Hong Kong (Hang Seng Index) Trading Platforms

Is City Index a good broker?

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.

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.

Pricing: Always competitive.

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.

Research & Analysis: City Index excel here, lots of education, signals and analysis.

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.

Is capital.com any good for trading?

Capital.com has an easy-to-use and intuitive trading platform and app, that gives access to the most popular financial markets with competitive spreads with the ability to reduce risk by decreasing your leverage. Trading via the app has always been capital.com’s forte, and in 202, it won our award for “best trading app” not in part due to the fact that the company CTO has extensive experience in building engaging apps like Candy Crush.

What makes Capital.com different? Thumbs up, literally

Do you know what one of the most impressive thing about Capital.com is? They put the buy and sell buttons at the bottom of the app.

I don’t mean that in a facetious way, it’s genuinely a brilliant feature.

This may not sound like much but it’s a good example of how Capital.com has integrated decades of analytics, experience, feedback and customer data into creating a very easy-to-use intuitive trading app from scratch.

When Capital.com first became authorised by the FCA back in 2018, I visited their offices in London to have a chat about what they offer. The two main things we discussed were button placement and AI.

Trading App

But anyway, if you’ve updated your iPhone to the latest iOS you’ll notice that Apple has started moving things to the bottom of the screen, the search bar for instance. This is because, phones are getting bigger, and your thumb can’t reach the top of the screen if you are holding it with one hand. This is something that Capital.com figured out would make trading easier 5 years ago. I’ve just been through a bunch of other trading apps on my phone and still, amazingly enough, none of the other brokers have done this yet.

Capital.com was also the first to integrate artificial intelligence to help you improve your trading, they say, based on the Martingale theory. When I spoke to Chris Demetriou, the head of sales in the UK, he said that the system should give you prompts based on your previous trades. So for example, if you are about to do a trade that is similar to ones you have constantly lost on before, you should get a “are you sure you want to do this” notification.

There have also been some significant improvements recently including:

• adding average price execution data for larger orders
• improving the visibility of overnight funding fees
• the ability to add dynamic widgets to individual home screens

Leverage Control

Everybody knows, that one of the main reasons people lose money when trading is overleverage. This could be either from not having enough free cash on account to give your position breathing space, or simply putting on trades that are too risky. One really good feature is that you can change your leverage based on asset class. The default leverage is the max that retail traders in the UK are permitted, but you can change this to 1:1 so you need to fully pay up for positions. A sensible thing to do if you are just getting started, which can help reduce excessive losses. As your experience grows you can increase your leverage accordingly.

Hedging

You can also set the platform to put on hedging positions, so you can be long and short the same thing at the same time. Why you ask? Well, it can help you run longer-term positions and short-term hedges. This in fact is the very point of CFDs and spread bets. They were originally hedging tools, and still a good way to protect your long-term investment portfolio against short-term market corrections without having to close off your positions.

Customer Support

Customer support is pretty good too, you can get in touch via the chat widget on the platform, whatsapp or telegram. When I tested it I got a response within a minute and the issue I had was dealt with quickly (uploading ID to verify my account if you must know).

TradingView

You can’t trade from the charts, but when you have open positions they are overlayed along with your stops and limits, which you can move by dragging and dropping. But, if charting is your thing, you can join the other 78,000 Capital.com customers using and trading from TradingView.

Proprietory Tech

One thing I quite like though is that instead of relying on third-party software, the Capital.com trading platform is built in-house, and if you want something you can ask for it. For example, previously on the app you could see where an asset is as a percentage relative to the daily range. But, a customer asked, if you could see it in points too. So, that was quickly integrated so that you can now toggle between percentages and points. A small thing, but indicative of a broker that can do things and does do things, rather than just logging a helpdesk ticket.

Refinitiv

There are no trading signals on the platform or app, but you do get access to Refinitiv reports on US stocks, which give you a good overview of historic and potential future financial health. A good feature for those looking at slightly longer-term positions.

Overnight funding

Talking of long positions, or longer long positions, Capital.com also display quite clearly what your overnight financing rates are going to be on a daily basis. I’m sure this is a regulatory obligation anyway, but it’s done in a way that you can actually see what the price is, rather than an opaque formula. It gives a bit more transparency about how much a position is going to cost you.

Investmate

If you are new to trading, they have a stand-alone app called Investmate, which puts you through a series of bitesize courses that explain the financial markets. Capital.com also own currency.com if you fancy a punt on crypto, and shares.com so we can expect to see more comprehensive physical investing options soon.

Is CMC Markets a good broker?

Yes, CMC Markets has always offered, and still does 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.

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.

Is Saxo Markets a good broker?

Yes, Saxo has a great choice of accounts for beginners with SaxoInvestor and for professionals, the more sophisticated SaxoTrader go provides direct market access. The pro platform, analysis, and direct market access may be too complicated for beginners. But, for experienced traders, its coverage, commissions and research are unrivalled.

Saxo Markets is an excellent trading platform for retail traders and investors who want institutional-grade pricing, robust execution and wide market coverage.

Awards: Saxo won best investing app and best DMA/Professional account in 2024. Before that, in our 2023 awards, Saxo won ‘Best CFD Broker’, and ‘Best DMA & Professional Trading Account’. In 2022 Saxo also scooped ‘Best Bond Broker’.

Pricing: Commissions have just been reduced further making Saxo one of the cheapest brokers

Market Access: Saxo offers a huge range of markets for both derivatives trading and physical investing

Platform & Apps: Saxo has an industry-leading robust workhorse of a platform

Customer Service: Experienced dealers for active larger customers

Research & Analysis: Some of the best opinions on the markets around.

Plus, with Saxo posting its best financial results in history (with over $118bn customer funds on account) and now that it has been 70% bought out by J. Safra Sarasin Group, they will be in an even better position to continue to provide excellent market access. This, combined with founder Kim Fournais still owning 28% will keep the firm’s customer-first ethos intact.

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.