AvaTrade Review

Review

AvaTrade, established in 2006, is among the top Forex brokers in the world with offices in New York, Dublin, Sydney, Milan, Tokyo and other locations. AvaTrade is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland and licensed by MiFID in the European Union. It is also regulated by ASIC in Australia, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) in Japan, as well as by the B.V.I Financial Services Commission in the British Virgin Islands.

Accounts

There is one standard account at AvaTrade and it requires only a $100 minimum deposit. Leverage is offered at 1:400. AvaTrade offers both fixed and variable, or floating, spreads starting from 0.9 pips. In fact, AvaTrade’s spreads are among the most competitive of any internet broker.

There are many types of orders at AvaTrade including Market orders, Limit orders, Entry Limits, Stop Loss orders, Entry Stops and Trailing Stops. Advanced orders-- IF Done orders and One Cancels Other orders—are also available.

Client funds are held in segregated accounts for increased security. Hedging is allowed as is spread betting. Spread betting is tax-free trading that involves placing long or short spread bets on more than 200 different financial instruments with leverage of up to 400:1. Spread betting is available on the popular MetaTrader 4 platform and can be done through a live or demo account.

Spread betting is available exclusively to traders in the UK and Ireland.

I was pleased to see when doing this AvaTrade review that a 21-day demo account was offered for traders just starting off in Forex trading.

Features

AvaTrade was among the first Forex brokers to introduce CFD trading on commodities, indices and stocks. It was also ahead of the pack in introducing digital currency trading, granting access to the Bitcoin market to ordinary retail traders.

AvaTrade also offers complete transparency as it pertains to their trading conditions, something we found extremely refreshing.

They also offer several unique features not generally offered by other brokers. With their CFD Rollover feature, AvaTrade swaps a matured contract price with a new one before the old contract expires and adjusts the difference in price between the 2 underlying contracts. Access to Trading Central charting tools is available for depositors of over $1000 and free withdrawals.

The website is easy to navigate and is clearly tabbed. It is available in English, French, Italian, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese.

AvaTrade Bonus

New clients opening an account at AvaTrade receive a very generous deposit bonus starting with $40 for a $200 deposit and going up to $10,000 for a $50,000 deposit.

In addition, there is a unique program, the Ava Select program that awards clients making a single minimum deposit of $100,000 or those that exceed $100,000 in trade volume with a host of special offerings such as tailored educational programs, express withdrawal approvals, a dedicated Ava Select hotline, customized trading terms and benefits and other special gifts.

Education

In addition to the benefits received by those participating in the Ava Select program, holders of an AvaTrade account are also entitled to certain benefits including access to a series of online courses and live webinars as well as daily analysis.

Other Forex learning tools include the ebook, "Forex Trading Strategies" which informs readers how to identify trends from news and technical analysis, thereby learning to make more informed trading decisions.

AvaTrade also posts live market news integrated into their trading platforms.

AvaTrade’s Economic indicators page provide information about world economic indicators. They have been divided in an easy to understand format. U.S. Economic Indicators will release everything from the inflation rate to the NFPs. The European Indicator page will allow our clients who trade EU instruments access to breaking news from the EU and the Asian indicator section will focus on breaking news from China, Japan and the Pacific Rim.

In addition, AvaTrade’s economic calendar allows their clients to see what economic events are due to happen each day. They are filtered by date, instrument and importance.

In their Trading A-Z section, traders can find information about the financial instruments, technical terms and fundamental concepts needed to get started in your online trading education. This differs from their full glossary that itemizes all financial terms in alphabetical terms.

An interesting section at AvaTrade is their ‘Sharp Trader” which allows traders to access insights from several leading professional traders.

Deposits/Withdrawals

Funding can be done via credit cards and wire transfers. $100 is the minimum required. An Ava debit card is available for all live account holders to use for making deposits to their trading accounts.

Withdrawals are made by filling out an online withdrawal form and takes several days to process.

Platforms

AvaTrade also offers a Forex Options platform. AvaOptions is the first accessible online platform for trading OTC basic Calls and Puts.

