Best Forex Brokers in Hong Kong

The broker offers the ability to trade on more than 10,000+ financial instruments covering Forex, Equities, Metals, Commodities, Indices and Cryptocurrency CFDs. Users have access to a range of accounts including the Standard Account (commission-free) and Raw Account (commission-based) for MetaTrader users, both offering ECN pricing and maximum leverage of 500:1. Users can also access Iress Accounts which are commission-based.

FP Markets also offers a range of education and market analysis resources through the Traders Hub which includes technical analysis and fundamental analysis articles and videos, as well as, trading ebooks and video tutorials. Users can access live support via telephone, email and live chat 24 hours a day, 5 days a week.

Plus500

Plus500 is a leading CFD trading platform with support for stocks, indices, cryptocurrencies, and Forex. This commission-free brokerage charges very low spread-rates and offers fast trades on a great platform. Plus500 supports complex trades, includes negative balance protection, and makes trading an educational and hopefully profitable venture (losses might occur as well)

You can start with a free demo account to test the platform and any trading strategy. Real money accounts offer leverage of up to 30:1. This broker is based in Israel and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK, and Plus500CY Ltd is authorized & regulated by CySEC (#250/14).

AvaTrade

AvaTrade was founded in 2006 and is authorised and regulated across all six continents it operates including by the CBI, BVI FSC, ASIC, FSCA, FSA and ADGM. It is one of the oldest online forex and CFD brokers with a well-established reputation for customer support, competitive fees and spreads – all in addition to offering a large range of financial instruments, even including ETFs and FX options for those who like to diversify across assets.

Users can choose to open several different account types – Retail, Professional, Spread betting and Options. The differences are discussed in the account opening section below. Retail, professional accounts offer access to over 1,250+ financial instruments across the AvaTrade propriety web-based platform, MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5. Additional platforms include DupliTrade, AvaTradeGo, AvaOptions and AvaSocial, all of which are discussed further down this review.

How to Choose a Forex Broker as a Hong Kong trader

Despite the fact that  Hong Kong has a strict regulator, there are still plenty of scammers around trying to lure customers to trade with them and then run off with their money. There are a few things you have to consider while in search of a Forex broker in Hong Kong.

Firstly, it has to be regulated by HKSFC. Then, it has to provide its customers with an easy to use trading platform. It also has to offer low commissions, as trading with high commissions eats up your profit. You should also expect to be offered a number of accounts to choose from depending on the amount of money you are planning to invest.  The broker must have excellent customer service. And, although it is not compulsory, a lot of additional valuable services should be there. They show the broker‘s attitude towards you and their willingness to invest their own money in the business.

General Regulation & Hong Kong Regulation

The world has been moving forward in terms of the regulation of financial markets. Despite the fact that in some developing countries Forex regulation is not clear and in some it is even considered to be illegal to trade currencies, in the Western world it is legal and strictly regulated. Each financial crash around the globe has brought about stricter rules for brokers, lowered maximum leverage, increased margin requirements and ousted lots of unregulated brokers. Some countries, which did not have any regulation in the area have already started forming a legal framework for supervision and monitoring of local Forex markets.

As Hong Kong is one of the centers of financial markets it does have a strict regulator – HKSFC, which stands for Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. It came about in 1987 after stock markets around the World crashed. The crash started with the Hong Kong stock market and spread to the rest of the World. So, the newly founded regulator introduced strict regulatory measures so that similar events would not happen again. HKSFC issues licenses to brokers who want to operate in the area and then supervises and monitors those brokers how they comply with the rules set by the agency. It carefully monitors all markets operations in Hong Kong and authorizes every product before it is offered by its regulated brokers to their customers. It also analyses complaints from investors about their brokers and punishes the guilty party according to its transgression.

Trading Platform & Software

The trading platform will be your tool to trade currencies or any other securities so you need to check what a regulated broker offers you. First of all, you will have to download a demo version from their website and familiarize yourself with it. You will be able to see if it is good enough, easy enough to use and if it has all the necessary features that you need. If not, you can go to another broker and see what platform he has. Nowadays, most brokers will offer the popular Metatrader 4 platform and a browser version of their own webtrader. Choose whichever platform you want, but do not forget to test it before opening a real money account.

Commissions & Spreads

On each trade you make a broker gets paid. How? By means of a spread. A spread is the difference between the buy and sell price. The most popular pair EUR/USD typically has 1 or 2 pip spread between buy and sell prices. So, when you open a buy or sell position in the pair you have a loss of those 1 or 2 pips. That is your broker‘s commission. The same is true with other pairs with higher spreads. You should choose a broker with the lowest spreads because each operation reduces your profits and if spreads are high your profits will decrease significantly.

Account Types

After you have tried a demo account and got to know how things work on your best broker‘s platform you may proceed to open a real money account and you may start with a micro.

Micro account

The account is good for those who have very little money to invest ($100-500). Most brokers will offer you that and you will be able to trade real money with small risk. One micro lot size is 1 thousand US dollars and one pip price is just $0.10.

Mini account

If you have tried micro or you simply want to trade bigger amounts of money a mini account could be just for you. You can open it with $500-2000 (recommended amount is $2000) and start trading mini lots (the size  $10 000).

Standard account

If you intend to become an independent trader and have over $10000 you may consider opening a standard account. The recommended amount for it is 20 thousand US dollars and a standard lot size is 100k. As you may understand risks increase exponentially with trading such big volumes, so you need to control your risks or you may lose all of your invested money.

Customer Service

Not all brokers treat their customers equally. You need to find a broker who shows the greatest care for his clients. The minimum that you should expect is service in your local language or dialect, online live help customer line that is there 24 hours on the working days and a functional problem-solving team that will reply to your request in a fast, caring and efficient manner.

Additional Services

Forex brokers often offer a lot of extra free services. That is a sign of good business culture. They invest their own money to give their clients as much in return as possible. They hire economists and financial people to write or record various analytical materials, give insights into the state of global economy and predictions about changes in policy of Central Banks. You may get free Ebooks on a variety of topics and with some brokers can even participate in trading contests and get big money prizes.

Conclusion

A Hong Kong trader has excellent opportunities to find a regulated broker and more or less safely invest in the biggest market of the World. The article outlined the key points which will help you to choose the best brokers among the regulated ones. We have created a list of the very best Hong Kong brokers below based on our own in depth research. We wish you great success in your career as a trader.

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