IG’s website has links to a whole range of trading education and is reasonably easy to navigate. They also cater to a range of traders with their Pure DMA CFD & Forex solution, mobile trading apps and in the UK their spread betting platform.
One of the tricky things to get around initially on their platform is the range of opportunities to trade the one product. For instance, an Index might have 3 or 4 different versions with different dollar amounts per point movement. Once you get your head around which product is best to trade, you are on your way.
Platform Features
IG have a wide range of features and claim to have fast execution with the majority of trades executed in 0.1 seconds. One of their valuable features is their Insight centre which, among many things, shows the percentage of traders long or short a certain product.
For those looking for insight into which way the majority of people are trading, this can be quite helpful.
IG Markets provide a version of DMA trading for Australian based stock traders called PureDeal, allowing traders access to Direct Market Access trading. This can be quite useful for those who are looking for transparency when trading share CFDs.
Commissions and margins
Commissions are what you’d expect from one of the big players. They are not the cheapest, but they are very competitive.
You will pay $8 for a share CFD trade on the Australian market and parcels over $10,000 will attract a 0.10% fee.
Margins on share CFDs start at 5% and Forex margins as low as 0.5%. IG provides guaranteed stops, providing an element of protection to the downside. In addition, they run a tiered margining system for those who trade larger positions.
Range of markets
IG Markets offer the full suite of markets including Forex, Indices, Share CFDs, Commodities, AUD Denominated CFDs, Binaries, Options, Interest Rates & Bonds.
They literally do have thousands of markets available.
One of the interesting features is the ability to trade both CFDs and options from the one trading account.
Reputation and security
IG Markets is considered the worldwide leader for CFD traders. They have won many awards and are the largest CFD broker in the Australian market with around 37% market share with CFD traders. They have over 140,000 clients globally and implement very safe client money handling procedures.
Being publicly listed, you’ll find all the necessary records to track how they are going. You can view their share price for further information about their quarterly and yearly results. It is important to also state that IG Markes is both ASIC and FCA regulated.
Spreads, fees and charges
Spreads on the IG platform are very competitive as you’d expect from one of the largest brokers worldwide. Forex spreads range from 0.8 pips. Brokerage on the Australian share CFDs starts from $8 or 0.10% for parcels above $10,000, which is still very competitive.
Conclusion
IG Markets are considered the worldwide leader in trading technology among Forex and CFD traders. Recently, Investment Trends noted they control 37% of primary relationships among current CFD traders, edging out CMC Markets by 16%. This puts IG in the number 1 position in Australia.
IG Markets have access to very deep pockets and spend a lot of that marketing in the major financial publications with their analysts like Chris Weston & Stan Shamu.
Hopefully, our IG Markets Broker Review has shed some light on whether this broker is suitable for your specific trading needs or not.
Whilst there are a range of CFD Brokers and Forex Brokers around, the best way to see if a broker is right for you is to download their free demo.
Feel free to leave your comments below. Thanks
Disclaimer: Trading Contracts for Difference carry risk where you can lose more than what you start with. View our full disclaimer here.