CMC Markets vs IC Trading

CMC Markets vs IC Trading Comparison Table 2024
CMC Markets	IC Trading
Review 4.7	Review 4
Traders from US not accepted See available CFD brokers	Traders from US not accepted See available CFD brokers
Established in 1989, CMC Markets is a respected broker listed on the London Stock Exchange and authorized by several tier-one regulators, including the FCA, ASIC and CIRO. More than 1 million traders from around the world have signed up with the multi-award winning brokerage.	IC Trading is part of the established IC Markets group. Built for serious traders, it boasts some of the most competitive spreads, reliable order execution, and advanced trading tools. The catch is that it’s registered in the offshore financial centre of Mauritius, enabling it to offer high leverage but in a weakly regulated trading setting.
Spread bets and CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 69% of retail investor accounts lose money when spread betting and/or trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how spread bets and CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
Customer Reviews
4.5 Based on 2 CMC Markets customer reviews	2 Based on 1 IC Trading customer reviews
Comment by Reviewer
"With advanced charting tools and an extensive range of tradable CFDs, including an almost unrivalled selection of currencies and custom indices, CMC Markets provides a fantastic online platform for traders of all levels. "	"With superior execution speeds averaging 40 milliseconds, deep liquidity, and powerful charting software, IC Trading delivers an optimal trading environment tailored for scalpers, day traders, and algorithmic traders. "
Pros
The web platform delivers a fantastic user experience with advanced charting tools for day trading and customizable features, catering to both beginners and experienced traders. MT4 (but not MT5) is also supported. CMC offers excellent pricing, including tight spreads and low trading fees for all but stock CFDs. The Alpha and Price+ schemes also offer perks for active traders with up to 40% discounts on spreads. CMC Markets is heavily regulated by reputable financial authorities and maintains its stellar reputation, helping to ensure a secure and trustworthy trading environment. The brokerage continues to stand out with its wide range of value-add resources, including pattern recognition scanners, webinars, tutorials, news feeds, and research from respected sources like Morningstar. CMC Markets offers a rich investment offering with over 12,000 CFDs and more recently options trading, providing opportunities to trade market volatility and hedge existing positions.	IC Trading provides industry-leading spreads, including 0.0-pip spreads on major currency pairs such as EUR/USD, making it ideal for day traders. The simplified and digital account opening process saves time and effort, allowing traders to start trading sooner without extensive paperwork, taking just minutes during testing. IC Trading offers unusual flexibility in its accounts, enabling traders to open up to 10 live and 20 demo accounts, meaning you can run separate profiles for different activities, such as manual trading and algo trading. Trading Central and Autochartist are valuable tools for in-depth technical summaries and actionable trading ideas and are accessible from within the account area or the cTrader platform.
Cons
Despite improvements, the web platform still requires enhancements to make it as intuitive to trade on as software from rivals like IG. While CMC offers an above-average suite of assets, there is no support for trading real stocks and UK clients can’t trade cryptocurrencies. Trading stock CFDs incurs a relatively high commission, especially compared to the cheapest brokers like IC Markets. An inactivity fee of $10 per month is applied after 12 months of inactivity, which may deter casual investors. The CMC Markets app offers the complete trading package but the design and user experience trails category leaders like eToro.	Despite being part of the trusted IC Markets group, IC Trading is authorized by a weak regulator - the FSC of Mauritius, with limited financial transparency and regulatory safeguards. Customer support performed woefully during testing with multiple attempts to connect via live chat and no one available to assist, plus unanswered emails, raising concerns about its ability to address urgent trading concerns. The educational resources are greatly in need of improvement, unless you navigate to the IC Markets website, posing a limitation for beginners in search of a comprehensive learning journey, especially compared to category leaders like eToro. Unlike IC Markets, IC Trading does not support social trading through the group’s IC Social app or the third-party copy trading platform ZuluTrade.
Awards
Best Trading App 2023 - DayTrading.com No.1 Platform Technology 2022 No.1 New Tool 2022 No.1 Most Currency Pairs 2022 Best Trade Execution 2021 Best Forex Broker For Beginners 2021 Most Transparent Forex Broker Europe 2020 Best Trading Platform 2020 Best Trading App 2019 Best Customer Service 2018
Instruments
CFDs, Forex, Stocks, Indices, Commodities, ETFs, Treasuries, Custom Indices, Spread Betting	CFDs, Forex, Stocks, Indices, Commodities, Bonds, Cryptos, Futures
Demo Account
Yes	Yes
Minimum Deposit
$0	$200
Trading Platforms
Web MT4	MT4 MT5 cTrader AutoChartist TradingCentral
Payment Methods
Credit Card Debit Card Mastercard PayPal Visa Wire Transfer	Credit Card Debit Card Mastercard Neteller PayPal Visa Wire Transfer
Minimum Trade
0.01 Lots	0.01 Lots
Regulator
FCA, ASIC, MAS, CIRO, BaFin, FMA, DFSA	FSC
Margin Trading
Yes	Yes
Margin Rate
1%
STP Account
No	No
ECN Account
No	Yes
DMA Account
No	No
MAM Account
No	No
PAMM Account
No	No
LAMM Account
No	No
Demat Account
No	No
AI / Machine Learning
No	No
Robo Advisor
No	No
Negative Balance Protection
Yes	No
Market Maker
Yes	No
P2P Trading
No	No
Spot Trading
Yes	Yes
Mobile Apps
iOS & Android	iOS & Android
App Review
The award-winning app from CMC Markets has transformed mobile trading. The app’s modern and customizable interface offers a unique user experience, distinct from competitors. Moreover, with its comprehensive charting capabilities featuring 25 technical indicators and 15 drawing tools, as well as its fast and stable trading environment, it’s an exceptional choice for day traders.	IC Trading provides a range of powerful apps that let you trade from a variety of devices. There’s no proprietary app – which may be a red flag for beginner traders – but MetaTrader 4/5 and cTrader apps are available for mobile devices. These industry-proven apps let you access advanced charting tools, execute day trades swiftly, and conduct in-depth market analysis on the move.
