ActivTrades Review 2023

András I.
January 6, 2023

CMC Markets review summary

CMC Markets is a UK-based global CFD and forex broker, regulated by multiple top-tier authorities including the UK FCA. CMC Markets has low forex fees, and there is no charge for most deposit and withdrawals options. The web and mobile trading platforms are well-designed, highly customizable and rich with features such as an advanced order panel. Research and educational tools are also wide-ranging and sophisticated. On the downside, stock CFD fees are high. The product portfolio covers only CFDs (forex, indices, commodities, shares, ETFs, bonds, crypto – except for UK clients). Customer service, while helpful, is available only 24/5 (from Sunday nights through to Friday night). TradingBrokersView gave CMC Markets a 4.4/5 rating based on analyzing 500+ criteria and testing via opening a live account.

CMC Markets is a regulated broker, it is overseen by top-tier financial regulators in multiple countries . CMC Markets is also covered by investor protection in selected jurisdictions. We at TradingBrokersView always test brokers with real money, including the withdrawal process.

You can’t open an account at CMC Markets if you live in Pakistan. See the best alternative available in your country.

CMC Markets pros and cons

Pros	Cons
• Low forex fees	• High stock CFD fees
• Great web and mobile platforms	• Only CFDs are available
• Advanced research and educational tools	• Customer support only 24/5

CMC Markets main highlights

🗺️ Country of regulation	UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, Germany
💰 Trading fees class	Average
💰 Inactivity fee charged	Yes
💰 Withdrawal fee amount	$0
💰 Minimum deposit	$0
🕖 Time to open an account	1-3 days
💳 Deposit with bank card	Available
👛 Depositing with electronic wallet	Available
💱 Number of base currencies supported	10
🎮 Demo account provided	Yes
🛍️ Products offered	CFDs (forex, indices, commodities, shares, ETFs, bonds, crypto – except for UK clients)

To read much more details about the broker’s services and features, expand on the sections below.

Our overall TD Ameritrade Review rating

Fees

7
Account opening

8.4
Deposit and withdrawal

9.8
WebTrading platform

10
Mobile trading platform

10
Desktop trading platform

6.8
Markets and products

5
Research

10
Customer service

10
Education

10

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CMC Markets review

Fees

CMC Markets has competitive forex and stock index CFD fees, and no fee is charged for deposits and most withdrawals. However, stock CFD fees are high.

Pros	Cons
• Low forex fees	• High stock CFD fees
• No withdrawal fee

**CMC Markets fees snapshot**
Assets	Fee level	Fee terms
S&P 500 CFD	Low	The fees are built into the spread, 0.6 points is the average spread cost during peak trading hours.
Europe 50 CFD	Low	The fees are built into the spread, 1.6 points is the average spread cost during peak trading hours.
EURUSD	Low	The fees are built into the spread, 0.7 pips is the average spread cost during peak trading hours.
Inactivity fee	Low	£10 monthly fee after 12 months of inactivity

How we ranked fees

We ranked CMC Markets’s fee levels as low, average or high based on how they compare to those of all reviewed brokers.

To get things rolling, let’s go over some lingo related to broker fees. What you need to keep an eye on are trading fees, and non-trading fees.

Trading fees occur when you trade. These can be commissions, spreads, financing rates and conversion fees.
Non-trading fees include charges not directly related to trading, like withdrawal fees or inactivity fees.

In the sections below, you will find the most relevant fees of CMC Markets for each asset class. For example, in the case of forex and stock index trading the most important fees are spreads, commissions and financing rates.

We also compared CMC Markets’s fees with those of two similar brokers we selected, IG and XTB. This selection is based on objective factors such as products offered, client profile, fee structure, etc. See a more detailed rundown of CMC Markets alternatives.

To have a clear overview of CMC Markets, let’s start with the trading fees.

CMC Markets trading fees

CMC Markets has low forex and stock index CFD fees, but high stock CFD fees. CMC Markets is one of the most transparent brokers in the market, which helps to easily calculate your trading costs. For example, we really liked that you can check historical financing costs.

We know it’s hard to compare trading fees for CFD brokers. So how did we approach the problem of making their fees clear and comparable? We compare brokers by calculating all the fees of a typical trade for selected products.

We have chosen popular instruments within each asset class:

Stock index CFDs: SPX and EUSTX50
Stock CFDs: Apple and Vodafone
Forex: EURUSD, GBPUSD, AUDUSD, EURCHF and EURGBP

A typical trade means buying a leveraged position, holding it for one week and then selling. For the volume, we chose a $2,000 position for the stock index and stock CFDs and $20,000 for the forex transactions. The leverage we used was:

20:1 for stock index CFDs
5:1 for stock CFDs
30:1 for forex

These catch-all benchmark fees include spreads, commissions and financing costs for all brokers. Let’s see the verdict for CMC Markets fees.

CFD fees

CMC Markets has mixed CFD trading fees. Stock index CFD fees are low, while stock CFD fees are high.

