Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the United Kingdom; the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC); all other investors are regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC).

Both the UK and Australian financial authorities are considered top-tier, making eToro a safe place to invest capital.

For added security eToro holds all trader’s funds in a segregated tier-1 bank account. A tier-1 account is the highest standard available and considered the safest place to keep money. This means there is almost zero risk for holding your funds with this broker.

The Pros

UK and EU customers can trade stocks with 0% commission

Low fees

Fractional shares available

Minimum deposit only $200

More than 12,000,000 customers

More than 2000 tradable assets - Stocks, Commodities, Forex, CFDs, Indices, Cryptocurrency, Index Based Funds, Exchange Traded Funds (ETF)

Demo account available

Loss limitation - stop/loss, trailing stops

Advanced Financial Chart comparison tools

Research-backed analysis from top analysts

Available in 140+ countries

Access to 15+ cryptocurrencies

High quality mobile app

The Cons

UK and EU customers unable to buy ETF shares directly. Due to regulatory changes in October 2020 affected customers must trade ETFs using a CFD product

Wide spreads

High minimums required for most copy trading

Social Trading

eToro is the go to broker for traders interested in the new craze of copy trading. Novice traders can follow successful traders transaction-by-transaction. It is even possible to automate this, allowing customers to sit back and let somebody else do all the hard work.

Customers can do an in-depth analysis of any traders that are available to copy. A searchable history going back two years shows just who is up to the job, and how much risk they took to achieve their results.

A news feed is built into the platform to present market news from other traders. The information is usually an overview of how the markets are performing along with any relevant news specific to that trader’s portfolio.

Out Verdict

eToro is a great place to start your trading career. The social trading aspect brings together traders and investors of all experience levels. Whether you’re just starting out or are experienced enough that you’re ready to take others under your wing.

The platform is user-friendly and easy to get to grips with. Both on a PC and a mobile device.

The main drawbacks are the wide spreads making eToro an expensive choice for high-volume traders. Small maximum trade sizes also drive up the cost of trading with this broker.

Overall the social trading aspect is still strong enough to make eToro our number one choice. For newcomers to the world of finance there isn’t a better place to start. The same applies to potential traders who are short of confidence with the prospect of share dealing on a computer.

eToro is a multi-asset platform which offers both investing in stocks and cryptoassets, as well as trading CFDs. Please note that CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 67% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work, and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Past performance is not an indication of future results. Cryptoassets are volatile instruments which can fluctuate widely in a very short timeframe and therefore are not appropriate for all investors. Other than via CFDs, trading cryptoassets is unregulated and therefore is not supervised by any EU regulatory framework.