Best Brokers to Trade ETF

There is no doubt that exchange-traded funds (aka ETFs) have experienced a real boom in recent years, becoming one of the most attractive financial instruments for investors.

ETFs are as easy to trade as stocks and, at the same time, allow you to benefit from diversification, similar to mutual funds (but with drastically lower costs than these).
This combination of attributes has made ETFs one of the most popular financial assets in investors' portfolios.

Would you like to trade ETFs listed on the US stock exchanges? If you are a UK resident this is possible following Brexit. If you are a European resident, however, buying American ETFs is no longer available following the entry into force of Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) in 2018.
This legislation prohibits European citizens from trading non-harmonized ETFs (i.e. non-compliant with European directives).

However, this is not an issue as most US ETF issuers have their ETFs home-based in Europe to harmonize them and make them available to UK and European investors.

As an investor, you can invest in ETFs on your own or with the help of a financial advisor. Using a financial advisor may be beneficial if you need to develop your financial planning within a general framework.

You can rely on an advisor when you don't have the time to take charge of the entire investment process, or when you don't feel you have enough skills or knowledge to invest in your own. 

In the investing world, robo-advisors are becoming increasingly popular as an alternative to traditional financial advisors. Robo-advisors are online financial consultants, whose services are a combination of both technological (algorithms and software) and human resources (dedicated financial consultants).

This hybrid model makes robo-advisors generally more efficient and less expensive than traditional financial advisors.

ETFs are financial instruments that are regulated and listed on the main world stock exchanges. As mentioned above, they are in many ways similar to stocks. One of the similarities is how you can both buy and sell on the stock exchange.

In order to invest in ETFs independently, it is therefore necessary to go through an authorized broker. Through the use of an online broker or bank, a few clicks separate you from the purchase of an ETF. But first, it is advisable to carefully consider which broker offers the best conditions for trading ETFs.

Among the many brokers and banks that allow you to trade ETFs, we have narrowed the options to those with the lowest trading fees, those who offer the most ETFs and those with the best trading platforms.

More specifically, among the various parameters taken into consideration we have given greatest importance to the following:

• Trading fees: analyzed using our tool for ETF fees on the LSE and on the European exchanges
• Cost of keeping the account: very often the ETF investor is a passive investor, who buys an ETF with the aim of keeping it in their portfolio for years. It is therefore important to choose a broker that does not have account maintenance costs, does not charge inactivity costs, and does not have costs for the custody of ETFs.
• Ability to trade ETFs listed on the London stock exchange and on European or US stock exchanges: as previously stated, following Brexit, British investors can buy American ETFs. The most active exchanges for ETF trading are Euronext Amsterdam and Paris, Borsa Italiana, London, Xetra and Zurich.
• Possibility of launching automatic investment plans: a practice requested by investors wishing to launch a pound-cost averaging on ETFs.

Top 4 brokers for trading ETFs: