Saxo Markets: 72,000 assets and top-tier research makes this a platform with advantages for both traders & investors

• Saxo’s remarkable array of tradable instruments, premium features, and sophisticated platforms make it well suited to advanced, professional and institutional traders.
• However, the introduction of SaxoInvestor means Saxo's substantial menu of assets and best-in-class research tools can also now be accessed – via a more streamlined interface – by investors and novice traders too.

With Saxo, you can trade within a:

• 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 trading account
• A self-invested personal pension (SIPP) is a type of private pension that allows you to control the specific investments that make up your pension fundSIPP
• Sometimes called an investment ISA, a stocks and shares ISA is an individual savings account that allows you to invest in shares, unit trusts, investment funds, and bonds. You will not need to pay tax on any income or capital gains earned on investments within an ISAStocks and Shares ISA
• Trust account

Here's how that compares to other providers:

Assets

Saxo offers access to the following assets and instruments:

Stocks: Invest in an impressive 23,500+ stocks from London, New York, Hong Kong, and more than 50 other global markets. As there’s no minimum deposit, you can start buying stocks with as little as £1 making this an accessible way to gain exposure to a large number of global equities.

Forex: 185 FX spot pairs and 140 forwards across majors, minors, exotics and metals.

CFDs: 8,800+ instruments.

A commodity is any basic raw material that can be bought and sold, for example, copper, silver, oil or coffee.Commodities: A wide range of commodities as CFDs, futures, options, spot pairs, and more.

Futures: Saxo is one of the few UK trading platforms to offer retail traders access to futures and options, providing access to 250 futures covering equity indices, energy, metals, agriculture, rates and FX.

Forex options: 45+ FX vanilla options with maturities from one day to 12 months.

Listed options: 3,200+ listed options across equities, energy, metals and more, from 20 exchanges worldwide.

ETFs: More than 7,000+ exchange-traded funds from 30+ exchanges.

Bonds: Online and offline government and corporate bonds from 26 countries in 21 currencies.

Funds: Thousands of top-rated funds.

It’s a towering list of instruments and assets that few other platforms can match.

Positions in options, futures, FX or CFDs cannot be traded in SaxoInvestor.

For those who have the ability and experience to pass the knowledge test, Saxo offers access to CFD trading with direct market access (DMA). DMA enables traders to deal directly onto the order books of major exchanges. This means that instead of trading at prices set by the broker, you can trade at the price you see on the exchange. This will appeal to high volume and professional traders, as will the ability to trade futures and options which requires a large balance.

SIPPs

Saxo’s personal pension scheme is designed for investors who want flexibility and control over the way their pension is invested, including asset class selection. As an added bonus, you’ll get access to a personal account manager.

It’s free to open and transfer into from other SIPP schemes.

A couple of things to note:

Saxo allows trading of non-leveraged products such as stocks, bonds and certain ETFs within your SIPP. However, you won’t be able to trade futures, options, CFDs and FX within your Saxo SIPP.

A foreign exchange (FX) fee is added to all trades involving foreign currencies. If you buy a stock that trades in US dollars, for example, and your home account is in GB pounds, you'll need to pay an FX fee.The FX fee for trading non-GBP assets is 1% within the SIPP. That’s high and a bit annoying considering the normal FX rate for general trading is 0.25%.

ISA

If you’re a UK resident over 18, then you’ll have a tax-free ISA allowance of £20,000 for the 2023/2024 tax year. If you invest this in a stocks and shares ISA, your profits will be free from capital gains tax and you’ll pay no tax on income from any dividends either.

With Saxo, you can invest your £20,000 in more than 11,000 global stocks, ETFs and bonds by either opening an ISA or transferring your ISA to Saxo. It’s free to do both. Individual savings accounts only provide access to cash products so you can’t trade derivatives within an ISA account.

Ready-made options

Saxo no longer offers ready-made portfolios.

Joint / Corporate accounts

Saxo facilitates:

• Personal accounts
• Joint accounts
• Corporate accounts
• Professional accounts

Saxo offers a choice of platforms to accommodate the needs of both day traders and long-term investors.

For investors

SaxoInvestor is the newest addition to the Saxo offering. It provides access to non-complex instruments – stocks, funds, simple ETFs and bonds – and is the most uncomplicated of the three platforms offered by Saxo. For that reason, it's best suited for long-term investors or traders at the beginning of their trading journey, who don't need the sophisticated tools required to trade complex instruments such as options and futures.

Through SaxoInvestor, you can buy and sell investments, research market trends and discover new opportunities for holding within your stocks and shares ISA account, general trading account, SIPP or trust account.

SaxoInvestor is available as a web platform and to download as a mobile app.

You'll also be able to access professional analyst ratings from Morningstar and tap into Saxo's mighty in-house professional analysis and investment strategy suggestions.

