Trade Nation Review
Trade Nation’s well-designed, easy-to-use trading app is an innovative trading platform that’s great for beginner forex and CFD traders. However, if you’re a seasoned trader, you may find that Trade Nation lacks advanced features compared to the best trading platforms.
- Minimum Deposit: $0
- Trust Score: 79
- Tradeable Symbols (Total) : 601
Fixed spreads 24/5 – enjoy fairer trading
Trade Nation pros & cons
Pros:
- Regulated in Australia, the U.K., South Africa and the Bahamas.
- Web and mobile platforms are thoughtfully designed and easy to use.
- Smart News feature available in the mobile app helpfully curates tweets and news headlines.
- Charts are powered by ChartIQ on Trade Nation for web and mobile.
- Fixed spreads for forex and CFD trading are competitive – except during rollover time.
- Loyalty rebates available in South Africa and the Bahamas provide discounts starting at 10% of the spreads you pay, and are capped at up to $2,500 per client.
Cons:
- Web platform lacks Smart News, headlines, and market research.
- Market research updates on blog are sporadic.
- The educational offering is limited and lacks variety in its articles and videos.
- MetaTrader suite no longer promoted.
Overall summary
| Feature | Trade Nation |
|---|---|
| Overall | |
| Trust Score | 79 |
| Offering of Investments | |
| Commissions & Fees | |
| Platforms & Tools | |
| Research | |
| Mobile Trading | |
| Education |
Is Trade Nation safe?
Trade Nation is considered average-risk, with an overall Trust Score of 79 out of 99. Trade Nation is not publicly traded and does not operate a bank. Trade Nation is authorized by two tier-1 regulators (high trust), one tier-2 regulator (average trust), and one tier-3 regulator (low trust). Trade Nation is authorised by the following tier-1 regulators: Australian Securities & Investment Commission (ASIC) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Learn more about Trust Score.
Regulations comparison
| Feature | Trade Nation |
|---|---|
| Year Founded | 2014 |
| Publicly Traded (Listed) | No |
| Bank | No |
| Tier-1 Licenses | 2 |
| Tier-2 Licenses | 1 |
| Tier-3 Licenses | 1 |
| Trust Score | 79 |
Offering of investments
Trade Nation offers a total of 601 tradeable symbols. These consist of 33 spot forex pairs, 102 U.K. shares, and 423 U.S. shares, along with popular commodities, metals, bonds, and indices.
Cryptocurrency: Trade Nation does not offer cryptocurrency trading.
Trade Nation offering of investments:
| Feature | Trade Nation |
|---|---|
| Forex Trading | Yes |
| CFD Trading | Yes |
| Tradeable Symbols (Total) | 601 |
| Forex Pairs (Total) | 33 |
| US Stock Trading (Non CFD) | No |
| Int'l Stock Trading (Non CFD) | No |
| Cryptocurrency (Physical) | No |
| Cryptocurrency (CFD) | No |
| Social Trading / Copy-Trading | No |
Commissions and fees
Trade Nation offers fixed-spread pricing across its tradeable symbols which is quite competitive. While most brokers offer variable pricing, Trade Nation keeps the spread distance fixed as prices update. This means its pricing can be considered an average price as-is, with no further calculation needed – except during the rollover period each day when prices widen for about one hour.
Fixed spreads: Trade Nation lists a fixed spread of 0.6 pips for the EUR/USD pair. It’s worth mentioning again that Trade Nation does widen its spreads briefly during its rollover period each day to as much as 1.4 pips, bringing the true average closer to 1 pip when factoring all price tick data (though it can be lower, depending on whether the average is weighted by time or trade volume).
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Trade Nation pricing summary:
| Feature | Trade Nation |
|---|---|
| Minimum Deposit | $0 |
| Average Spread EUR/USD - Standard | 0.60 |
| All-in Cost EUR/USD - Active | 0.60 |
| Active Trader or VIP Discounts | No |
| Execution: Agency Broker | No |
| Execution: Market Maker | Yes |
Mobile trading apps
Overall, the Trade Nation app scores highly for ease-of-use but lacks some of the advanced features that are typically found in the best trading apps.
