Saxo Review

• ISA
• SIPP
• General Investment / Trading account
• Corporate account
• Joint account
• Professional account
• Trust account

Within these accounts, Saxo provides you access to a long list of investments across a multitude of asset classes. All retail investor accounts come with access to over 70,000+ instruments. In this way, Saxo Bank offers a similar product offering to Degiro, but Degiro doesn’t offer Forex through its retail investor accounts. You would only need to consider an alternative forex broker if you require high leverage, risk management tools or a low minimum deposit.

It’s worth noting that you may not have access to all instruments or global markets in certain tax wrapper accounts, usually per HMRC and UK Government rules. For example, you won’t have CFDs with this provider within your ISA account. CFDs come with a significant risk of losing money rapidly, so they aren’t available in government programs.

Saxo primary product is its trading platform – the SaxoTraderGo web and mobile platform, which grants investors global access to a variety of asset classes including Futures, ETFs, bonds, mutual funds, forex options and listed options.

Let’s start with the live tools and data.

Saxo Bank provides detailed data and clear recommendations for trade ideas, as well as charting suitable for new and intermediate-level investors.

The chart function is largely lauded as being very user-friendly. It includes 50 technical indicators and a whole host of editing tools, including a trading signal tool.

Is there a catch? Naturally. Producing the kind of market research services and tools needed to run a platform like the one Saxo Bank offers requires resources. So, the data provided isn’t free. Instead, Saxo Bank teases you with stock fundamentals on big names, like Apple, Barclays, Nokia, and Microsoft. The rest of the data is available on a subscription basis.

Other tools include

• Stock screener
• Newsfeed
• Trading ideas
• Market analysis
• Technical analysis

In addition to providing helpful tools for live trading, Saxo Bank also invests in new traders. You can open a demo account and get started with trading using a combination of the platform tutorial and Saxo’s long list of videos introducing you to trading in the Saxo Academy. Saxo Bank also offers webinars to help grow your knowledge.

Is there a catch? Data is 15 minutes behind unless you subscribe to live pricing from an exchange, so it’s not real-time. There also seems to be some lagging with charting.

In addition to providing helpful tools for live trading, Saxo Bank also invests in new traders. You can open a demo account and get started with trading using a combination of the platform tutorial and Saxo’s long list of videos introducing you to trading. Saxo Bank also offers webinars to help grow your knowledge.

Saxo also offers protection against losing more than you have in your account with negative balance protection, however, there is no guaranteed stop-loss protection which can lead to extreme losses.

• Stocks
• ETFs
• Bonds
• Commodities

Leveraged Products

In addition to non-leveraged products, Saxo Bank also offers leveraged products, including CFDs. The full list of leveraged products include

• Forex
• CFDs
• Futures
• Commodities
• Forex options
• Listed options
• Trading strategies

Saxo’s leverage ratio is up the 1:50 mark (maximum). The maximum threshold is very low compared to other brokers. Saxo also stresses both in its learning material and in the mandatory warnings on its site that CFD trading magnifies profits and losses.

At the time of writing, the warning statement says that 67% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with Saxo. This is updated quarterly.

Saxo ISA Review

The Saxo Stocks and Shares ISA account grants you access to the Saxo investment platform – SaxoTraderGo as well as access to most of the 11,000 eligible investment instruments on 25 exchanges. There’s no minimum deposit for the ISA.

You won’t have access to leveraged products, but this is a product of UK government rules rather than trading platform features.

There’s no minimum deposit for a Saxo ISA. You also don’t need to commit to a direct debit or lump sum each month. Saxo recommends all account holders take it upon themselves to invest an amount that justifies the Saxo Bank charges assessed.

You can open a Saxo account as well as an ISA or another tax-wrapper account. However, you will get a dedicated ID for your ISA.

Saxo isn’t the provider, administrator, or trustee of the pension schemes seen on its site. Instead, Saxo provides the trading platform for you to trade funds held within your SIPP (or allow your investment advisor to do so on your behalf). Even still, Saxo Bank requires a minimum deposit of 10,000 GBP or the equivalent in another account currency.

As a result, you need to choose a trustee for your SIPP. You’ll need to see whether Saxo has an existing relationship with your current trustee (if applicable). Otherwise, you need to choose one from the list of approved trustees.

Saxo does allow you to trade derivative products within your SIPP (with respect for SIPP restrictions). There is a restriction on FX Options and other products. There are also increased margin requirements compared to other accounts. You can’t seek the same leverage, but this reflects the risk associated with spread betting and is a requirement made by HMRC to allow you the option.

Additionally, you can open a SIPP in 18 different currencies. The account currency conversion fee is only 1%.