for example, that charges 6.4% over/under SONIA. To put that in perspective, if you have £10,000 exposure with eToro with SONIA at 4% for a year, it would cost you £1,400 in overnight funding, but with Spreadex only £650.

For the major FX, commodity, and index markets, Spreadex are pretty much inline with everyone else.

Spreadex Platform & Apps

Way back when I first opened my account, I remember being sent a VHS video of a very charming curly-haired man standing on Primrose Hill (I think) with the City as a backdrop explaining the pros and cons of spread betting. But Spreadex has come a long way from just providing voice brokerage to having one of the best trading platforms out there.

One thing I particularly like about the Spreadex trading platform is that it has been built and innovated inhouse. For example, they have added the ability to overlay Pro Trend Lines. This automatically adds support and resistance levels, which takes a bit of the guesswork out of potential entry and exit points. You can also, overlay the VWAP, a price point, particularly useful, as it’s what hedge funds use for working daily orders that are well above the normal market size.

A nice feature of the Spreadex app is that you can change the columns from just change, to monthly and yearly high and low. Plus, should you, for some reason, want to do technical analysis on your phone instead of a proper computer, you can add indicators, free draw and overlay indicators like Fibonacci ranges whilst out and about.

There is a huge amount of technical indicators for advanced traders, but for beginners, Spreadex has all the usual range of risk management tools like stops, guaranteed stops (which protect you if the market gaps), trailing stops (so you can lock in profits the more profitable a position gets) and price alerts. More relevantly, though, if you are a beginner, and you don’t understand something, instead of having to wade through a quagmire of online educational resources, you can pick up the phone and ask for something to be explained.

Spreadex is really a very good all-round trading platform that can cater for large customers as well as beginners. It’s simple, and modular so you can create your own desktop environment (if you’re trading on multiple screens). Plus, along with the rest of the world, Spreadex is now integrated with TradingView.

Research & Analysis

There is also enough news flow to keep you informed and up-to-date with market news without getting overloaded. Through the app and web platform, you get access to the economic calendar of market-moving events, news filtered by product from Thomson Reuters, and trading updates from Spreadex dealers, highlighting the day’s key factors, and what traders should be aware of.

Customer Service At Spreadex

One thing that has driven me mad over the past few years is that trading platforms seem to have become massively self-serving. In that, they are only interested in getting more customers, and onboarding traders, so that they can say they have seen massive growth and a race to the bottom for pricing. What this means, of course, is that there is too much emphasis on the platform and not enough on the client. For example, if you try and phone up most brokers, you can’t actually get through to anyone to ask a simple question from someone who knows what they are talking about.

But, when writing this review, I needed clarification on a couple of points. First I used the chat box on the Spreadex trading platform and got through to someone almost immediately, without even a whiff of an automated chatbot. Then, when I phoned the dealing desk for something else, the phone was picked by one of their dealers, who was very helpful and sent all the info I needed via email a few minutes later. For retail traders, you don’t really get that anywhere else.

Yes, it’s a great all-round trading platform. Here’s five things that I think make it stand out.

1 – Tax free profits

IG’s main web-based trading platform is used by CFD and Spread Betting clients, although clients can also download MT4, ProRealtime and L2 Dealer. The platform is developed in-house and is suitable for most traders where you can access 17,000 markets to trade as a CFD or financial spread bet. The trading platform also provides access to non-leveraged trading accounts for physical shares dealing and ETF investing with SIPP and ISA options.

2 – Automated trading strategies on MT4 and IG Markets

There are a few limitations to the main platform though, for example, there is no facility for automated trading strategies. However, IG offers two alternative platforms (MT4 & 5) for those clients who use Algos and trading bots. However, for most users, IG’s in-house platform will be more than sufficient for their needs.

3 – Trading signals

Some stand-out features of the trading platform are how Autochartist and PIA trading signals are copied straight to order tickets and their ability to constantly innovate features such as adding logarithmic charting and creating news and research around what traders are looking at on the platform.

4 – Competative pricing

Compared to other online trading platforms IG’s pricing is always competitive, they are by no means the cheapest broker, but they are not expensive. IG tends to win business based on market range, service, and liquidity and keeps spreads to the lower end of the industry standard.  Whilst pricing is an important factor when choosing a trading platform, with IG, you get what you pay for and that is a fairly priced excellent all-round service.

5 – Deep liquidity

On some of the major traded indices and FX pairs, IG’s CEO told me that their internal liquidity can be better than the on-exchange order book. Which means for larger traders trading popular markets, you can potentially get better fills than trading with DMA.