Apps overview: The Trade Nation mobile app is available directly from the Google Play and Apple App Store for Android and iOS devices, respectively. MetaTrader is not available.
Ease of use: The Trade Nation mobile app is just as easy to use as its web counterpart, and features even more functionality such as its Smart News section with headlines and curated tweets.
Charting: Charting in the Trade Nation mobile app is powered by ChartIQ, and features over 90 indicators and dozens of drawing tools.
Trading tools: The Trade Nation app features a customizable watchlist that syncs with the web. Its Smart News section curates a feed of market-focused topics and Tweets. While the app allows for some cool stuff – like a custom feed that follows Elon Musk’s tweets – I found its tools to be overly simple, without the advanced features I’ve come to expect from the top brokers.
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Trade Nation mobile trading:
| Feature | Trade Nation |
|---|---|
| Android App | Yes |
| Apple iOS App | Yes |
| Alerts - Basic Fields | Yes |
| Watch List | Yes |
| Watch List Syncing | Yes |
| Charting - Indicators / Studies | 95 |
| Charting - Draw Trendlines | Yes |
| Charting - Trendlines Moveable | No |
| Charting - Multiple Time Frames | Yes |
| Charting - Drawings Autosave | Yes |
| Forex Calendar | No |
Other trading platforms
Trade Nations web platform is overly simplified – so much so, that it often feels as though there are significant gaps in its offering. Bringing in research that already exists in the client portal and mobile app will help to elevate Trade Nation’s web platform closer to the level of industry leaders such as Saxo Bank, IG, and CMC Markets.
Platforms overview: Trade Nation offers a web trading platform that is supported by the latest modern browsers. I found that the platform has simple steps for carrying out core actions like setting an alert, adding a symbol to your favorites, opening a chart, or placing an order.
The features I liked most in Trade Nation’s web platform were the pre-defined watchlists found in the market explorer, and the ability to create multiple custom watchlists.
Charting: Charting in the Trade Nation web platform is powered by ChartIQ, a popular provider of charting software within the online brokerage industry. With 35 drawing tools and 95 indicators, Trade Nation’s web charts have rich technical analysis capabilities – similar to TradingView charts.
Trading tools: Research and news headlines are absent, and with little else besides trading and report features, there is a lot of real estate left on the platform where I was expecting to find more trading tools.
Guaranteed stop-loss: Trade Nation offers several order types, including a guaranteed stop-loss. At 3 pips, the price to add a guaranteed stop-loss order is expensive, compared to CMC Markets or IG. That said, pricing is competitive on Trade Nation’s fixed spread offering.
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Trade Nation trading platform:
| Feature | Trade Nation |
|---|---|
| Virtual Trading (Demo) | Yes |
| Proprietary Platform | Yes |
| Desktop Platform (Windows) | No |
| Web Platform | Yes |
| Social Trading / Copy-Trading | No |
| MetaTrader 4 (MT4) | Yes |
| MetaTrader 5 (MT5) | No |
| cTrader | No |
| DupliTrade | No |
| ZuluTrade | No |
| Charting - Indicators / Studies (Total) | 35 |
| Charting - Drawing Tools (Total) | 95 |
| Charting - Trade From Chart | No |
| Watchlists - Total Fields | 12 |
| Order Type - Trailing Stop | No |
Market research
Trade Nation trails slightly behind the industry average in the research category. Its mobile app does publish articles throughout the week, and offers curated Tweets and headlines. On the web platform, however, news headlines and research are absent altogether.
Research overview: Trade Nation’s research is mostly found in three places: the news and analysis section of its website, its official YouTube channel, and the Smart News module in its mobile app. The web platform, however, simply gets left behind in this category. Trade Nation could bolster its overall research offering by improving the web platform’s research content. It would benefit from an economic calendar and the integration of the Smart News module.
