Emerging as a user-friendly platform above a morass of complex offerings, Plus500 has carved out a reputation for elegance and simplicity in its forex trading solutions. As an exclusive provider of Contracts for Difference (CFDs), the London-listed company’s WebTrader platform is enabling retail investors to penetrate opaque currency markets that have historically been the preserve of major financial institutions. bestforexbroker.info takes an in-depth look at the Plus500 service.
Claim Your Bonus Code
Because of regulation changes the bonus was removed in 2017. This was required due the CySec regulation which forbids all bonuses for new customers on cfd brokers.
Play with £20,000 in Demo Account Mode
If you want to test out trading ideas and strategies without putting any of your money at risk you can practice first with a demo account. The CFD provider’s demo account can be set up instantly by providing an e-mail address and password. A new user is then automatically directed to the demo account trading screen. Forex markets are displayed on a tab on the left side of the screen. Traders can choose between ‘Majors’, ‘Majors II’, ‘Virtual’ (Bitcoin) and ‘Minors’. You will automatically receive £20,000 into the demo account to give you some money to play with as you practice making live trades on the platform. Once you’ve familiarised yourself with the demo account you can click on the ‘switch to real money’ button at the bottom of the screen. But don’t be disappointed when the £20,000 of capital disappears. If you want to trade with £20,000 in real money mode you’ll have to put the cash into your account yourself. The functionality of the real account is exactly the same as the demo account: users obtain live market feeds seeing prices move in front of them in real time. All you need is a minimum deposit of £100 to open a live account.
Innovation in CFD Trading
Plus500 has continually demonstrated technological innovation since its formation in 2008 as a PC-based online trading platform. The company introduced the first Bitcoin CFD in 2013 and supports trading apps on iOS, Android and Windows. This year has seen the broker launch Web Trader, a platform compatible with both desktop and mobile devices. Bestforexbroker.info looks at the key essentials of the Plus500 offering.
Global Markets at Your Finger Tips
Once an account has been opened you’ll be spoiled for choice with the breadth of different markets to trade. The platform offers CFDs in more than 2,200 different financial instruments. You’ll be able to trade a host of popular currency plays from euro/dollar to pound/euro and dollar/yen. You can also trade CFDs on Facebook along with a host of the world’s most actively traded shares and stock market indexes. CFD trading is also available on crude oil, gold and silver along with Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), which replicate the direction of indexes such as the Nasdaq-100 Index. If you would like to place a bet on the future direction of an index you can use the CFD platform to purchase a variety of options contracts that give you the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an asset at an agreed price within a set time period.
Tight Spreads in Forex Trading
Plus500 doesn’t charge a commission or fees on trades. You can see the spread that you are likely to pay when making a trade by practicing trades on the demo account. A bestforexbroker.info survey found the spread on the EUR/USD was just 2 pips – 1.1413 to 1.1415. But be mindful that spreads can vary in response to market conditions. The CFD provider also extracts a ‘night premium’. The funding premium is either added or subtracted to an account to cover the costs of funding a position. If a position is opened on a Friday and held over until the Monday, the next trading day, the amount added or subtracted for the funding premium to an account is usually three times the daily amount to cover the entire weekend period. A fee of up to £10 will be levied if your trading account is inactive. Users should read the small print of their user agreement to find out how long an account can be left inactive before such charges apply.
Leveraged Trading for the Informed Investor
CFDs are leveraged financial products that can open investors up to huge profits – and losses – making the instruments suitable only for informed traders. The leverage on most popular currency plays such as EUR/USD and GBP/JPY is 1:200 while leverage on the more lightly traded products such as USD/CZK is 1:100. Forex markets move fast. Having an early warning of any unanticipated developments can be valuable. A service is available where you can request e-mail or SMS alerts on market moves that result in the costs of maintaining a position increasing to more than 40 percent of your equity. The maintenance margin level is the minimum amount of equity needed to maintain an open position. If your equity falls below the required minimum amount, Plus500 will usually execute an automatic margin call trade and close any open positions until equity in the account exceeds the maintenance margin level requirement. Occasionally, traders are given more time to allow additional funds to be deposited into an account or for the position to be closed by the account holder himself. If the position is still open at the end of this grace period and funds have not been added to the account, then the position will be closed.
