Plus500 

In this review of Plus500 we discuss all the relevant points needed to decide if they are an appropriate platform for you to use. It is important to state from the start that  CFD’s are the only products that Plus500 offer. They are not authorised to provide binary options and therefore if you wish to trade in binary options then you need to consider other options.

Plus500 is a fast growing CFD provider and currently offers a portfolio of over 2000 instruments, making it one of the leading trading platforms. The company behind the Plus500 software, Plus500 Ltd is listed on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange, and therefore must comply with all standards and protections.

But what is interesting, are the actions they have taken and the achievements Plus500 Ltd have had over the past few years. In 2013 they introduced the first Bitcoin CFD in the world. In February 2014 they reached a market value on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange of $1,000,000,000 (1 Billion US Dollars).

Lets begin by looking at Plus500’s credibility:

Plus500 Review

Regulation:

Plus500 is regulated, in a number of major countries and with major financial authorities. Here is the list of the organizations they are regulated by.

CySEC– CySEC monitors companies who offer financial services, ensuring full compliance to financial laws and regulations for the businesses registered in Cyprus and the EU. Plus500CY LTD license number is 250/14

FCA – The Financial Conduct Authority is the main financial regulatory body for the UK. Plus500UK Ltd  FCA reference number is FRN 509909

Australian Securities and Investments Commission –is an independent Australian government body that acts as Australia’s corporate regulator. Plus500AU Pty Ltd, ACN 153 301 681, AFSL # 417727

Mobile:

Plus500 do offer a mobile app for both Android and iOS (need iOS7.0 or later for compatibility) As of May 2017 on Google Play it has a 4.2 star rating from over 64,500 reviews. On Apple the app received 4 stars out of 5 from over 1,700 review. They are also one of the few providers who offer an app for Windows phone. It has received a rating score from just over 100 reviewers of 3.8 out of 5.

The app has a clean and simple interface making it very easy to use. It has an full range of features that makes the trading platform easy to use while out an about. Rather than explain what you can do with the app, why not download it for free and check it out yourself.

76.4% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money

Trading Platform:

The first thing you are offered when you go to open your Plus500 account is the chance to open a demo account where you can practice using the trading platform. Plus500 add $50,000 virtual funds of the trader’s currency in to the Account (you can’t withdraw this money it is purely for demo purposes).

As you can see from the image below, the platform is very clean and simple to navigate around. You have a navigation bar to the side which enables you to select which CFD you want to trade whether indices, commodities, forex, options, ETF’s or shares. The tick can be set to show 1 minute, 5,15 or 30 minute, 1,2 or 4 hour, 1 day or 1 week

As you will see from the image above, the Plus500 platform has every thing you need within easy access. Their all inclusive screen has everything clearly labelled, enabling you to look at your current positions and past trades. You can access your account from either a downloadable platform that you place on your personal computer, or you if you prefer you can access your account via the web, meaning you can gain access at any computer. Of course as already mentioned there is the mobile app too.

76.4% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money

CFD Trading Instruments:

A CFD  instrument is the term that is used to explain the items available to trade. Plus500 have over 2,000 instruments for you to choose to trade in. Plus500 offers CFD trading in Shares, Forex, Indices, Commodities and ETFs. Here is an idea of what is available for you through their platform.

Before you begin trading for the first time, it is important to note that CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. Between 74-89% of Retail Investor Accounts lose money when trading CFDs. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money

FOREX

With Plus500 you are able to deal in a wide variety of forex currency pairs.  On the platform you will find that they are in four categories, Majors which includes the obvious like British Pound / US Dollar & Euro / Japanese Yen. The second group or forex are Majors II which have the likes of the Australian Dollar / the Yen or British Pound / New Zealand Dollar. Then the third forex group is Virtual which contains  Bitcoin (Plus500 were the first CFD company to offer Bitcoin). And finally the fourth forex group is called Minors which contains the major currencies against lesser currency such as the US dollar / Singapore dollar or the US Dollar / Polish Zloty

Live Forex Updates

Commodities

Plus500 offer a wide range of Commodities such as grain products, oil and gold.

Indices

Plus500 cover Indices from a large selection of European countries as well as the US, Hong Kong markets

Shares

You can trade CFD’s in the likes of Facebook, Tesla Motors, Amazon and a host of other companies from around the world.

Options

There are a good selection of options available for you to select from. You can Call or Put on the UK 100, Apple, Deutsche Bank, to name just a few of the options available.

ETF’s

If exchange traded funds are your preferred CFD trade, then Plus500 has a wide selection of commodities and indices for you to choose from.

