eToro Review

The next forex trading website in my way for review is eToro that I ranked in Top 10 online forex trading websites. There are great trading tools and features that allow me to rank eToro in top 10 online trading websites having 1.5 million worldwide customers. eToro’s forex spreads are provided under name of regulated broker RetailFx (Cyprus). RetailFx is trade name of eToro. eToro website layout is very professional with great data presentation without overloading data. They have physical offices in different parts of world that includes British Virgin Island, Cyprus, USA & Australia.

Worldwide business presence
eToro has 20 dedicated country specific domains for different countries in different languages like etoro.co.au, etoro.pt, etoro.ae, etc. So please look for your country specific website at Top-Right corner below login button. If your country is included you can get great support by calling at local numbers. Worldwide business presence brings eToro in the list of top 10 online forex trading sites.

Registration
Registering at eToro is very simple and it takes only few minutes to fill simple signup form and become registered trader of eToro. They have 4 different kinds of trading accounts.

Silver Trading Account > $1,000-$4,999 ($250 bonus)
Gold Trading Account > $5,000-$9,999 ($500-$1,000 bonus)
VIP Trading Account > $20,000 and more (10% bonus)

Please refer to their site for benefits and previledges for each trading account level.

Demo/Practice Account
You don’t need to open separate practice account. Once you signup you have option in your trading area to switch any time to Practice mode by just one click. So if you are new to trading or eToro this is great feature that enables you to save money and make practice trades to understand their trading system. You will have $10,000 balance in your practice account. I did few trades in practice mode before I started trading in real mode.

Deposits
Another great advantage for choosing eToro as your forex trading broker is multiple payment options. You can deposit funds by Credit Card, Paypal, Moneybookers. Neteller, WebMoney, Western Union, Money Gram & Wire Transfer. I used credit card to deposit funds and funds were in my eToro account instantly. Minimum deposit is $100 and maximum deposit limit is not mentioned at their website.

First Deposit Bonus
eToro also have great first deposit bonus for their new customers. Luckily the day when I deposited $100 that was the last day for 100% first deposit bonus and I did not know this before I deposited $100. Later when I asked their support by Live Chat to credit $30 bonus (based on promotional code) their support staff told me that today is the last day for 100% first deposit bonus and I was very happy when I got $100 bonus in my account in just 1-2 hours. I was expecting $30 bonus (promotional code) but I got $100 bonus.

eToro’s standard first deposit bonus is between $25-10% on different deposit amounts. Please be informed that you will get bonus on first deposit only except if they have any other offers running at the moment. Please refer to their site for more details.

Promotional Code
eToro also offers promotional codes that you can use while depositing funds. These are additional bonuses and work on all deposits not only with first deposit. Before making first deposit you can search for any promotional code “etoro promotional codes”. Some times special promotional offers give you higher extra bonus than their standard first deposit bonus. Like I was asking $30 bonus on first deposit but luckily 100% first deposit bonus offer was in promotion. As I asked to their Live Support to confirm, if special promotional offer bonus is higher than their standard first deposit bonus, you will be given special promotional offer bonus.

Documents Verification
Once you make deposit, you will be asked for documents verification by email sent by retailfx.com. I think they have collaboration with retailfx.com. I was able to trade for 2-3 days but later my account was disabled until submission of verification documents. I submitted my documents and was able to trade after 4-5 hours of documents submission.

eToro WebTrader 2.0 Trading Platform
eToro has web based trading platform that means you don’t need to download any trading software at your PC to start trading. World Finance Magazine gave “2010 Most Innovative Trading Platform” award to eToro. eToro trading platform is very simple, easy and good looking that even a beginner can use after exploring a little bit.

Available Trading Assets
You can use eToro trading platform to trade on 16 currency pairs, 3 commodities and 6 indices.

Trading Fee / Commission
eToro does not offer fix commission or pips system instead they charge fee on each trade according to nature of asset. Their trading fee or trading commission is between 1 pip to 90 pips. On forex assets they charge between 3-16 pips, on commodities 5-90 pips and on indices 1-10 pips. Please refer to their website for more details.

