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IG Markets Review 2021 – Should This Site Be Trusted?

TradingSmart January 1, 2021 Broker

Summary

IG is the trade name Group, one of the world’s most reputable brokerage firms. Launched in 1974, it is one of the brokers with the longest experience in the field of online trading. IG is also a public company traded on the London Stock Exchange. This is a pledge of confidence for its customers since the group regularly discloses its results. 

The broker is also regulated in several countries in Europe and beyond such as the FCA in the United Kingdom and is authorized by the Prudential Control and Resolution Authority in France.

Regarding the broker’s offerings, IG offers more than 17,000 instruments to trade, which is more than enough to diversify into several sectors. It is possible to trade Forex and CFDs, but also to trade on the equity markets thanks to IG’s securities account. 

The broker offers several trading platforms, including Metatrader 4 and ProRealTime. It also has its own trading platform, which is very customizable.

IG is a reliable broker and suitable for both beginner and pro traders and investors thanks to the diversity of its products.

Opening an Account

To manage your investments, IG offers you both a securities account for cash trading and a CFD account. Other derivative products are offered: options, turbos as well as binary options, for professional traders.

Depending on your country of residence, IG offers may vary. This is to comply with the directives of the regulatory authorities. Some products, like spread betting, are not offered in some countries such as France, but options are available. Its securities account is used to trade shares for cash.

For all types of accounts, identity verification is required and IG also verifies the source of your income. Overall, the account opening process is slow, especially for the securities account.

The Securities Account

IG’s securities account allows you to buy shares on various stock exchanges around the world. IG offers trading in 9,000 shares, the most traded of which are from the following countries: 

• Germany 
• France
• United States 
• United Kingdom 
• Netherlands 
• Ireland 
• Belgium 
• Austria
• Australia

If you already have a securities account with another institution, you can transfer it for free on IG. Thus, you will benefit from its platforms and tools offered for trading. 

To open or transfer a securities account, a form must be downloaded from the broker’s website. You have to fill it out and send it by mail to their address in Paris. Other documents will be required to trade US stocks. These documents are required by the IRS, the US tax authority. 

The CFD Account

CFDs offer more flexibility, with the ability to trade on the price of any stock, without actually buying them. CFDs can be used as a hedge for your positions in IG’s securities account. Thanks to the broker’s webtrader, you can trade at the same time on your CFD account and your securities account. 

IG Markets offers CFDs on a wide range of instruments: 

• Forex
• Commodities 
• Indices
• Cryptocurrencies
• Stocks
• Funds
• Bonds 

The advantage of this account is that it is easier to obtain it. It offers leverage that can amplify your profits, but also its losses. Leverage allows you to hold positions that are larger than the margin you have committed to open them. Depending on whether you are a private or professional trader, the leverage on CFDs is limited as follows at IG. 

The Options Account

Like CFDs, options do not require the actual purchase of the underlying assets. They are offered for Forex currency pairs, indices and commodities. IG offers barrier and vanilla type options. 

Knock-out options are derivative products that allow speculation to buy or sell an underlying asset. They are called knock-out options because the option ceases to exist (for the knock-out type), or begins to exist for (for the knock-in type) if the underlying asset reaches a predetermined threshold.

Vanilla options are the traditional options, they give the right to buy or sell an underlying asset on a specific date and price.

IG options accounts therefore allow you to develop advanced trading strategies, allowing you to take advantage of any market trend: up, down or in a stable market. The broker offers great flexibility to the trader, with daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly deadlines.

The Turbo Account

Turbos are listed derivative products, the value of which depends on underlying assets. They are akin to the deactivating barrier options, as a turbo is characterized by the knockout barrier. IG’s turbos, called Turbo24, are traded around the clock. They are leveraged and are offered for Forex currencies, indices and commodities. 

Digital Options

These options are nothing more than binary options. It is about answering yes or no to a market related event. For example, “Will the EUR / USD be above 1.230 0 in 60 minutes?”. You make gains or losses depending on whether your answer is true or false. IG’s digital options to retail traders have nevertheless been prohibited since July 2018 by the AMF. They are reserved for professional traders.