Android App Rating
3.7	4.6
iOS App Rating
4.1	4.8
Auto Trading
Expert Advisors (EAs) on MetaTrader	Expert Advisors (EAs) on MetaTrader, cBots on cTrader
Copy Trading
No	No
Social Trading
Yes	No
Trade Signals
Yes
VPS Hosting
Yes	Yes
Tournaments
No	No
Demo Competitions
Yes	No
Ethical Investing
No	No
Custodial Account
No	No
Guaranteed Stop Loss
Yes	No
Inactivity Fee
$10
Islamic Account
Yes	Yes
Account Currencies
USD EUR GBP CAD AUD NZD SEK NOK SGD PLN	USD EUR GBP CAD AUD NZD JPY CHF HKD SGD
Stock Exchanges
Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) CAC 40 Index France DAX GER 40 Index Deutsche Boerse Dow Jones Euronext FTSE UK Index Hong Kong Stock Exchange IBEX 35 Japan Exchange Group Nasdaq S&P 500 SIX Swiss Exchange Shenzhen Stock Exchange	Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) CAC 40 Index France DAX GER 40 Index Dow Jones Euronext FTSE UK Index Hang Seng IBEX 35 Nasdaq New York Stock Exchange Russell 2000 S&P 500
Commodities
Coffee Cannabis Copper Gasoline Gold Lean Hogs Cattle Livestock Natural Gas Nickel Oil Orange Juice Palladium Platinum Precious Metals Silver Soybeans Steel Sugar Wheat	Cocoa Coffee Corn Cotton Gold Natural Gas Oil Orange Juice Palladium Platinum Silver Soybeans Sugar Wheat
CFD Trading
CMC lets you trade CFDs on 12,000+ assets across currencies, indices, commodities, shares, ETFs and treasuries. Spreads are relatively tight, there are no hidden fees and the industry-leading MetaTrader 4 platform is also supported for leveraged trading. Year after year, CMC shines as one of the best CFD brokers in the market.	IC Trading specializes in CFD trading with over 2,250 tradable assets spanning sought-after markets including forex, commodities, indices, stocks, and bonds. Utilizing deep liquidity and cutting-edge bridge technology, the broker provides excellent trading conditions for short-term traders looking for leveraged derivatives.
Leverage
1:30 (Retail), 1:500 (Pro)	1:500
FTSE Spread
1 pt	2.133
GBPUSD Spread
0.9	0.23
Oil Spread
3.5	0.028
Stocks Spread
0.02	Variable
Forex Trading
CMC presents an extensive array of 300+ forex pairs characterized by tight spreads and rapid executions, surpassing the offerings of many competitors in terms of currency diversity. Forex indices also present a fairly unique and holistic way to speculate on the value of key currencies like the USD, EUR and GBP.	IC Trading delivers remarkably narrow forex spreads across 60+ currency pairs, particularly on key forex assets like EUR/USD. This renders it an outstanding choice for forex day traders in pursuit of superior pricing with top-tier execution speeds. High-volume traders also stand to gain significant advantages, with rebates reaching up to $2.50 per forex lot.
GBPUSD Spread
0.9	0.2
EURUSD Spread
0.7	0.1
EURGBP Spread
1.1	0.3
Assets
300+	60+
Currency Indices
USD EUR GBP JPY CAD AUD NZD CHF
Cryptocurrency
CMC Markets offers trading on popular digital tokens like Bitcoin but really stands out for its crypto indices that provide broader exposure to the cryptocurrency market. There is also minimal slippage and an excellent 99.9% fill rate, making CMC a great option for active crypto day traders.	You can trade over 20 of the most popular cryptos with leverage up to 1:200 seven days a week, although direct trading of the underlying asset like purchasing Bitcoin or Ethereum is not facilitated. The selection of tokens also trails Eightcap, which picked up our 'Best Crypto Broker' award, offering 100+ crypto derivatives.
Spread
From 1.3	Floating
Coins
BTC BCH ETH LTC EOS TRON NEO ADA XLM	BTC ETH DSH LTC BCH XRP EOS EMC NMC PPC DOT XLM LINK DOGE XTZ UNI ADA BNB AVAX LUNA MATIC GLMR KSM
Crypto Lending
No	No
Crypto Mining
No	No
Crypto Staking
No	No
Auto Market Maker
No	No

Review	Review
Spread bets and CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 69% of retail investor accounts lose money when spread betting and/or trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how spread bets and CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.