For those who have historically found Saxo's trading platforms too complex, this new, more pared-back offering is a way to get access to Saxo's products, pricing and research tools without needing the advanced trading skills required to negotiate SaxoTraderGo or Pro.

For traders

Saxo offers, undoubtedly, one of the most comprehensive, refined trading platforms available. If you're a day trader, you get a choice of two proprietary interfaces:

• SaxoTraderGO: web-based interface which can be accessed through any browser with no download necessary, or via the SaxoTraderGO mobile app
• SaxoTraderPRO is available as a downloadable desktop application only

SaxoTraderGO

SaxoTraderGO is suitable for traders with an intermediate to high level of experience, and is the platform used by the majority of Saxo clients.

As its flagship platform, SaxoTraderGo provides everything that even an advanced trader is likely to need while navigating the market. There are complex order types and smart features enabling the seamless management of risk. The user interface is complex and the sheer number of available options means it takes time to fully get to grips with it, but Saxo provides plenty of guidance in the form of webinars, guides and videos.

SaxoTraderGO is free to set up with no monthly platform subscription fees and it’s free to test through a demo account. Some features, however – such as level 2 market data – require a subscription.

The mobile version of SaxoTraderGO is available through the Apple App Store and Google Play. It's intuitive, looks smart, and makes trade execution as easy and clear as is possible for such an advanced platform on a mobile device screen. But therein lies the only real problem; what works well on Saxo’s desktop and web browser isn’t easy to translate onto mobile. The scaled-down tools can feel hard to operate on a tiny level, but I'd say the same about any more complex trading platform on mobile. That said, on the Google Play Store, the app still has an excellent 4.3 star rating on 2k reviews.

SaxoTraderPRO

Advanced traders may prefer the downloadable, multi-screen trading platform, SaxoTraderPRO, designed for high-volume, active traders. It’s available for both PC and Mac.

SaxoTraderPRO is a fully customisable trading platform. It comes with additional high performance features and trading tools, including:

• Algo orders
• Depth Trader
• Time and sales data
• Advanced trading ticket with ‘Quick trade’ mode

Note: SaxoTraderPRO is only available in a downloadable format. There is no mobile app version as there is with SaxoTraderGO, and there is no web-based version either, although your SaxoTraderPRO account can be accessed through either platform so PRO traders can still use GO to manage their account on the go.

It’s free to download and there are no monthly charges for choosing the PRO platform. However, some features, such as Level 2 market data, require a subscription.

Demo account

With Saxo, you can open a demo account where you’ll be gifted £1000,000 of virtual cash although disappointingly, you can only use it for 20 days, which isn't really long enough to test out a trading strategy.

Using a demo account is a great way to familiarise yourself with the platform and available tools, and test out your trading strategies before risking real money.

Saxo also offers a preview of its SaxoTraderGO platform which you can access, without needing to create an account, from the website.

APIs and third-party platforms

Through API connectivity, users can further customise their experience with access to multi-asset liquidity, back-office functionality, and high calibre technology and platform suppliers.

Saxo has recently revamped its pricing with the tagline: “premium trading without the premium price tag”. I wouldn’t argue with that sentiment: charges for the VIP and Platinum accounts are highly competitive. Even the fees on a Classic account come in below the industry average.

So, what will you pay? At Saxo, you’ll primarily be charged:

• An annual custody fee
• Commission on trades
• Currency conversion (FX) fees when trading assets with a non-GBP denomination

The fees for these depend on the account tier you fall into.

Tiered pricing

Saxo’s tiered pricing model means that, as a client, you'll receive better rates as your trading volume increases.

There are three tiers: Classic, Platinum and VIP.

Custody charges for trading stocks/ETFs/ETCs/bonds

A custody fee of 0.12% is charged on Classic accounts and Platinum accounts. For VIP account holders, that drops to 0.08%, but you'll need to have more than £1m invested to qualify for a VIP account. You'll need at least £200k to be able to qualify for a Platinum account.

Saxo’s old monthly minimum of £7.95 has now been scrapped as part of its revamped pricing. That’s an improvement for those with smaller portfolios who may previously have been worrying about paying over the odds. If you have £40k invested now, you’ll be paying annual custody fees of £48 (- it used to be £95.40). As a comparison, with interactive investor, you’ll pay £59.88. If you place more than 3 trades per quarter, you’re exempt from custody charges at IG, otherwise it’s £96 p.a.

Saxo now has to compete with platforms offering no custody charges at all. Trading 212, for example, and eToro don’t charge custody fees and neither does IBKR, which is possibly Saxo’s biggest and closest competitor when comparing propositions.

