For some time now you have been interested in the values of the stock market, commodities, bonds, cryptocurrencies and any other asset that can be purchased on the various markets. Your passion has brought you here and now you want to take your first steps in this world, experiencing the infinite possibilities that trading and investments can offer you. In all of this, however, you’ve come across dozens of platforms that promise you very advantageous offers if you decide to become their customer, but you really don’t know who to trust, right?
Well, if you are interested in investing and trading in the financial markets and are looking for a good intermediary to further your passion, then you might be interested in ActivTrades , one of the absolute leaders in this sector. Their platform allows you to buy and sell an infinite amount of assets, providing tutorials to get you started and advanced tools for more complex trades.
In this article we will see together every aspect of ActivTrades, trying to understand its strengths, how to register and how to use everything that is made available to you to operate. Before starting, however, I want to underline that investment and trading are dangerous practices, which can lead to the total loss of the deposited amount. What follows is not and should not be construed as financial advice , but only as how-to guides to a technology platform. With that said, let’s get started!
Index
- ActivTrades: how it works
- ActivTrades: commissions and accounts
- How to use ActivTrades
- How to join ActivTrades
- How to deposit at ActivTrades
- Come fare trading su ActivTrades
- For more information
ActivTrades: how it works
Let’s start first of all by understanding how ActivTrades works , also going to grasp what is one of the main factors that distinguishes it. This award-winning broker has been trading for over 20 years and specializes in CFDs , i.e. contracts for difference.
A word that alone does not say much about their nature; so, I’ll try to be a little more drinkable. CFDs are assets that replicate the value of the underlying or, in the case of a stock, the CFD replicates the value of that specific stock. For example, there are CFDs that replicate the exact value of Google shares, but are not comparable to the shares themselves.
Among other things, these financial derivatives allow them to be found much more easily (it is not always easy to find someone who sells that specific share), they can also be bought in single units or small portions (it is very difficult to find someone who sells a single share , practically impossible a fraction of the same) and allow you to operate in financial leverage . On the other hand, however, it should be emphasized that they do not give corporate rights, for example the right to vote during shareholders’ meetings, linked to the effective possession of the shares (but it is not for this purpose that they were created).
What does this mean? That on ActivTrades you can find these financial derivatives that are easily purchased and that allow very fast operations on many different assets. The categories that this platform offers to the client are stocks , bonds , commodities , indices , currencies , cryptocurrencies and ETFs . Between all, here you will be able to find over 1,500 CFDs that follow the value of these 7 asset classes, allowing you to execute operations on the various world markets directly from the sofa of your home.
Among the other advantages of ActivTrades, the incredible speed of transactions should be underlined, so much so that a purchase or sale is completed in just 0.004 seconds ! Very often, during the most tumultuous market days, a fraction of a second can lead to the loss of even hundreds of euros due to a change in price between the request for sale and the realization of the same, therefore speed is fundamental.
All the commissions of the platform (which we will see in the next chapter) are widely and clearly explained, there are no hidden fees and it can boast of spreads (difference between the sale and purchase price of the CFD) among the lowest ever, starting from just 0.5 pips on the Eurodollar exchange rate.
ActivTrades is authorized by the Italian Consob, the Luxembourg CSSF, the FCA in the UK, as well as the CMVM in Portugal, the SCB of the Bahamas and the CVM in Brazil; offers protection to prevent the customer’s account from reaching a negative balance and offers insurance on customer funds that covers a maximum of 1,000,000 euros. To be clear, in Europe the minimum capital that the law requires to guarantee is just 20,000 euros, which demonstrates how much ActivTrades is committed to offering a service that goes far beyond the basic level.
ActivTrades: commissions and accounts
Now let’s talk about one of the most important aspects of an asset trading platform, namely the commissions that are applied to the various transactions. Well, first of all it should be noted that, with ActivTrades, there are no access costs of any kind (except for those who request some instruments such as shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange, including ADRs and ETFs listed therein, for which 1 euros per month).