Customer Support

AvaTrade has an award-winning multi-language support team that is available by phone to 34 countries, email and live chat. Customer support can be accessed whenever the markets are open.

Conclusion

AvaTrade’s modern website and accessible top navigation makes it easy for traders to find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. In some categories such as the order types section, the website also breaks down the information into smaller sections so that traders will not feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information provided. We would have loved shorter withdrawal and higher spreads on some of the more popular currency pairs but we enjoyed the flexibility allowed by AvaTrader, both in terms of currency pairs and in terms of platform options.

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Features

In today’s competitive market, most Forex brokers try to compete with each other by offering a range of features, and AvaTrade is no exception.  With free Forex learning tools including webinars and ebooks, as well as live market news integrated into their trading platforms, there’s no question that AvaTrade offers features that meet the industry standard.

During our AvaTrade review, however, we found that the company’s features actually surpass those of most other brokerages, to include, among other things, a choice of platforms, a demo account, an Ava debit card for all live account holders, access to Trading Central charting tools for depositors of over $1000 and free withdrawals.

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Platforms

AvaTrade offers several different trading platforms. AvaTrader is a professional-grade trading platform that is suitable for novice and expert traders alike. Traders can watch the markets, apply their own analysis, and execute Forex and CFD trades from their desktop. AvaTrader offers a variety of customizable tools and indicators for complex analysis and testing, and automated trading that can be set up according to preset specifications. The CFD can be used for both short and long trades and start with as little as $100 with a leverage of up to 20:1.

Also available at AvaTrade is the popular MetaTrader4 which allows trading in Forex, commodities and indices with low spreads, reliable execution and 400:1 leverage. The AvaTrade MT4 account is powerful and flexible and combines the world’s best platform with all the advantages of trading with an award-winning regulated broker.

MetaTrader4 provides transparent low pricing from 0.8 pips, flexible lot sizes - from 0.01 micro lots, quick execution and free auto-trading with full EA compatibility and MQL5 support.

Both these platforms are available for mobile trading for iPhone, Android and Windows Phone where traders can choose any of the 200+ Forex & CFD instruments on your phone.

When doing this AvaTrade review, AvaTrade was offering anyone opening an AvaTrade MetaTrader 4 account a bonus of up to $10,000.

The AvaOptions platform is intuitive and powerful, and traders the full variety of vanilla currency options in addition to spot trades. Traders can trade 30+ currency pairs over a range of expiries and with an assortment of powerful yet user-friendly tools to help hone a trader’s trading strategies.

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Crypto

The world of cryptocurrency trading may be fairly new, but AvaTrade is not, which gives this broker an excellent advantage over the dozens of cryptocurrency brokers that have been popping up to get in on the action.  Ava bitcoin and other cryptocurrency trading takes advantage of the broker’s know-how and reliability to provide unparalleled cryptocurrency trading opportunities.

AvaTrade offers traders a choice between several popular digital currencies Ethereum, LiteCoin, Ripple, Dash, bitcoin cash and, of course, bitcoin.  Ava does not charge commissions on cryptocurrency trading and does not charge bank fees on related transactions.  Unlike many of its other tradable assets, the maximum lot size for trading Ava cryptocurrencies is 10 lots.  This may sound limiting, but it is also a protective measure for traders due to the high volatility of most cryptocurrencies. 

One notable benefit of trading bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with Ava is that the brokerage offers leverage up to 1:20 on crypto trades, whereas some brokers offer only 1:2 or 1:5 leverage.  Another advantage of trading with Ava is the ability to short all pairs, an option not available in standard cryptocurrency wallets.  

Finally, it is worth noting that Ava offers several informational pages about bitcoin trading, as well as important information about other cryptocurrency trading to enable traders to fully understand the system before getting started.  In this regard, Ava’s transparency is both welcome and unique, as many brokers do not fully elucidate how their crypto offerings differ from their other asset classes. 

AvaTrade is regulated on 5 continents, making it one of our top recommended brokers for bitcoin trading and for all cryptocurrency and fiat currency trading.  

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