Trading Tools & Features
Leverage ratio is up to 1:400. There are great Stop Loss and Take Profit features. You can set these limit and get relax. Set your maximum loss and profit levels and let the system do work for you. I opened one AUD/JPY trade of 40$ on 17/06/2011 09:01 @ 84.67 and closed it at 09:27 @ 84.85 with 12.44$ instant profit excluding commission (7 pips).

One Click Trading feature is also available so you may buy/sell without confirmation box instantly. Some times rate changes very frequently in the meanwhile we click on buy/sell and then confirm trade buy clicking second popup.

Price charts are just one click away but some times due to slow net connection chart does not load. You can see chart in 2 modes candles tick and line chart. Time scale can be set 1m, 5m, 15m, 1h and 24h. You can always get more advanced chart by just clicking on “Advanced Chart”.

You can also place orders in advance to buy any asset at specific rate. If you are confident that rate of certain asset will go down in the meanwhile you will be out of office or sleeping you can place automatic order.

Carry Trade Over Weekend is also available if you wish to carry your trades to next week by just paying a small fee.

All open trades can be viewed at glance below assets list window showing you current balance. If your current trading is making profit that profit will be added in your total balance. It means you can see 2 balances a.) Account Balance available for trades b.) Virtual Balance according to open trades current situation. So according to market up/down your virtual balance keeps on changing and you don’t have to calculate it manually.

Marketing Analysis Tools and how to pick hot cakes
eToro is full with learning and market analysis tools. Just click on “Open Book” at lower right corner and you will lead to another page with live trading feed. If you are beginner or confused then you an monitor live trading feed that will show current trend of traders. Beside each feed i.e. new buying/selling there is button of copy. If you want to make same trade, just click on copy complete the trade.

Another great learning tool is Top Performers. By one click you can find top performers of week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months or year. If you like performance of any trader you can follow him just like twitter and you will be keep in touch movement of that top performer.

Another great learning tool is “Markets”. You can select any asset and then see who is buying/selling that asset. As soon as someone do trade of that asset you can see instantly. So if you want to monitor any asset closely this is also one of great feature. You can monitor if buying is more frequently or selling is more frequently. For example if there were 10 selling in 1 minute for that asset as compare to 100 buying it means market trend is buying that asset.

If you click on “Trading Tools” under “Explore” in member area that will lead you to another page full with trading tools. At a glance you can monitor graphically where market is moving for example select “Last hour” and you will get data of forex assets of last hour with traders trend. Each asset is shown in one bar, green color means buying and red means selling. Just at a glance you can see either people are selling or buying. For example at the time of writing this review last hour traders trend for Silver is 95% buying and 5% selling (the bar is 95% green and 5% red). USD/JPY trend is 77% buying and 23% selling. This marketing analysis tool can help you to pick the hot cake. Normally this data is compiled for last 1000 trades but you can also customize it by “Risk Level Low”, “Risk Level Medium”, “Risk Level High”, “Traders Club Gold & VIP”, “Traders Club Bronze & Silver”, etc.

Other Useful Resources
Blog, community chatting with top traders are great extra tools.

$20,000 Weekly Trading Prizes / Trading Challenge
If you are expert in trading then there are great chances that you can win great prizes here. Show the results and you can win up to $3,000 weekly. The man on top made $14,675 profit during one week and got $3,000 prize. Wowooo The 100th man made $457 profit and won $50 prize.

Learning Center/Guide
There are great tools for beginners to learn trading. You can down trading guide e-book. Social Trading is another great tool by which you can follow top traders and learn more.

Customer Support
Customer support is great. They do have Online Chat, Email & Phone support. After signup I contacted their Online Chat support many times to understand some trading platform features and each time, I was replied on time without any long queue delays. You can also reach to their support by local dialing numbers from various countries like North/South America, Australia and many European/Asian countries.

Conclusion
In nutshell I award eToro A+ grade and rank it in top 10 online forex trading sites due to multiple payment options, first deposit bonus, promotional codes, great learning tools, marketing analysis, weekly prizes, online chat support, etc.

What I like
Simple and professional looking website
First deposit bonus & promotional offers
Multiple payment options
Great weekly trading prizes
Great market trends and analysis tools
Instant and great Live Support

What I don’t like
Add more indices and stocks