Swissquote Review

October 2023

79.96% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.

Swissquote is more than an online forex broker, it is also a bank. The company started operations 25 years ago and is quoted on the Swiss stock exchange under ticker SQN. The company offers over 3 million products to trade on. They cover all the major stock markets, bonds, commodities, futures, options, warrants and forex. The bank offers separate platforms for crypto and forex, with over 300 different markets for forex and CFDs and 24 different cryptocurrencies.

Pros

  • Bank status
  • Advanced proprietary platform
  • Excellent Market Research content
  • Top-quality customer support

Cons

  • Limited number of languages
  • Large minimum deposit

Is Trading With Swissquote Safe?

Swissquote is regulated by the following financial authorities:

  1. Financial Conduct Authority – the regulatory body for the UK
  2. Financial Market Supervisory Authority – the regulatory body for Switzerland
  3. Futures & Securities Commission – the regulatory body for Hong Kong


Swissquote also operates a bank as well being authorized by 3 top-tier regulators, guaranteeing the highest levels of financial accountability, transparency and trust.

Spreads & Fees

Swissquote has higher than average bid offer spreads compared to the industry average. However, that may be of lesser concern for those traders looking to trade with a broker that has institutional-grade security and reliability.

The table below shows the minimum spreads for each of the major forex pairs as listed on the Swissquote website and compares them against the industry average.

Swissquote Spreads


Note: Spreads are variable and can change depending on the time of day and market conditions. For information purposes only.

Swissquote's spreads are considerably higher for the 3 most traded currency pairs. The GBP/USD takes the top spot with 1 full pip of extra cost per trade. 3 account types allow traders with sufficient initial capital to enjoy lower spreads.

The accounts offered are Standard, Premium and Prime. For a Premium account, your initial deposit has to be a minimum of $10,000, while for the Prime account your minimum deposit goes to $50,000. Both accounts have successively lower bid offer spreads than the ones in the table.

Platforms

This broker offers 3 platforms, the MT4, MT5 and the proprietary Advanced Trader. The MT4 and MT5 are both well-known and offer a first-rate platform for retail traders. Both offer a wide selection of technical indicators, on-chart trading and automation. MT4 has 30 technical indicators and MT5 has 38. Both offer an ample selection of charting and drawing tools.

The proprietary platform is less appealing visually. However, Swissquote has partnered with TradingView to offer top-class technical analysis tools, with over 80 technical indicators and 50 charting tools. Their platform also offers complex orders such as Order Cancels Other or If-Done orders.

All 3 platforms are available for download or directly through your browser. Swissquote also offers for free the Autochartist add-on for MetaTrader which automatically recognizes chart patterns and trade set-ups based on your criteria. You will also have access to MetaTrader Master Edition, an add-on with advanced tools and an extra 15 indicators. If that wasn't enough there is a third plug-in, Trading Central, which allows for more automated analysis with candlestick pattern recognition and two other technical indicators.

Swissquote platforms

Mobile Trading

All 3 desktop apps come with their relevant portable versions for iOS and Android, allowing you to have control of your trading while you are on the move.

The benefits of these mobile apps include:

  • State of the art charts and analysis
  • Position and order management on the go
  • Cross-platform trading

All 3 apps are available in both the App Store and Google Play.

Swissquote mobile trading

Education

Swiss quote has an extensive library for education with 2 courses and various e-books on trading and forex. The trading course is made up of 30 minutes split up into 8 videos, and is a starter’s course into the world of trading and forex. The forex course is 1 hour and 30 minutes long split up into 23 videos and takes beginners or intermediate traders a step further in their knowledge.

Topics covered under their education tab include:

  • Introduction to forex trading
  • How to manage risk in forex
  • Introduction to forex options
  • How to trade with Japanese candlesticks
  • Chart patterns and technical indicators
  • Swiss dots – An exclusive platform
  • Options and futures: Hedging vs speculation

The e-books are downloadable as PDFs, concise, straightforward and well written. Overall top points for them here. There is plenty of information in the two video courses mentioned above for beginners and intermediate traders alike. You can also sign-up for a demo account with 30 days of free access to all the features the broker has.

Research

This element from Swissquote has a considerable amount of written content from its in-house team. With two sections directly on their website, one mainly aimed at the stock market and the other aimed at macro news and events.

They also offer daily and weekly newsletters on various themes you can opt-in and out of from your profile page. There’s a blog with interesting articles on subjects that touch the trading and investing field. They also have an analyst for daily podcasts and analysis of the financial markets. The biggest points for Swissquote in this section come from the headline streams provided by the top financial news outlet, Dow Jones News Wire.

Trader Support

Customer support is well organized into different aspects of their business. So, despite it's only offered in 10 languages this feature gets top marks from us. You have general contact details, and then you have contact details for forex specifically as well as others. They even have dedicated numbers for traders calling from outside of Switzerland.

You can contact customer support via:

  • Live chat
  • Telephone
  • Email

Verdict

In our opinion, Swissquote offers institutional grade services all across the field. They have a set of proficient and effective trading platforms and can present themselves with the trustworthiness of a bank. MetaTrader platforms get an extra benefit from the add-ons and the Advanced Trader has the extra technical tools and complex orders capability.

They have higher than average bid offer spreads and a higher than average minimum deposit. However, spreads narrow considerably if you going to open a large enough account. So, it is necessary to establish what exactly your priorities are. The Educational material and the website are easy to navigate which helps traders from all backgrounds.

79.96% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.