Editor’s Verdict
Overview
Review
Headquarters | United Kingdom |
|---|---|
Year Established | 1994 |
US Persons Accepted? |
Starting out in the United Kingdom in 1994 Options Direct Limited, ODL Markets is an independent FOREX, derivatives, equity and commodity trading house. Affiliate activities now encompass operations in Australia, Japan and Turkey. ODL employs over 200 staff around the world. On its website ODL Markets Limited lets one know that it is authorized and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. It is a member of the London Stock Exchange and NYSE Euronext. ODL Markets is somewhat unique in the versatile services it offers to clients on its website. These services include trading in Foreign Exchange (Forex), Gold, Oil and global indices in one account. Involvement in global markets can include spread betting. Spread betting is essentially what it sounds like. Spread bets do not involve the purchase of a commodity, a stock or a share. Spread bettors bet on the direction that the market or share price will go in within a particular market. Bets are placed in pennies or in points. The spread is the Sell (Bid) and Buy (Offer) price quoted by a spread betting company. This price is determined by calculating the live (or the estimated future) market price of a financial product. In keeping with the variety of trading opportunities available ODL Markets offers a variety of software platforms to facilitate those opportunities. These include MetaTrader 4, a common choice for Forex trading. Strategy Runner is geared toward letting futures traders access futures markets in the UK, Europe and USA, all from a single login. My Broker sports live streaming of multiple market data including technical analysis, as well as fundamental company data and news sources. Institutional platforms available include Currenex, Integral, Hot Spot and Lava for working with ODL Capital, which is the prime brokerage division of ODL Markets Ltd. Demo versions of most platforms are available as well as demo accounts for Forex. Also available are introductory educational materials designed to prepare traders for real-world trading.
Trading Platform
FAQs
Does IQ Option or Plus500 offer lower pricing?
IQ Option has a pricing advantage over Plus500, with the minimum spread at 0.6 pips versus 0.8 pips, respectively. Commission-free CFD trading at both brokers carries above-average mark-ups, placing IQ Option and Plus500 in the same category. Overall, IQ Option manages to offer traders a minor edge, which accumulates over time and trading frequency.
Is IQ Option or Plus500 safer for Forex and CFDs trading?
London Stock Exchange publicly listed Plus500 maintains a more secure and trustworthy environment. IQ Option, one of a handful of former binary options brokers making the transition to CFDs, remains opaque and unregulated. Clients will trade with a more secure broker in Plus500.
Which trading platform is better: IQ Option or Plus500?
Plus500 and IQ Option only offer their respective proprietary webtrader trading platform, fail to support automated trading, and lack core functions. While Plus500 presents its trading platform, IQ Option fails to do so, and manual traders may have more trading tools, limited as they are, at Plus500.
Which is better, IQ Option or Plus500?
Plus500 presents traders with notably more assets, transparency, and security than IQ Option, which maintains opaque elements from its binary option past. It may appeal to traders due to a growing and active trading community and tournaments. The overall trading environment for committed traders remains ahead at Plus500 as compared to IQ Option.
Which broker is better for beginner traders?
IQ Option provides better educational tools versus Plus500, but neither broker presents a competitive service for new retail traders. The former offers more quantity over the latter. When it comes to quality, both remain below average, with Plus500 ahead between the two. New retail traders must source quality education elsewhere and use either broker for trade execution only.
What about MetaTrader and copy trading?
Neither broker offers any of the MetaTrader trading platforms, ignoring a significant client-bass. Plus500 and IQ Option only provide their proprietary alternatives, which are sub-standard and lack core trading functions like automated trading. The former does not support copy trading, while the latter deploys a feature labeled Community Live Deals that allows traders to follow each other's transactions.