Market news and analysis: On Trade Nation’s YouTube channel you’ll find its daily Trading Insights videos, as well as its TRADERCAST series that contains over 130 recordings. Trade Nation’s videos are good-quality, and focus on technical and fundamental analysis. However, the best brokers have a wider variety of content and produce videos more frequently each day.
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Trade Nation research:
| Feature | Trade Nation |
|---|---|
| Daily Market Commentary | No |
| Forex News (Top-Tier Sources) | Yes |
| Weekly Webinars | No |
| Autochartist | No |
| Trading Central (Recognia) | No |
| Delkos Research | No |
| Social Sentiment - Currency Pairs | No |
| Economic Calendar | No |
Education
Trade Nation’s educational content is mainly for beginners – even the premium and advanced content is basic. I found it difficult to navigate by topic or experience level because the educational materials are mixed together with market news in the same section. That said, some content does exist and it appears Trade Nation is slowly expanding this category.
Learning center: Educational content is found under the beginner guides that Trade Nation offers, alongside articles in its news and analysis section.
Room for improvement: It does appear that Trade Nation is slowly expanding in this category. Organizing the educational content so that it is clearly set apart from the research and market news articles, and adding interactive courses with progress tracking would help elevate Trade Nation’s ranking in this category.
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Trade Nation education:
| Feature | Trade Nation |
|---|---|
| Has Education - Forex or CFDs | Yes |
| Client Webinars | No |
| Client Webinars (Archived) | No |
| Videos - Beginner Trading Videos | Yes |
| Videos - Advanced Trading Videos | No |
| Investor Dictionary (Glossary) | Yes |
Final thoughts
Trade Nation has established itself across its network of global entities with a variety of regulatory licenses, and offers a decent range of markets through its easy-to-use trading platform suite for web and mobile.
While Trade Nation could be a good stepping-stone for beginners and less active traders, the absence of advanced trading tools and additional research and educational content may leave more demanding investors looking for more.
About Trade Nation
Founded in 2014, Trade Nation is a brand of Finsa Investment Ltd that holds regulatory licenses in various jurisdictions, including in the U.K. by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC), in South Africa by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), and by the Securities Commission of the Bahamas (SCB).
2021 Review Methodology
For our 2021 Forex Broker Review we assessed, rated, and ranked 27 international forex brokers over a three-month time period resulting in over 50,000 words of published research.
Each broker was graded on 108 different variables, including our proprietary Trust Score algorithm. This innovative scoring system ranks the level of trustworthiness for each broker based on factors such as licenses, regulation and corporate structure (read about Trust Score here).
As part of our annual review process, all brokers had the opportunity to provide updates and key milestones and complete an in-depth data profile, which we hand-checked for accuracy.
Ultimately, our rigorous data validation process yields an error rate of less than .1% each year, providing site visitors with quality data they can trust. Learn more about how we test.
Forex Risk Disclaimer
"There is a very high degree of risk involved in trading securities. With respect to margin-based foreign exchange trading, off-exchange derivatives, and cryptocurrencies, there is considerable exposure to risk, including but not limited to, leverage, creditworthiness, limited regulatory protection and market volatility that may substantially affect the price, or liquidity of a currency or related instrument. It should not be assumed that the methods, techniques, or indicators presented in these products will be profitable, or that they will not result in losses." Learn more.
About the Author
Steven Hatzakis Steven Hatzakis is the Global Director of Research for ForexBrokers.com. Steven previously served as an Editor for Finance Magnates, where he authored over 1,000 published articles about the online finance industry. Steven is an active fintech and crypto industry researcher and advises blockchain companies at the board level. Over the past 20 years, Steven has held numerous positions within the international forex markets, from writing to consulting to serving as a registered commodity futures representative.
