Admiral Markets: Low costs for investors, excellent customer service, and a bridge into trading – but no ISA

Admiral Markets would suit those wanting low cost investing/trading, excellent customer service and a reliable trading platform with all the sophisticated research and execution tools you get with MetaTrader.

For investors, you’ll need to be happy to trade on a general investment account rather than within a tax wrapper, but there are low costs, excellent research tools and a highly attentive customer service team if aren’t worried about the tax implications of that, or you’ve already maxed out your annual ISA allowance elsewhere. We’re told Admiral Markets may be adding an ISA in the near future though, so watch this space.

You’ll also need to confident in choosing and managing your own investment assets as there are no ready-made portfolios on offer here.

Accounts

Admiral Markets offers retail investors access to:

• General investment account (GIA) is an account designed to provide access to investments. You may be liable for tax on any income or capital gains earned within a general investment account but this can be a useful vehicle for anyone who has maxed out their ISA allowanceGeneral investment account

At present there are no tax wrappers available through this provider, although we are told there may be a stocks and shares ISA coming in the near future.

Tax wrappers offer tax mitigation opportunities which aren’t available in a general investment account, so we generally only recommend you use a general investment account if you have already maxed out your ISA annual allowance.

As you can see from this comparison, the lack of tax wrappers does mean you don’t get access to the same choice of account types as with most other brands:

• Islamic accounts

Islamic accounts are available for all assets and can be requested through customer service.

• Demo account

If you want to test out MetaTrader or the investment platform before you commit with real funds, Admiral Markets offers easy access to a demo account with EUR 50,000 of virtual money. Note, there is no live pricing in the demo account and some other features are disabled, but it allows you to get a feel for the platforms and whether this provider is right for you.

Assets

Admiral Markets offers access to:

• 4,500+ Stocks
• 3,000+ Share CFDs
• 2 Bond CFDs
• 230+ ETFs
• 370+ ETF CFDs
• 80 CFDs on currency pairs/li>
• 43 Indices
• Commodities

Remember, CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 61% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work, and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

• Ready-made portfolios

Admiral Markets does not offer ready-made portfolios, so you will need to feel comfortable choosing and managing your own investments with this provider.

Leverage

Leverage allows you to trade relatively large amounts with small account balances, by multiplying your actual cash funds by an anything up to 30 times. Leverage multiplies both the possible profits and the possible losses of any trade. That means it’s possible to lose more than your original deposit and for that reason, it’s important to exercise caution when using leverage.

With Admiral Markets, you won’t need to pay account fees just for holding an account.

Instead, you will need to pay:

• Spreads

If you’re trading CFDs, currency pairs, or other complex instruments, you’ll need to pay the spread.

The spread is the difference in value between the buy price (ask price) and the sell price (bid price) of an asset.

As Admiral Markets provides access to STP (Straight Through Processing) trading accounts where individuals can trade directly with the broker’s liquidity provider (usually top-tier banks), this allows users to get access to the lowest trading spreads possible.

But to see the bid and ask prices of different instruments, you’ll need to go into the trading platform and select the asset you’re interested in. Trading tickets will show the bid price and ask price.

• Commission

On top of the spread, there may be an additional trading commission to pay on each transaction.

With Admiral Markets, forex trading is actually commission-free, with only spreads and swaps payable. With CFDs on shares and ETFs, however, you’ll be charged a commission which is worked out as a percentage of the total value of shares being traded or per share being traded. Users report commissions as being competitive with this provider.

• Share dealing fees

If you’re investing in individual shares or ETFs, then there are no spreads to worry about as you’re paying the full value of the shares upfront. So instead you’ll pay a share dealing fee (‘investing commission’). These vary depending on the market you’re investing in. Commissions are generally 0.10% – 0.15% of the trade value, or, in the case of US assets, USD 0.02 per share.

There are minimum commission levels, however, although they were only £1 in the variety of stocks I tested. If you find your commission fee goes up to £1 as you’re only trading a small amount, then remember it could be a lot worse! Hargreaves Lansdown charges £11.95 per trade and many other platforms charge in the region of £3-£5 per trade.

You’ll also get 1 commission-free trade per day so Admiral Markets can work out out as a great option for those looking to keep costs low.

• Currency conversion (FX) fees

A 0.3% fee is charged for buying/selling an asset that’s traded in a different currency from the one your account is funded in.

That’s a low fee, as you can see from this comparison chart:

It is also possible to fund your Admiral Markets account with any of 10 different base currencies, making it possible to avoid FX fees if you have access to the means of funding in different currencies.

Currently supported base currencies are: EUR, GBP, USD, CHF, BGN, CZK, HRK, HUF, PLN, RON.

• Inactivity fee

Many providers apply a monthly charge on accounts where there has been no activity after a certain period of time. Admiral Markets’ gives you a relatively long period of time (24 months) before making a charge – good news if you’re a ‘buy and hold’ investor who doesn’t plan to trade often. The charge only applies if you have a positive account balance and is currently EUR 10 per month.

• Swaps

There are additional fees for holding positions overnight. These are known as swap costs. They’re relatively small, but can add up for longer-term trades.

Swap rates can be found on the Admiral Markets Contract Specification page under the market symbol you are trading.

• Minimum deposit

There is a minimum deposit of £250 to begin investing/trading with Admiral Markets. However, the minimum for each trade is just £1 and this platform allows Fractional shares are portions of shares (or ETFs) that are smaller than one whole share. They are designed to make ownership of large, expensive shares more accessible. fractional shares trading so smaller-scale investors are accommodated.

• Interest paid

Unfortunately, Admiral Markets doesn’t pay any interest on uninvested cash so if you have money sitting around between investments, or dividends payments you didn’t realise were there, they won’t be earning you any returns. Some platforms pay out rates as high as 5% (Freetrade) on uninvested cash so shop around if this is important to you.

The verdict

I’ve done some comparisons on investing costs (buying stocks). Admiral Markets comes out very well when compared to other platforms, particularly for those customers investing smaller amounts.

Even on larger trades of overseas stocks, Admiral Markets’ low share dealing commissions and low FX fees means customers enjoy low costs overall.

And, again, on large trades of UK stocks, Admiral Markets’ low share dealing commission rates and lack of annual fees places them in the cheaper half of this comparison table:

Have a question about Admiral Markets that we haven’t covered? Ask it here and we will get back to you as soon as possible!