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Richard Berry - Updated
MT4 brokers provide MetaQuotes’ MetaTrader4 (MT4) platform so you can speculate on financial markets. MT4 brokers have risen in popularity as the platform is considerably cheaper for a broker than developing propriety technology.
Good Money Guide’s experts have tested and ranked the best MT4 brokers in the UK, regulated by the FCA.
Use our comparison of our best-rated MT4 brokers to compare how many markets you can trade, minimum deposits, and what types of accounts are available.
| MT4 Broker | MT4 Markets | Indicators /Add Ons | MT5 | Spread Betting | Customer Reviews | More Info |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | 84+ | 64 | ✔️ | ✔️ | (Based on 124 reviews) | See Platform 71% of retail investor accounts lose money |
 | 91 | 18 | ✔️ | ✔️ | (Based on 678 reviews) | See Platform 71% of retail investor accounts lose money |
 | 1,200 | 100 | ✔️ | ✔️ | (Based on 86 reviews) | See Platform 75.3% of retail investor accounts lose money |
 | 200+ | 12 | ✔️ | ✔️ | (Based on 148 reviews) | See Platform 70% of retail investor accounts lose money |
 | 2,100 | n/a | ✔️ | ✔️ | (Based on 136 reviews) | See Platform75% of retail investor accounts lose money |
✅ Methodology: Our trading experts chose the best MT4 brokers based on:
- 30,000+ votes and reviews in the annual Good Money Guide Awards
- Our team’s own experiences testing MT4 brokers with real money
- An in-depth comparison of their stand-out features compared to alternative MT4 brokers
- Good Money Guide’s exclusive interviews with the MT4 broker CEOs and senior management
City Index: Best MT4 Broker For Trading Signals And Analytics
- MT4 markets available: 84+
- Minimum deposit: £100
- MT4 account types: CFDs & spread betting
- Equity overnight financing: 2.5% +/- SONIA
- Pricing: Shares 0.08%, FTSE 1, GBPUSD 0.9
70% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider
Trade on Metatrader 4 with City Index and benefit from tight spreads, fast trade executions and unique trading tools. Download and explore automated trading strategies with Expert Advisors from FX Blue. Choose from nine different EAs to complement your trading style, including Sentiment Trader.
City Index Gives Traders A Huge Range Of Added Value & Markets
Provider: City Index
Verdict: City Index offers some of the best trading tools and analysis to help traders perform better. Their unique post-trade analytics and voice brokerage service make it an excellent choice for large and frequent traders. City Index is also one of the oldest spread betting and CFD brokers based in the UK founded in 1983 and offer trading in over 13,500 financial markets, to around 126,000 active clients. City Index is currently owned by StoneX, a US brokerage listed on the NASDAQ valued at over $4bn.
71% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider
Is City Index a good broker?
I really like City Index and have used them for years. They offer some of the best trading tools and analysis to help traders perform better. Their unique post-trade analytics and voice brokerage service make it an excellent choice for large and frequent traders.
A big plus for me is that they are one of the oldest and most established trading platforms offering CFDs and financial spread betting, with a huge range of markets to trade, post execution analytical tools and trading signals.
Some of the best trader tools around
I opened my first City Index account way back in 2008, when they were one of only a handful of spread betting firms catering to high net worth traders in the City of London. Back then when I was a derivatives broker at MF Global, City Index used to hedge their CFD business through us so I could see they always had a fairly sophisticated client base. But over the years, as traders and investors have become more educated and akin to taking more risk, City Index now takes on more and more private clients.
If you’re thinking about trading with City Index, but haven’t quite made up your mind yet, I’ve tested all their trading platform’s features, visited their offices and interviewed their senior management for my review to hopefully provide enough information for you to decide if they are the right broker for you.I’ve always liked City Index, it’s been a stalwart of the London CFD broker scene since it was founded by Chris Hales and Jonathan Sparke in 1983 as a way for institutions to hedge their exposure through spread betting and CFDs. But soon became popular with more retail traders. Always advertising on billboards in the City, always having a colourful client base, always being bought and sold at the whim of billionaires and bigger boys. But in recent years, it had gone off a bit from its glory days. Back in the good ol’ days, you could open an account and put on a million-dollar trade over the phone with no ID, no deposit, and no idea. Well, you could if you happened to be on a yacht with Michael Spencer (the then City Index owner and City grandee), who was convinced he knew which way the Euro was headed and goaded one of his guests into putting the trade on, as the story goes away.
But those days are long gone and incumbent brokers have to fight hard to differentiate themselves against the fintechs nipping at their heels, as well as provide more trader tools to lure new customers back to traditional markets away from the wild west of Crypto.
City Index seems to have matured nicely though, it’s grown out of its lumbering adolescence under the ownership of Gain Capital and is now owned by US Behemoth StoneX (previously INTL FCStone). Since then, the platform has had a few upgrades and long-term investment products will hopefully be added shortly.
City Index Awards
In our latest awards City Index won “best trading app” in 2024 and “best trader tools” 2023. City Index has in previous years won “best trading platform”, “best trading app” & “best forex broker” in 2022.
Giles Watts, Senior VP of UK & EU at City Index said after winning best trader tools in 2023: “We are delighted to have been recognized for the added value we provide our clients. Delivering actionable post trade insights direct to the platform, is just one of the reasons our clients stay with us over the long term.”
Trading Platform
The City Index platform used to have a slightly off-the-rack feel about it, instead, the business relied on word of mouth and friendly referrals from HNW clients who would use experienced dealers to work large orders over the phone. Whilst voice brokerage still forms part of City Index’s offering, they are, as with everyone else, doing the majority of their business online and working hard to make their platform stand out.
Pricing & Spreads
City Index has always been competitive with it’s pricing. As City Index is an OTC broker they charge customers by widening the spread rather than adding commission after you trade. They are one of the cheapest around for trading UK stocks with the bid/offer being widened by only 0.08% (20% less than the industry standard of 0.1%) and for US stocks they only charge 1.8 cents per share (industry standard is 2 cents per share). Overnight financing rates are also inline with what you would expect 2.5% over/under SONIA rates.
Stocks, Forex, Indices and Commodities
You can buy over 13,500 stocks on City Index as a CFD or financial spread bet, however, you can’t trade equity options or invest in physical shares.
Obviously, they have access to more than the usual forex, index and commodity markets and add value with some nice thematic-themed indices (like ESG), and a good pool of sectors to speculate on. You can also trade options (CFD or spread bets thereof) on a good range of indices and commodities like Natural Gas or EU stocks. Plus, you can trade on synthetic markets. Everyone loves a bit of volatility speculation in choppy markets.
Spread Betting
Spread betting is City Index’s forte, and it’s the product that a lot of their high-net-worth customers use for trading stocks. As one of the original spread betting brokers City Index offers access to one of the widest selections of UK, US and European shares (as well as the major indices). The key advantage of spread betting of course is that profits are free of capital gains tax.
