Nov 26 2022

4 Things to Consider When Choosing a Broker
A comprehensive guide on how to choose the best brokers for each traders' needs according to their regulation, products offered and other features.
Compare Brokers
Vs.
By Stefano Treviso , Updated on: Dec 21 2022.
💡 Score | 3.3 out of 5. |
🏛 Regulators | FCA, CySec, FSC. |
💳 Minimum Deposit ($) | 1 |
💰 Payment Methods | Credit Card, Debit Card, Bank Transfer, Neteller, Skrill, iDeal, Apple Pay. |
💵 Base Currencies | 9 - USD, EUR, GBP, RON, PLN, CHF, SEK, NOK, CZK. |
📚 Assets Offered | 🔹 Stocks 🔹 Stock CFDs 🔹 Currency CFDs 🔹 Commodities CFDs 🔹 Indices CFDs 🔹 ETFs 🔹 ETF CFDs |
💪 Retail Leverage | 1:30 |
💪 Pro Leverage | 1:500 |
✍ Custom Leverage | No |
🎲 Deleveraged Trading | Yes |
🎓 Demo Account | Yes |
💰 Commissions | None |
Vs.
Trading 212 is a global broker headquartered in the U.K specialising in real stocks and ETFs investing along with CFD trading.
Here’s what we’ll talk about during our review:
Trading 212 is a reliable and safe broker that holds the following financial licenses:
From the above list we can see that their total financial licenses amount to 3 being one of them from a high tier financial institution (FCA).
Financial
Licenses
Regulation
Regulated
Top-tier Licenses
1
Other Licenses
2
Provided by
TheTradingBible.com
Another positive point is that Trading 212 was founded in 2004 and also offers traditional investing in equities to its customers.
Trading 212’s minimum deposit varies as follow:
Being honest, there is not much difference between both deposit options as both of them are extremely low.
Below you’ll find a list of Trading 212’s deposit and withdrawal methods:
Always remember to double check as payment methods can vary based on your physical location.
Trading 212 supports the following base currencies:
When it comes to depositing or withdrawing funds from Trading 212, it’s a very straightforward process that barely requires a few clicks once a user’s identity has been verified.
Trading 212 offers two different account types, yet both can be accessed seamlessly from both their web and mobile platforms:
Trading 212 (INVEST) | Trading 212 (CFD) |
---|---|
Ability to buy real stocks or ETFs with zero commissions through their proprietary web and mobile platform |
Trading of thousands of instruments across different asset classes in the form of CFDs (Contracts for difference) where users can go long or short. |
In the below image, you’re able to see the great design they did for allowing customers to quickly switch between the two different account types.
Definitely one of Trading 212’s greatest selling points is providing real equity along with CFDs.
Trading 212 charges spread, overnight fees and a currency conversion fee. Here’s how the fees are usually charged:
Measuring spreads on all assets can be difficult if not impossible as most of the brokers nowadays have variable (dynamic) spreads that either are marked up from their side or just regular market spreads determined by price action and market makers, especially in equities.
Here are Trading 212's spreads compared to similar competitors:
Asset | Trading 212 | Capital.com | eToro |
---|---|---|---|
EUR/USD Spread | Dynamic - From 1.4 Pips | Dynamic - From 0.8 Pips | Dynamic - From 1 Pip |
SP500 Spread | Dynamic - From 166 Pips | Dynamic - From 70 Pips | Dynamic - From 75 Pips |
Gold Spread | Dynamic - From 30 Pips | Dynamic - From 55 Pips | Dynamic - From 45 Pips |
TSLA Spread | Dynamic - From $0.6 | Dynamic - From $3.30 | Dynamic - From 0.09% |
XLK Spread | Unavailable | Dynamic - From $0.97 | Dynamic - From 0.09% |
BTC Spread | Unavailable | Dynamic - From $130 | Dynamic - From 0.75% |
When it comes to currency spreads, Trading 212 is definitely one of the most expensive choices out there as they don’t provide any type of account with Raw spreads or ECN liquidity and their average spreads are extremely marked up when compared to other competitors.
When it comes to stocks, Trading 212 is definitely a winner in their spread as their markup levels are very low when compared to the majority of brokers. Clearly, they honor their unique selling proposition of being a shares and ETF broker.
Trading 212 does not charge commissions (such as in-and-out or per share basis) on any of their account types.
Trading 212 | Capital.com | eToro | |
---|---|---|---|
Commissions | None | None | No commissions on real stocks and ETFs |
When compared to similar competitors, the no-commissions standard offer is quite similar.