Cryptocurrency

Plus500 were the first company to offer CFD trading in Bitcoin. Now they offer a wide variety of cryptocurrencies for you to trade in and the leverage for cryptocurrencies is up to 1:2. The cryptocurrencies they offer are:

• Bitcoin
• Ethereum
• Litecoin
• NEO
• Ripple
• IOTA

Risk Management Tools:

CFD’s are leveraged products and can result in loss of your capital, so it is wise to manage your risk as best as possible. Plus500 offer a variety of order type tools to help with your risk management. Here are just a few.

Stop Limit

With a stop limit you can protect any profit gained from an instruments price moving up. With the stop limit put in place it will come into play at when your specified stop limit price is reached.

Stop Loss

A Stop Loss is a good way to limit your losses. Should the instrument price move downwards, then the Stop Loss instructs Plus500 to close the position at that price. If the instrument continues to go down beyond that Stop Loss order, you don’t continue to lose.

Guaranteed Stop

When you put a guaranteed stop in place you are ensuring an absolute limit on the potential loss. It may be a case that the market price gaps suddenly, and if that does happen then your position is closed out at the price you exactly specified, cutting out the risk of slippage.  It is important to not that a ‘Guaranteed stop’ is only available on specified instruments. Plus500 will tell which ones they are when you come to pick them.

Demo Account:

As we have already mentioned, Plus500 provides you with a Demo Account when you sign up with them. When you go to open an account the first thing you have to decide is whether you want to start with your own money or start in demo mode. You can switch from the demo account to the live account whenever you want by funding your account with any amount of funds over the minimum deposit of £100. To open the demo account, you can sign up with your email.

So what do you get with the Plus500 demo trading account? – Well basically you get everything that is in the live account except for the fact that all your CFD trades are virtual. All the charts are live and actual, so there is no fake charts or dummy accounts, it is as if you were trading in CFD’s for real. You are given, as mentioned, 50,000 in virtual funds of the trader’s currency for you to practice with to get used to the platform, and there is no time limit either on the demo account, it remains available to you even after you start trading for real with your own funds.

Of course when main feature of starting out with the demo account is it helps you decide whether you like the Plus500 platform and want to use it going forward as your live CFD trading platform.

Adding & Withdrawing Funds:

Once you have finished using demo account and want to begin using the live Plus500 account, or you want to start straight a way, you of course need to add your own funds. To do so you first need to verify yourself through their verification process, once this has been done you can add funds to begin trading properly. There are a number if key pointers relating to the withdrawal of funds.

Verification/Identification

As just mentioned you need to verify your account first before you can start trading properly and of course withdrawal any possible funds from CFD trading. You need to provide full name, date of birth, residence address and phone number. You also need to confirm in line with FATCA (The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act)  whether you are a a citizen of the United States or a resident of the U.S., Gibraltar, Guernsey, Isle of Man or Jersey for tax purposes.

Once you have done that you answer a simple questionnaire concerning your relevant trading experience over the past 3 years, plus your economic profile and your financial details. Once you submit that information you then need to provide verification by way of ID – a photo/scan of your passport, driving licence (photo ID part) or an ID card, plus proof of residency by way of a entire utility bill or bank statement with your full name and address on it, dated within 6 months.

Fund Withdrawal Methods:

Plus500 offer six different methods for cash withdrawal. These are:

• MasterCard or Visa Credit Cards
• Skrill
• PayPal
• Wire transfer

Concerns /Things To Consider

The main things to consider when looking to use Plus500 CFD trading platform is that it is not available to every country around the world. If you live in USA, Canada,  the platform is not available to you.

Even if you are a seasoned trader of CFD’s or have good experience trading online, you may want to consider opening up a demo account first, simply to practice using the platform so you get used to it before you start. The most important consideration is that when  dealing with financial trading of any sort or investing in anything, there will be losses. DO NOT get involved in CFD trading, without being prepared to take a loss. You need to be happy with your own risk assessment before partaking in any CFD trade because losses will always be unavoidable.

Naturally we would recommend you carry out your own due diligence  in to Plus500 to be satisfied in your own mind as to whether they are a good CFD trading platform to use, or they are a scam. Yes there are complaints online concerning issues but Plus500 are heavily regulated and when you consider that according to their site they have over 155 thousand active users placing over 36 million positions every year, there are going to be the occasional issue arise with some people, especially those who are not familiar with how CFD trading works. There is nothing we have seen that indicated that Plus500 is a scam. With the level of regulation that Plus500 has adhered to, it would be very difficult for them to trade under the guidance of the Financial Conduct Authority if they were scam artists .

Finally we would strongly recommend that when trading you put all risk management options in place every time, to limit your losses