CFD Trading
Unlike spread betting CFD profits are subject to capital gains tax, so are less popular among UK traders. Historically, City Index would offer CFDs to more professional traders and spread betting to smaller clients. CFDs and spread betting are similarly priced with City Index, with the commission being included in the spread, which is slightly wider than the underlying market bid/offer. The main reason why both products are on offer is that spread betting is only available to UK residents, whereas City Index can offer CFD trading to its global client base.
Trading App
I actually prefer the City Index app to the desktop version of the trading platform. Sometimes I can find the desktop version to be a bit clunky, but the app is really slick, and clearly in our mobile-first world, where all the recent development has been focused. And why not, the desktop trading platform is brilliant for research, trading signals and post-trade analytics, but at the point of execution the app is a quick and simple stripped-down version with all the salient features front and centre.
MT4 (MetaQuotes)
You can trade on MT4 and MT5 with City Index, but functionality and market access is not as good as their main proprietary trading platform or some of their MT4 competitors. You can only trade around 84 markets on MT4 through City Index, but if you just want to trade the major markets, City Index is a good broker for MT4 based on their regulation, service and pricing.
Performance Analytics
Another acquisition from parent StoneX is Chasing Returns, now integrated into the platform as Performance Analytics. Which really drills down into where you are trading well and where you are losing money. Performance Analytics can break down your wins and losses and tell you what markets you trade best, what time of day you are most profitable, if you make money trading in quick succession or, if you do better if you take a break between trades. It’ll even tell you if your first trade of the day is often a winner or loser, or if you are a better bull or bear and also if you are as good at trading volatility as you pretend to enjoy doing, but letting you know if you trade better in calm or erratic markets.
Economic Calendar
One thing, though that does let them down is City Index’s economic calendar, it’s terrible. In fact, most brokers, even IG just have a bog standard list of upcoming earnings and economic announcements. But I think you need more from a trading platform these days, especially as when logged into the desktop platform the format is all off. One broker that has absolutely nailed their economic calendar is ThinkMarkets. With TM when you’re logged in you get a really good visualisation of previous data, volatility and most importantly what impact it had on relevant institutions like EURUSD. It’s a great way to see how markets have moved against previous numbers. Honestly, City Index should embed this too as it’s available from Trading Central who they have a deal with anyway.
Extended Hours Trading
You can trade CFDs premarket and after the market closes on a range of US equities in the pre and post-market sessions which bookend regular share trading in New York that takes place between 9.30 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. Eastern time.
The list of 73 stocks available to trade in the pre and post-markets includes leading US shares such as Apple, Microsoft and Nvidia. Widely traded names such as the Ark Innovation ETF, Coinbase, Robinhood and Gamestop.
As well as established blue chips like Bank of America, Boeing, Procter and Gamble, and Walmart, alongside a selection of index-tracking and thematic ETFs.
Verdict, overall, a great all-round platform that is backed by one of the largest financial institutions in the world.
Pricing: Always competitive, especially for major markets.
Market Access: Excellent coverage, especially for small-cap stock and exotic currency pairs.
Platform & Apps: Some excellent added value trading signals and portfolio analytics (even though the desktop version can be a bit fiddly).
Customer Service: Lots of experienced dealers to help with any issues, who you can get through to on the phone.
Research & Analysis: City Index excels here, lots of educational guides, trading ideas and analysis, to keep traders aware of major market moves.
Pros
- Excellent trading tools
- Post-trade analytics
- Publicly listed (part of StoneX)
Cons
- Trading only, no investment account
- Limited options markets
- No direct market access
- Pricing (5)
- Market Access (5)
- Online Platform (4.5)
- Customer Service (5)
- Research & Analysis (4.5)
Overall
4.8FOREX.com: Best For MT4 Currency Trading
👍Featured👍
- Markets available: 5,000
- Minimum deposit: £1
- Equity overnight financing: 2.5% +/- SONIA
- Pricing: Shares 0.08%, FTSE 1, GBPUSD 0.9
76% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.
FOREX.com Won Best Forex Broker in our 2025 Awards
Provider: FOREX.com
Verdict: FOREX.com is one of the largest forex brokers operating globally and owned by Nasdaq-listed institutional broker StoneX. Forex.com offers traders access to 5,500+ assets including 80+ currency pairs, thousands of stocks, popular commodities, indices and cryptocurrencies (pro accounts only in the UK). Pricing is competitive, especially for those on the RAW spread account or active trader programmme.
76% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.
Is FOREX.com a Good Trading Platform?
FOREX.com won Best Forex Broker in the 2025 Good Money Guide Awards.
24-Hour FOREX.com Test
I took FOREX.com out for a 24-hour test drive, to trade with real money and try out some of the key features on the streets of the City of London. Here’s what happened…
“For FX sake”, I thought to myself when faced with writing a review about a forex broker. Firstly because all these brokers do is offer access to the forex market (or so I believed). Secondly, because I’ve never had much success with forex trading. I find the nuances of intra-day technical analysis too complicated.
I’m an old-fashioned trader – I like to look at the market and think it’s either overvalued or undervalued and, in my mind anyway, that’s easier when looking at a company’s share price, an index or even a commodity. But for some reason, with forex trading, I’ve never really got the hang of it.
Having said that, I have dealt currency for about 20 years now, but more as a broker rather than as a trader. For instance, I used to do some prime brokerage for institutions that would hedge their currency exposure when buying aeroplanes.
But I was so frustrated with how opaque pricing was in currency trading, that I decided to start up my own currency brokerage specialising in high-value currency transfers (£250,000 upwards) and undercutting everyone. It was called Berry FX, you can still see the demo on YouTube. Basically, personal service with the best rates anywhere ever. But now I just let other currency brokers compete for clients by trying to offer the best exchange rates.
But you want to know what I think of FOREX.com.
24 Hour Test
I took FOREX.com out for a 24-hour test drive around the City of London, putting some real trades on whilst going about my business to see if I could make any money.
I started out at the Bank of England with £10,000 on account at 11:30am. Lunch was a few minutes’ walk from the tube station, so I took the opportunity to put some trades on using FOREX.com’s trading signals. I’ve used these for years; back in 2018, they were known as GetGo and it was a standalone forex trading app. When I reviewed it then, I said these were the future of forex trading signals but are they still?
There are a couple of things that make these signals better than the rest.
- They tell you the success rate.
- The signal is linked to an order ticket.
When I was walking down King William Street to L’Antipasto to meet some contacts for lunch, I put a few trades on. First, I looked at the traders that had a historic success rate of over 50% and followed them. Then I looked at trading signals that had a success rate of less than 50% and traded against them. It’s a pretty simple strategy that generally works (not always, though). I used the classic stop/limit risk/reward ratio, aiming for twice the potential loss as a potential win. Again, simple forex trading strategies. The market is not hard to call, but if you get a trade right, it often pays to let it run for longer, but if it’s wrong, close it sooner.
Trading Central
On the way to my next meeting, I took a few moments on London Bridge to look at some of the other signals on FOREX.com: Trading Central. Now, Trading Central has been providing technical analysis to brokers for decades and supplies a constant stream of manually and automatically updated trading ideas throughout the day to give traders an indication of where the markets may go.
