Looking for NASDAQ brokers in South Africa? If an investor wants to get their hands on some of the biggest tech brands in the world – like Amazon, Apple and Google – then signing up with a NASDAQ broker is a must.
We cast our eye over ten brokers that offer their services to South African clients. We outline how the NASDAQ exchange works and also how to invest in NASDAQ from South Africa.
Popular Brokers with NASDAQ in South Africa 2022
NASDAQ brokers in South Africa – or accessible from South Africa – are not hard to find. Most of the popular SA brokers give investors access to NASDAQ shares, as well as assets from other US and international exchanges.
- eToro – Popular Full-Service Broker with 900+ NASDAQ Shares.
- Capital.com – Global CFD NASDAQ Broker.
- Libertex – Award-winning CFD Platform.
- AvaTrade – Well-regulated CFD Platform.
- Interactive Brokers – Full-Service Broker.
- Plus500 – Well-regulated CFD-only Broker.
- Pepperstone – Spread Betting and CFD Platform.
- XM – Global Forex and CFD Platform.
- OANDA – International Forex and CFD Broker.
- XTB – Global Forex and CFD Platform.
Your capital is at risk. 68% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.
Popular NASDAQ Brokers in South Africa Reviewed
Investors do not need a special NASDAQ trading account to buy NASDAQ shares.
SA brokers with NASDAQ shares to buy come in three types:
- Full-service brokers which offer a range of assets, and some CFDs (Contracts-For-Difference).
- CFD Specialists which offer all trades as CFDs.
- Forex (Foreign Exchange) and CFD Specialists.
The process for getting signed up and buying shares is generally the same with the most popular stock brokers in South Africa (see section below).
What are CFDs?
CFDs can be used for long-term investing, but are generally used for trading over the short-term. Because CFDs attract overnight fees, they are used for nipping in and out of positions on the NASDAQ. They allow traders to go short on a stock – which means betting that the price will fall – as well as leveraging the trade to amplify its potential gains or losses.
Research How to Invest in NASDAQ from South Africa
Investors are urged to use the free demo accounts offered by all 3 types of broker and do their own research. An investor needs to discover what type of platform suits them – whether it is one of the most popular FX brokers in South Africa, a CFD broker or a full-service platform like eToro.
1. eToro – Popular Full-Service Broker with 900+ NASDAQ Shares
Launched in 2007, eToro has registered almost 27 million users. This is a full-service broker, offering straight share dealing as well as CFD shares – plus 260+ ETFs, commodities, indices, forex and crypto. Investor can buy Bitcoin in South Africa as well as 70 other crypto coins with eToro, and it is considered to be one of the most popular crypto exchanges worldwide.
eToro charges no commission on straight share and ETF trades. Over 900 NASDAQ stocks are available, and investors can also access NASDAQ ETFs as well as trade direct off NASDAQ indices. A minimum deposit of $10 applies to share purchases.
With beginners in mind, eToro promotes ‘social investing’. Its CopyTrader facility allows investors to copy the trades of other investors for free, in real-time, with real money. This is considered to be a good way of learning the ropes, as well as avoiding newbie mistakes. With its 60+ Smart Portfolios, eToro offers all levels of investors the chance to buy into strategic positions designed by experts.
Regulated by the FCA, CySEC and ASIC, more relevant information about eToro can be found in our eToro Review South Africa.
Your capital is at risk. 68% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.
2. Capital.com – Global CFD NASDAQ Broker
Capital.com is a dedicated CFD platform with 90,000 active clients every month internationally. It offers a large selection of 5,600 markets to trade in across stocks, commodities, forex, indices and cryptocurrency.
In common with broker eToro, Capital.com provides a slick interface, zero commission on stock trades and plenty of learning materials. A total of 5,000+ stocks are available with Capital.com. All are available as leveraged CFDs. This means that the investor need only invest a small part of a proposed trade themselves (called the ‘margin’). But beginners should pay close attention to the markets with CFDs open as well as set Stop Losses to avoid losing money they haven’t got.
Capital.com accepts a usefully-wide range of deposit methods including ApplePay, Visa, Mastercard, WorldPay and Trustly. This broker is well-regulated internationally, with regulators including ASIC in Australia, CySEC in Cyprus and the FCA in the UK.
78.91% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and/or CFDs with this provider.
