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<p>Alison Heyerdahl is the Head of Content at FxScouts, a Chartered Market Technician (CMT), and an experienced trader, as well as a financial writer with extensive expertise in Forex trading, broker analysis, and market research. She has reviewed 100+ brokers, publishes weekly YouTube trading videos, and co-hosts the “Let’s Talk Forex” podcast.</p>
In the fast-paced world of forex trading, choosing the right broker is crucial. CMC Markets and Interactive Brokers are two popular options, each with unique strengths and weaknesses. This comparison will dive into the key features of both platforms,helping you decide which one best suits your trading style and goals.
The radar chart above illustrates the comparison between CMC Markets and Interactive Brokers across several key metrics, with the highest possible score being 100 in each category.
At FxScouts, our mission is to assist traders in finding the broker that best suits their needs. Comparing brokers side-by-side is an effective method to achieve this goal. We evaluated CMC Markets and Interactive Brokers, using our standard criteria: trust and regulation, trading platforms, costs and trading conditions, and educational and market analysis resources.
Trust and regulation are crucial when selecting a Forex broker. A broker’s credibility is largely built on its regulatory status. We spend considerable time verifying the safety of each broker by examining their regulatory licenses. We also consider numerous factors when deciding which tier a regulator belongs to. Regulators that we rank as the world’s top regulators, gets a tier 1 rank, while regulators who only scores a tier 5-rank, provide virtually no regulatory oversight. The more top-tier authorities regulating a broker, the higher its trust rating. Read more about regulation and our tier system here.
In our comparison:
Based on these findings, Interactive Brokers earned a higher trust rating than CMC Markets.
When comparing brokers, trading costs are a significant factor. We consider the minimum deposit required to open an account and ongoing costs, including spreads and commissions. We measure the cost to trade one lot of EUR/USD using the broker’s account with the lowest minimum deposit, including both the spread and any commission charged.
We found that Interactive Brokers has overall lower trading costs than CMC Markets.
Trading Platforms Offered Traders prefer brokers that offer a variety of trading platforms. We rate brokers higher if they support multiple platforms like MetaTrader4, MetaTrader5, cTrader, and proprietary platforms.
Copy trading is beneficial for beginner traders or those unable to trade full-time. In this case both CMC Markets and Interactive Brokers offer copy trading.
A broader range of CFD instruments provides more trading opportunities. CMC Markets offers a greater variety of instruments compared to Interactive Brokers:
For those interested in trading cryptocurrencies, CMC Markets offers 12 cryptocurrencies, while Interactive Brokers offers 4 cryptocurrencies. Therefore, CMC Markets is the better choice for cryptocurrency trading.
Traders prefer brokers with quick and cost-effective deposit and withdrawal processes. We favor brokers that process withdrawals within 24 hours using multiple methods without charging fees.We found that Interactive Brokers charges a withdrawal fee and CMC Markets does not. Overall, CMC Markets has better deposit and withdrawal processes than Interactive Brokers.
We often find that brokers offer very little in the way of educational materials, forcing traders to use other third-party sites or self-educate elsewhere. Beginner traders need well-structured, well-presented materials in multiple formats to get a good start at trading. More experienced traders also benefit from webinars led by experts in the field and advanced trading strategy sections with new trading ideas.
CMC Markets and Interactive Brokers both have very good educational support. Both CMC Markets and Interactive Brokers offer educational support for more experienced traders.Access to frequent and high-quality market research and analysis is crucial.
We found that CMC Markets offers better research analysis than Interactive Brokers and that both CMC Markets and Interactive Brokers offer frequent webinars.
Please note that CMC Markets no longer offers services to Uganda. This review is for informational purposes only. Have a look at our Best Brokers page to find a broker to trade with.
Founded in 1989, CMC Markets is a well-known Forex and CFD broker with a high trust rating and a huge range of financial instruments to trade. However, traders may be disappointed at the high trading fees on its commission-based account.
CMC Markets offers two live accounts with no minimum deposit requirements - a low-cost commission-free account with spreads starting at 0.7 pips on the EUR/USD and a commission-based account with spreads of 0.1 pip and commissions of 0.005% (which amounts to 50 USD per lot traded), which is extremely high.
Trading is offered on both MT4 and its powerful, innovative proprietary platform that features numerous technical and fundamental analysis tools. CMC Markets also offers excellent education and market analysis materials to get new traders started, and although customer service is offered 24/5, it does not provide a live chat feature, which is a serious oversight by this broker.
Founded in 1977 and listed on the NASDAQ, Interactive Brokers is one of the best-regulated brokers in the industry. Ideal for sophisticated, active traders, Interactive Brokers is in a league of its own with the astounding number of assets on its books and its feature-rich platforms. However, its website, complicated account structure, and unusual trading rules may leave less experienced Ugandan traders reeling.
Interactive Brokers’ world-class research, trading tools, and education will leave traders of all experience levels satisfied, and consistent with its excellent reputation, Interactive Brokers’ trading costs are some of the lowest in the industry. Spreads start at 0.1 pips (EUR/USD) in exchange for a round turn commission of 4.4 USD.
However, because Ugandan traders will be trading under the Interactive Brokers’ subsidiary based in Connecticut, USA, they will only be able to open a margin day trading account if they deposit more than 25,000 USD. Another complaint traders may have is that it does not offer third-party platforms like MT4 and MT5, and traders can only fund their accounts by bank transfer.
For more detailed reviews, please read our comprehensive assessments of CMC Markets and Interactive Brokers.
Select another broker to another broker to compare features, fees, and platforms side by side.
Alison and Chris cover a range of topics, including how to choose a Forex broker, safety and regulation, how to reduce your risk, trading psychology, trading platforms, and trading strategies, among others.
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