**CMC Markets CFD fees for a $2,000 long position held for one week**
	CMC Markets	IG	XTB
S&P 500 index CFD fee	$2.9	$2.6	$4.0
Europe 50 index CFD fee	$2.6	$2.3	$3.3
Apple CFD fee	$22.9	$32.7	$10.1
Vodafone CFD fee	$23.4	$25.2	$10.6

Stock CFD commissions are volume-tiered with a minimum.

**CMC Markets stock CFD commission**
Market	Commission	Minimum fee
North America
US	$0.02 per share	$10
Canada	CAD 0.02 per share	CAD 10
Europe
UK
Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain	0.10%	€9
Denmark	0.10%	DKK 90
Norway	0.10%	NOK 79
Poland	0.18%	PLN 50
Sweden	0.10%	SEK 89
Switzerland	0.10%	CHF 9
Asia and Pacific
Australia	0.10%	AUD 7
Hong Kong	0.18%	HKD 50
Japan	0.10%	JPY 1,000
New Zealand	0.10%	NZD 7
Singapore	0.10%	SGD 10

Forex fees

CMC Markets forex fees are low.

**CMC Markets forex benchmark fees of a $20,000 30:1 long position held for one week**
	CMC Markets	IG	XTB
EURUSD benchmark fee	$15.4	$17.4	$17.7
GBPUSD benchmark fee	$10.3	$12.4	$12.2
AUDUSD benchmark fee	$14.2	$13.7	$12.1
EURCHF benchmark fee	$5.2	$1.3	$6.1
EURGBP benchmark fee	$14.1	$16.5	$12.6

Non-trading fees

CMC Markets charges no account, deposit, or withdrawal fee (with a few exceptions). However, there is a £10 monthly fee after 12 months of inactivity, unless you hold no funds in your account.

**CMC Markets non-trading fees**
	CMC Markets	IG	XTB
Account fee	No	No	No
Inactivity fee	Yes	Yes	Yes
Deposit fee	$0	$0	$0
Withdrawal fee	$0	$0	$0

CMC Markets review

Account opening

The account opening process is fully digital and there’s no minimum deposit.

Pros	Cons
• Fully digital	None
• No minimum deposit

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76% of retail CFD accounts lose money

CMC Markets is available all over Europe and in most of the rest of the world.

What is the minimum deposit at CMC Markets?

The required CMC Markets minimum deposit is $0. This is great if you want to start trading with lower amounts only.

Account types

CMC Markets offers two account types, which differ based on the countries they’re available in, the range of accepted account base currencies, pricing and taxes.

**CMC Markets account types**
	CFD account	Spread betting account
Available in	All countries where CMC Markets operates	UK, Ireland
Account base currencies	GBP, EUR, USD, AUS, CAD, NOK, NZD, PLN, SEK, SGD	GBP, EUR
Pricing	Spread plus commission for stock CFDs	Spreads only
Capital gain taxable	Yes	No
Joint account available	Yes	Yes
Corporate account available	Yes	No

In addition, you can open a Pro account that allows you higher leverage.CMC Markets offers Pro accounts for professional clients. As a professional client, you lose the higher degree of protection available to retail clients, including negative balance protection.

To open a Pro account, you have to satisfy the following criteria:

Placed 10 trades in the previous quarter and these trades were relevant with significant size.
Your portfolio exceeds €500,000.
You worked in the financial sector for at least one year.

In this review, we tested the individual CFD account.

How to open your account

The account opening process at CMC is fully digital, and account verification normally takes no more than 1-2 business days.

The steps of opening an account at CMC Markets are the following:

Select your country of residence, account type and account base currency
Fill in your name, date of birth, phone, email and address
Answer a few questions about your employment status and trading experience, then click ‘Submit’
You’ll receive an email link to a third-party video identification service, where you’ll be asked to show yourself and your ID documents (such as a driver’s license, national ID card or passport) via webcam to an operator
Send a bank statement, utility bill or credit card statement for residency verification
Once CMC Markets verified your application and you agreed to terms and conditions, you can start trading

CMC Markets review – Account opening

Our best alternatives to CMC Markets are:

The highest ranking competitors are:

IG full review
XTB full review
Plus500 full review
Capital.com full review

CMC Markets review

Deposit and withdrawal

You can use multiple deposit/withdrawal options and CFD account base currencies. Withdrawals are mostly free, except for same-day or international bank withdrawals.

Pros	Cons
• Credit/Debit card available	• £15 fee for international bank transfers
• No deposit fee
• Several account base currencies

Account base currencies

At CMC Markets, you can choose from 10 base currencies if you open a CFD account. However, not all 10 may be available to you; clients from most countries can typically only choose from among two or three major currencies (such as EUR and USD) and their home currency (if it is among the 10 currencies).

For spread betting accounts, only British pounds and euros are accepted.

Available base currencies at CMC Markets
Australian dollar	British pound	Canadian dollar	Euro	New Zealand dollar
Norwegian krone	Polish zloty	Singapore dollar	Swedish krona	US dollar

This selection of account base currencies is better than that of similar brokers.

**Base currencies at CMC Markets vs similar brokers**
	CMC Markets	IG	XTB
Number of base currencies	10	6	5

Why does this matter? For two reasons. If you fund your trading account in the same currency as your bank account or you trade assets in the same currency as your trading account base currency, you don’t have to pay a conversion fee.