It’s not as fluid as the trading signals, as you have to put the trades in manually, but still gives you a bit of stimulus. This is great for someone like me because I generally have an idea of what I want to do from eyeballing a chart (I did, after all, run a technical analysis division for 5 years), but it’s nice to get confirmation of your thoughts one way or another.
Execution
When you are actually trading there are some great other features on the app:
- Swipe to trade: a bit like Tinder (so I hear)
- Chart on tickets: with a quick tap, you can bring up a chart when on the order ticket (to double-check)
- Working orders on charts: when looking at a chart, you can see your working orders and positions
- Position potential: as well as seeing what margin is required when placing a trade, you can also see and set your stops and limits as a potential monetary amount instead of pips
Post-Trade Analytics
Once you’ve done a bit of trading, you can review your trading history and see where you do well and where you can improve. This is a great feature as it can break down how well you trade by time of day, markets or volatility.
You can also set up “Play Maker” if you have a trading strategy and want to stick to it. Obviously, you can’t get that sort of data in a 24-hour test drive, so I’ll have to revisit that another time.
Demo Account
FOREX.com has a pretty good demo account. In fact, it’s hard to tell the difference between the demo and live trading platform. You get the same functionality and as trades are OTC, the same prices.
However, when I opened a demo account to test it, I already had a real account. So after I got my demo account login details, I clicked through to the “Webtrader” portal and (funny or alarming, depending on how you look at it) my live account details were auto-filled in by Google Chrome.
Now, had I not been checking my email, to ensure that the platform had sent me through my credentials, I might not have noticed that I was logging into a live account. It could have been disastrous if I’d started trading away thinking it was paper money. Even more so as you get £10,000 in demo funds and I’d deposited £10,000 in my live account when I took FOREX.com on a 24-hour trading signal test drive.
It reminded me of when a trader thought that he was trading on a demo account and put $1bn worth of orders through and then sued his broker because it voided his €10m profits.
TradingView & MetaQuotes
I had a good play about with TradingView, as it’s now the go-to destination for traders. TradingView is a sort of social network for traders where you can view charts (they are excellent) and post trading ideas (take with a pinch of salt). As TradingView has grown, it has also become an execution venue, so you can link your FOREX.com trading account and deal straight from the charts. This shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for most traders as the charts on the app and web-based platform are provided by TradingView (which, incidentally, is one of the largest financial-based websites in the world now).
You can also trade on MT4, if you are into that sort of thing…
Am I a Forexpert?
I did make money on day one, mainly thanks to putting on a GBP-USD trade that covered most of the losses from some of the other trades. When I used the trading signals 5 years ago, I also made money. Day 2 wasn’t so good. On my way to an investor show, I gave back a few pennies but still ended up on top. But I have to admit my traders were calculated guesses rather than heavily researched positions.
I don’t like holding positions overnight, as day trading reduces not only your margin requirements but also increases the amount of sleep you get because you don’t wake up with cold sweats in the middle of the night worrying about Asian interest rates.
Overall would I recommend forex.com? Yes, if you are going to trade forex and don’t know where to start, as it’s a massive brand with global reach and owned by a listed brokerage with an institutional pedigree. As far as box-ticking is concerned, it ticks the lot. Or should I say pips the lot…
Pros
- Trading signals
- Post trade analytics
- Forex specialist
Cons
- Limited market range
- No DMA
- Pricing (5)
- Market Access (4.5)
- Online Platform (5)
- Customer Service (5)
- Research & Analysis (5)
Overall
4.9Pepperstone: Best Overall MT4 Broker
🏆Award Winner🏆
- Customer rating: 4.6/5 (86 reviews)
- MT4 markets available: 1,200
- Minimum deposit: £1
- MT4 account types: CFDs, spread betting
- Equity overnight financing: 2.5% +/- SONIA
- Pricing: Shares 0.1%, FTSE 1, GBPUSD 0.9
75.3% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider
Pepperstone won “best MT4 broker” in our 2024 and 2023 awards. They offer a very comprehensive package of MT4 tools and strategies, discount pricing and expert customer support from their London office.
With Pepperstone’s MT4 account you get 85 pre-installed indicators and 28 additional Smart Trader Tools where you can build and run your EAs using MetaQuotes Language 4 (MQL4) and identify statistically significant market movements with Autochartist.
75.6% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.
Pepperstone is a great broker for automated trading and active traders
Provider: Pepperstone
Verdict: Pepperstone is a great all round broker for active traders looking for low costs. Especially for those that want to automate their trading as they are one of the biggest and best MT4 brokers with a very good set of EA packages. Pepperstone were founded in 2010 in Australia and have since then grown to be a global brokerage with international offices and around 400,000 active clients. They offer spread betting and CFDs on 1,200 major market instruments, which means they focus on the most heavily traded assets, mainly forex and indices trading. Of those 900 are shares on the major stocks on international exchanges.
75.3% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider
Is Pepperstone a good broker?
Pepperstone is a great trading platform for traders who want low costs, wide market access and wide range of trading platforms, including one of the best MT4/MT5 packages available to retail traders worldwide.
Pricing: Razor tight pricing (on their Razor account).
Market Access: Mainly FX, but lots more stocks are being added.
Platform & Apps: Pepperstone’s MT4 and cTrader packages are top-notch.
Customer Service: Local offices around the world and personal account managers for large active traders
Research & Analysis: Lots of education and technical and algo indicator documentation.
Yes, I’ve used both trading platforms that Pepperstone offer, MT4/5 and cTrader, which include TradingView charting. cTrader is a more traditional trading platform with a basic layout, simple order execution and sentiment indicators. Whereas MT4 is one of the most popular and complex trading platforms available used by millions of traders and thousands of brokers.
However, what makes Pepperstone’s MT4 offering stand out is the brokerage behind it. Pepperstone offers it’s MT4 clients experienced account executives based in London and other local offices around the world. Plus, Pepperstone have put together a package of expert indicators and trader tools that are available to download for free that can be plugged into MT4.
To win business Pepperstone competes on price and compared to other trading platforms it is one of the cheaper options. For example, the Razor account can offer forex trading with zero pips, with the commission charged post-trade. Or traders can opt for the standard account, which adds a 1 pip markup, but is built into the spread.
One of the interesting things about Pepperstone is that whilst they do the traditional digital advertising, they are not on football shirts (apart from the Tennis and now sponsoring Aston Martin) and as Tamas said in his interview, a lot of their business comes from referrals, which is always a good sign. They are a global brokerage so you can at the moment trade crypto, but only if you are a professional client in the UK or are in a jurisdiction that hasn’t banned crypto derivatives.
Management: If you want to know more about the man currently running Pepperstone you can read my interview with Tamas Szabo, who has been Group CEO of Pepperstone since 2017, joining from IG where he started in 1996. So plenty of experience at the helm, Tamas, has been in the business for 25 years.
One of the interesting things about Pepperstone is that whilst they do the traditional digital advertising, they are not on football shirts or anything like that and as Tamas said in his interview, a lot of their business comes from referrals, which is always a good sign.
