Broker | Features |
---|---|
Go to XTB | Excellent 24-hour customer service. More than 3000 instruments to trade. Free webinars.(*) Warning: Your capital is at risk. 77% of retail CFD accounts lose money. With XTB you can invest with low commissions in more than 1,500 shares of companies in Europe and the United States.Demo Account: Yes Minimum Deposit: 0 €/$ Trading Platforms: xStation5, iOS App, Android App. Execution: Market Maker / STP Regulation: Web Page: https:/www.xtb.com |
Go to Pepperstone | Spreads from 0 pips. Ultra fast execution (less than 30 milliseconds). Perfect for scalping and automatic trading. Pepperstone allows you to trade over 250 major US, UK, German and Australian stocks.Demo Account: Yes Minimum Deposit: 200 €/$ Trading Platforms: MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, cTrader, Trading View. Execution: STP / NDD Regulation: Web Page: https://www.pepperstone.com |
Go to eToro | World leader in social trading. You can copy the best investors automatically.(*) Warning: 68% of retail CFD accounts lose money.
With eToro you can trade over 2,600 spot stocks with zero commissions. Trade whole stocks or fractions either manually or by automatically copying the best strategies of other investors.Demo Account: Yes, unlimited Minimum Deposit: 200 $ Trading Platforms: WebTrader, iOS App, Android App. Execution: Market Maker Regulation: Web Page: https://www.etoro.com |
Go to Exness | Trade stocks, Forex and more with competitive spreads. Instant withdrawals. Exness allows you to trade over 80 stocks, mainly from the US stock market.Demo Account: Yes Minimum Deposit: 10 $ Trading Platforms: MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5. Execution: Market Maker / ECN Regulation: Web Page: https://www.exness.com |
Go to AvaTrade | 5 international regulations. 4 trading platforms to choose. With AvaTrade you can buy or sell over 620 stocks of popular companies such as Tesla, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Alphabet, Microsoft, Pfizer,...Demo Account: Yes Minimum Deposit: 100 €/$ Trading Platforms: WebTrader, MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, iOS App, Android App. Execution: Market Maker Regulation: Web Page: www.avatrade.com |
Go to Plus500 | More than 2,000 CFD instruments to trade.(*) Warning: 77% of retail CFD accounts lose money. Plus500 allows you to trade over 1,000 different stocks (from markets such as the US, Germany, Spain, UK, France, Italy,...) through its CFD platform.Demo Account: Yes, unlimited Minimum Deposit: 100 €/$ Trading Platforms: WebTrader, iOS App, Android App. Execution: Market Maker Regulation: Web Page: https://www.plus500.com |
Go to IQ Option | Very intuitive app with more than 10 million downloads. 7 free deposit methods with no fees.(*) Warning: Your capital might be at risk. With IQ Option you can trade around 175 CFDs on stocks from all over the world.Demo Account: Yes, unlimited Minimum Deposit: 50 €/$ Trading Platforms: Proprietary Platform, iOS App, Android App. Execution: Market Maker Regulation: Web Page: https://www.iqoption.com |
Go to IC Markets | Spreads from 0 pips. Real interbank liquidity (up to 50 sources). Perfect for high volumes, scalping and robots. With IC Markets you can invest in more than 1,600 shares of stock market indices such as the ASX in Australia or the NASDAQ and NYSE in the USA.Demo Account: Yes Minimum Deposit: 200 $ Trading Platforms: MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, cTrader. Execution: ECN Regulation: Web Page: https://www.icmarkets.com |
Go to RoboForex | RoboForex allows its clients to trade more than 3,000 spot stocks and more than 8,400 CFDs on US stocks.Demo Account: Yes, unlimited Minimum Deposit: 0 €/$ Trading Platforms: WebTrader, MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, cTrader, iOS App, Android App. Execution: STP / ECN Regulation: Web Page: https://www.roboforex.com |
Go to FP Markets | With FP Markets you can trade over 10,000 stocks from global financial markets and covering a wide range of sectors (pharmaceuticals, aviation, tourism, technology,...).Demo Account: Yes Minimum Deposit: 100 €/$ Trading Platforms: MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, IRESS. Execution: ECN Regulation: Web Page: https://www.fpmarkets.com |
Go to OANDA | Oanda allows online trading of popular European stocks such as Deutsche Bank, Adidas, Santander, Porsche, Lufthansa,... Demo Account: Yes, unlimited Minimum Deposit: 0 $ Trading Platforms: MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5. Execution: Market Maker Regulation: Web Page: https://www.oanda.com |
Go to Capital.com | (*) Warning: 79.17% of retail CFD accounts lose money. On Capital.com's platform you can trade a wide range of more than 3,600 shares of companies in sectors such as energy, telecommunications, finance, industrial companies,...Demo Account: Yes, unlimited Minimum Deposit: 20 €/$ Trading Platforms: WebTrader, iOS App, Android App. Execution: Market Maker Regulation: Web Page: https://www.capital.com |
What are the best stock brokers?
Stocks are one of the many financial instruments in which anyone can invest their money, in fact, it is one of the most popular assets to buy or sell. One of the main reasons why many investors choose to invest in stocks is because they allow the possibility of higher returns than other instruments such as currencies, indices or commodities. Equities generally behave more volatile than other financial instruments that may be more stable and suffer less from price fluctuations. Many traders also choose to buy shares of companies that they know or can follow through economic news, sector performance, business knowledge, etc.
The main characteristic of shares is that they represent a part of the company’s capital, with the pros and cons that this entails (in contrast, fixed income assets represent a debt, which has a maturity). Nowadays, the simplest and easiest way to invest in stock market is not to buy the shares physically and own them, but to invest in shares through CFDs (contracts for difference) offered by most online brokers.
By investing in CFD’s on shares you can profit from the movement of the share value and you can buy and sell shares immediately with a single click through your broker’s trading platform. You can also profit whether the shares of the company you choose go up or down in value . CFDs allow you to take advantage of the slightest movement in such a volatile market as equities (i.e. company shares). More info: List of the best online CFD brokers.
In addition to all this, when investing through derivatives (such as CFDs), you have the possibility of leverage which allows you to provide only a small amount of capital as collateral and actually trade with a much larger amount, thus having the possibility of maximising your profits. In addition, with CFDs there are no custody fees or other management fees. They are more agile instruments for short-term trading.
There are many brokers that allow you to buy or invest in stocks through CFDs. Most of them offer the most popular shares of European and American companies (for example, we can trade shares of Apple, eBay, Twitter, Facebook, Google, Intel, IBM, Microsoft, Yahoo, Visa, Coca Cola, Nike, etc.). There are also online brokers where you can invest in shares of your country. Stock trading is very popular in countries such as South Africa, Australia, Philippines, Malaysia, India, Kenya, United Kingdom, Nigeria, Singapore, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates (Dubai, Abu Dhabi,…), China, Indonesia, Kuwait, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan Qatar, Vietnam among others.
The main advantage of the stock market is that there is a large number of companies, each one different from the other, with different behaviour depending on the time and economic and market situation. Stocks offer the trader the possibility of designing a huge diversity of trading strategies. If we add to this the agility of CFD trading, the available strategies multiply. In the equity market it is possible to find stocks that are beneficial for both novice and experienced traders.
Having tested and analysed numerous online brokers, the ones you can see in the table at the top of this page are what we consider to be the best brokers for stocks.
References and sources:
- How to Start Trading Stocks
- Stock trader (Wikipedia)
- How Does the Stock Market Work?
- The Relationship Between Stocks and Forex