3. Libertex – Award-winning CFD Platform
Libertex is an unusual broker because it offers only 250+ tradable assets. Quality, not quantity, is clearly the emphasis with this CFD provider. Although a forex specialist offering tight spreads, Libertex also offers 130+ stock CFDs from the US and Europe and crypto, commodities and indices.
Very usefully Libertex offers a commission-free investment account aimed at investors wanting to invest long-term rather than trade.
Boasting 24 years in business, Libertex has picked up over 40 international awards – including ‘Best Trading Platform’ from World Finance in 2020. The broker is regulated by the FCA in the UK and CySEC in Cyprus.
Unlike both eToro and Capital.com, Libertex offers support for specialist trading platforms MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5). A free demo account is also available.
4. AvaTrade – Well-regulated CFD Platform
Like Libertex, AvaTrade is a specialist CFD broker. It offers stocks, commodities, crypto, indices, bonds, ETFs and forex as CFDs. Leverage with AvaTrade trades is supplied automatically, so investors should be sure to check what they are borrowing when they open a CFD trade.
AvaTrade offers MT4 and MT5 platform support as well as its own options platform called AvaOptions. Of particular interest to beginner investors will be Ava Social, which is the firm’s dedicated smartphone app offering social trading.
AvaTrade is regulated by South Africa’s FSCA, as well as by a raft of international regulators including IIROC in Canada, the FCA in the UK and ASIC in Australia.
5. InteractiveBrokers – Full-Service Broker
This broker offers a broad spread of assets to trade including stocks, options, futures, currencies, bonds and funds. IB has 1.8 million clients across 200 countries. Accounts can be funded in over 25 currencies.
Specialist accounts are available for trusts and retirement investing. And of particular interest to investors seeking value stocks is one of several IB tools called the IBKR GlobalAnalyst. This helps investors to track down undervalued stocks. Another useful – and relatively rare – facility is IB’s Excel API, which allows users to synchronise their trading accounts with their Excel records at home.
Watch out for high cash deposit fees with IB, but this broker provides a slick and comprehensive offering overall.
6. Plus500 – Well-regulated CFD-only Broker
As with many of the NASDAQ brokers in South Africa, Plus500 focuses its offering on CFDs only.
Plus500 has 22 million registered users across 50 countries. The broker offers 2,800 trading instruments in all, including 500+ stocks. A rating of 4.2/5 on Trustpilot has been achieved. Investors can buy Plus500 stock via the London Stock Exchange under ticker symbol PLUS.
Plus500 is one of the few NASDAQ brokers in South Africa that is regulated directly by South Africa’s FSCA, as well as by CySEC, the FCA and ASIC.
7. Pepperstone – Spread Betting and CFD Platform
Founded in 2010, Pepperstone offers forex, commodities, shares, commodities and ETFs. It has offices in London, Cyprus, Dusseldorf, Melbourne, Dubai – and Kenya. The platform serves 300,000 traders internationally and processes an average of $12.5bn USD transactions every day. CFD trading are available in US, UK, German and Australian shares.
Platform support is offered for TradingView, MT4, MT5 and cTrader. The broker holds client funds in segregated Tier 1 banks and is regulated by the FCA, BaFin, CySEC, ASIC, DFSA, SCB and CMA.
8. XM – Global Forex and CFD Platform
Launched in 2009, XM has served over 5 million clients worldwide and provides support for over 30 languages. Whilst being an FX specialist, this platform offers 5 other asset classes to trade including a range of 1,260+ stocks available as CFDs which are easy to browse under national headings.
XM is regulated extensively: by CySEC in Europe, ASIC in Australia and the FSC in Belize. The platform has won numerous awards, particularly for its FX services.
9. OANDA – International Forex and CFD Broker
Oanda began as a free provider of FX rates back in 1997. Since then, it has transformed into a key global Foreign Exchange trading platform – with 38,000 forex pairs to trade. In 2017, Oanda was named Singapore’s number one FX broker for the fourth year running.
Alongside forex, Oanda offers popular EU shares as CFDs but no NASDAQ shares. What investors can do, however, is to trade the NASDAQ 100 as an index – alongside other key US indices like the US Wall Street 30 and the US SPX 500.
Investors can check out for themselves what Oanda has to offer by signing up and using the free demo account. Oanda offers MT5 platform support for advanced traders and accepts a range of deposit methods.
10. XTB – Global Forex and CFD Platform
XTB is a global platform with an office in South…
Read More: 10 Popular NASDAQ Brokers in South Africa for July 2022
