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<p>Alison Heyerdahl is the Head of Content at FxScouts, a Chartered Market Technician (CMT), and an experienced trader, as well as a financial writer with extensive expertise in Forex trading, broker analysis, and market research. She has reviewed 100+ brokers, publishes weekly YouTube trading videos, and co-hosts the “Let’s Talk Forex” podcast.</p>
In the fast-paced world of forex trading, choosing the right broker is crucial. CMC Markets and Trade Nation are two popular options, each with unique strengths and weaknesses. This comparison will dive into the key features of both platforms,helping you decide which one best suits your trading style and goals.
The radar chart above illustrates the comparison between CMC Markets and Trade Nation across several key metrics, with the highest possible score being 100 in each category.
At FxScouts, our mission is to assist traders in finding the broker that best suits their needs. Comparing brokers side-by-side is an effective method to achieve this goal. We evaluated CMC Markets and Trade Nation, using our standard criteria: trust and regulation, trading platforms, costs and trading conditions, and educational and market analysis resources.
Trust and regulation are crucial when selecting a Forex broker. A broker’s credibility is largely built on its regulatory status. We spend considerable time verifying the safety of each broker by examining their regulatory licenses. We also consider numerous factors when deciding which tier a regulator belongs to. Regulators that we rank as the world’s top regulators, gets a tier 1 rank, while regulators who only scores a tier 5-rank, provide virtually no regulatory oversight. The more top-tier authorities regulating a broker, the higher its trust rating. Read more about regulation and our tier system here.
In our comparison:
Based on these findings, CMC Markets earned a higher trust rating than Trade Nation.
When comparing brokers, trading costs are a significant factor. We consider the minimum deposit required to open an account and ongoing costs, including spreads and commissions. We measure the cost to trade one lot of EUR/USD using the broker’s account with the lowest minimum deposit, including both the spread and any commission charged.
We found that Trade Nation has overall lower trading costs than CMC Markets.
Trading Platforms Offered Traders prefer brokers that offer a variety of trading platforms. We rate brokers higher if they support multiple platforms like MetaTrader4, MetaTrader5, cTrader, and proprietary platforms.
Copy trading is beneficial for beginner traders or those unable to trade full-time. In this case both CMC Markets and Trade Nation offer copy trading.
A broader range of CFD instruments provides more trading opportunities. CMC Markets offers a greater variety of instruments compared to Trade Nation:
For those interested in trading cryptocurrencies, CMC Markets offers 12 cryptocurrencies, while Trade Nation offers 0 cryptocurrencies. Therefore, CMC Markets is the better choice for cryptocurrency trading.
Traders prefer brokers with quick and cost-effective deposit and withdrawal processes. We favor brokers that process withdrawals within 24 hours using multiple methods without charging fees.We found that Trade Nation charges a withdrawal fee and CMC Markets does not. Overall, Trade Nation has better deposit and withdrawal processes than CMC Markets.
We often find that brokers offer very little in the way of educational materials, forcing traders to use other third-party sites or self-educate elsewhere. Beginner traders need well-structured, well-presented materials in multiple formats to get a good start at trading. More experienced traders also benefit from webinars led by experts in the field and advanced trading strategy sections with new trading ideas.
CMC Markets and Trade Nation both have very good educational support. Both CMC Markets and Trade Nation offer educational support for more experienced traders.Access to frequent and high-quality market research and analysis is crucial.
We found that CMC Markets offers better research analysis than Trade Nation and that both CMC Markets and Trade Nation offer frequent webinars.
Founded in 1989, CMC Markets is a well-known Forex and CFD broker with a high trust rating and a strong presence in Australia.
It has local ASIC regulation, and a local Australian office and offers accounts denominated in AUD. CMC Markets offers two live accounts with no minimum deposit requirements - a low-cost commission-free account with spreads starting at 0.7 pips on the EUR/USD and a commission-based account with spreads of 0 pips and commissions of 5 USD round turn, one of the lowest in the industry.
Trading is offered on MT4, MT5, TradingView and its own NextGen platform that features numerous technical and fundamental analysis tools. CMC Markets also offers excellent education and market analysis materials to get new traders started. Customer service is offered 24/5, but CMC does not provide a live chat feature.
A well-regulated broker with excellent trading conditions on one live account, Trade Nation appeals to traders who prefer the predictability of fixed spread trading.
A market maker, Trade Nation offers support for MT4 and its own proprietary Trade Nation platform. With one live commission-free account, Trade Nation's highly competitive spreads are fixed at 0.50 pips on the EUR/USD and there are no minimum deposit requirements. Additionally, Trade Nation's non-trading fees are low - there are no inactivity fees and deposits and withdrawals are free of charge.
Trading is offered on an average range of assets compared to other similar brokers, including Forex, indices, futures, metals, energies, bonds, and share CFDs, but no cryptocurrencies.
Trade Nation's customer support features platform walk-throughs and help with setting up accounts, but its live chat feature is often unresponsive. Another drawback is the lack of educational materials, forcing traders to self-educate elsewhere, but its market analysis is decent.
For more detailed reviews, please read our comprehensive assessments of CMC Markets and Trade Nation.
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