Trade Nation is a financial spread betting and CFD provider founded in 2014. It is regulated in multiple jurisdictions including the UK (FCA), Australia (ASIC), South Africa (Financial Sector Conduct Authority in South Africa) and the Bahamas. What sets Trade Nation apart from the many other existing spread betting brokers is the no frills service that it offers. At a time when traders are overwhelmed by the up to the minute news, market analyses, courses, webinars or trading signals the brokers try to attract them with, Trade Nation comes across as a breath of fresh air. They decided to eliminate all the distracting noise and concentrate on what matters the most to its customers: fast, easy to use platform (available in three different versions: desktop, tablet, mobile), wide choice of instruments (forex, indices, commodities, US, UK and European shares) and tight, fixed spreads (for instance 0.9 points on GBP/USD or 1 point on DAX).

Trade Responsibly! 69.9% of CFD Clients Lose Money.

The fact that the spreads are fixed might ring alarm bells with some people because this means the trades are not sent to the real market (which has variable spreads) but kept in house. This could lead to a big conflict of interest, if the trader bets against the broker and wins often, then the broker will interfere with his trades or block withdrawals, the thinking goes. But this is not the case of Trade Nation, as it isn’t allowed to take positions against clients. Instead, it passes the risk to market counterparties.

If these spreads seem too good to be true (at least that’s how they looked to me), the explanation for it lies in the small print: all the advertised spreads are for just one way, so for instance, using the GBP/USD example above, you would pay 0.9 points on opening the trade and then again 0.9 points on closing it, for a total of 1.8 points. Furthermore, the advertised spreads are only valid during specific market hours. The particulars for each instrument can be found in the ‘Market Info’ window, accessible from the platform.

To familiarise yourself with the platform, there’s no need to fill in any details, you can access the demo version with just one click. As previously mentioned, it is intuitive and packs all the necessary things to enable you to trade. The charts even come with some features that can’t be found on a standard MT4 platform: DiNapoli levels, Gann box or Fibonacci pivot points.

To conclude: for those who just want to concentrate on spread betting, without noise or distractions, Trade Nation is a good candidate.

Financial spread bets and CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 69.9% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.