Added to this is that, for the single transaction, the commission for securities listed on European stock exchanges (except London) is 0.05% of the total with a minimum of 1 euro, or, at the customer’s discretion, 0.01% with a minimum commission of 5 euros. These are applied regardless of the number of transactions executed per month.
In addition to this, it should be noted that short positions held overnight will be remunerated at the swap rate unless the 1-month interbank rate is equal to or less than 2%. In this case ‘short’ positions will be charged at the 1-month interbank rate less 2%. If the interbank rate is negative, the debit cannot in any case be higher than 2%. On the other hand, holding long positions overnight involves paying a swap equal to 2 percentage points more than the one-month interbank rate.
Now that we’ve taken a look at the fees, let’s also look at the various accounts that are available to those wishing to rely on ActivTrades.
- Demo account— as can be easily deduced from the name, it is an account that is offered for experimenting with strategies and trying your hand at the markets without jeopardizing your assets. It has no limits or deadlines and allows you to operate in the same conditions as the real market (although there is a 15-minute delay on displaying the value of share CFDs in demo accounts).
- Individual Account— the basic account for all new platform subscribers, offering all the benefits listed above such as lightning-fast execution of purchases and sales, negative balance protection, additional funds protection, multi-currency account and 24/5 chat support with the company itself.
- Professional Account— an account designed for all those who are experts in the sector and have a particularly large trading volume or portfolio. With this account you can trade with higher leverages (up to 1:200).
- Islamic Account— an account which, in addition, offers zero commissions on contracts held overnight and zero rollover commissions (positions held beyond the end of the session).
In any case, all real accounts entitle you to additional protection of funds, to a dedicated account manager registered in the register of financial advisors, to access to seminars, webinars and training courses, to the withholding agent or facilitated declaration service (for those who request it) and have bank accounts in Italy (at Barclays Milano).
How to use ActivTrades
Let’s go now to see how to use ActivTrades in detail, starting from registration and then going up to the shares on the market. I will follow the various procedures through the web page, but the app for Android and iOS/iPadOS is also available if you want to do it on mobile.
How to join ActivTrades
If you want to open an account with ActivTrades, the first thing to do is to go to this page and press the Start Now button in the center of the screen. From the open page, enter your name, surname, email, password and telephone number and then press the Accept and continue button .
From here enter the requested information such as tax code and residential address then press the Next step button . Now declare your trading experience by answering the quick questionnaire, where you are asked how often you trade, what instruments you use and other details about your past trades then press Next step again .
Enter again the required information related to the origin of your funds, your occupation and how you intend to operate on the platform then press Next step again and finally choose which platform to use between ActivTrader , MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5 , select the currency and accept the declarations in the box, then press the Next button .
As a last step you will then have to upload a photo of a document of your choice between passport, identity card or residence permit. This is a standard procedure for verifying your identity, so you can rest assured that your data will be safe. Once received and approved, you will be able to transfer money to the account. In addition to this, you will also need to add proof of residence , which consists of a bank or credit card statement, a utility bill (telephone, water, electricity, gas, etc.) or residence permit proving that you are a resident where you claim to be.
To upload these documents, all you have to do is click on the Select files box and then upload these images or files directly from your PC. Once this is done, press the Submit Documents button to submit them for verification for account opening.
You can also decide to skip the loading of documents by pressing the Skip loading documents item , to then go directly to the dashboard where you can check the progress of the account opening. If you haven’t already done so, you must go to the mailbox indicated during registration and press the Verify email button in the email message sent to you by the platform.
How to deposit at ActivTrades
Once your account is approved, you can immediately start depositing funds and then trade assets on the various markets. To do this, from your account page, press the Deposit button and then choose the method you prefer to deposit the money into your account by pressing the Deposit button in the various boxes.
The available methods are the bank transfer where, by pressing the button, the coordinates are shown to you and you only have to arrange it through your bank. It does not include any commissions except for those foreseen in your banking plan.
