General

Forex is traded in currency pairs. Common currency pairs are the Euro/US Dollar, US Dollar/Japanese Yen, Great British Pound/US Dollar, and Canadian Dollar/US Dollar. You buy one currency and automatically sell another. The goal is to make a profit by buying and selling currencies as their value increases and decreases. There are many economic factors that contribute to currency movements, which traders and dedicated analysts alike attempt to decipher.

You will need access to the internet as well as a demo trading account or a funded live account to start trading with Admirals. You should also be equipped with a proper Forex education and the tools and knowledge required to manage risks in the Forex market.

Traders can potentially profit from the Forex market by correctly predicting which direction a currency pair’s price will move and opening a trade which aligns with that prediction.

For example, if you believe the price of GBPUSD will increase, you might choose to open a long (buy) position in the currency pair. If the price does subsequently increase, your long position may stand to profit. However, if the market moves in the opposite direction, your trade will lose money.

Reading through this FAQ is a great start! You can also check out the other educational resources we offer, including our articles, webinars and video tutorials.

For beginners, creating a demo account can be a sensible first step on your trading journey. Both beginner and expert traders alike make use of demo accounts to get a feel for the platform, test trading strategies and configure various add-ons, plugins, scripts and indicators.

Demo accounts are free of charge and allow traders to practise trading in a risk-free environment using virtual funds. For more information, please feel free to contact our customer support.

There are many factors that can and do contribute to currency prices. Such factors include economic and political events and announcements, interest rates, inflation, natural disasters and the list goes on. There is even debate over a mass psychology of how traders perceive the market at a certain point in time, which could contribute to how many base their trading decisions and thus influence the market. While there is absolutely no sure way to predict price movements, there are some very thorough techniques implemented by analysts in an attempt to forecast potential price movements.

The primary participants in the Forex market - who make the spreads - are the largest banks in the world; Such banks include central Banks, commercial banks, and investment banks. Known as the interbank market, they constantly deal with each other on behalf of themselves or their customers. However, the percentage of other market participants is rapidly growing and now the list includes large multinational corporations, global money managers, registered dealers, international money brokers, futures and options traders and individual investors.

Unlike the stock market, the Forex market is not tied to a central exchange. Transactions are conducted between two counterparts over the telephone or via an electronic network. Therefore, the Forex market is considered an Over-the-Counter (OTC) or 'Interbank' market.

The costs involved with trading Forex vary from broker to broker. In order to get stated, traders will need to meet their broker’s minimum deposit requirement. There are also a number of other trading expenses to consider, including commissions, spreads and swap fees.

For information about minimum deposit requirements with Admirals, please visit the Account Types page on our website. In the Contract Specification section, you can find details about commissions, spreads and swap fees for all available instruments.

The Forex market is open 24 hours a day, 5 days a week and currencies are traded worldwide among major financial centres. It opens on Sunday at 10:00 pm GMT, and closes on Friday at 10:00 pm GMT:

- Sydney is open from 10:00 pm to 7:00 am GMT

- Tokyo is open from 12:00 am to 9:00 am GMT

- London is open from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm GMT

- New York is open from 1:00 pm to 10:00 pm GMT

Yes, daylight saving time (DST) may temporarily affect the trading hours of certain instruments. Check out the latest schedule in our Daylight Saving Time update. 

Spot markets refer to the markets that deal with the current price of financial instruments. Prices are settled on the spot at current market prices as opposed to forward prices.

Essentially, it's just trader's lingo for a buy or a sell order. If you are buying a currency pair, you are opening a 'long' position whereas, if you are selling, you are opening a “short” position. For example, if you buy 1 lot of EUR/USD, it means you open a long position for 100,000 units of EUR against USD. If you sell 1 lot of EUR/USD that means you open a short position for 100,000 units of EUR vs USD. Think of it like this, when buying you want the value of the euro to increase (long) against the dollar and when selling you want the value to decrease (short) against the dollar.

Slippage occurs when the market gaps over prices or because available liquidity at a given price has been exhausted. Market gaps normally occur during fast-moving markets when a price can jump from one level to another without trading at prices in between.

Similarly, each price level only has a limited amount of available liquidity, or supply. For example, if the price of an asset is $50 and there is 1 million in volume available at that price, an order to buy 3 million units would experience slippage, as it exceeds what's available at $50.

The term “order volume" refers to the number of standard lots you want to trade.

- 1.00 refers to 1 standard lot or 100,000 units of the base currency.

- 0.10 refers to 1 mini lot or 10,000 units of the base currency.

- 0.01 refers to 1 micro lot or 1,000 units of the base currency.

Margin is a percentage amount of the total trade size which a broker requires as a deposit in order to allow a trader to open a position.

This amount is not a fee or a transaction cost; it is simply a portion of your account equity set aside within your account as a deposit towards the trade. Margin requirements are calculated by taking a percentage of the value of a trade as determined by the broker in advance and specified in the trading conditions.

For example, if you wanted to buy 1 lot of GBPUSD (or 100,000 units of GBP) using leverage of 1:20, you would need the equivalent of 5,000 GBP as margin (100,000/20). If you had less than 5,000 GBP available in your account, you would be unable to meet the margin requirement.