As I said Pepperstone offers CFD trading for international clients and spread betting for UK customers. Spread betting of course unique to the UK as trades are structured as bets so if you make money trading you don’t have to pay capital gains tax on your profits.
Trading Platforms: Pepperstone doesn’t actually have its own proprietary trading platform instead they offer TradingView, MT4/5 and cTrader. MetaTrader is gradually pushing brokers and clients to MT5 because it’s faster and a bit more user friendly, however, there is a lot of resistance from traders, especially those that use EA’s or Electronic Advisors, as most have been written for MT4 and can’t be converted for MT5 without being re-written.
Automated Trading: If you haven’t used one an EA, an Electronic Advisor enables you to trade automatically based on certain market criteria, usually based on technical analysis. So if the market does x, you buy, if the market does y you sell. The idea is that you set up a trading strategy and set it on autopilot to trade on your behalf. It’s not necessarily high-frequency trading that was featured in Flash Boys or Flash Crash, but it’s similar.
If you want to know more about high-frequency trading those are two books well worth reading, Michael lewis has an excellent way of explaining complex derivatives and I particularly enjoyed Flash Crash because the chap it’s about was a client at the brokerage where I used to work and some people I know were mentioned in it, which is always quite amusing.
A few things to note though about EAs, unless you have a VPS or VPN they won’t work if you turn your trading screen isn’t on and you can’t use them on the web version or mobile. However, Pepperstone will set you up with a free VPS connection if you want one and do a certain amount of business.
MT5 versus MT4: MT5 is one of the most popular trading platforms on the planet and is used by millions of traders and hundreds of brokers. The key benefits are that it’s pretty simple to use and universally recognised, so if you used MT4 or 5 with one broker, switching accounts is fairly easy. Initially, it does have a clunky institutional feel to it, but once you get the hang of it it’s fairly simple to use.
Pepperstone’s MT5 does have its advantages over other brokers though. Mainly the packages they offer, the spreads and the execution, but also the regulation. Pepperstone are regulated by the FCA, so if you are a UK client a certain amount of your funds are protected by the FSCS if Pepperstone was to go bust. You are not protected if you are using MT4 or 5 through an offshore broker, and to be honest, if you are based in the UK you should always be trading with an FCA regulated broker, or the FCA regulated entity of a broker. It is tempting to go offshore to get better margin rates since ESMA capped them but you can get them as a professional client and if you can’t qualify as a professional client you probably shouldn’t be trading with excessive leverage anyway.
One of the main things that make Pepperstones MetaTrader offering stand out is market range, you get loads of forex pairs, the major indices and they are also increasing the number of shares they offer. They have the major FTSE 100 stocks and a few hundred US, European and Australian stocks, but that is growing. But, it is still nowhere near as many markets as someone like IG or Saxo offers. Also, Pepperstone is still only a trading platform so you can’t hold any of your long-term investments with them.
Trading Tools: Pepperstone also has a unique package of MT5 downloads which they call Smart Trader Tools, which include plugins like Trade Terminal where you can set your preferences for assets. So for example if you always trade cable in 1 lot, and have a stop 10 pips away and a limit 20 pips that will be your default OCO when you trade.
You also get things like a Pivot Points plugin where you can trade off previous highs and lows. Some other main features of MT4 are one-click trading, and the ability to trade off the charts. You can also move your entry and exit points automatically. If you trade four markets you can have four set up on screen and have your defaults for each one.
cTrader: One of the major drawbacks about MT5 though is that it doesn’t show your margin when you trade, which to be honest isn’t great if you are a beginner because you have no idea what your exposure is or how much risk capital is going to be used up. It will tell you your overall margin position, but it won’t show you your individual margin rates. Which is daft. However, Pepperstone’s other platform cTrader does do this. To be honest, I actually prefer cTrader, I think it’s more user-friendly, it breaks down your margin. The disadvantage of course is that you can’t run net and hedged positions.
You can’t trade with EAs but I don’t really like them anyway, I think the chances of clients making money with an off-the-rack automated trading strategy is pretty slim. It may work for a bit to nick a trade here and there but if you leave it running over a massive market correction you can get wiped out. You also can’t trade as many shares on cTrader as you can on MT5, which is a shame.
I think it has a cleaner layout, with everything pre-installed and you can trade in a web browsers rather than having to download the software. If you are building your own EA then MT5 is for you but if you are just eyeballing the market and taking a view I prefer cTrader as you get news, calendars, plus Autotrachtists is on there as well and is linked to the pair you are looking at.
Education & Analysis: One other thing to note as well is that when it comes to learning to trade or understanding the markets it is incredibly difficult. Pepperstone has partnered with The Corillian Academy, to provide some educational content. Corillian was set up by some fairly sophisticated traders with decent backgrounds. Richard Adcock for example has been on the board of the society of technical analysts for 30 years.
Customer Service: Although probably the main benefit of Pepperstone over the majority of MT4 brokers is customer service. It’s a big risk trading the financial markets and there are often big sums of money involved. So being able to phone someone up who can execute trades for you and give you a full demo of the platform is almost more important, in my mind anyway, than pricing and market access. If you’re in the UK, you get to talk to your dealers in London, through direct dial.
Pros
- Tight pricing
- Wide range of MT4 markets
- Pre-built MT4 indicator packages
Cons
- Limited market access
- Only third-party platforms
- Pricing (5)
- Market Access (3.5)
- Online Platform (4)
- Customer Service (4)
- Research & Analysis (4)
Overall
4.1CMC Markets: Wide Range Of MT4 Markets
- MT4 markets available: 200+
- Minimum deposit: £1
- MT4 account types: CFDs, spread betting
- Equity overnight financing: 2.9% +/- SONIA
- Pricing: Shares 0.1%, FTSE 1, GBPUSD 0.59
74% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider
CMC Markets gives you competitive spreads on 175+ FX pairs, plus indices and commodities with no restrictions on scalping and no restrictions on minimum stop-loss or take-profit distances, or stop-loss and take-profit limits. Additional premium MT4 indicators and EAs, included at no cost on a London-located server.
CMC Markets Offers Great Tech for Active Traders
Provider: CMC Markets
Verdict: CMC Markets is one of the best and fastest trading platforms available for active traders to speculate on the most popular markets. The company is one of the original spread betting and CFD brokers based in the UK. It’s been providing forex trading services since 1989 and is now listed on the London Stock Exchange. The broker has over 300,000 active clients trading online and is operated from 13 global offices, with headquarters in the City of London.
70% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider
Is CMC Markets a Good Broker?
Yes, CMC Markets has always offered, and still offers, one of the best trading platforms for high-frequency and active traders. It’s a good choice for those who want to trade on tight spreads, with a platform built on exceptional tech.
I’ve used CMC Markets for 20 years now and it’s typically been my go-to broker for trading forex and equity sectors.
I recently gave it another full test with real money and live trades. I’ve also interviewed its founder and its head of product. In this review, I share my views on what CMC Markets is good at, where it needs to improve and which types of trader it suits.
Almost 20 years ago, when I first had my account, I remember sitting in CMC’s reception, eager to pick up a CD-ROM of the Market Maker trading platform so I could trade personal account when I was a stockbroker at Phillip Securities.