Trading 212 is definitely a shares and ETFs broker, here are their available assets compared to similar competitors:
Asset | Trading 212 | Capital.com | eToro |
---|---|---|---|
Stocks | 10000 | 1000 | 2000 |
Stock CFDs | 1526 | 3800 | 2000 |
Currency Pairs | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Currency Pair CFDs | 179 | 140 | 47 |
Commodities | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Commodities CFDs | 25 | 33 | 14 |
Indices | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Indices CFDs | 35 | 37 | 13 |
ETFs | 1800 | 0 | 0 |
ETF CFDs | 50 | 115 | 145 |
Cryptocurrencies | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Cryptocurrency CFDs | 0 | 27 | 26 |
Bonds | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Bond CFDs | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Options | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Option CFDs | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Futures | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Future CFDs | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Trading 212 definitely boasts a wide asset offering, especially in stocks and ETFs. Their main weakness is lacking cryptocurrencies and the fact that despite offering 179 currency pairs, their spreads make them too expensive to trade when compared to other choices.
If you’re looking exclusively for stocks and ETFs, then Trading 212 is a great choice.
Trading 212 did an excellent job when crafting their own proprietary trading platforms. You can definitely feel that their development team was synchronized with someone that has trading experience and this can be felt very quickly. Let’s go over each of the mobile platform’s areas:
Trading 212’s mobile platform home serves as a landing place for users to scroll through a couple of popular asset categories while viewing the different prices of several assets and creating watchlists.
From here, users are able to monitor their account type / balances and also access the different areas of the platform through the bottom menu.
If you click on the magnifying glass, you’ll be able to search the whole assets database of Trading 212. If there is something we can say is that definitely it’s one of the best and most intuitive filtering and searching options available out there. Most of the assets are precisely categorised, for example: Canadian stocks relating only to energy.
Clicking on the plus symbol on the right side of an asset on this search option will add it to your watchlists. Otherwise, clicking on the symbol itself (regardless if you do it here or from the home area) will land you in the asset view.
Everything about Trading 212’s platform is definitely well built, responsive and smooth. The asset view area is no exception to this. Scrolling down will allow you to view all sorts of relevant information to a stock, for example:
And the most beautiful part is that as you scroll down, the order placement panel remains attached to the top of your screen in case you want to create an order.
The order placement panel also works very smoothly by allowing you drag and drop a slider to define the quantity of the asset you want to trade.
To turn on either a take-profit or a stop-loss order, all you need to do is simply flip a switch and input the value of your desired order. The system will automatically display your order's value in price, distance and a potential expected result if your order is hit.
The mobile portfolio option also presents a very complete set of choices to manage a position in the form of tabs. To access the view, click on the particular position that you need to manage and you’ll enter the individual portfolio section.
From here it’s possible to:
Again, we can definitely say that Trading 212’s platform is a work of art, very intuitive and friendly regardless of a trader’s experience level.
One of the most interesting features of Trading 212 is their Social and copy trading capabilities. One very important point to note is that they’re only available from within their INVEST account, when using the CFD account, the option will not show on the lower menu of the app.
There are 3 main areas inside their Social section, the first one is designed to provide the user a customisable feed with comments of users made from within the community on any particular thread or category.
The second area serves to navigate the full community area and view new auditions, hot topics or top rated ones.
The third area is where things get really interesting, they offer a copy trading service called pies. Users can create portfolios with several assets and organise them by several categories such as top rated, dividends, growth,etc.
When a user wants to explore one pie, simply by clicking on it can see the percentage composition of that pie and choose whether to copy the same investment strategy on their account.
Another interesting thing about this pies is that anyone can create them and program automatic functionality so that Trading 212 invests a particular amount from your account on your pie on a certain frequency and distributes it accordingly to the percentage you set for each equity inside the pie.
It still lacks many interesting capabilities like other competitors’ copy trading platforms provide, yet it’s a very efficient and clean way to let users engage in mirroring strategies of other users without much hassle.
The economic calendar is a standalone area of the platform where users can explore the different upcoming events with economical significance and access detailed information about each of them with historical charts.
When a user accesses the asset view for any particular instrument, all they need to do is rotate their mobile device horizontally and they will immediately gain access to full-screen charting capabilities.
Trading 212’s mobile charts are responsive, clean and they allow for different indicators and studies to be applied efficiently.
