Practice account:
Minimum deposit: $10
Ideal for: Copying successful traders with social trading and trade with 0% commissions for stocks and ETFs.
78% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
Practice account:
Minimum deposit: £0,01
Ideal for: Trading stocks and ETFs with medium to long-term goals.
- ✓Copy trading to copy Popular Investors' portfolios
- ✓User-friendly platform particularly for beginners
- ✓Trading of real shares/ETFs and CFDs
- ✓Minimum deposit of $100
- ✓Training material on the site to learn how to invest from scratch
- ✓0% commission on shares/ETF, with minimum transaction of 10€
- ✓Demo account with virtual money
- ✓Investment plans to invest in the medium to long term
- ✓Demo account with virtual money for practice
- ✓CFD trading on 7 asset classes and 1.000+ products
- ✓Regulated and listed online broker
- ✓Guaranteed stop-loss order to cap losses
New to investing? Where to Start
Are you a new investor ready to take the first steps in online trading and managing your investments independently? The first step will be to find an online broker.
The broker will allow you to not only access markets to purchase and sell financial instruments you are interested in but will also allow you to keep and manage your portfolio (i.e. for the receipt of dividends or to participate in a capital increase).
First Step: Outline Your Profile
If at least one or more of the following descriptions match your profile, this review is for you:
I have little or no experience in online trading and have little to no knowledge of financial markets
I have limited capital available to invest
The potential average value of the transactions I intend to execute is low
The monthly frequency of transactions is likely to be low
While we recognize that not all beginners will be small investors and that not all small investors will be beginners, there are certain brokers that are particularly suitable for traders who fall into both of these categories. The explanation lies in the numerous traits inexperienced and/or not very active investors (or little capitalized investors) have in common.
What will the priorities be for these traders? We list the priorities in order of importance:
Low trading fees
User-friendly website and easy-to-use platform
Efficient customer support service
Learning and training courses
Before diving into the analysis, we reiterate the concept expressed elsewhere on the site that choosing a broker is an absolutely subjective process that varies from person to person, in light of personal preferences, habits and more.
We would also like to advise novice investors that they should absolutely avoid the following investment tools during their learning phase:
Short selling
Trading derivative instruments such as leveraged CFDs (high-risk instruments)
Trading financial instruments on margin (use of financial leverage)
Having made these necessary clarifications, we will continue with the analysis of the two brokers identified, with our personal opinions.
Based on the four points made above we’ve selected three online brokers with the highest rating in the aforementioned areas and compared them. Among the many, we have chosen brokers that:
Do not require high minimum deposits
Have a simple and modern web platform (as well as a mobile app)
Have a helpful customer service
eToro: copy the best traders with social trading
5.052% of retail accounts lose money
Minimum deposit: $100
Demo account:
Promotions: no current promo
Why it is ideal for beginners: on the eToro platform with copy trading you can passively copy the portfolios of top Popular Investors, starting at $200
Pros:
- You can purchase fractions of shares
- Copy trading functionality to copy Popular Investors' portfolios
- Minimum deposit of $100
Cons:
- Conversion costs on GBP deposits
eToro is one of the most popular brokers for investing. eToro offers an easy-to-use platform and a commission structure that provides attractive fees for shares and ETFs.
As already mentioned, the platform is really easy to use: even if you have just started trading online, you will have no difficulty trading right away.
Furthermore, with eToro you can make fractional investments, i.e. you can buy fractions of shares, thus investing even very small amounts of capital (from $10).
If you don't have the time or experience to invest on your own, eToro offers you the opportunity to copy the best investors on the platform. Doing so is very simple: just choose one of the Popular Investors available in the section and click the Copy button, indicating the amount you wish to invest (minimum $200).
At first, you can start practising with the eToro demo account, where you will have USD 100,000 of virtual money to simulate trades and manage a virtual portfolio.
Your capital is at risk. Other fees apply. For more information, visit etoro.com/trading/fees.
