Best Index Trading Platforms & Indices Brokers

Best Index Trading Platforms For Beginners

City Index is a good broker for beginners as they have a simple trading platform with 40 major indices to trade as CFDs and spread bets. They also provide a lot of educational material, and have trading signal on indices which show potentially good times to buy and sell through two signal providers.

This matrix of index brokers shows which indices trading platform offer features that can benefit new traders.

Beginner Features:
Trading Signals	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌
Webinars	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Seminars	✔️	❌	✔️	❌	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌
Leverage Control	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	✔️
Low-Risk Products	❌	✔️	❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️
Investment Account	❌	✔️	❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️

Best Indices Brokers For Advanced & Professional

Saxo Markets is the best broker for sophisticated and high-net-worth index traders as their platform is geared towards professional traders placing large orders. They also have some complex order functionality and direct markets access to global exchanges through futures and options.

This comparison table shows what index brokers offer functionality for advanced index traders.

Advanced Features:
Voice Brokerage	✔️	❌	✔️	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌
Corporate Accounts	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Level-2	❌	✔️	❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️	❌
Algo Trading	❌	✔️	❌	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌
Prime Brokerage	❌	✔️	✔️	❌	❌	✔️	✔️	❌

Best Index Platforms For Market Access

IG and CMC Markets both offer over 80 indices for trading as a spread bet or CFD.

This table shows which brokers offer access to the most indices as well as peripheral markets.

Market Access:
Total Markets	12000	17000	11000	1200	9000	5233	10000	8,000	3700	2,100
Forex Pairs	84	51	338	62	182	100	54	20	138	57
Commodities	25	38	124	32	19	20	20	10	28	22
Indices	21	34	82	28	29	13	17	10	23	25
UK Stocks	3500	3925	745	192	5000	500	1575	na	450	230
US Stocks	1000	6352	4968	880	2000	3500	2110	na	1575	1080
ETFs	n/a	2000	1084	107	675	1100	160	na	0	138

Cheapest Index Trading Platform Comissions & Fees

CMC Markets is one of the cheapest brokers for indices, with some of the tightest spreads for CFDs and spread betting on the major exchanges.

As well as our index cost comparison, you can use our trading fee calculator to see how much it will cost you to trade over a year with various different brokers.

Trading Costs
FTSE 100	1	1	1	1	1	0.01%	1	1	1	1.7
DAX 30	1.2	1.2	1	0.9	1	0.01%	1.2	1.2	1.8	1
DJIA	3.5	2.4	2	2.4	3	0.01%	4	2.4	5	3
NASDAQ	1	1	1	1	1	0.01%	2	1	1.9	1
S&P 500	0.4	0.4	0.5	0.4	0.5	0.01%	0.6	0.4	0.7	0.5
EURUSD	0.5	0.6	0.7	0.09	0.6	0.00%	0.6	0.6	0.8	0.9
GBPUSD	0.9	0.9	0.9	0.28	0.7	0.00%	0.9	0.9	1.3	1.4
USDJPY	0.6	0.7	0.7	0.14	0.6	0.00%	0.7	0.7	0.8	1.4
Gold	0.8	0.3	0.3	0.05	0.6	0.00%	0.4	0.3	0.28	0.35
Crude Oil	0.3	0.28	3	2	0.5	0.00%	3	0.28	0.4	3
UK Stocks	0.008	0.001	0.001	0.001	0.0005	0.02%	0.002	0.001	0.30%	0.0008

Best Index Trading Platform For Account Types

Saxo Markets provides the most ways to trade indices as they offer index CFDs as well as on exchange traded futures, options and ETFs. The only type of index trading Saxo Markets does not offer is spread betting, where profits are tax free in the UK. If you would like to trade indices as a spread bet IG also offer spread betting, CFDs and physical ETFs, although no DMA futures and options.

Use our comparison table of what we think are the best index trading platforms to compare how many indices they offer, commission and spreads on the most popular indices and what different types of account they offer. 

Account Types:
CFD Trading	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Spread Betting	✔️	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️	✔️
DMA	❌	✔️	❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️	❌
Pro Accounts	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️
Investments	❌	✔️	❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️	❌
Futures & Options	❌	✔️	❌	❌	❌	✔️	❌	❌

Index brokers provide access to stock market indices markets via:

• Index Futures– these index brokers provide professional traders with direct market access to indices traded on exchange.
• Index Options– these index brokers options trading to professional traders on-exchange. In some cases, stock brokers will offer index options for clients that want to hedge a portfolio.
• Index CFDs – these index brokers provide CFDs (contracts for difference) which are ideal for traders that want to trade in smaller size than index futures.
• Index Spread Betting – these index brokers let their clients bet on the price movements of an index. As trades are structured as bets, there is no capital gains tax due on index spread betting profits
• Index ETFs – Index ETFs are listed on stock exchanges and can be bought and sold in a similar way to shares and can track the price of an index. They are useful for investors that want exposure to an indices’ overall performance but do not want to buy an actively managed index fund or index derivatives. As they are listed on stock exchanges, they are available through share dealing platforms, CFD trading platforms and spread betting brokers.