A convenient way to save on currency conversion fees is by opening a multi-currency bank account at a digital bank. They offer bank accounts in several currencies with great currency exchange rates as well as free or cheap international bank transfers. Opening an account only takes a few minutes on your phone.

Deposit fees and options

CMC Markets charges no deposit fees. Besides bank transfer, you can use credit/debit cards and PayPal, the same options as offered by the company’s closest competitors.

**CMC Markets deposit options**
	CMC Markets	IG	XTB
Bank transfer	Yes	Yes	Yes
Credit/debit card	Yes	Yes	Yes
Electronic wallets	Yes	Yes	Yes

A bank transfer can take several business days, while payment with a credit/debit card or PayPal is instant.

You can only deposit money from accounts that are in your name.

CMC Markets review – Deposit and withdrawal – Deposit

CMC Markets withdrawal fees and options

CMC Markets charges no withdrawal fee for domestic bank, credit/debit card, or electronic wallet withdrawals.

However, if you’d like to receive your funds instantly (via bank transfer) or you use an international bank transfer, there’s a £15/$25/€15 charge, depending on your base currency. An international bank transfer at CMC Markets is defined as withdrawing your money to a bank account denominated in a currency other than your CMC Markets account base currency; e.g. if you withdraw from your GBP-based brokerage account to your EUR-based bank account.

You can use the same options for withdrawal as for deposit. There are some limitations: if you have a spread betting account, you can’t withdraw to Mastercard credit/debit cards; and you can’t withdraw more to your PayPal account than what you first deposited.

**CMC Markets withdrawal fees and options**
	CMC Markets	IG	XTB
Bank transfer	Yes	Yes	Yes
Credit/debit card	Yes	Yes	No
Electronic wallets	Yes	No	No
Withdrawal fee	$0	$0	$0

How long does it take to withdraw money from CMC Markets? We tested debit card withdrawal and we got our funds back on the same day.

How do you withdraw money from CMC Markets?

Go to CMC’s web trading platform
On the left sidebar, click ‘Funding’
Click ‘Withdraw’
Choose the method for withdrawal
Add the amount you wish to withdraw
Confirm your withdrawal

CMC Markets review

Web trading platform

CMC’s ‘Next Generation’ platform has a clean and modern design, is highly customizable, and boasts an advanced order panel. Two-step authentication is available for login.

Pros	Cons
• Two-step (safer) login	None
• Good customizability (for charts, workspace)
• Modern design

**CMC Markets platforms to choose from**
Trading platform	Score	Available
Web	5.0 stars	Yes
Mobile	5.0 stars	Yes
Desktop	3.4 stars	Yes

You can choose between two web trading platforms:

‘Next Generation’, CMC Markets’s own trading platform
MetaTrader 4, a third-party platform

In this review, we tested Next Generation as we think it’s better than MetaTrader 4.

The web trading platform is available in 9 languages:

CMC web trading platform languages
Chinese	English	French
German	Italian	Norwegian
Polish	Spanish	Swedish

Look and feel

At first, it may seem that CMC’s web platform is too advanced for beginners. However, the platform guide and the platform’s great design and user-friendliness will help you familiarize yourself with the platform quickly.

The platform is highly customizable; it’s one of the most customizable platforms we’ve tested. You can also save up to 10 custom platform templates.

CMC Markets review – Web trading platform – Search

Login and security

CMC Markets offers secure two-step authentication for login, either via text messages or third-party OTP (one-time password) generator apps such as Google Authenticator.

Search functions

The platform’s search functions work really well. You can search for an asset by clicking the search icon or clicking ‘Products’ then ‘Library’.

You can search in two ways:

Type the name of the asset in the search bar
Browse product categories. You can filter results by region, country or industry.

CMC Markets review – Web trading platform – Search

Placing orders

You can use many order types, including some advanced ones:

Market
Limit
Stop
Trailing Stop-loss
Guaranteed Stop-loss*

*For placing guaranteed stop-loss, you have to pay a premium, which will be refunded if the order is not executed.

To get a better understanding of these terms, read this overview of order types.

There are also two order time limits you can use: Good ’til canceled (GTC) and Good ’til time (GTT).

CMC Markets review – Web trading platform – Order panel

Alerts and notifications

It’s easy to set price alerts and notifications. You can set price alerts when you select a product from ‘Library’. We also liked that you can set notifications for breaking news or for events on the economic calendar, among others.

Portfolio and fee reports

CMC Markets has clear and transparent portfolio and fee reports. Click ‘History’ at the bottom of the platform to view all of your trading costs and your payment for recent trades.

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76% of retail CFD accounts lose money

CMC Markets review

Mobile trading platform

The CMC Markets app shares the strengths of the web platform: a modern design with a strong order panel and search functions as well as safe two-step login.

Pros	Cons
• User-friendly	None
• Good search function
• Good variety of order types

Similarly to the web trading platform, you can use both CMC Markets and MetaTrader 4 for mobile. Both apps are available for iOS as well as Android.

In this review, we tested CMC Markets on iOS. The app is available in the same languages as the web trading platform.