Plus500 is a well-known international brand that gives online traders access to share trading via the Plus500 Invest platform as well as a wide range of CFDs via the broker’s separate Plus500 CFD platform.

Beginners seeking a user-friendly experience are drawn to Plus500’s simplified trading platform, but experienced traders will be disappointed by its scant educational offerings and limited selection of market research.
Plus500 does not run a bank but is a publicly traded company. Four tier-1 regulators (high trust), four tier-2 regulators (average trust), and no tier-3 regulators (low trust) have approved Plus500. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Australian Securities & Investment Commission (ASIC), the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) – New Zealand, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) have all granted Plus500 authorization.

Trading Instruments Plus500

Unlike brokers who provide non-deliverable spot forex as a rolling contract, Plus500 only allows customers to trade forex using CFDs. In addition to acquiring a futures company in the US, Plus500 launched shares trading through Plus500 Invest in 2021.

Trading in cryptocurrencies is only possible through CFDs; it is not possible to trade the underlying asset directly (such as by purchasing Bitcoin). Notably, neither U.K. residents nor retail traders from any broker’s U.K. entity are permitted to trade cryptocurrency CFDs.

The CFD investment products that are offered by Plus500 are listed in the table below. Only the broker’s Plus500 Invest platform offers non-CFD shares.

Fees and commissions

Overall, Plus500’s pricing is comparable to the industry standard, but when it comes to active trader pricing, it lags behind the best forex brokers. Plus500 does not offer discounts to retail customers, but if you meet the requirements and are listed as a Professional customer, you may be eligible for cash rebates (similar to an active trader program).

Spreads: The Plus500 platform shows a dynamic spread for the EUR/USD pair of 0.00008 (0.8 pip). As a result, the EUR/USD average spread from Plus500 during the month of August 2021 was 0.8 pip, which is standard for the industry.

Apps for mobile trading

The Plus500 trading app provides a satisfyingly seamless transition between platforms because it closely resembles the WebTrader browser platform in terms of appearance, feel, and functionality.

Nevertheless, the Plus500 trading app lacks the cutting-edge features and general functionality to compete with market leaders, just like its WebTrader counterpart.
Trading tools: With 109 indicators and more than 20 drawing tools, Plus500 has significantly improved its charting. There is still room for improvement, though, and I’d like to see more features added, like news, research, and sophisticated trading tools, all of which are currently missing from Plus500’s mobile app.

Trading Platforms

Because it’s simple to use and concentrates on offering only the necessities, WebTrader from Plus500 is a great option for novice investors. Over the years, Plus500 has consistently made small upgrades to its platform, and as these improvements have added up, Plus500 has moved closer to competing with the market leaders in this niche.

Overview of the platforms: The web trading platform for Plus500 is constantly being improved. It now has pre-defined watchlists, the option to add alerts based on client sentiment data, an economic calendar that shows relevant news from Dow Jones, as well as instrument information from Yahoo Finance that pops up when viewing a particular symbol.

The app’s desktop version is no longer supported, but the web version satisfies the criteria for a progressive web app and can be downloaded as a Chrome extension.

Charting: The Plus500 web platform offers 13 different chart types, over 20 drawing tools, and 110 indicators. Although the platform does not automatically save indicators, you can get around this limitation by instead saving your chart templates. Additionally, you should be aware that your chart settings won’t sync with the Plus500 mobile app and won’t transfer between devices. Overall, Plus500 charts impressed me and I had a quick, responsive experience using them.

Usefulness: Plus500’s browser-based WebTrader is a great place for beginning traders to start before moving on to a more complex platform. WebTrader has a simple interface and a clean design. Trailing stops and guaranteed stop-loss orders (GSLO), two of the few advanced features offered by Plus500’s flagship platform, can be useful risk management tools for inexperienced traders.

Plus500 offers its own proprietary trading platform but does not support social copy trading, algorithmic trading, or the MetaTrader platform family.

Market research

Research summary: Client sentiment data and an economic calendar powered by Dow Jones with links to Yahoo Finance for each trading symbol make up the research section of the Plus500 web trading platform. There are no technical and fundamental analyses or news headlines.

Market news and analysis: From Sunday through Thursday, Plus500 publishes a daily article as part of its News and Market Insights category, which emphasizes high caliber reporting. Having said that, I discovered that the content was primarily centered on fundamental analysis and was deficient in charts and technical analysis, features and knowledge that you’d find with the top brokers in this category. Additionally, Plus500 recently launched its Global Trends feature, which compiles news volume, sources, and user sentiment using data from Trading Central. On the web platform of Plus500, the +Insights panel contains a Global Trends section.

Alerts: The alert features in Plus500 let you track your data with both accuracy and originality. You could set alerts, for instance, for percentage changes in client sentiment data. This, in my opinion, is a creative addition that goes above and beyond the usual price alerts. It would be great to see Plus500 take the next logical step, and offer alerts for indicators.

Education Plus500

Learning center: The Trader’s Guide section of Plus500 has a few articles and about a dozen instructional videos. There isn’t much to learn about the financial markets at Plus500 besides a few articles and an eBook, especially when compared to the top brokers in this field.

There is room for improvement: Adding more videos and articles would help Plus500 improve its currently meager educational selection. The logical next step for Plus500 to take to improve its educational content would be to include interactive courses that include progress tracking and quizzes. Although the videos in the Trader’s Guide series are excellent, many of them have the feel of platform tutorials.

Conclusion on Plus500

Plus500 is a winner for less-experienced traders who want simplicity and ease of use, despite the lack of educational content. Plus500 is still a top option for new traders and is praised for being simple to use.

The Plus500 web platform has been improved with the addition of an integrated economic calendar and improved charts, but active traders looking for market research—which is largely lacking at Plus500—will still be left wanting.

Plus500 gives new market entrants an easy way to explore the world of online trading with nearly 2,000 CFDs available and a low minimum deposit requirement for opening a live account.