Alternatively, you can use European and non -European credit/debit cards (but always in your name) which have a commission of 0.5% for European ones and 1.5% for non-EU ones, always on the total. To use this method, press the relevant Deposit button , then choose the card circuit and enter all the required data, then press the Add card button . Finally, you can also use Neteller , where you will only have to enter your account email and the amount (minimum 10 euros) and then press the Next button , check that everything is correct and then click the Send button .
Alternatively, if you do not see the deposit option in your Home page or if you have already made your first deposit and this screen is no longer shown to you, you can still make a deposit by going to the Accounts tab and then choosing the Make a deposit item and proceeding as shown above.
Come fare trading su ActivTrades
Once you have opened your account and deposited your funds, it’s time to take your first steps on the platform and execute your first trades. Take their proprietary ActivTrader platform for example. In this platform, the Home of your trading account shows an area on the left where the assets and their instantaneous purchase and sale price are present, in the center the graph of the selected asset and below a summary of your positions and any orders.
To place a first order, you must go to the left section and click on the Forex item . From the drop-down menu that opens, select which type of asset to operate on by choosing from Forex , Stocks , Indices , Bonds , Commodities , ETFs and Futures . From here locate which asset you wish to buy, then click on it.
From here, under Volume , enter the purchase amount of the particular asset and then press the Buy button . From the window that opens, press the Place Order button and voilà , you have traded your first CFD which is now displayed at the bottom of the screen.
This is a simple order, but there are more advanced functions that allow you to place more complex and functional orders for trading. In fact, if you wanted to execute operations at a certain price, you would have to spend all day following the chart to be ready to sell at the right moment.
Being meaningless in its inconvenience and impractical, ActivTrades offers advanced tools to trade even when you are away from your PC. I am referring to the possibility of setting stop losses and take profits , or pending orders and limit orders , i.e. price thresholds at which to place orders automatically.
To give you an example, if you wanted to buy an asset at $100 and sell it if it reaches $150 to make a profit or $50 to limit losses, all you have to do is enter 150 as the take profit price and 50 as the stop loss price, in so that they run automatically.
To do this, from the asset order screen, enter these values (or even just one if you just want to sell in profit/loss) in the relevant Stop loss/Take profit boxes , then press the Buy button followed by Enter order to finish the order. ‘operation.
An alternative to this function, which allows you to switch to an even more advanced type of operation, is the Trailing stop . This function allows you to set a take profit level where to sell at a profit, but also to automatically move the stop loss level to adapt to the gains.
Said like this it seems complex but it is a very simple dynamic. In practice, if you buy an asset at $100 and want to sell it at $150 but don’t want to risk losing more than a small percentage, by inserting a trailing stop you can ensure that, if the asset rises, the stop loss level it goes up hand in hand to execute an automatic sale on the first market downturn.
To set a trailing stop you must, from the asset purchase screen, click on the Trailing stop item and then set a take profit limit and the maximum decrease that the price reached can suffer such as to cause the automatic sale to take place in the Trailing stop box .
To manually sell your assets, if you want to immediately close a position, you can click on the Manage positions item , then put a tick next to the position you want to close (you can also select more than one) and press the Close selected positions button .
For more information
What I have told you about so far is a general discourse on ActivTrades but, if you want to try it yourself in complete safety, you can rely on the Demo account which allows you to execute operations without running any risk, learning to use all the tools with money dummy designed to learn. You can open a Demo account by connecting to this page and pressing the Open Demo account button .
For any other questions or information, you can visit the official ActivTrades support page, or use the chat with the staff employed who will be happy to answer all your questions. They are available 24 hours a day, 5 days a week (Monday to Friday).
Article created in collaboration with ActivTrades.
CFDs are complex instruments and come with a significant risk
of losing money rapidly due to leverage.
73% of retail investors lose money when
trading CFDs with this provider.
Consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to
take this high risk of losing your money.
ActivTrades Europe SA is authorized and regulated by the Commission de
Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) in Luxembourg. ActivTrades
Europe SA is a company registered in Luxembourg,
registration number B232167.