eToro USA Broker Review

Review By: Alan Little

Review Updated: 2021-02-10

4.2

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CFDS ARE COMPLEX INSTRUMENTS AND COME WITH A HIGH RISK OF LOSING MONEY RAPIDLY DUE TO LEVERAGE. 79% OF RETAIL INVESTOR ACCOUNTS LOSE MONEY WHEN TRADING 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.

Bottom Line Summary

75% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

eToro USA LLC does not offer CFDs and makes no representation and assumes no liability as to the accuracy or completeness of the content of this publication, which has been prepared by our partner utilizing publicly available non-entity specific information about eToro. Your capital is at risk

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eToro USA broker features

eToro USA pros and cons

Pros

• Easy to use web interface
• Innovative social trading feature
• Competitive fee structure
• Ease of onboarding
• Wide range of cryptocurrency markets to trade
• Available in USA

Cons

• Poor customer service response times
• System outages
• Platform has minimal advanced level functionality
• Not many trader offers
• Currently limited to self-trading of crypto but that is due to change as new products and markets come through the pipeline

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Who are FXTM?

Our eToro review

This eToro broker review will take an in-depth look at the background of the broker and its platform trading tools. Using our multi-pointed approach, we compared eToro’s trading styles, markets, trading tools and trader charts with other stock trading, CFD and forex broker. We would like to hear your feedback on your experiences with the company at the end of our eToro review, as this will help other traders make an informed choice.

The eToro broker platform has over 10 million clients from over 140 countries, including 40 states and 2 territories of the USA.

eToro is available to US residents in: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Washington D.C., West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Real trading is also available to residents of the Northern Mariana Islands and the United States Minor Outlying Islands.

Its global success stems from it having an innovative approach that offers clients the ability to trade their own account or Copy Trade and follow the signals of others. Founded in 2007 in Tel Aviv by David Ring and Israeli brothers Yoni Assia and Ronen Assia, the platform has developed a reputation for combining a user-friendly experience with market-leading ideas.

Originally founded as a pure Forex brokerage eToro now offers its clients a much more comprehensive and varied service. Account-holders in the US will find they cannot (yet) access all the services that traders in other regions can. The platform is being rolled out in the US on a state by state basis but the markets they can currently trade benefit from the same neat functionality and form the first step. We’re told by the company that a whole lot more is ‘coming soon’.

One of the platform’s best features is eToro’s patented CopyTrader™ technology, which enables clients to compare top traders’ performance and choose to replicate their trading activity automatically and in real-time. This is a key part of the service and is in the pipeline due for release in the USA at a future date. Until that roll-out, clients can only trade their own account in cryptocurrencies.

The collaborative and expansive approach goes one step further as the platform facilitates the sharing of trading ideas with other users and this informative and educational service is already available in the US.

Offering an easy to use web-based platform with a good choice of cryptocurrencies reflects the approach that has made eToro one of the most popular brokers in the world. Judging by the number of industry awards the firm has gained its efforts are also held in high regard by their peer group. US traders are for now able to acquaint themselves with the site functionality and self-trading services and to look forward to the roll-out of additional functionality.

eToro USA Fees

4

With eToro, there are no separate trading commissions or fees applied to accounts.  During our broker review, we found that brokerage fees are instead included within the bid-offer spread.  One consequence of this is that eToro spreads might at face value look wider than those at some other brokers, particularly those that charge commissions separately.

Bid offer spreads on Bitcoin are 0.75% and Ethereum, Litecoin, Neo and Bitcoin cash all have spreads of 1.9%.

There are also charges associated with Crypto conversion and Crypto transfer but these are all laid out in a very transparent manner.

The eToro site itself advises clients to ensure they keep up to date with the changes that will occur from time to time. Fees and charges relating to trading and non-trading activity can change with very short notice.

When all costs are analysed on an aggregated basis eToro performs well in comparison to its peer group. The inclusion of an ‘inactivity fee’ for accounts that are dormant for 12 months or more is never going to be popular with traders but is becoming standard market practice. Withdrawal fees have been a more contentious issue and the companies policy on them is regularly altered. As with all brokers, users would do well to make sure they are abreast of the latest copy of the terms and conditions.

Trading Platforms

4

The eToro platform has a simple layout which allows smooth navigation through the separate sections.  Particularly eye-catching is the News Feed area where comments and opinions of other traders mingle with official announcements.

The site is cleverly designed and whilst offering access to a lot of information the dashboard manages to maintain a clean attractive appearance.

The platform eToro uses is web-based and this fits in well with the position eToro has taken in the trading world. Rather than go head to head with other brokers in terms of advanced software tools, they have instead catered to their target audience. Less is more, and beginner or casual users can easily navigate to a part of the site they want to get to.

In terms of features, the platform has basic charting functionality that is simple to use and has an intuitive feel to it. eToro also offers the core technical indicators ranging from Moving Averages to Bollinger Bands and Stochastics. The more experienced trader whilst able to get by, may find the range of indicators somewhat limiting.

Demo accounts allow users to get an improved understanding without putting real money at risk. Switching between the eToro Demo and Live accounts is as easy as clicking a toggle button so even experienced traders can revert back to Demo mode when experimenting with new strategies.