What does the IG trading platform look like?

Overall, IG has one of the most comprehensive trading platforms around. And after 46 years of offering margin products to retail customers, IG knows what works and what customers expect from their broker, namely, reliable pricing, technology and customer service.

Yes, one of the stand-out features of CMC Markets’ main trading platform is the client sentiment indicators. Whilst most trading platforms provide this information, where you can see what percentage of the client base is long or short an asset, with CMC Markets you can break sentiment down by time frame and profitable clients. This, essentially, gives you an indication of where the smart money is going.

Out-of-hours post and pre market trading (24/5)

Starting Tuesday, 17 June 2025, traders will be able to spread bet and trade CFDs 24 hours a day, five days a week (24/5) on over 60 major US stocks, including the ‘Magnificent Seven’ (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla). Trading opens at 1am (UK time) on Mondays and runs continuously until 10pm on Fridays.

Share Baskets

Another key feature I liked when testing the platform was the share baskets. CMC has created its own sectors on popular themes like driverless cars, cannabis and cyber security. These give traders the ability to quickly speculate on themes through share baskets which are quicker to build than ETFs, meaning as a trader you can take advantage of sector moves quicker than on other trading platforms.

Market Access

CMC Markets’ trading platform has one of the widest market ranges for CFD and spread betting clients: you can trade over 12,000 instruments including an industry-leading 338 forex pairs, 124 commodities, and over 1,000 ETFs. However, CMC Markets doesn’t offer as many UK shares (745) and US stocks (4,968) as some other platforms, instead focussing on the most heavily traded and liquid companies.

What Does the CMC Markets Trading Platform Look Like?

Compared to IG, the CMC Markets trading platform feels a bit more professional: it has a classic black background, more flashing lights and a slightly more urgent trading ticket. As such, it is more suitable for more active traders trading intra-day.

Yes, XTB’s trading platform offers access to the usual markets and pricing is fairly standard, but what sets it apart from other brokers is some of the trading platform’s unique functionality.

Most brokers offer it now but XTB was actually one of the first brokers to offer post-trade analysis, where the trading platform will show you where you are profitable and where you lose money.

One nice feature is the ability to close all of your positions in one go. A time saver if you are a day trader and want to be flat at the end of the day, or if you want out of the market in a hurry.

XTB produce their own market news, which is constantly updated throughout the day, which you can filter by asset class. If you combine this with the heatmap feature, stock scanner, sentiment indicators and automatically updated “hot” watchlist that shows where the order flow is going you can hunt out trading ideas

Overall, XTB is a very good trading platform that offers a lot more than just vanilla trading, suitable for new traders or more experienced investors wanting to create and hedge their own markets.

Yes, I’ve been using Saxo’s online trading platform for around ten years now and it’s evolved nicely over the years. The core functionality remains consistently high-end, whilst the front end is given a facelift every few years.

Whilst Saxo does offer MT4, it’s own proprietary trading platform (SaxoTraderGo) is a well-established work-horse. The platform is exceptionally robust and suitable for institutional-grade hedge fund businesses as well as individual traders. It really stands out among peers as a serious platform for serious traders that is backed up by the products on offer, such as DMA CFDs, on-exchange futures, options, a huge range of bonds and access to dealers via voice brokerage who can work complex orders for you.

Direct Market Access

Unlike more retail-based trading platforms where CFD commissions are built into the spread with Saxo, you trade at the bid-offer (or DMA) and commission is charged afterward. This enables clients to trade inside the market price if they have opted for direct market access.

Pricing

Commissions are very competitive as Saxo Market is most suited to high-volume and high-net-worth traders. Smaller traders may be put off by auxiliary costs such as having to subscribe to live pricing from exchanges, level-2 data fees, and minimum commission charges.

Market Access

Saxo Market’s trading platform market range is vast, you can go long or short over 19,000 instruments, which is more than any other retail derivatives provider with the SaxoTraderGO platform or apps.

Analytics

The platform also has built-in post-trade analytics so you can see where you have been profitable in the past, and has an integrated research portal, webinars, trading signals, and market analysis.

Account Types

Saxo Markets can be suitable for smaller traders as it has three different tiers of trading accounts – Classic, Platinum and VIP. Classic is the most basic with a minimum deposit of £1,500 whilst the VIP requires at least £1 million in funding, where traders will have access to the tightest spreads and dedicated Saxo service.

What does Saxo’s trading platform look like?