In this article, we review the English trading platform ETX Capital. 
We judge ETX on the following parameters:
- Security
- Product selection
- Trading platforms
- Trading costs
- Charting package
- Customer service
- Demo account
- Bonuses
At the end of the article, we give ETX an overall assessment based on the above parameters.
About ETX Capital
The company was founded in 1965 under the company name Monecor Ltd. ETX Capital is the trade name of Monecor (London) Ltd.
In 2007, Monecor’s trading platform called TradIndex renamed ETX as a result of a merger in the market.
ETX stands for Electronic Trading, Telephone Trading and Execution Services.
Since 2010, ETX Capital have offices in Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Greece, South Africa and China.
ETX Capital is based in the City of London and is set up under and controlled by the Financial Conduct Authority, thus fulfilling all the financial requirements of a trading platform.
The Depositor’s Guarantee is the statutory £ 50,000 equivalent to just under 500,000 kroner, which you are secured if ETX should go bankrupt.
In general, it is possible to lose more than your deposit at ETX. It is a little different from broker to broker, whether they choose to secure the account against a negative account balance. But ETX have decided to leave the risk to the customer. Unfortunately, this means that in theory, you can lose much more than your deposit.
ETX Capital in Denmark
Since 2012, ETX Capital have had a Danish office in Charlottenlund under the leadership of Regional Manager Jesper Skov.
In Denmark, ETX’s trading platform has been a popular platform for daytrading, especially for many new daytraders.
The great popularity in Denmark has been achieved through intensive online advertising, affiliate marketing programs and frequent exposure of daytrader Tom Hougaard, who consistently uses the platform for his trading on the radio program “Millionaire Club” on Radio 24/7.
Products at ETX Capital
ETX Capital covers a very large number of markets and covers most markets in areas such as:
- Large shares
- Commodities
- Forex
- Stock indices
- Bonds
- ETFs
A total of around 6,000 markets can be found at ETX, which should cover the needs of most daytraders.
Although many markets are covered, you should be aware that no broker is competitive in all markets. This also applies to ETX, so you rely on certain markets and then operate with higher trading costs on others. This is discussed in more detail in the section about trading costs.
Trading platforms at ETX Capital
ETX Capital offer three different platforms: ETX Trader Pro, ETX MT4, and ETX Binary.
We will review the features on each platform.
The language of the platform is in English. In order for us to give the top grade 5 to the trading platform, there must also be a possibility that the language of the platform is in Danish.
ETX Trader Pro
Trader Pro is the most widely used platform from ETX Capital. It is web-based and easy to open and use.
Much has been done to simplify the platform so that it is manageable, intuitive and user-friendly.
ETX MT4
ETX Capital also offer trading through the classic trading platform MetaTrader 4 (also called MT4).
MT4 is one of the oldest and most widely used platforms for retail traders in the world today. It is an excellent platform with many functionalities and the ability to find new indicators, etc. which can be download on the internet.
However, the MT4 platform is not a distinctive feature and as such it’s not a special ETX thing. So here the ETX users have the same options as all other users of the MT4 platform throughout the world.
ETX Binary
ETX Capital also offer trading through so-called binary options. Many consider binary options to be a casino product within the trading world, as the pricing and costs associated with this are very difficult to get a transparent overview over.
Basically, when trading binary options, you are betting against the broker whether a given product (eg DAX) is above or below a certain level from 30 seconds to several days or weeks in the future.
We do not consider the binary options as a serious alternative to ordinary daytrading. It draws down in the assessment of ETX Capital that they offer so unserious products in Denmark, although they – as far as we know – do not do much to actively market them.
Trading costs at ETX Capital
ETX is a so-called spreadbetting platform, which means that there is no commission, as you often see it in with ordinary stock trading. The cost of trading consists solely of paying the so-called spread (the difference) between the buy and sell price.
For example, the price is as shown below in the German DAX Index:
When buying securities, you buy the price on the right (in this example 10.155,3) and if you would sell immediately again, you would have to sell 1 point lower at 10,154,3. The one point in difference is the cost of the trade.
ETX Capital has reasonable spreads in the major markets
An important factor to look at as an active day trader is of course trading costs in terms of spreads in the markets you trade. These spreads can fluctuate sharply depending on the time of day, the market situation, news, etc. The day after BREXIT, the spread on DAX, for example, was 3.000% above normal.
On an ordinary market day, ETX is reasonably placed in the competition for the lowest spreads. Especially on many of the most popular products, they try to stay on the lower end.
At the time of writing, spreads are as follows:
- DAX: 1 point
- DOW: 1 point
- EUR / USD: 1 – 1.5 points
- USD / JPY: 2 – 2.5 points
- Oil: 4-5 points
- Gold: 4-5 points
ETX Capital should not be used for stock trading
If on the other hand, you check their spreads on shares, ETX loses their competitiveness quickly. In particular, the spreads on medium-sized Danish equities are fairly high, which does not make it attractive to trade shares through ETX Capital.
As it is normal for spreadbetting, the trade size starts at 0,5 kroner per point and goes up quite high.
The charting package as a work tool
Let’s look at the ETX Capital charting package.
The basic graph
The ETX charting package has most things of what a new trader could wish for. You can drag the graph around to zoom in and out, and graphically it looks great.
