eToro review

eToro.com is an innovative and modern CFD provider that has been on the market since 2007. This company offers attractive solutions for both seasoned traders and complete beginners who can copy the company’s successful clients. Both levels of traders can enjoy a free demo account and an exclusive trading platform that is definitely unparalleled as far as social trading is concerned.

Each client can trade on their own, or they can use the CopyTrader™ system, which is used by over 7 million users from 140 countries on the platform. eToro follows all the regulations of the Cypriot regulatory authority CySEC, by which it is licensed. eToro also holds a notification, i.e. permission, from our CNB.

eToro Review – broker overview

Minimum deposit	200 USD
Platform	their own
Regulated broker	Yes
Regulations	CySEC, FCA, ASIC
Demo account	Yes

Trading platform

The eToro trading platform is said to be suitable for both day traders and long-term investors. Clients who do not have enough experience to trade on their own can use the social trading network CopyTrader™ to track and copy the positions of the most successful traders on the platform. This feature replicates all activity of the copied trader. The moment he opens or closes a trade, the same process will take place in your account. You can choose which trader you want to follow based on the success rate of his history (see screenshot 3) or, for example, the risk level of his trades or the assets he trades.

Seasoned traders who dare to lead other investors can earn an extra 2% profit on the funds they manage in addition to the returns they generate on the platform. The more successful traders they are, the higher they appear in the most successful traders table and the more clients copy their trades. eToro’s platform is very intuitive, so navigating it is seamless and easy. For example, you can test the broker on a completely free demo account.

eToro fees (spreads)

Thanks not only to the regulation, there is no need to worry about any hidden fees and commissions. All the actual fees that the broker may claim during the course of your trading can be found on the company’s website. We took the values from the company’s website the fees that are charged in case of trading the most popular currency pairs on the platform.

	EUR/USD	USD/JPY	GBP/USD	AUD/USD
Plus500*	0.6	0.7	1.1	0.6
XTB*	0.8	1.4	2.0	1.7
eToro**	3.0	2.0	4.0	1.0

Overnight fee (rollover)

If you leave your position open overnight (CFD trade), the broker will charge you a so-called overnight fee (rollover). This fee is different for each underlying asset, so I recommend checking the value directly on the platform. If you look at the screenshot of the platform below (in the leverage paragraph), you can see that it is written at the bottom under the trade details how high the night fee is for this particular trade. For example, if you invest $200 and use a leverage of 1:30 (aka you invest with $6,000 in capital), the nightly fee is now $0.16 during the week and $0.48 on the weekend. For a sell position (called shorting). on the other hand, the refund is $0.04 during the week and $0.12 on the weekend.

eToro – Financial leverage

As one of the few brokers, eToro allows you to set a specific leverage on each of your trades. This means that you can open a CFD trade on EUR/USD not only with 1:30 leverage, but also with 1:20, 1:10, 1:5, 1:2, or 1:1. To find this feature, find the asset you want to trade and click the “leverage” button. Find more about financial leverage here.

Direct securities purchase

Recently, eToro announced that it will not only offer CFD trading on shares, but that it will also allow direct purchase of securities with 0% commission. When you buy shares from eToro with X1 leverage, you become the owner of the underlying stock. You pay no rollover (overnight fee) or spread when buying shares directly. According to the eToro website, there is no limit on how many shares you can purchase with 0% commission. In case some stocks offer dividends, eToro will pay you an amount proportional to the number of shares you own whenever that company pays dividends. Shares from 17 stock exchanges around the world are on offer (most of them are European and American, but there are some Asian ones as well). eToro allows the option to buy fractional shares as well, which means that you don’t have to buy the whole 1 share of a company, but maybe just a part of it. The broker warns on the site that it may charge different fees when buying shares directly.

eToro – Cryptocurrencies

eToro offers the following 12 cryptocurrencies for trading on its platform: BTC, ETH, ETC, BCH, Dash, XRP, XLM, LTC, ADA, IOT, NEO, EOS. Traders can trade these cryptocurrencies against the US dollar as well as against other world currencies or digital tokens.

Review summary

eToro offers a trading platform that is suitable for both beginners and experienced traders. The navigation of the platform is intuitive and I didn’t experience any hitches or major response while creating my own trades. eToro is regulated by the UK regulator FCA under license number, CySEC and ASIC, We could find some drawbacks with the broker as well. One of the most significant ones is that the broker charges slightly higher fees (spreads) than its competitors in the forex and CFD industry. However, compared to other brokers that offer a social platform, the fees are still quite low.

Advantages

• Social trading
• Intuitive platform
• Very strictly regulated
• Wide portfolio of assets to choose from
• Customizable leverage

Disadvantages

• Higher spreads
• Rollover fee

eToro Review – broker rating