Custody charges for trading funds

If you invest in a fund, you’ll pay custody charges of:

Classic – 0.40% p.a (calculated daily and charged monthly)
Platinum – 0.20% p.a (calculated daily and charged monthly)
VIP – 0.10% p.a (calculated daily and charged monthly)

These are comparatively high for holding funds although there are no additional trade fees to pay when buying/selling funds.

You'll also need to pay ongoing fund charges which are paid directly to the fund provider from your investment, and vary according to the fund you choose. You'll find details of these charges in the price data available with each investment. If you click ‘Buy' for an asset, Saxo does a great job of laying out every element of the costs you'll incur to own that asset before you commit to making the trade.

Using our calculator is the best way to get the most accurate results on which platform wins out on costs for your specific requirements.

Commission

Saxo also charges commission on trades of stocks, ETFs, bonds, futures and other products. It is not charged on funds.

Commission is reduced (see table above) when you move into the Platinum and VIP tiers, but it’s competitive even in the Classic tier.

Commission is determined by the instrument or asset you wish to trade, but as you can see from the small sample collected for the comparison tables below, Saxo is among the cheapest UK providers where commission is concerned.

Saxo’s new pricing

A foreign exchange (FX) fee is added to all trades involving foreign currencies. If you buy a stock that trades in US dollars, for example, and your home account is in GB pounds, you'll need to pay an FX fee.FX fees

When you trade an instrument in a currency that differs from your base denomination, you’ll need to pay a currency conversion (FX) fee. Saxo charges 0.25% for this service – that is very much at the lower end of the scale for FX fees in the UK market and again, means this provider is very competitively priced.

Note, however, that when investing through a SIPP, the currency conversion fee increases to a steep 1.00%.

Inactivity fees

Another benefit of the new pricing announcement – there are no more inactivity fees at Saxo. That’s unusual and a bonus if you want to execute a ‘buy and hold’ strategy.

Withdrawal fees

It is free to withdraw funds from your Saxo account.

Deposit fees

No charge.

Minimum deposit

£0.

Interest paid on cash

Saxo is currently paying up to 3.91% on GBP uninvested balances. That’s ok, but nowhere near the 5.2% Trading 212 is offering, or the 4.7% you can get with Interactive Brokers. What's more, only traders with very large balances will qualify for the 3.91% rate. There's no interest paid at all on balances under GBP 10,000 (or equivalent) and you have to have almost £2m in uninvested cash and be a VIP client account-holder to reach the 3.91% figure. There are better offers out there if interest paid on cash is a dealbreaker for you.

Saxo excels here. It offers research capabilities and tools to meet the needs of all types of traders. It’s a seemingly endless source of trading inspiration and insight, cleanly presented for ease of use. You’ll find:

• Company fundamentals
• Latest research articles
• Analyst sentiment
• Over 50 technical indicators to analyse price trends
• Asset specific news and analysis
• Live market analysis and actionable insights from Saxo’s in-house strategists (the ‘SaxoStrats’)
• Price data
• Live charts
• Annotation tools
• Drawing tools
• Calendar
• News flow
• The daily ‘Market Call' Podcast
• Features to check how other traders are positioned
• Data on the day’s market movers

You can also find out about upcoming events and webinars. When I looked, there were free sessions on ‘How to build a portfolio’, ‘How to use SaxoTraderGO like a PRO’, ‘How to research and analyse companies’, and ‘Using CFDs to potentially boost returns’ amongst many others.

Trade Signals

The Trade Signals tab in the research section of your trading dashboard holds data from Autochartist and provides a list of technical analysis signals which translates into possible trades on a variety of instruments. You are able to filter on specific asset classes, probabilities, chart patterns, key levels patterns, Fibonacci patterns, and intervals on the left side (here you also find small information boxes explaining the different filters). By pressing the ‘View Analysis’ button on the right side, you can see the specific trade signal for each instrument and a trade ticket.

The news flow displays a wide variety of financial news from different news providers such as Dow Jones Global News Select. It provides you with the latest articles about the financial market developments. You also have the option to filter by specific news providers.

The financial calendar displays the different types of economic data rolling in on each specific day. It also displays the previous data, the estimation of the incoming data, and then the actual data when it has rolled in – from all over the globe.

When selecting a provider for your investments, it is very important to first ensure they meet certain minimum safety standards. We judge Saxo to meet the threshold for a ‘safe’ provider because:

• Saxo Bank is a registered Trading Name of Saxo Capital Markets UK Ltd which is regulated by the top-tier UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
• It is licensed in 15 jurisdictions across the globe.
• Investors are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) which protects investments up to a value of £85,000 in the event the company liquidates.
• Saxo is a financially stable company with a robust balance sheet. They serve clients in 170 countries, hold $95+ bn in AUM and process 1m transactions daily.

