If you’re looking for a CFD (Contracts for Difference) provider in Australia, you may have heard of eToro. In this review of eToro for the Australian CFD market, we look at why you might want to use eToro as your CFD provider and how its features can be used to benefit your CFD trading strategies. This eToro Australian review seeks to weigh up some of the pros and cons of using eToro as your CFD provider in the Australian CFD market.
Background to eToro
eToro was initially founded as RetailFX back in 2007, based out of Israel. It opened for CFD trading in 2013, and currently has registered offices in Cyprus, Mexico, the UK, USA and Australia. It’s a brokerage firm, not limited to CFDs and offers financial instruments on a wide range of financial products.
In Australia, eToro AUS Capital Pty Ltd. is authorised by ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission) to provide financial services. In Australia, eToro offers brokerage on Stocks and ETFs, Cryptocurrencies and CFDs. We will look at its CFD offering in this review.
Features of CFD Trading with eToro
CFD trading on eToro offers leveraged trading on the following underlying assets:
- Currencies
- Commodities
- Indicies
- Stocks
- Cryptocurrencies
eToro advertises that it offers low spreads, which CFD traders will recognise as one of the ways a CFD provider is remunerated. This go as low as 1 pip for the currency pairs EUR/USD and USD/JPY.
eToro offers risk features such as customisable stop-loss and real-time alerts. Standard 24 hour customer service is available Monday-Friday, via an online ticketing system.
One of eToro’s most impressive features is known as CopyTrader (trademarked to eToro). This advanced and highly useful feature allows anybody to copy the exact trades of other experienced traders. For a beginner this can be a real benefit; being able to mimic a successful trader especially when you are starting out is a massive potential positive.
Basically it instantly replicates a top-performing trader’s trading on your own platform. There are no management fees incurred for this. eToro has created somewhat of a community around this feature, and there are news feeds, stats, risk ratings, strategy chat and other ways to connect with other traders – effectively meaning you’re not left on your own.
What’s more, if you become a successful trader, you can let other traders copy your moves – the ‘Popular Investor Program’ means you can even be remunerated for this, which is another innovative feature of eToro.
Other positive features of eToro include the following
- Leverage – up to 30X leverage is available on eToro, though don’t forget that leverage can be a double edged sword
- Diversify – With CFDs available on the price movement of several asset classes, and many assets within these classes, diversification is possible and easy
- Trade the price movement you are expecting – You can go long or short on CFDs
- Advanced analytical tools – eToro has an app for on the go trading and offers ‘ProCharts’ as an advanced analysis tool
Cons of eToro as a CFD trading platform
eToro’s customer service and ticketing system by their own admission can take as long as 14 days to get back to customers. They do offer live chat but not all problems can be solved via this.
eToro offers limited education to customers compared to some of its counterparts. The community feature in some ways offsets this, but be aware the research available from other traders is by no means qualified in any way.
eToro Offers a Demo Account
One hugely important feature for any potential eToro trader is their Demo Account, which offers you an imaginary 100,000 USD on entry. This feature is a great way to learn how to trade on eToro and to test your mettle before plunging into live trading.