I used to flit between using IG and CMC Markets back then. IG had a few more markets, but the platform was a bit basic. CMC Markets had tighter pricing and because the platform had a dark background, and more flashing lights you felt like a real pro. Despite the fact that CMC’s heritage is in the FX markets, I could never really get the hang of those so I’d trade indices, and FTSE 100 shares (also, CMC only really did the main market stuff back then).
I could have waited for CMC to post me a disc, but I had a real itch to try it out. It was an excellent trading platform then, and it still is today.
What Does the Platform Look Like?
History Of CMC
The current CEO, Peter Cruddas, set up CMC as Currency Management Corporation in 1989 after leaving Western Union, where he learned how the foreign exchange markets worked, in particular the market-making side of the business. Originally offering forex trading, then financial spread betting and moving into CFD broking in 2000, CMC began to expand internationally in 2002. CMC Markets was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2016.
CMC Markets, which is now a member of the FTSE 250 index, has over 310,000 active clients globally, and in the 2023-24 financial year generated a net operating income of £332.8 million.
When I visited the CMC offices a few years ago, the brokerage world was switching from voice to online. CMC was one of the first forex brokers to invest heavily in technology and has always led the way in online trading platform innovation.
CMC Markets: Spread Betting & CFDs
CMC Markets only offers CFD trading, rolling spot forex and spread betting in the UK. These are generally short-term speculative products. You can invest in the long term and buy physical shares through CMC Invest in the UK (although in Australia CMC Markets does offer stockbroking).
If you don’t know what these are you shouldn’t be trading them. But if you do and you want to trade them, CMC Markets is in my view one of the best places to do so. In 2024, the platform came up with a nice tagline…
Calling all calculated risk takers…
This is the essence of trading, really. Yes, trading is risky, but it’s a calculated risk. And one way to reduce risk is to go with a well-established and well-capitalised provider. CMC Markets is a public company so you can see how well it’s doing as a business. Trading is hard enough without having to worry if your broker is going to go bust. In the UK, retail client money is held in segregated client bank accounts, in a regulated bank.
CMCX Share Price
The current CMC Markets (LON:CMCX) share price is 238p which is a change of -46.5 or -16.34% from the last closing price of 284.5 with 2,329,113 shares traded giving CMC Markets a market capitalisation of £665,960,652. The most recent daily high has been 262.5 and daily low 230.51. The CMC Markets share price 52 week high has been 349 and the 52 week low 183.4. Based on the most recent CMC Markets share price opening of 238, the current CMC Markets EPS (earnings per share) are 0.3 and the PE (price earnings ratio) is 7.85. Pricing data automatically updates every 15 minutes, last updated: 17:35 05-Jun-2025.
Although you’re out of luck if you want to trade CMC shares on CMC, I tried when I was demonstrating how to do a pairs trade against its main rival IG. I had to trade CMC on IG and IG on CMC.
Market Range
CMC Markets definitely has one of the best market ranges of all brokers. Although it doesn’t offer all shares – around 12,000 assets vs IG’s 17,000 or Interactive Brokers’ epic coverage – it has some really great markets that are exclusive to CMC. I’ve always used it for trading the most popular shares, and I would say it’s aimed at active traders more than its rivals. You only really miss out on smaller cap stocks that aren’t appropriate for margin trading anyway, as they are growth investments.
CMC Markets Sector Bets & Diversification
One of the things that I’ve always liked about CMC is its approach to diversification. Everyone knows that you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to investing, and the same is true of trading. You’ve got a better chance of beating the market consistently if you spread your risk across different asset classes and don’t go crazy Rio trading.
I find forex trading incredibly difficult. I’ve never been able to make any money at it because I can’t judge forex price action – I find it too fast-paced. What I like to speculate on is the overvaluation or undervaluation of one currency against another.
CMC has a market called weighted currency indices, which basket together one currency against many others. So you can trade how you think USD is going to perform against the EUR, GBP, AUD, CAD, CHF, CNH, JPY and SGD in one go. So instead of an outright punt, you are taking on a dollar position rather than a USD-GBP trade.
What Does the Forex Section Look Like?
Share Baskets
CMC Markets has always enabled sector bets, but it has fine-tuned these over the years because of the proliferation of ETFs into share baskets, like US Gold, Oil & Gas, Luxury Lifestyle and Collaborative Technology. This is great, because I really like trading stocks. I find this quite easy compared to forex as stocks are based on fundamentals I understand.
One trading strategy that is relatively simple is trend following, especially now with the Reddit generation getting so worked up. If you see a sector getting some good press you can jump on the bandwagon without having to sniff out the individual stocks. Likewise, if sentiment is turning negative, it may be time to go short.
Deal4Free
Did you know that CMC Markets was once called Deal4Free? You obviously can’t say that anything is free now, because the regulators frown on that sort of thing. Instead, you have to say something like “zero commission”, because you’re being charged something somewhere – you just don’t see it on your statement.
Trading with CMC Markets is obviously not free, but it is cheap. It has always been one of the best value trading platforms, primarily because it unashamedly acts as a market maker.
If you are spread betting, charges are built into the spread and are competitive. It’s always been part of the appeal that if you are trading the most popular and liquid assets, CMC is one of the cheapest places to do it. Commission charges on single stock CFDs are set at 2 cents per share in the US (minimum $10) and 0.10% for UK and European equities (minimum of £9/€9). So you get the choice. If you are a normal trader you can have your costs built into the spread, or if you are one of the bigger boys you can trade CFDs with better pricing and commission charged afterwards.
Alpha & Price Plus
There are two ways to get recognition at CMC. Firstly, you can buy your way in with a minimum deposit of £25,000 and join its premium membership, Alpha. It’s a nice name because, as I’m sure you know, an alpha in trading is trying to outperform the market. You get interest on cash balances and discounted spreads. There’s also a free subscription – it was to the FT but is now to Bloomberg.
If you can’t afford to buy your way in, you can still get reduced spreads by putting the volume through. The more you trade the lower your spreads will be…
CMC: Profitable Client Sentiment
CMC offers users access to client sentiment and positioning tools that show the aggregate positioning of its customers in various instruments. The data includes long-short percentages by clients and value as well as a breakdown of the current day’s order flow. Once again, this is broken down by both client percentage and value. What’s more, you can filter the positioning sentiment by client type, segmenting the data into top clients and other clients.
The top clients view shows the positioning, in a particular instrument, of those clients who have made money on their trading account in the last 3 months, and who have an open position in the instrument under observation.
The ability to filter the sentiment and positioning by client type gives CMC clients a potential advantage over peers who don’t get this additional insight.
Positioning and sentiment data can be used to trade, though how you use it will be determined by your outlook on the markets. Experienced traders take the view that as the majority of CFD and spread betting clients lose money it follows that positioning data is a reverse indicator, especially when the clients seem to be opposing an established trend.
In these days of social trading and large crowds, however, that may not always be the case. On balance it’s probably best to think of sentiment and positioning gauges as decision or trade support tools, rather than decision-makers in their own right.