Account security

Saxo uses Time-based One-Time Passwords (TOTP) solution as its 2FA authentication option, and software compatible with TOTP – such as Google and Microsoft Authenticators.

Again, Saxo does an excellent job here. Through the ‘Become a better trader’ section of its website, novice and improving traders can access a wide variety of materials and tools to allow for growth.

Educational tools include:

• Platform video games: tour the platforms and get step-by-step guidance on placing orders, managing positions and performing analysis.
• Introduction to trading course: Short, online courses covering the basics of financial instruments.
• Risk management materials
• A podcast
• Live webinars (and recordings of previous webinars): Upcoming and recent topics include ‘How to get started with investing’, ‘SaxoTraderGO platform walk through’, ‘How to research and analyse companies’, and ‘Using FX to potentially boost returns’ amongst many others.

Within SaxoTraderGO, you’ll also find educational materials contained in the ‘research’ section of the platform. It’s an impressive and comprehensive offering utlising different methods and media to help traders grow their skills.

Saxo has an “Great” 3.8 star rating on Trustpilot at the time of writing.

But it does have a worrying number of negative reviews, many of which complain about delays in account opening and getting issues resolved, that tally with some of my own experiences. That's a shame as Saxo does so much else well and when you use a premium platform, you expect premium service that understands the questions and needs of clients.

I'm told that Saxo are working on this, however, and the Saxo management do seem to want to listen to the needs of customers and move fast to make the right changes, which isn't the case everywhere else.

Help can be accessed via:

• Phoneline open during business hours: +44 (0)207 151 2100
• Email: digitalsalesuk@saxomarkets.com
• Existing customers can raise a ticket or visit the help centre

Account opening

As with other sophisticated platforms offering access to complex instruments, the form you'll have to complete to open an account for Saxo takes more time and effort than, for example, opening an investment account somewhere like AJ Bell or Moneybox. Expect to answer questions about your income, employment and existing trading knowledge so that Saxo can determine which products and services are appropriate for you. Don't be tempted to cheat and look answers for the appropriateness test – it's being done to protect you from the very real risks of trading products that you aren't suited to.

Unfortunately, it then took one full week for Saxo to confirm my account and grant me full access to the platforms, and having a read through customer reviews on sites like Trustpilot leads me to the conclusion that I'm not the only one to experience a similarly protracted account opening process. I had access to the demo account while I waited, but it's highly unusual to experience such a long delay between applying and having an account verified, and Saxo could do with speeding this up.

It is free to deposit funds into your Saxo Markets account. Initial funding can only be made by bank/wire transfer. Subsequent funding can then be made using a debit card.

There is a maximum limit of USD 100,000 per transaction and a maximum 30-day running sum limit of USD 160,000.

Account closing

If you decide to close your Saxo account, you can do so from within the platform – there's no hassle of having to contact customer services.

However, you'll first have to cancel any open order, close your trading positions and withdraw any cash. Don't forget to download any tax certificates, or account details you might later need.

You can only withdraw funds from your trading account to a bank account held under your name. Saxo Markets does not charge any fees for withdrawals submitted via the Online Cash Withdrawal Module. For a telegraphic transfer, there is a £15 charge.

Withdrawal requests will be processed the next business day if requested before 14:00 CET, and two trading days later if made after that time.

Saxo is home to a suite of powerful trading tools. That means the platform can be used by traders of all abilities, including professionals. That said, inexperienced retail investors may find the sheer number of options disconcerting.

I really like SaxoTraderGO’s trade ticket interface: it clearly displays all the relevant information within the ticket itself, and has been designed to facilitate speedy trades. If you want to execute trades quickly using only a single click, then you can activate 1-click trading.

If you use SaxoTradePRO you’ll get even more choice. High performance tools for managing and executing orders, including algorithmic orders, are integrated into the trade tickets. Once they’re active, you can modify orders without having to cancel and replace them. And ‘quick trade’ mode allows for more efficient trading.

Risk management tools

On both SaxoTraderPRO and SaxoTraderGO, you can also utilise an excellent choice of risk management tools including:

• Stop-limit orders
• Trailing stops
• Cancel all orders
• Margin breakdown
• Margin alerts

Saxo also offers its clients an innovative ‘Account shield’ tool. This tool effectively acts as a A stop-loss order is an instruction to sell an asset automatically once it reaches a certain price point. The aim of a stop-loss order is to limit losses. stop loss on your entire account value. If triggered, it liquidates all your open positions. Similarly, if you want to quickly close all your FX and CFD positions, or just those within an asset class, a quick close tool allows you to close all in just two clicks.

In addition, Saxo offers an array of educational materials within the ‘Research’ section of SaxoTraderGO centred around the theme of risk management so there is plenty of help provided to ensure your trades are strategies are built on a solid understanding of risk management philosophy.

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