Best Trading Platforms in UAE for Swing Trading 2023 (UPDATED)

Interactive Brokers allows swing traders access to stocks and ETFs across 125 global markets which makes them a top choice for swing trading with stocks and ETFs. Its fully customizable Trader Workstation (TWS) features a variety of technical and fundamental analysis tools including Social Sentiment Bars, Economic Calendars and Advanced Market Scanners that help you identify swing trading opportunities. 

The Trader Workstation platform offers access to 100 different order types, including Good-til-Canceled, Good-till-Date and Immediate or Cancel. It also allows importing all sorts of algos to automate swing trading through IBKR’s available APIs. 

Interactive Brokers does not charge any commission on stocks and ETFs. Despite the broker offering many free analytical and market research tools, it does charge for certain add-ons such as PorfolioAnalyst.

Interactive Brokers TWS and GlobalTrader Key Features for Swing Traders:

• Wide Range of Available Assets – users have access to forex, CFDs, options, futures, commodities, cryptocurrencies, stocks, and ETFs.
• Excellent Desktop Trading Platform – the TWS platform offers a variety of trading features and tools specifically designed for swing traders.
• Supports Algorithmic Trading – users can connect Expert Advisors and trading scripts to their account via APIs and deploy over 100 algos to automate trades.
• Great Mobile Trading Platforms – mirroring the desktop platform features they allow users to trade from anywhere approach.
• Advanced Analytical and Market Research Tools – users have access to Portfolio Analyst, Risk Navigator, Social Sentiment Bars, Economic Calendars, Arbitrage Meter, and Advanced Market Scanner to conduct in-depth technical and fundamental analysis.

Interactive Brokers requires swing traders to maintain a minimum account balance of $25,000 in order to engage in day trading.

eToro’s intuitively designed and beginner-friendly (social) trading platform and its automated and thematic Smart Portfolios make it the ideal broker for beginner swing traders. The broker doesn’t provide advanced charting features, level 2 order book data, custom indicators, or automated trading.

However, its comprehensive watchlist, economic calendar, and basic charting functionalities make it a well-suited trading platform for beginners. 

eToro’s social trading platform allows swing traders to automatically copy the trades of professional swing traders from their own trading accounts. On the other hand, its self-directed trading platform will enable users to day trade, swing trade, scalp, and hedge over 3,000 financial instruments, including stocks, ETFs, commodities, and cryptocurrencies.

eToro supports market and limit orders, stop losses and take profits, but no advanced or conditional orders. Additionally, beginner swing traders can access a free demo account to familiarize themselves with the platform. 

Additionally, all eToro users have access to a broad database of research and analytical tools and educational material, including eToro Plus, Invest & Digest, Smart Portfolios, eToro Money, and the eToro Academy.

eToro also offers Islamic swap-free accounts for swing traders of the Muslim faith.

eToro Key Swing Trading Features:

• Wide Range of Tradable Assets – Users can access over 3,000 financial instruments at eToro, including ETFs, stocks, commodities, and cryptocurrencies. Alternatively, they can invest in ready-made thematic investment portfolios over the long term.
• Social Trading Supported – Beginner swing traders can automatically copy the trades and investments of more experienced swing traders and investors.
• Demo and Islamic Swap-Free Accounts Available – All users can access a freely available demo account or convert their traditional eToro account into an Islamic swap-free account, where they pay no overnight swap fees or other forms of interest (Riba).
• Beginner-friendly Trading Platform – Despite lacking some features sought-after by advanced swing traders, eToro is known for its beginner-friendly trading platform that almost makes trading and investing look like a game.

eToro Key Features

Offering access to 950 CFDs and 48 forex pairs, low fixed spreads, and up to 400:1 leverage, AVAtrade is a great choice for swing traders looking to trade with forex and CFDs.

AvaTrade list of platforms includes multiple proprietary platforms, third party integrations including MetaTrader (4 and 5) and TradingView extension. Apart from having 90 built-in technical indicators, users can import their own custom indicators for technical analysis and deploy automated trading scripts from MetaEditor or Expert Advisors.

AvaTrade charges low fixed spreads starting at 0,13% on stocks and ETFs and 0,9 pips on forex pairs. 

Swing traders can open an account with AvaTrade from $100 and fund their account by wire transfer, credit/debit cards, or e-wallets such as PayPal, Neteller, and Skrill. Muslim traders that want to swing trade according to Sharia Law can contact AvaTrade’s customer support to convert their regular live account to an Islamic Account.  