CMC Markets: Education & Analysis
CMC has plenty of education and analysis available for its clients. It’s divided into separate sections: current news and analysis, a section on learning to trade that covers FX, CFDs and spread betting, and equities trading.
As well as technical analysis, CMC offers trading from home and trading strategies.
CMC Markets also offers what it calls market intelligence through its specialist website OPTO, which includes a magazine full of insightful articles, plus podcasts, and interviews with high-profile guests from the markets.
The trading guides are aimed at beginners and less experienced traders whereas OPTO is for more experienced traders who are looking for fresh ideas and inspiration. News and analysis from CMC’s in-house analysis team sits comfortably between them, and as we noted earlier, there is also an online moderated charting community within the trading platform.
All of this is available at no additional charge and much of it is available to the public as well as CMC clients. Many of the major providers have a general education program and support their traders with news and in-house analysis. But OPTO stands out from the crowd and, to my mind, this elevates the CMC offering above the competition.
CMC Markets offers an investment option with CMC Invest.
Institutional Prime Services (CMC Connect)
Recently rebranded to CMC Connect, the institutional side of the business is where CMC expects to grow over the next 5 to 10 years. The company has high profile joint ventures such as the stockbroking services it provides to the clients of ANZ Bank. Alongside these partnerships, it offers institutional liquidity, outsourced trading technology and connectivity, as well as pre and post-trade processing and trade reporting.
These services are aimed at institutional customers such as hedge funds, family offices and prop traders. HNWI and the most active professional clients might be able to use some of CMC Connect’s services but the division is really aimed at corporate customers and funds.
CMC competes with all of the large-scale margin trading brokerages in the CFD, FX and spread betting arenas. It’s also making inroads into the institutional and B2B spaces through liquidity provision, white labels, and JVs. That push on the institutional side and the firm’s focus on in-house trading technology, and the use of currency and share baskets, are the key differentiators from its competitors.
CMC Markets Review Ratings Explained
- Pricing. It used to be called Deal4Free, and pricing is still good…
- Market Access. CMC focuses on the main markets, but still offers many exotic pairs to trade
- Platform & Apps. CMC Markets has some of the best trading tech around for active traders
- Customer Service. London-based support staff (still thankfully, despite all the Brexit pomp)
- Research & Analysis. Top class client sentiment tools
Pros
- Excellent trading platform
- Good liquidity
- Unique sentiment tools
Cons
- Trading only (investing is on CMC Invest)
- Limited smaller cap stocks
- Pricing (5)
- Market Access (4)
- Online Platform (5)
- Customer Service (4)
- Research & Analysis (5)
Overall
4.6IG: Good MT4 Broker For Larger Traders
- MT4 markets available: 91
- Minimum deposit: £250
- MT4 Account types: CFDs, spread betting, DMA, investing
- Equity overnight financing: 2.5% +/- SONIA
- Pricing: Shares 0.1%, FTSE 1, GBPUSD 0.6
71% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs and spread bets with this provider.
IG’s MT4 package gives instant access to 18 free add-ons and indicators. Trade in sizes as small as 0.01 lots as a CFD or spread bet and get minimum spreads from just 0.6 pips on a host of forex pairs.
IG is one of the original and still one of the best brokers
Provider: IG
Verdict: IG is one of the largest and best brokers in the world and offers the full suite of investing and trading accounts for all types of investors. Highly recommended. Founded in 1974 as Investors Gold Index, then IG Index, now just “IG” is one of the world’s largest margin trading brokers. IG offer CFDs, FX and Spread Betting (in the UK) alongside share trading and prime brokerage to over 313,000 active clients and offers 17,000 tradable markets. IG also recently introduced physical share dealing and smart portfolios for longer-term investors.
71% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs and spread bets with this provider.
Is IG a good trading platform?
Yes, IG provides an excellent all-round trading and investing brokerage service. IG pioneered online trading and financial spread betting for private clients and remains not only one of the largest online trading platforms, but also one of the best. IG stands out through deep liquidity, high market range and excellent added value such as trading tools and analysis.
Before we kick off this review I must disclose a bit of an interest. I’m a big fan of IG, in my mind, they are the default broker. When we review brokers, we tend to ask the question “why would you trade here rather than at IG?” So, in my updated 2024 IG review, I compare IG Index to other brokers, tell you what I like about them, who they are best for and show you their trading platform with some live trades in a video demo.
I’ve had an account with IG for about 20 years and I remember their first online trading platform when it was just basically a messaging system through to the dealing desk. Amazingly enough, it turns out that I was also in the same class (at two different schools over about five years) as the founder’s daughter, but of course, didn’t know that back then.
When I was interning on the NYMEX and IPE trading floors in London and New York as a ticket checking clerk, I’d tap away on IG on my Ericsson R380 trying to emulate the bigger boys in the pit.
IG were my first trading account and along with Trading Places (my dog is even called Winthorpe #notobsessed) I hold them fully accountable for the path my so-called career has taken.
The Beginnings & Ethos
Stuart Wheeler, the founder, basically invented financial spread betting in the attic of a Chelsea townhouse in 1974. It was first called Investors Gold Index, then IG Index and then just IG. As the product range grows, the name shortens. As is the fashion these days with II, HL & IBKR.
If you read his biography (Winning Against the Odds, My Life in Gambling and Politics), you can tell that IG was founded for the love of the business. That business being gambling and investing. It’s a great read, very witty, lots of indescrete gossip, some “slightly dated” views, but overall a great insight into how and why the business started.
This brings me to my first point. One of the things that makes IG stand out, is really the fact that it is IG. I’m a big believer that there are two types of financial business. One that is set up to extract money from customers because they spot a gap in the market. And the second, that does it because they are good at it and want to be the best.
I hope that’s what we at the Good Money Guide do and I hope that that’s what IG still do. I certainly gathered from my interview with the now IG CEO, June Felix, that their position is still to very much be on the clients side. In that, they believe it’s better to try and help a client win and give them a good service, so they are still doing business with you in twenty years, rather than the churn and burn quick-fire approach.
Index & Forex Trading
IG was originally called IG Index (Investors Gold Index) and was one of the first brokers to let private individuals trade the financial markets. When they started off customers mainly traded the London stock market index (FTSE 100), but now IG clients can trade a market-leading 80+ indices.
You can also trade forex on their platform. But remarkably, unlike most other forex brokers, which see the largest percentage of their volumes in the forex markets, IG’s most popular asset class is indices, followed closely in second by currency trading.
Quality Service
This was most evident I think during the big bonus push of around seven years ago. This was basically a time when the trading industry became uber-competitive and brokers were offering big bonuses, sometimes up to £5,000 to new clients to sign up.
The catch of course was that you had to generate more than that in trading commission before you could withdraw it or use it. IG’s stance on that was, “No, that’s not for us” clients trade with us because of what our service offers” and didn’t get into the murky business of incentives.
Interestingly enough, the FCA banned new account bonuses because it all got a bit out of hand as the more unscrupulous platforms were running too heavy B-books.