Our own experience of the site is that it’s as reliable as any other.  There is however a range of online comment referring to the site at times, freezing or becoming unresponsive. There would appear to be too many people voicing this viewpoint for it to not be the case.   Without access to the performance data it’s hard to categorise the extent that this is an issue but not being able to access your positions would be an uncomfortable situation for any trader.

There is also an eToro app for mobile use which we cover later in the review.

Mobile Trading App

4

eToro provides mobile trading apps for both iPhone and Android devices. Traders using the mobile apps will benefit from the trading functionality being the same as that of the desktop trading platform.

Although user friendly, it is still a little basic for the more tech savvy professional trader. Users may also find that some of the icons and buttons are not optimally laid out on the mobile apps which can get a little frustrating.

Overall though, the mobile apps that you can use with this broker are well-designed on the whole and allow traders to access their account wherever they may be.  The clean functionality of the trading platform comes across particularly well on a smaller screen.

The integrated Wallet App is specific to trading crypto. Crypto can be transferred seamlessly from the eToro platform, without any need to remember multiple credentials or keys. Users can store multiple cryptocurrencies, convert between coins on the fly, and send or receive transfers with ease.

Market Research

4

Products and markets offered

US eToro clients are currently limited to trading cryptocurrency markets, only. There is talk of other markets and products being rolled out but traders that do want to trade crypto are fortunate that eToro offer 15 markets. This is significantly more than some other brokers.

In line with the other top grade brokerage platforms eToro does not offer much in the way of trade offers. This aligns the broker with current ‘best practice’ and steers it towards improving the skills of its traders. There may be the occasional trader contest and the ‘eToro Clubs’ regime allocates certain administrative style privileges according to how much capital a client holds in their account.  There are five tiers of membership and the additional extras range from being provided a dedicated account manager to being invited to attend a two day off-site eToro conference, the ‘Diamond Gala Event’.

Research and Learning

eToro does provide a range of free materials to help with research and learning but it’s a long way from being considered as a market leader in this area.   Those articles and training videos that are to be found, share the attractive formatting found elsewhere on the site but the actual range of materials can only be described as limited.

One helpful tool is the ‘Guide’ section where users are taken on a two minute introductory tour of the site.  Set in the style of an automated Q&A section it goes as far as outlining how to execute a trade.  It’s another example of the innovative nature of the platform and even more experienced traders will ultimately save time if they take the tour.

Basic tools such as an Economic Calendar are available and undoubtedly provide valuable support to traders but services such as this are now expected as standard.  Whilst the education and learning resources available are satisfactory there is little chance of them being described as exceptional.

There is some third-party research available through the site.  It tends to covers such topics as market sentiment but these reports and in-house Daily Reports are lightweight in nature.  Advanced traders in particular would likely prefer to base their strategies on reports that are more substantial in nature.
Customized alerts.

The cryptocurrency market is fast moving — and keeping pace with very volatile price action can be challenging. With sudden moves forming a considerable risk to your capital knowledge becomes power. eToro clients get customized notifications about coins on your watchlist, and have access to real-time, relevant, and easy-to-read market data at any time.

Overall, while the resources available to traders are useful, they are fairly basic, and the limited amount of genuine market research or insight may be a problem for some.

Customer Service

5

Customer service at eToro is available 24 hours a day, Monday to Friday and is multi-lingual.  Whilst the provision of 24/5 support gives a degree of comfort, the support desk does have a reputation for slow response times and this was confirmed to be the case during our own testing.

The Help and Education section of the site is the only one where navigation becomes counter-intuitive. It’s possible to feel that instead of being led in the direction of the support desk you are instead being led in a loop back to the FAQ heavy Help Section. Our testing of this part of the site found it to be particularly frustrating.  Traders holding positions in fast-moving markets do need to sometimes be able to get quick answers to their questions and eToro could do more to make this possible.

Some traders suggest using social media is the best way to engage with the help desk, others point out that the performance levels improve once traders are up and running rather than trying out the platform on a demo account basis.  This might well be the case but it’s very easy to feel members of the trading community are having to work too hard to find out how to best access support.

The written responses we received from the eToro customer service team were succinct and fully addressed all our issues; there was no need for us to ask any follow-up questions.  Whilst the response was therefore of sufficient quality the turn-around time was measured in hours rather than minutes.

What others say

“etoro’s webtrader is great for new traders. If I didn’t have etoro’s webtrader to help me, I don’t know what I would have done.” – Caroline1s, eToro user on https://www.dailyforex.com/etoro/user-reviews/32

“Etoro’s OpenBook is the best trading platform I have ever used. It has got to be the greatest social trading platforms ever created. Through etoro’s openbook I can see what other traders are doing and copy them. I just hope they know what they are doing.” Elizabeth Jamison on  https://www.dailyforex.com/etoro/user-reviews/32

“Looks like this broker is competitive compared to other companies. On other side, the trading software and services are far more appealing and easier to use than in other companies.” David_SW on https://www.forex-ratings.com/forex-reviews/etoro/

“I used different platforms over time. Etoro is simply the best and easy to use for newcomers.” Pierre on https://www.forex-ratings.com/forex-reviews/etoro/

I opened a ticket and waited for their customer support team response for almost 1 week. One week after they responded your transfer might take up to 10 days. – Manoj Kumar Jain on https://www.forexfraud.com/forex-broker-reviews/etoro

Address: eToro (USA) 221 River St 9th floor, Hoboken, NJ 07030

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