A Margin Call is an alert when your account equity falls below the required Margin Level. If this happens, you may need to deposit additional funds or reduce your positions in order to meet the minimum margin requirements and prevent reaching the Stop Out level, which can result in the automatic closure of positions.

The rollover rate is the cost-of-carry that is applied to a trading account on a day-to-day basis. When trading Forex, the rollover rate is based on the difference between the interest rates of the two currencies in a Forex pair. Depending on the rate and the position, a trader either earns or pays interest when a position is kept open overnight.

The spread is the difference between the bid and the ask price. The bid price is the rate at which you can sell a currency pair, and the ask price is the rate at which you can buy a currency pair. With us, you can trade a large range of instruments with flexible spreads. That gives you a greater degree of price transparency on your trades.

Admirals offers traders the ability to trade CFDs on a number of the world’s top indices including the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, US100, FTSE 100 and many others.  

Through our trading accounts, clients can trade a wide range of Forex major, minor and exotic currencies pairs, with spreads and commissions starting from zero depending on which account you choose. 

Admirals caters to traders and investors of all levels. With our investing account, clients can open an account and start buying stocks and ETFs with as little as $1, thanks to fractional shares. In terms of our trading accounts, the minimum deposit to open an account varies depending on your location; you can check out our Account Types page for more details. 

Yes, Admirals offers free educational content, including eBooks and a wide range of articles and tutorials. In addition, clients can practise trading using a Demo account. 

Yes, clients from countries across Europe can proceed with the registration at Admirals. If there are any applicable restrictions in your jurisdiction, you will be notified straight away on the registration page. 

There is no single “best” CFD broker for all traders in Europe. 

Traders use different criteria to choose the right Broker to trade with. The criteria are based on objective factors such as regulation and investor protection, trading costs and execution quality, platform features, and customer support.

Admirals offer a well-established trading platform with a long-standing reputation of over 25 years, strong Trustpilot ratings, professional customer support in many languages, and competitive trading conditions.

Brokers need identity verification to meet regulatory obligations and help prevent fraud and financial crime. These processes verify user identities, protect against identity theft, and ensure regulatory compliance. 

Yes, CFDs are legal in Europe and are strictly regulated under EU and UK financial rules.  

ESMA rules for CFDs are EU-wide regulations designed to protect retail traders. They govern leverage limits, require clear risk warnings, provide negative balance protection (only to retail clients), so traders cannot lose more than they deposit and ensure that clients receive clear transparent information before and during trading. 

The list of KYC documents required by brokers typically includes:

A government-issued photo ID (such as a passport or national ID card) to verify the client’s identity, and proof of address (such as a utility bill, bank statement, rental or lease agreement, or official government letter) to confirm the client’s address. 

The reason for requesting these documents is to comply with regulatory and anti-money laundering requirements and standards, and to ensure the security of client accounts. 

In some cases, additional documents may be requested to meet specific regulatory obligations. 

As a regulated financial services provider operating in multiple jurisdictions, Admirals follows industry standards and, in accordance with applicable regulatory requirements, requests standard KYC documents, such as a government-issued photo ID (passport or national ID card) and proof of address (recent utility bill, bank statement showing your address, rental or lease agreement or any other governmental document). Additional documents may be requested in specific cases in line with regulatory requirements and common market practice.

Accumulating ETFs reinvest income back into the fund, while distributing ETFs pay income out to investors. For tax purposes, distributing ETFs may create taxable income when payments are made, whereas accumulating ETFs can result in taxation at different points depending on local tax rules. 

ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance, a framework used to assess how a company manages environmental impact, social responsibility, and corporate governance practices.

Yes, Admirals offers sustainable investment options. All available ESG instruments (Environmental, Social, and  Governance) are listed in the Contract Specifications. In addition, Admirals provides a wide range of educational articles and materials on sustainable investing, helping clients better understand ESG principles and opportunities. 

The euro is scheduled to become Bulgaria’s official currency on January 1st, 2026. 

Yes, it will be implemented on 25th November 2025, to allow ourselves, and you, our clients, time to get accustomed to the switch, and to ensure a smooth transition, with as little technical issues as possible.

 Your account balances in BGN will be automatically converted to Euros, at the fixed rate of 1 EUR = 1.95583 BGN. The conversion process will include opening new EUR-denominated Trading Accounts or Wallets, to facilitate the required actions from the side of Admirals.

Deposits and withdrawals in BGN will no longer be possible after the switch. From the implementation date that will be provided in advance, all transactions can be made through the Euro, or any other currency that is available to you. 

Any open balances or collateral in BGN will be converted into EUR at the official rate. Trading operations will continue as usual. Under normal conditions, the exchange rate is floating, but on the migration day the conversion will take place at the fixed announced rate. Clients are therefore encouraged to check their current equity levels and consider the impact in advance.

No, the conversion will happen automatically, on the date that will be specified. However, you may wish to update any saved banking details or payment instruments to reflect the switch to EUR.

No, the conversion will be done automatically and free of charge, using the official rate, on the date that will be announced to you. 

Margin requirements and trading conditions remain functionally the same, but since the conversion will be executed at the fixed announced rate, nominal values may differ. Clients should review their funds and positions ahead of the migration date to avoid any surprises.