No B-Book
One draw for big clients is that whilst IG does internalise orders, they have Symmetrical exposure limits.
So they don’t take a view on the markets. This means two things, first, IG are not betting against you with a B-Book.
And second if you are a big trader, because of their liquidity there may actually be bigger volume on IG’s bid and offer than there is in the underlying market. You get positive slippage, so if you place a limit order and the market suddenly moves in your favour you get filled at a better price than your limit.
Spread Betting & CFD Trading
With IG you can trade CFDs or spread bet 24 hours on major indices, forex and commodities markets, there are extended hours on global equities, where some fairly significant volume goes through, particularly on US equities when company announcements are made after the main market shuts. IG is one of the few brokers to allow trading during the weekend, so you can still take a view or limit your exposure if something big comes out politically.
IG is one of the best CFD trading platforms as they offer a huge range of markets to trade and DMA access for more sophisticated traders. Also, because IG offers CFDs globally (with the exception of the US) they have a huge amount of volume and liquidity meaning that sometimes you can place bigger orders via IG’s order book than you could do on the underlying exchanges like the LSE or NYSE. Because of the sheer volume of CFD trades, IG is able to internally match up orders for quicker and larger fills.
One key disadvantage of trading CFDs through IG is that you have to pay tax on profits. However, CFDs are not the only product that IG offer. You can also trade financial spread bets, where you do not have to pay capital gains tax on profits.
IPO Grey Market
One feature that is now unique to IG (lots of other brokers used to do it) is the “grey market”, where they will make you a price in unquoted stocks that are due to come to market. You essentially take a bet on what the market cap will be of a company when it lists. Or, you can just apply for shares in the IPO through PrimaryBid, who will deliver them to your IG account.
International Presence
IG also have this nice nack of looking at a region and finding specific products for them. It’s actually quite interesting how each country has a specific way it likes to trade the markets. The UK for example, is the only country that benefits from financial spread betting, the rest of the world trades on margin with CFDs. Of course, with the exception of the Americans, who trade on margin by taking out a loan to buy stock (from their broker) or trade options, which are much more popular on equities. Japan has knockouts and Europe has barrier options and Turbos Warrants.
Trading Platforms & Apps
IG’s trading platform has gone through many iterations in the 20 years or so I’ve used them. Their first online platform was just really a live price feed with a messenger box, that put you through to the dealers, who would manually execute trades for you. Now, of course, it’s all DIY online, but still with phone support if you need it.
Something IG is very keen to push, is their added value. The platform tries to integrate as much as possible. IGTV, is based on the platform analytics of what people are trading and they create programs around what markets and assets traders are looking for information on. The news and analysis comes from Thomas Reuters, with snapshot videos and a series of IG market commentary videos.
We rate IG’s trading app as extremely safe because of IG’s regulation and reputation. However, it’s important to note that while trading on the app itself is financially secure, the products on offer are high risk and IG does offer investments that are not safe for capital preservation. IG offers financial spread betting and CFDs which are high-risk, high reward products.
High Net Worth Accounts
If you are a high-volume trader, you can also trade DMA with ProRealTime, and you can get level 2 pricing and trade directly on the exchange order book. This can be done on the IG trading app or by downloading the L2 dealer software. There is a cost of course, but if you do a few trades that is rebated back. Brokers have to pay the exchanges for providing level 2 data to their clients, so the charge is there to dissuade everyone signing up without trading. If you are really clever and have developed your own trading algorithm, you can plug that into IG’s platform too. Or MT4/MT5 which they also offer, if you’re into that sort of thing.
IG Community
There is a fairly active forum in the IG community, it’s not as quite as “social media feed” as some copy trading platforms, but there are a few thousand users chatting away and the IG staff get involved. As with other brokers, there is Autochartist, but they add value there, by having a “copy to order” function where you can execute the signal, but also add the stop and limit. You can then tinker with the pricing by moving the lines on the chart. On charting, IG are implementing logarithmic charting, one of their most requested features from traders.
Sticky Clients
A problem all brokers are desperate to address though is people losing money. It’s always been the case and previously was always anecdotally noted that only around 20% of people made money. The IG founder, even mentions this in his book, prior to it being a regulatory requirement to display in all marketing and on websites what percentage of clients lose money when trading spread betting and CFDs. A few brokers have implemented post-trade analytics, to help their clients try and win more. IG’s Trade Analytics tool does just that. It’s sole purpose is to try and help traders win more by getting a better understanding of where they profit and lose in the markets. It’s been developed in-house by IG, based on their analytics and to provide clarity.
James Perry IG’s Client Experience Manager told me “We desperately want our clients to win as the more they win, the longer they are going to be a client, and the more they are going to trade” as they make their money from commissions, financing and spreads, “as soon as they lose, they feel disenfranchise, sad and reduce trading volumes”.
I know this to be true from my own trading, when you’re on a winning run you trade more, when you can’t call the market right so step away until another day.
Investing, ETFs & Share Dealing
IG also, offer longer-term investing products, where you can buy and hold stocks, ETFs and funds in a stocks and shares ISA, or IG Smart Portfolio. They have a trading academy so they can learn through video and interactive courses. IG can see from their analytics that clients that use these, do become better traders. Along with their recent acquisition of DAILY FX (for $40m) they also offer live webinars to provide analysis and trading strategy.
you can invest and trade ETFs with IG. You have the option of either investing in the long term by buying ETFs in their general investment account, SIPP or ISA. Or you can speculate on them going up or down by going long or short via CFDs or financial spread bets. IG is not the cheapest place for investing in ETFs, (that is probably Interactive Brokers) but they do have very good customer service and a really easy to use ETF platform.
Ratings Explained
- Pricing: Industry leading spreads and with DMA you can get inside the bid/offer.
- Market Access: Best around for spread betting and CFD trading.
- Platform & Apps: Loads of added value, signals and execution features.
- Customer Service: IG is very big, but still managed to score well here.
- Research & Analysis: Superb, news, analysis, social feeds, plus free premium subscriptions for active clients.
Overall, if you are going to trade, I would be surprised if you didn’t have an account with IG.
Pros
- Vast range of markets
- Excellent liquidity & DMA equities
- Listed on the London Stock Exchange
Cons
- Customer service can be slow
- No DMA futures trading
- Still charges inactivity fee
- Pricing (4.5)
- Market Access (5)
- Online Platform (5)
- Customer Service (4)
- Research & Analysis (5)
Overall
4.7XTB: Good Platform For Multi-Asset MT4 Trading
- Markets available: 2,100
- Minimum deposit: £1
- Account types: CFDs
- Equity overnight financing: -0.02341% / -0.00159% DAILY
- Pricing: Shares 0.3%, FTSE 1.7, GBPUSD 1.4
81% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider
XTB Review: A Great All Round Trading & Investing Platform
Provider: XTB
Verdict: XTB is a CFD and forex broker headquartered in Poland and listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE:XTB) valued at over $1bn. XTB was founded in 2003 and offers forex, indices, commodities, ETF and stock CFD trading. XTB has historically used celebrity endorsements to promote it’s brand including Jose Mourinho, Conor McGregor, Joanna Jędrzejczyk and Jiří Procházka.
75% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider
Is XTB a good broker?
XTB, are a decent all-round trading platform and a good choice for most small-to-medium sized CFD traders. They are publically listed in Poland and offer, competitive spreads on a fairly wide range of markets.
The key things to focus on when considering trading with XTB are:
- They have their own proprietary trading platform. When I interviewed Omar Arnaout, the XTB CEO Omar Arnout, he said “I’m really proud of our platform and honestly believe it’s one of the best in the market.” Rightly so.
- They really push client education, XTB won “Best Trading Platform Education” in our 2023 awards (although they didn’t show up to collect the trophy, they never do). You can read their Q&A on forex education here.
- Customer service is paramount. Omar said that “first and foremost is the customer service”. I really agree with this as I think it’s important to have a few different trading accounts (diversify, diversify, diversify) and you’ll trade more with the broker that treats you best.
Pros
- Publically listed
- Mulitple platform choices
- Innovative order types
Cons
- Not UK based
- No DMA
- Pricing (4)
- Market Access (4)
- Online Platform (4)
- Customer Service (4)
- Research & Analysis (4)
Overall
4Best MT4 Broker For Beginners
CMC Markets is the best MT4 broker for beginners as they are well established, publicly listed on the LSE, and offer over 200 markets to trade. They are also backed up by an exceptional in-house trading platform which beginners may find more user-friendly and easier to use than MT4.
This comparison table shows which MT4 brokers offer beginner-friendly features:
| Beginner Features: |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trading Signals | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Webinars | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Seminars | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Leverage Control | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Low-Risk Products | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Investment Account | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ |
MT4 Brokers For Advanced & Professional Traders
Pepperstone is the best MT4 broker for experienced traders. They offer by far the most markets of all the MT4 brokers we feature (around 1,200), including UK, US and Australian shares. They also provide free technical indicators and automated trading strategies in their Smart Trader Tools package, a suite of expert advisor tools that help with trade execution and management.
The below comparison table shows which MT4 brokers provide advanced trader tools and access for sophisticated MT4 users.
| Advanced Features: |  |  |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voice Brokerage | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Corporate Accounts | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Level-2 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Algo Trading | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Prime Brokerage | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ |
Market Access & Added Value
MT4 is available from thousands of brokers and used by millions of traders every year. With so many brokers utilising the same platform, they must work hard to differentiate themselves and win business.
You can compare which UK MT4 broker is most suited to your trading in this matrix of account types and market access.
| MT4 Offering |  |  |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market Access | 84 | 200 | 1,200 | 91 | 578 | 2,100 |
| Minimum Deposit | £100 | £1 | £1 | £250 | £100 | £1 |
| CFD Trading | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Spread Betting | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Futures | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ |
So, what makes one MT4 broker better than another? The key questions you need to ask yourself when choosing an MT4 broker are:
- Where is the broker regulated? – In the UK this is the FCA
- How many markets do they offer on MT4? – Some brokers only offer 10 or so FX pairs which is not enough
- What types of trading account do they have? Spot FX, CFDs or financial spread betting
- What are trading costs? Some brokers include commission in the spread, while others add it post-trade
- Is there any added value on offer? Larger brokers offer free indicator packages, faster execution plus news and analysis
What Do You Need To Trade On MT4 & MT5?
FX and CFD traders who use either MT4 or MT5 can enable one-click trading in their charts. That puts bid and ask prices for a given instrument in the top left-hand corner of the chart.
To execute a market order in a predetermined size you set, simply click the bid or ask button as required. Be aware though there are no second chances with one-click dealing enabled. Click on the bid or the ask price and you have dealt in your preselected order size.
How Does Trading From Charts Work On MT4?
MT4 brokers who offer a ‘souped-up’ version of the Meta trader platforms give their customers access to add-ins such as Tick Chart Trader which allows you to place orders directly from a tick chart with has an order ticket within it.
The Tick charts themselves can be configured in a variety of formats and the add-in also supports hot-keys for trading such as B for Buy, S for sell and so on.
If you have access to the Mini Terminal which usually comes in the same package of add-ons as one click trading you can make use of smart lines which allows you to draw intelligent lines on chart.
Those lines can act as stop losses or take profits for full or partial orders and it’s also possible to use a time based line to close open positions at at specific point in the trading day.
✅ We Only Recommend FCA-Regulated MT4 Brokers
All online MT4 brokers that operate in the UK must be regulated by the FCA. The FCA is the Financial Conduct Authority and is responsible for ensuring that UK MT4 brokers are properly capitalised, treat customers fairly and have sufficient compliance systems.
Any broker recommended here is regulated by the FCA and is where your funds are protected by the FSCS (Financial Services Compensation Scheme).
MT4 Broker FAQs
Yes. One of the strongest and most popular features is the ability to trade automatically on MT4. The automatic trading feature has been active since 2006 and tens of thousands of traders have used the function. The automated trading is two-sided so you can either follow other traders via copy trading or upload your own code to the marketplace and sell it to potential followers in the MT4 marketplace where traders can buy robots & indicators. In the market place you’ll also find the complete array of MT4 signals and can search by filters to find a Forex trading signal.
EA stands for Expert Advisor. Automated Expert Advisors allow you to take positions automatically, based on pre-set trading parameters. You can program Expert Advisors to follow a very specific set of instructions, allowing your positions to be automatically opened and closed without you needing to be present. or you can buy them ready made.
No, Interactive Brokers does not offer MT4 instead they have their own suite of in house trading platforms and API connectivity, which they offer to their clients.
For MT4 and Expert Advisors you should be looking for execution speeds of sub 25-30 milliseconds. MT4 brokers are responsible for the price feeds and the infrastructure behind the scenes that actually execute the trades, so always choose a well-established broker with the free VPS.
Yes, Pepperstone will give clients a free VPS for trading on MT4, based on your traded volume.
A Virtual Private Server (VPS) allows you to use Expert Advisors (EAs) 24/7. The VPS means you no longer need your home computer continuously running for your EAs to execute trades, ensuring uninterrupted trading day and night. If the VPS provided is in close physical proximity to your brokers MT4 servers, then you will also benefit from much faster execution times, allowing you to catch that price before it changes.
Yes, you can but this feature must be enabled by your broker, and cannot be changed direct on the MT4 platform. Note that changing leverage levels on an account will affect existing open positions as well as new positions opened post the changes.
Yes, you can have two MT4 installs from the same broker although you will have to download the platform multiple times and specify a different destination folder for each version of the platform.
City Index, Pepperstone, CMC Markets and IG offer micro-lots for MT4 trading.
With MT4 you can choose to either trade in standard lots or micro-lots, which allows you to trade in smaller increments and limit your overall exposure.
The MT4 app was banned from Apple’s app store in September 2022 because of the volume of scam reports Apple received. This was due to the app being used in social media trading scams.
Richard Berry
This article contains affiliate links which may earn us some form of income if you go on to open an account. However, if you would rather visit the MT4 brokers via a non-affiliate link, you can view their MetaQuotes trading pages directly here:
