TopTrade is a world-leading online trading provider, giving you access to opportunities across thousands of financial markets through our intuitive platforms. That is what they say on the website, this review is intending to look at the services on offer to see if they really do provide world-class service and to make it easier for you to decide if this is the right broker for you.
Account Types
There are three accounts available from TopTrade, each having their own features, trading conditions arent really mentioned around the account page so we will be looking into them throughout this review, so let’s see what the accounts are.
Silver Account: This account comes with daily market briefings, access to web, tablet and mobile platform,s video tutorials, excluding Ebooks, 24-hour trading assistance, expert run webinars and seminars, a personal a dedicated account manager, value-added risk management tools, rapid, reliable withdrawals and payments, trading courses with your account executive, real-time remote assistance and leverage up to 1:500.
Gold Account: The gold account comes with daily market briefings, access to web, tablet and mobile platform,s video tutorials, excluding Ebooks, 24-hour trading assistance, expert run webinars and seminars, a personal a dedicated account manager, value-added risk management tools, rapid, reliable withdrawals and payments, trading courses with your account executive, real-time remote assistance and leverage up to 1:500, SMS news and signals, premium daily research and analysis, fixed spreads, live coverage on market watch, direct access to the trading room and their research and access to a panel of experts.
Platinum Account: The platinum account comes with daily market briefings, access to web, tablet and mobile platform,s video tutorials, excluding Ebooks, 24-hour trading assistance, expert run webinars and seminars, a personal a dedicated account manager, value-added risk management tools, rapid, reliable withdrawals and payments, trading courses with your account executive, real-time remote assistance and leverage up to 1:500, SMS news and signals, premium daily research and analysis, fixed spreads, live coverage on market watch, direct access to the trading room and their research, access to a panel of experts, premium customer care and 1 on 1 market strategy sessions.
Platforms
TopTrade market their trading platforms as their own, however on opening we can find that it is simply MetaTrader 4, so what does this platform offer? The multi-interface platform is well-known for its functionality, limited requotes, low latency and optimal pricing. The platform offers professional style, interactive charts, modern technical indicators and live streaming quotes via its easy-to-navigate interface. Traders can tailor their trading actions to suit specific preferences by customizing the screen. It can display any chosen Expert Advisors, along with preferred assets and any preferred candlestick, bar, or line chart display options.
Leverage
Leverage can go as high 1:500 on all account types., Leverage can be selected when opening up an account and should you wish to change it on an already open account, you can do so by getting in contact with the customer service team with your request.
Trade Sizes
It is not specifically stated on the site but it seems that the minimum trade size available is 0.01 lots and goes up in increments of 0.01 lots so the next trade would be 0.02 lots and then 0.03 lots. There is no mention of a maximum trade size so whatever it is, we would recommend not trading in sizes larger than 50 lots, as the bigger a trade becomes the harder it is for the markets or liquidity provider to execute the trade quickly and without any slippage. There is also no mention of the maximum number of trades allowed open at any one time.
Trading Costs
TopTrade does not add any commissions to their trades, instead they make all their profits through the spreads, an aspect that we will look into later in this review. There are swap charges though, these are interest charges that are incurred for holding trades overnight, they can be both negative or positive and can usually be viewed from within the trading platform of choice.
Assets
Sadly there doesn’t seem to be a full product specification available from TopTrade so there is just a little information available for each asset type. There are Forex pairs, no mention of how many there are or which ones there are though, the forex majors such as EURUSD will surely be available though. There are also commodities that include items such as Coffee, Corn, and energy products like oil and natural gas.
No specifics were given though. CFDs are also there, not any specifics but examples were given in the form of crude oil, gold, and wheat. The last category is the indices, again there is not a full breakdown instead there are just a few different ones mentioned such as the American Dow Jones, the Hong Kong Hang Seng, the German DAX, the British FTSE, the Japanese NIKKEI and many more.
Spreads
Unfortunately, there is no mention of the spreads on the website, there are various statements of tight spreads or low spreads but nowhere does it actually display them, you would have thought that they would include their spreads on their site as a marketing method if they really were low and tight.
Minimum Deposit
The minimum amount that can be deposited to pen up an account is 200 EUR, USD or GBP. There isn’t any mention as to whether subsequent top-up deposits are reduced though, which is the usual case when minimum deposits are more than a couple hundred unite.
Deposit Methods & Costs
The TopTrade FAQ explains how to make a deposit, however, it does not mention the methods available, instead just saying to log in, this is a little disappointing as it is important to potential new clients to know how they can deposit their funds into the broker they are using. There is a mention of banks, separate to the deposit section which indicates to us that bank wire transfer will be one of the available methods for depositing.
The FAQ on the website states that there are no added fees by TopTrade, however, you should always check with your card issuer or bank to see if they add any transfer fees of their own.
Withdrawal Methods & Costs
Just like with the deposits there is no mention of which methods are actually available apart from the note about banks elsewhere on the site, while it is bad not to know how you can deposit, it is worse to not know how you can get your money back out, failing to disclose this information can really put off potential clients.
The FAQ on the website states that there are no added fees by TopTrade, however, you should always check with your card issuer or bank to see if they add any transfer fees of their own.
Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time
Withdrawal requests should be processed within 3 business days, however, this is subject to TopTrade being satisfied with your financial paperwork and ID documentation. It will then take between 1 to 5 working days for your money to be available to you dependant on your processor or bank processing times.
Bonuses & Promotions
We could not locate any information on the website in regards to bonuses or promotions so it does not appear that there are any active ones at the time of writing this review. If you are interested in bonuses then be sure to check back regularly or get in contact with the customer service team to see if there are any upcoming bonuses or promotions.
Educational & Trading Tools
The education section of the site is pretty basic, it is comprised of 4 individual videos, one telling you what ‘CFDs are, one what Commodities are, one what Indices are and finally one simply telling you what the most traded stocks are in the world. Not anything that will make you an expert, if you are looking to learn, you will need to go elsewhere.
In terms of tools, there is a pip calculator which helps you understand what a pip in different instruments is worth, there is also the usual economic calendar which tells you of upcoming news events along with the markets they may affect. Finally, there is something called a Forex Market Review which gives a report on what happened over the markets which can give you ideas of potential future moves.
Customer Service
You can get in touch with TopTrade in a number of ways and their email support is available 24/5 (closed over the weekends), their phone and chat support is available Monday to Friday between 8:00 am GMT +2 and 17:00 PM GMT+2.
You can get in touch using an online submissions form to fill in your query and you should then get a reply back via email. You can also email them directly wither using their support email or their partner email depending on your query. There is then also a phone number should you wish to speak with someone directly over the phone.
Demo Account
We could not locate any information surrounding demo account so it currently does not look like they are being offered, this is a little disappointing as demo accounts can help new traders to test the markets and trading conditions and allows existing clients to test out new strategies without risking their own capital. If demo accounts are in fact not available, this is something TopTrade should look at getting.
Countries Accepted
There is a notice on the website stating: “Products and services may not be available in certain jurisdictions” This isn’t the most helpful so if you are looking to open an account, you should get in contact with the customer service team first to check if you are eligible for an account or not.
Conclusion
TopTrade make a point of saying how they are a world-class broker, however, what we have seen doesn’t give us the same impression, there is a lot of information missing from the website, we have no idea what the spreads are for the account, nor do we know if there are any added commissions. Worse than that is that we do not know how we can even deposit funds into the broker or get them back out if we wanted to, this information is vital and not having it makes it hard to put any trust into the broker, to begin with. Until this information is readily available we can not recommend TopTrade as a broker to sue at this point in time.
We hope you like this Top Trade review. If you did, please be sure to check out some of the other reviews here at Forex Academy to help find the broker that is right for you.