Last but not least, there is a section inside the apps settings that contains several video tutorials for beginners to understand the basics of trading.
By general law, most of the tutorials in every broker are the same and we don’t find them that useful. Nothing better than actually investing in proper education before trying to enter the financial markets.
Despite having a very innocent and gamified appearance, Trading 212’s platform is a great choice for both beginners and experienced traders or investors. Let’s go over each of their main areas:
At the platforms’ home you’ve got everything you need at first hand. To the right side of the screen, a menu that allows you to access the search engine for assets, economic calendars, video tutorials and notification center.
At the bottom right corner you’ll be able to find the portfolio view, on the center you’ll have your trading charts available. A great positive point is how responsive the charts are regardless of being used in a multi-chart capability.
To the right side, you’ll find details on any asset that you have currently selected, the above image is a sample of the great job that Trading 212 did on visually showcasing important data of each stock.
The notification centre is a standard feature of the platform which informs you of anything important happening.
We would definitely appreciate a customisable notifications centre with the ability to filter or select more important notifications.
The asset view is the same as the one found in the home of the platform, where information is displayed on the right side about each asset. The most relevant part about this section is how to get to any particular asset and that is by using the search function on the left of the platform (the magnifying glass).
We can’t mention this enough, they did an outstanding job in having their assets categorised properly for users to be able to find them quickly.
The order placement window is an exact replica of the mobile app as well.
Users can select the quantity of an asset that they desire to trade using a drag and drop slider and additionally set their stop-loss or take-profit orders.
When it comes to the social capabilities, the web platform provides access to a separate subdomain of Trading 212 where users can find the community forum.
Compared to the mobile app, the lack of integration is quite noticeable. The community system is not part from the platform itself but rather an external element.
Trading 212’s economic calendar is definitely a great tool. The web version provides an amazing overall view on what’s happening and key data on a particular event along with historical data from it.
Trading 212’s charts are completely customisable and have a layered approach to handle all the different studies or indicators that any user applies.
The most important advantage to point out is that the charts allow having different bigger sized tabs for each chart or to automatically activate the multi-chart capabilities.
Trading 212 does not provide any research and analysis tools with the exception of some tools mentioned before such as:
When it comes to stronger capabilities such as having a stock screener or a strategy builder, Trading 212 falls short to some of their most well-known competitors.
In the realm of educational tools, Trading 212 had one edge over their competitors: A unique youtube channel packed with amazing insights and tutorials. For some strange reason they stopped investing in their own youtube channel and it hasn’t received any new uploads over the last 2 years.
Our best assumption is that after they positioned themselves as one of the strongest brands in the U.K for investing, they simply saw no need for extra marketing.
Trading 212 is an amazing broker for users looking to trade or invest in both stocks or ETFs with no commissions while using one of the most intuitive and user friendly platforms out there.
Our favourite points after reviewing them are:
We consider them an ideal choice for:
When it comes to other asset classes, despite providing them, Trading 212 falls short when compared to their competitors as their spreads are very high and they lack assets such as cryptocurrencies.
Another point where they should definitely strengthen their position is in their regulatory framework, to compete against major brands which hold more than 5+ high reputation licenses.
The best way to use Trading 212 is to take advantage of their stocks and ETFs offering, their smooth mobile app and their investing pies set up.
Nov 26 2022
A comprehensive guide on how to choose the best brokers for each traders' needs according to their regulation, products offered and other features.
Nov 22 2022
IG review covering their licenses, minimum deposit and withdrawal, fees, account types, platforms and more.
Nov 21 2022
ForexVox review covering their licenses, minimum deposit and withdrawal, fees, account types, platforms and more.
Nov 09 2022
Alvexo review covering their licenses, minimum deposit and withdrawal, fees, account types, platforms and more.
Nov 03 2022
NAGA review covering their licenses, minimum deposit and withdrawal, fees, account types, platforms and more.
Sep 23 2022
Eightcap review covering their licences, minimum deposit and withdrawal, fees, account types, platforms and more.
Sep 05 2022
FXCM review covering their licences, minimum deposit and withdrawal, fees, account types, platforms and more.
Jun 29 2022
BlackBull Markets review covering their licenses, minimum deposit and withdrawal, fees, account types, platforms and more.
Jun 08 2022
Freedom Finance review covering their licenses, minimum deposit and withdrawal, fees, account types, platforms and more.
May 26 2022
HF Markets (HFM) review covering their licenses, minimum deposit and withdrawal, fees, account types, platforms and more.