You can create templates and save them so you can always find them again.
And if you do not want the standard candlestick chart, as in this case, you can choose between ordinary bar charts, Heikin-Ashi, line graphs and more.
Although it is not here most new traders would need more choices, we would personally like to see a slightly wider range of options such as. Renko charts, points & figure, tick-charts, etc. But this will probably not be necessary for the majority of users.
The chart can also be changed in time frame from seconds to weeks and months. So, all in all, the platform is what one would expect from a modern trading platform.
Selection of relevant indicators
Many technical analysts use indicators, so it is, of course, relevant to look at the selection of these. Most new traders use indicators like RSI, MACD, Momentum, moving averages, etc. And these are all included in the charting package.
The vast majority of traders will be satisfied with the selection of indicators. We would like a slightly larger selection and the possibility of retrieving new indicators. But if you wish to do so, you can just choose to use the MT4 platform.
However, a major lack of ETX is that there is no possibility to see the volume on the charts. Many daytraders have begun to use volume as an important indicator of the strength-relationship between buyers and sellers at given price levels. The fact that ETX cannot plot volume and thus also does not have the ability to display volume indicators such as Money Flow Index, On Balance Volume, etc. is a very big lack, and many traders will feel that they lack an important tool which they then need to find on other platforms.
Trading directly from the chart
In ETX Trader Pro it is possible to trade directly from the chart. You enter your long or short orders, with a stop-loss attached, and these can be viewed directly on the chart, where you can also move them around with the mouse. This works excellent.
Stop-loss
TraderPro has the tools you can expect in the area of stop-loss, that is, defining a level at which the trade will automatically close out.
In some cases, it is possible to buy a so-called “guaranteed” stop-loss, where you are guaranteed that you will get stopped out exactly at your stop-loss price, regardless of how much the market is moving in the wrong direction. This works fine, but it’s a pretty expensive insurance if you trade actively.
ETX also offers a trailing stop where the exit level follows the price. This, however, works a little inflexible as the trailing stop can only be is moved in big steps, for example. 10, 20 or 30 points at a time instead of just following the price up. We are not too excited about the possibilities here.
With regard to stop-loss, ETX have in the spring of 2016 suffered some technical errors on this front. Users have experienced being stopped out too early or have not been stopped out at all. ETX Capital have been working hard on the matter and it seems to have been resolved now. In this context, it should be said that customers who suffered a loss due to technical errors have reportedly been compensated for the losses.
Customer Service at ETX Capital
If you are trading from ETX in Denmark, there are two ways to contact support. If you call within normal opening hours, you can usually talk to Danish-speaking support, which works excellent.
If there is nobody in the office or is it out of normal opening hours, then you have the possibility of support in English. This usually works well. But we can hear from some users that they have had difficulty getting through. And emails for the English support may take a long time to get answered.
Demo account at ETX Capital
As with most other brokers, ETX also offer a demo account. It allows you to test your abilities and platform functionalities before starting to risk real money.
At ETX, the demo account expires by default after 14 days. Then it must be reactivated, which may seem a bit cumbersome.
It draws into the overall rating of ETX Capital.
ETX Capital use bonuses to attract new customers
ETX often advertise with various bonuses to bring in new customers. These bonuses can sound very tempting as you get “free” money just to deposit money and start trading.
However, we usually advise new traders not to accept these bonuses from ETX or others. There is always a minimum turnover requirement during, for example, 90 days. This often causes new traders to overtrade, that is, trading too often just to fulfill the conditions.
If you are a seasoned trader considering moving to ETX, then the bonuses can, of course, be a nice win if you know your methods, tools, risk, trade frequency, etc. But, broadly speaking, this is not an area that we see as something positive, perhaps rather the opposite.
Overall rating of ETX Capital 
- Security – 3.5 points
- Product range – 5 points
- Trading platforms – 3.5 points
- Trading costs – 3 points
- Charting package – 3 points
- Customer Service – 4 points
- Demo account – 3 points
- Bonuses – 2 points
Overall rating 3.3 points out of 5.0.
Overall, ETX is a great platform for the new daytrader who wants to start with a simple platform that does not require the big effort as you can open an account with a deposit of $ 100 and the minimum effort for opening an account and start trading is quite small.
The Danish support works quite well and takes the ongoing problems with the software seriously, so most new daytraders will feel safe at ETX Capital.
It is also a good thing that the platform offers an opportunity for a demo account. But we think that the 14-day trial period is far too little to really test the possibilities. Here we could think of a longer period as a standard.
One of the biggest objections we have against the platform is that it is not possible to see volume in the charting package. This is an absolute must for a serious trading platform in 2016. It is surprising that ETX haven’t prioritized this as it puts some scratches in the paint on an otherwise quite good product for the new trader.
>> You can sign up for ETX Capital here <<
Disclaimer: We do not receive any payment for this review. All ratings and attitudes in this article are as objective as possible and are not produced in cooperation with ETX Capital. ETX Capital is neither advertiser nor sponsor at DaytraderLand.com. If you sign up for ETX Capital’s trading platform through the above affiliate link, the writer will receive a smaller commission from ETX Capital as part of their affiliate program.
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