WebTrader: A Portal to Trade Anywhere, Anytime
When you open WebTrader you’ll find a platform with a clear design, devoid of clutter. You won’t suffer from information overload. The WebTrader platform, designed in-house, is available in both ‘demo mode’ and ‘real account mode’. The clean white background and elegant design makes the portal perfect for the novice trader that just wants to dip his toe into forex markets and risk a modest amount on his first forex trade. Still, more experienced forex investors will appreciate the immediacy and clarity of a platform on which a variety of more complex trading strategies can be pursued. The trading platform is available in 31 languages.
Taking an Educated View on Forex
The WebTrader portal includes charting software for investors deploying more sophisticated strategies. When you click on the instrument that you wish to trade a chart automatically pops up at the bottom of the screen, displaying its historical performance. The time period can be adjusted to as little as one or five minutes to an hour, day or week. A user can then click on a charting function in the right-hand corner of the screen and choose from an array of charting tools to help inform their investment decisions. These include bollinger bands, moving average, stochastic and standard deviation. When you click on the charting tool that you would like to use it is displayed automatically.
Trading on Your Handheld Device
A video on the website’s homepage shows a businesswoman giving a quick demonstration of how to use the app while making her way through the square mile of the City of London. Here you’ll see some of the apps key functions in action. The app enables you to open and close positions, set trading limits and view your balance, equity and margin limits. The platform’s charting tools are also accessible on the app with streaming quotes delivered in real time. If you have an iPhone, the app requires iOS 7.0 operating system or above while Android users require an operating system of 3.0 or above. The broker last year launched a Windows app supporting the Windows 10 and 8.1 operating systems.
Making a Deposit into your Account
The quickest way to put cash into your account is via a MasterCard or Visa credit or debit card payment via the funds management section of the website. You should check with your credit card company on whether you’ll be charged a card transaction fee for making a deposit. Alternatively, a bank money transfer can be made with funds usually making their way into your account within three working days. Plus500 also accepts PayPal and Skrill payments. When withdrawing funds from your account you need to provide an official photo ID, such as a current passport or driver’s licence, which can be sent via e-mail or uploaded on to the website. This requirement is put in place to prevent money laundering and provide an additional layer of security against identity theft. The CFD provider doesn’t charge customers a fee for withdrawing funds from their account. The broker in the first instance will usually make a withdrawal back to the same payment method with which funds were initially deposited into an account.
Customer Service Support
If you have a query, the CFD provider offers live customer support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The website is available in 32 different languages. Visitors simply click on the ‘Start Online Chat’ button. Here you’ll find a customer service agent to help answer any query that you might have. Alternatively, you can send your query via e-mail. Plus500 doesn’t provide a telephone customer support number or postal address to which you can send an inquiry about your account.
Regulation and Supervision
Plus500 Ltd is a London-listed company that is regulated and authorized by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), providing clients with a comprehensive framework to protect their capital. In accordance with the FCA’s client money regulations, Plus500 customers have their funds held on a segregated basis. The CFD provider is also authorised and regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
Making a Play in Forex with CFDs
Plus500 is opening up the world of forex trading far beyond the secretive glass towers of the world’s global financial centres. But remember, CFDs are complex financial products that should only be traded by people with previous experience of financial markets. As an established and regulated CFD provider, Plus500 has developed a reliable and intuitive trading platform and an app available on a variety of mobile devices. The sheer scope of financial instruments available is impressive and the demo account feature enables traders to get to know the service before making their first trade. While Plus500 does not offer an abundance of educational support, the very nature of trading complex products such as CFDs makes it essential for you to ensure that you are informed before you put capital at risk. Once you have the required knowledge set you’ll find that WebTrader is a great tool for playing forex markets.