How do HFM and Admirals stack up against each other?

The Radar Chart below highlights how the brokers stack up against each other across various metrics. The highest score a broker can receive in each area is 5.

At FxScouts, we help traders find the broker that suits their trading needs. In many cases, the best way to achieve this is to compare brokers side-by-side.

To compare HFM and Admirals, we used the same factors we use when reviewing brokers: The trust and regulation of the broker, the trading platform, the costs and trading conditions, and the level of education and market analysis available at the broker.

Does HFM or Admirals have a better trust and regulation rating?

Trust and regulation are some of the most important factors to consider when choosing a Forex broker. Trust in the Forex trading business is almost entirely founded upon regulation. We spend many hours evaluating the safety of each broker by delving into their fine print and confirming each one of their regulatory licences on the online registers. The more top-tier authorities a broker is regulated by, the higher its trust rating.

In our comparison, we found that Admirals holds three Tier 1 and no Tier 2 licences, and HFM holds two Tier 1 and one Tier 2 licences.

 

Is Admirals financially regulated?

Yes Admirals was founded in 2001 and is regulated by ASIC, CySEC, FCA, FSCA and JSE.

 

Is HFM financially regulated?

Yes HFM was founded in 2010 and is regulated by CySEC, DFSA, FCA, FSC, FSCA and FSA-Seychelles.

 

Based on these findings, Admirals earned a higher trust rating than HFM.

Does HFM or Admirals have lower costs?

Another important aspect we consider when comparing brokers is the cost of trading. When evaluating trading costs, we always consider the minimum deposit required to open an account and the ongoing trading costs, including the spreads and commissions. When calculating trading costs, we measure the cost to trade one lot of EUR/USD using the broker’s account with the lowest minimum deposit. The cost includes both the spread and any commission charged. 

Not all brokers publish their trading costs, so we often open accounts and trade on their platforms to verify the spreads and commissions. Based on our reviews, we found that Admirals has overall lower trading costs than HFM. 

 

Does HFM or Admirals offer a better choice of trading platforms?

Traders want Forex brokers to offer them a choice of trading platforms, so we give brokers who offer multiple platforms higher ratings. Trading platforms we consider include MetaTrader4, MetaTrader5, cTrader and proprietary mobile and web-based platforms. 

In this case, 0 offers support for and 0 offers support for . 

Do the brokers offer copy trading?

In this case both Admirals and HFM offer copy trading.

 

Which broker offers a better choice of trading instruments?

A variety of CFD instruments – and a large range of CFDs for each instrument category allow traders more opportunities for profitable trading. The best brokers will have thousands of CFDs to trade, covering all these instrument categories. We found that Admirals offers a greater range and depth of instruments to trade than HFM. Admirals offers 82 Forex pairs to trade and HFM offers 53 Forex pairs to trade.

And what about Cryptocurrencies?

In this case, Admirals offers 42 cryptocurrencies while HFM offers 40 cryptocurrencies. So if you want to trade cryptocurrencies, we advise trading with Admirals.

Which broker offers better deposit and withdrawal processes?

Although brokers may have reasonable trading fees, many traders are caught out by the high non-trading fees charged by some brokers, including deposits and withdrawals. Traders want to be able to deposit and withdraw funds quickly and cheaply. Most brokers have multiple funding methods with zero fees for making deposits, but some brokers make it more expensive and take longer to process withdrawals. 

We rate brokers more highly that process withdrawals within 24 hours by multiple withdrawal methods and without charging processing fees. We found that neither Admirals nor HFM charges a withdrawal fee. Overall, HFM has better deposit and withdrawal processes than Admirals. 

Which broker offers better educational support?

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. 

Admirals and HFM both have very good educational support. Both Admirals and HFM offer educational support for more experienced traders.

 

Which broker offers better market analysis materials?

To successfully predict the price movements of an instrument, traders will need access to frequent market research and analysis. We find that research and market analysis are always better when they are produced in-house and updated frequently. Third-party resources don’t show the same expertise in trading ideas, so we place a strong emphasis on frequent in-house updates. Some brokers also often offer interactive webinars where traders can learn from experts in the field. 

We found that 0 offers better research analysis than 0 and that both Admirals and HFM offer frequent webinars.

 

Our overall Verdict on HFM

HFM (formerly known as HotForex) is a global CFD broker offering a wide range of trading products, five account types, and the MT4 and MT5 platforms, along with some excellent trading tools. Indian traders will be trading through HFM's St Vincent and Grenadines licenced subsidiary, as, like most international brokers, HFM does not hold an Indian SCM licence.

HFM offers four standard accounts and one specialised copy trading account.  Three of its four standard accounts have no minimum deposit requirements and have extremely competitive trading fees. All accounts are available as Islamic accounts. We were also pleased to find that HFM has recently reintroduced cryptocurrency trading, no doubt because of the popularity of the asset. This is alongside an excellent range of trading instruments, including 950 international stocks.

HFM supports the MT4 and MT5 platforms in addition to its own mobile HF App, which allows clients to trade from charts and make deposits and withdrawals. It also has several excellent trading tools to assist traders further. Unfortunately, access to tools such as Autochartist, which other brokers offer as a free service, requires an account balance of 100 USD.

Our overall Verdict on Admirals

Admirals is a well-regulated global online broker offering multi-asset trading on a broader range of instruments than other brokers.  Tradable instruments include Forex, commodities, indices, shares, ETFs, and bonds.  The company also has one of the best cryptocurrency offerings on the market, although these are unavailable under the FCA and JSC regulators. 

With full support for the MT4 and MT5 platforms, Admirals is home to the MetaTrader Supreme Edition, a plugin that offers technical analysis on virtually every financial instrument.  It also offers a VPS service to clients that deposit more than 5000 EUR, which is substantially higher than the minimum deposit requirement, but offers Trading Central for free.   

Admirals boasts excellent trading conditions on four live accounts. The minimum deposit requirements are only 25 USD on all accounts, spreads average at 0.8 pips (EUR/USD) on its commission-free accounts, and commissions of 6 USD (round turn) are charged on its Zero Accounts.  

One drawback for those considering trading with Admirals is the high deposit fees charged on accounts with different currencies to those on offer at the broker.

Which broker has the highest overall rating?

HFM has an overall rating of 4.53 and Admirals has an overall rating of 4.28. For more detail please read our reviews of HFM and Admirals.