AvaTrade Key Swing Trading Features:

• Wide Variety of Tradable Assets – access to forex CFDs, cryptocurrencies, commodities, indices and vanilla options.
• MetaTrader and Third-Party Compatibility – full compatibility with MetaTrader (4 and 5) TradingView, DupliTrade, ZuluTrade, and Capitalise.ai.
• Options Trading Opportunities – access to vanilla options on over 40 forex pairs
• Feature-Packed WebTrader – it offers multiple order types, dynamic charting, an extensive drawing toolkit and other technical analysis tools for swing traders.
• Automated Trading – allows automation of swing trading strategies through Expert Advisors, APIs and social trading extensions (AvaSocial, ZuluTrade, Duplitrade)
• Extensive Research Tools – include a range of technical and fundamental analysis tools such as technical indicators, economic calendars, and trader sentiment bars.

TradeStations FuturesPlus trading platform allows users to visualize, analyze, and create profitable options and futures swing trading strategies and identify profitable entry and exit points. Combined with great market coverage of Options and Futures it is a top choice for options and futures swing traders in UAE.

TradeStation also ofers users the option to monitor market activity with Trade Monitor and send RFQs directly from Strategy Creation. With TradeStation’s $99/month subscription plan, traders can additionally access RadarScreen, Matrix, OptionStationPro, TradeStation Scanner and connect these technical and fundamental analysis tools to any broker of choice. 

TradeStation doesn’t charge commissions on futures and options trades up to $10,000 per trade and offers commission-free stock and ETF trading. This is great for swing traders looking to open large positions on equities.

The minimum deposit at Tradestation to open a live trading account is $5,000. AED deposits get automatically converted to USD.

TradeStation Key Swing Trading Features:

• Great Choice of Trading Instruments – users can trade on a variety of stocks, ETFs, options, futures, futures options, crypto, IPOs, mutual funds, and bonds.
• Competitive Trading Fees – TradeStation offers commission-free stock, ETF and stock options. They charge a low fee of $1,50 per contract/per side on futures and futures options.
• Professional Grade Proprietary Platform – offers access to real-time market data, advanced order management, fast and reliable trade execution, fully customizable charting, dynamic market-scanning tools, and tools to design, test, optimize, monitor, and automate swing trading strategies.
• Trade Ideas –  TradeStation’s Strategy Performance Report provides swing traders with useful trade ideas based on their own strategies.
• Algorithmic Trading – allows users to automate trades with through APIs, Expert Advisors, trading scripts, and other types of automated software.

IG Trading’s list of platforms include a set of proprietary platforms (desktop, web and mobile), the full MetaTrader suite (MT4 and MT5) and ProRealTime or L2 Dealer extensions. This makes IG’s set of trading platforms and features a great fit for swing traders at all levels.

The L2 Dealer extension allows swing traders direct market access to trade share or forex CFDs straight through the order books of international exchanges. ProRealTime is an additional feature that provides swing traders access to leading charting features, automated CFD trading, and the possibility to build algorithms using assisted creation tools.

All IG’s trading platforms support advanced order types such as trailing stops and allow swing traders to backtest their trading strategies using 30 years of historical price data. The broker also provides users with extensive fundamental analysis tools and trade ideas via its economic calendars, daily blog, and premium insights provided by in-house market analysts.

IG doesn’t offer Islamic, swap-free trading accounts.

IG  Key Swing Trading Features:

• Broad Range of Tradable Assets – access to a variety of forex, CFDs, stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies.
• Multiple Trading Platforms – proprietary  (desktop, WebTrader and mobile app), MetaTrader 4, ProRealTime and L2 Dealer.
• Identify Chart Patterns Automatically – IG’s AutoChartist uses technical indicators such as Fibonacci retracements to monitor the markets 24/7 and warns users of favorable trading opportunities in real-time.
• Premium Trading Signals – offers users ‘buy’ and ‘sell’ suggestions based on technical or fundamental analysis tailored to their personal trading strategies.

Saxo Bank is the best broker for professional swing traders because it allows access to professional grade fundamental and technical analysis tools, an extensive charting package, a professional options chain, and extensive customization options.

Saxo Bank also offers vast market coverage across different asset classes including stocks, ETFs, bonds, mutual funds, options and futures. 

SaxoTraderPro allows advanced swing traders to automate their trades by using Saxo’s fix and open APIs or by connecting third-party Expert Advisors, scripts, or Excel. 

The minimum deposit to open a live trading account at Saxo Bank is $2,000. Islamic traders can open an Islamic swap-free account that allows them to trade halal and Islamic-compliant stocks researched by IdealRatings.

Saxo Bank Key Swing Trading Features:

• Vast Range of Available Assets – access to stocks, ETFs, forex, CFDs, futures, and options
• Beginner and Professional Grade Platforms and Features – SaxoTraderGo and SaxoTraderPro cover trading needs for beginner to advanced traders.
• Professional Insights – users have access to market insights from in-house trading experts on market trends and price movements.
• Advanced Algorithmic Trading – Saxo’s FIX and OpenAPIs allow users to swing trade on auto-pilot via Excel, or by using third-party Expert Advisors, trading scripts, and other automated trading software.