Broker to Trading

ThinkMarkets is a no dealing desk broker with tight spreads, offering deep liquidity and high speed order execution. ThinkMarkets is a rebranding of the successful Forex and Metals broker, ThinkForex.

ThinkMarkets provides ThinkTrader along with MT4 and MT5. It has a range of account types, namely Standard and ThinkZero (and in the UK additionally Spread Betting) and all offer MT4 and MT5. ThinkTrader is available on its own account. The trader simply adds on accounts when they have signed up, from their ThinkPortal page. However the trader can then simply create another account. Demo accounts can be created from the ThinkPortal as well. Demo accounts allow the trader to test out the platform and practice their trading without risking real money.

The account types have different minimum deposits and offer some different services, but in essence the ThinkZero account provides low Forex spreads plus a commission charge, while Standard does not. However tight Forex spreads without a commission charge are available on the Standard account.

In the UK, a GBP spread betting account is offered for the MT4 and MT5 platforms. Spread betting Forex spreads are tight as well.

Account types and minimum deposit

ThinkMarkets offers a Standard account and a ThinkZero account. There is no minimum deposit for the Standard account. The minimum deposit for the ThinkZero account is $500. The Standard account does not charge commissions, the ThinkZero account does charge a commission of $3.5 per lot per side.

All three account types provide 24/5 Live support, a free VPS service and Daily Insight. Daily Insight is a daily email from ThinkMarkets's Senior Market Analyst. The ThinkZero account also provides Autochartist and a dedicated account manager.

ThinkMarkets says it does does not requote, delay or reject orders.

Platforms

ThinkMarkets offers ThinkTrader, MT4 and MT5. ThinkMarkets partners with Equinix to provide fast order execution. For all accounts it uses Equinix's LD5 (London) and HK4 (Hong Kong) data centres. Locating their trading servers in Equinix data centres allows the broker to co-locate with liquidity providers and other market participants, leveraging physical proximity to provide speed, which can be particularly important for traders running automated trading strategies (robots). Optical fibre cables and other infrastructure enables very fast routing of orders and other data processing.

ThinkTrader has a list of individual markets, with a plus and minus below it. The plus brings up markets, including Commodities, Crypto, Equities, Forex X, Futures, Gold, Indices, Minis (XAG/USD and XAU/USD) and Silver. There is a chart in the center (from which markets can also be accessed), with Candlesticks, Bar Chart, Line Chart, Heikin Ashi, HLC Chart, HL Chart, Mountain, Candlevolume, Equivolume, Renko, Point & Figure and Kagi chart types and 90+ indicators.

A headline news feed runs across the top of the ThinkTrader platform. There is also an Economic Calendar and a TrendRisk Scanner. The TrendRisk Scanner sets targets for markets and gives a risk/reward figure.

MT4 and MT5 are available as a desktop application, as a web platform and on mobile for all three account types. MT4 and MT5 are available to run any Expert Advisor, Trading Strategy or Indicator and provide signals and Copy Trading via ZuluTrade. ThinkMarkets

Minimum trade size

Both the Standard and ThinkZero accounts have a minimum trade size of 0.01 lots (micro lots). For spread betting the minimum trade size is 10p.

Markets

• ThinkMarkets makes available the following markets to trade: Forex, Energy, Indices, Metals, Shares, Soft Commodities, Cryptocurrencies and Futures, with the most (by far) on the MT5 CFD account and ThinkTrader.
• On the MT5 Standard and ThinkZero accounts, ThinkMarkets offers markets covering Forex, Indices, Energy, Metals, Cryptocurrencies, Shares, ETFs, Soft Commodities and Futures.
• On the MT4 Standard and ThinkZero accounts, ThinkMarkets offers markets covering Forex, Indices, Energy, Metals, Cryptocurrencies, Shares, ETFs, Soft Commodities and Futures.
• On the UK MT4 spread betting account, ThinkMarkets offers spread betting markets covering Forex, Indices, Energy and Metals.
• On the UK MT5 spread betting account, ThinkMarkets offers spread betting markets covering Forex, Indices, Energy, Metals and Futures.
• On ThinkTrader, ThinkMarkets offers CFDs (with 40+ Forex Pairs).

The least number of markets are on the spread betting accounts offered in the UK. However spread betting can have certain tax advantages in the UK and because spread betting is offered on MetaTrader, the trader can run EAs, MetaTrader's online trading robots. As the process of creating accounts from ThinkPortal is straightfoward, the trader can test out MT4 and MT5 spread betting if they wish and see which platform suits them. MT5 is the successor to MT4 and has a number of enhancement, however MT4 has been around longer.

Spreads

• Spreads at ThinkMarkets are tight. On the Standard CFD account, Forex spreads are as low as 0.4 pips. On the spread betting account, Forex spreads are as low as 0.8. On the ThinkZero account, spreads are as low as 0 pips. The commissions charged on the ThinkZero accounts are also competitive. For the ThinkZero account commissions are $3.5 or £2.5 per standard lot per side.
• As ThinkMarkets offers both CFD and spread betting accounts, there are some differences in the spreads on each account type.

Funding

Deposit methods include Bank Wire, Credit/Debit Card, Neteller, Skrill and BitPay. BitPay allows the trader to fund an account via Cryptocurrencies. Some payment methods may not be available in some regions. In the UK, funding methods available include Bank Transfer, Credit/Debit Cards, Skrill, Neteller and SafeCharge (Nuvei).

Summary and grade

ThinkMarkets is a regulated broker offering no dealing desk execution on a range of markets, covering CFD trading and spread betting. ThinkMarkets offers low variable spreads and a range of account types. This broker uses ECN technology to provide high speed execution and low spreads for traders who want to use automated trading strategies, but also provides a user friendly platform in the shape of ThinkTrader for those who execute their own trades.

ThinkMarkets has a relatively large offering of individual markets when MT5 is considered. ThinkMarkets offers very low Forex spreads with a relatively low commission charge, for the ThinkZero account. For its Standard account, it still provides low variable spreads without a commission charge.

As ThinkMarkets offers tight spreads for the Standard account, low ECN caliber spreads for the ThinkZero accounts and provides a range of platform types and features, it receives a Trader Friendly grade of A.