Saxo Capital Markets Review

Well, that really depends on what sort of trader you are. If you need vast market coverage, direct market access to work bids and offers, a bank of experienced dealers to work orders over the phone for you in reserve, then Saxo is great.  It's a true work horse, in particular, the options and OTC FX options boards.

If you are a private client you may be better off with something like ETX or IG as Saxo may be a little complex and heavy duty for jobbing around with short term positions.

Saxo is one of those brokers you've probably heard of but not really used.  They sit somewhere between prime broker for hedge funds and discount forex platform for private clients.  If you are a big hedge fund then Saxo is probably too small, but if you are a small private trader Saxo is probably too professional.

In the private client space the closest competitors would probably be IG who tend to cater for a more private client base. IG incidentally cater to hedge funds and also offer prime broker service with their IG Markets team.

Saxo is a social broker?

Like other social trading brokers (think ayondo and eToro) through Saxo's Trading Floor (opens new window) you can follow other traders and automatically publish your trades. It measures your profit and loss as a percentage so you can see how you rank against other clients.  Also if you are a budding hedge fund manager you could potentially use it as a first step to an audited track record.

How is Saxo's pricing compare to competitors?

Unlike other brokers Saxo charge a commission rather than widen the spreads. So when you trade DMA you get the true price and then a separate commission line is added to your statement. This does put some novice traders off as it's really an admin headache and many view widened spreads of spread betting brokers as a hidden cost (i.e. one they don't have to worry about).

But the commission rates are very good.  There are two levels, private client and institutional and you are charged depending on what type of client you are.  Of course, if you are a private client you get charged less for things like DMA access and live pricing.  If you are a high volume trader you can of course negotiate rates with Saxo.

Do Saxo do spread betting?

No, they used to have a white label with London Capital Group (LCG) but no longer offer it.