The Demo Account

For each type of account, IG offers you a demo account to discover the different derivative products as well as the trading conditions. The demo account allows you to test your strategies without taking any risk with a virtual fund of €10,000. 

The demo account gives free access to the real-time quotation of the 17,000 instruments offered by IG. You will have access to all the research and risk management tools offered by the broker.

Deposit and Withdrawal

The deposit methods are: debit and credit cards, wire transfers and PayPal, there is no minimum deposit.

Although there is no set minimum deposit, you will need some capital to open a trading position. The minimum that you can deposit by card is € 300. Card and PayPal payments are instant and are suitable for small deposits of funds. 

Bank transfers take up to 3 days for funds to appear in your account.

Card withdrawals take 2-5 days while transfers take up to 3 days. PayPal withdrawals are instant. The minimum request is set at € 150.

Trading Platforms

A good diversity of trading platforms allows you to trade, whatever your level. The platforms offered are: Metatrader 4, IG’s webtrader, ProRealTime and an advanced platform called L2.

The Webtrader

The online platform, or IG’s webtrader, developed by the broker is its flagship platform equipped with a large number of features. It is completely online based and does not require any downloads. This platform is compatible with the main browsers (Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari) and does not require the installation of additional extensions.

This webtrader is very customizable, with its different windows that you can enlarge or close according to your preferences. It is possible to register several templates, depending on your trading strategies. 

You can put your favorite instruments in a list, in order to access their data and graphics faster. The chart offered by this web trader is very advanced, with a smooth scrolling and zoom functionality. Dozens of technical indicators and drawing tools are integrated there for technical analysis.

IG also allows you to benefit from ProRealTime graphics thanks to its integration. This feature is free if you place at least 4 orders per month on your trading account. IG nevertheless warns that a charge of € 30 per month will apply to your account if these orders are too low in volume. 

You can place orders directly through the webtrader chart. It can also display the history of multiple assets for you to compare and you can add up to 6 instruments. 

The online platform has a news feed, fed by news from Reuters. The broker’s Twitter account feed is delivered directly to the platform. 

MetaTrader 4 

It is a third party platform developed by the company MetaQuotes. MT4 is popular for online Forex trading. It enriches IG’s offers, with the possibility of having easy recourse to automated trading.

ProRealTime

PRT is an advanced analysis and trading platform. It can be installed on a PC and is equipped with more advanced features than IG’s webtrader. ProRealTime has a powerful screener, with which you can find the most interesting stocks. This platform also allows you to program trading robots and do backtests.

The Advanced L2

IG platform offers an advanced platform called L2 to professional traders. The platform allows them to trade through the order book on the equity markets. It also gives direct access to the Forex markets thanks to a wide selection of liquidity providers.

Mobile Applications

IG offers a mobile application for trading. The app is only available for Android. But IG has developed a version suitable for mobile on iOS.

You can also use the MT4 mobile app to trade.

Trading Fees

IG is a competitive broker when it comes to trading fees. However, the broker deducts an inactivity fee.

Due to the diversity of its products, it is difficult to cover all IG costs. We invite you to consult the pricing page of the broker to find the fees associated with a particular instrument. 

Spreads and Commissions

Here are the spreads for some of the most traded Forex currency pairs.

For trading stocks, a commission is charged. 

Funding or Overnight Fees

When you hold a position in a CFD from one session to the next, funding charges apply. These fees represent the cost of holding your trades at IG. They depend on the direction of your position (buy or sell) and interbank financing rates.

Inactivity Fee

IG deduct fees after two years of no activity on your account. These fees are $ 12 per month.

Markets and Financial Products

You will find all tradable markets online: stocks, bonds, Forex, cryptocurrencies, indices, commodities, ETFs, interest rates.

IG offers a wide choice of markets to trade.

Shares

IG offers over 7,500 securities to be traded with the securities account, or through CFDs. With CFDs, you can sell short and use leverage on stocks. For popular US stocks, IG offers extended trading hours from 10am to 2am, Monday through Thursday.

Forex

Forex is the most traded market in the world, with a daily volume exceeding $ 6 trillion per day. Currency pairs are tradable on the various IG platforms through CFDs. This market is open 24 hours a day, which gives you some flexibility in your trading sessions.

Commodities

Commodities are offered by CFDs, options and turbos. There are energy materials, metals, agricultural materials, etc.

Cryptocurrencies

You’ll find that IG Markets offers ten cryptocurrencies quoted in dollars (BTC / USD, BCH / USD, ETH / USD …). You will find the other pairs on this page. Cryptocurrency CFDs are available through the online platform, the advanced platform and on mobile. 

Indices

The major equity indices of the main world stock exchanges are offered for trading CFDs, options and turbos: CAC 40 (France 40), DAX, FTSE, S&P 500, etc. 

IG also offers sector indices. This makes it possible to invest in a group of stocks belonging to a particular sector. We can thus take advantage of the growth or decline of a sector: banking, health, telecommunications, media, etc.

Interest Rates

The broker allows you to take advantage of changes in central bank interest rates, such as the US 30-day Fed Funds rates.

Bonds 

US and German bonds are offered by futures contracts.

ETFs

ETFs track fluctuations in other financial instruments (stocks, indices, commodities, etc.). They also make it possible to invest in specific sectors.

Research

In addition to its online platform, which is a real tool for technical and fundamental analysis, IG integrates third-party tools to complete its offer. Autochartist and Trading Central are available.

Autochartist

Autochartist is a powerful pattern-recognition tool. You can benefit from it for free, by downloading Metatrader 4. Thanks to its integration with IG, the broker’s clients can do without the observation and monitoring of instrument prices. 

The tool automatically detects chart partterns (triangle, shoulder-head-shoulder, rectangle…) and sends you an audio or visual alert. It also identifies trend lines and highlights them.

Autochartist can be used in all markets. The tool also helps eliminate subjectivity from technical analysis. The configurations it spots are relevant and can confirm your point of view on a given analysis.

Trading Central 

Trading Central is a set of advanced technical and mathematical analysis tools. Its researchers combine different aspects of the market to provide analysis and trading signals: economic news, graphical analysis, artificial intelligence, market sentiment and economic analysis. 

The integration of Trading Central allows you to receive detailed technical analysis in real time. Economic news is also deciphered for you.

Customer Support 

They are responsive and professional. The FAQ on the site is complete. IG also offers telephone trading in case you have any Internet issues.

IG provides instant messaging support. This is available on the “Contact us” page of the site. On the other hand, if the button to start the chat is not green, it means that no agent is online to answer your questions. 

The FAQ on the help portal is very comprehensive. Almost all possible questions regarding IG’s offers are answered here. We invite you to consult it before requesting help from support by phone or email.

Regarding trading, IG is one of the few brokers who still offer the possibility of placing orders by telephone. But as we have seen, this comes at an extra cost.

Training

The training offered is comprehensive and suitable for beginners and experienced traders.

IG offers trading training to its clients, regardless of their level. The program, called IG Academy, is divided into 3 parts: beginner, intermediate and advanced. It is composed of quality videos and accompanied by quizzes, to verify the new knowledge acquired. 

IG analysts regularly host webinars. Visit the page on the site to see upcoming events.

Security

The IG broker is overseen by several market regulators in developed economies around the world. In Europe, the broker offers deposit coverage, a guaranteed stop loss, as well as negative balance protection.

The fact that IG is listed on the stock market is a guarantee of trust for its clients. The broker is regulated on all continents, by renowned market authorities. Depending on the region where you reside, the broker may or may not offer deposit coverage, as directed by the relevant regulators. In Europe, customer deposits are covered up to € 20,000. This means that even if the broker goes bankrupt, your deposit will be returned.

IG also offers negative balance protection to its European retail clients. Professional or non-European customers do not benefit from this protection.

Conclusion

IG is a reputable brokerage around the world. Their experience in online trading has allowed them to diversify their offers as much as possible and adapt them to the requirements and directives of the countries or geographical areas where the broker offers online trading. 

There are also enough instruments and derivatives on its platform to allow its most demanding clients to develop and implement their trading strategy in a professional environment. The diversity of platforms offers you a wide choice of trading environments.

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