Trading with cTrader as Your Trading Platformeric

Introduction

cTrader is the second most popular trading platform after MetaTrader. It is a powerful trading platform that is designed for traders of all levels. It is a platform that is easy to use and has a lot of features that can help you trade better. In this post, we will explore the options of trading with cTrader as your trading platform.

One major advantage of cTrader over MetaTrader is that it provides official libraries for algorithmic trading. This means that you can easily create your own trading robots and indicators using the cTrader API. This is a huge advantage for traders who want to automate their trading strategies.

Unfortunately, compared to MetaTrader, cTrader has fewer brokers that support it. Also, even when a broker supports cTrader, the available symbols (tickers) for trading are far fewer than what are offered on MetaTrader. Nevertherless, cTrader is still a great platform for traders who want to trade manually or use algorithmic trading.

Below is a screenshot of the cTrader platform:

Broker Support

One of the most important things to consider when choosing a trading platform is the broker support. cTrader has fewer brokers that support it compared to MetaTrader. However, there are still a number of reputable brokers that offer cTrader as a trading platform. Some of the most popular brokers that support cTrader include:

• Pepperstone
• IC Markets
• FPMarkets
• Go Markets
• BlackBull Markets
• FxPro (FIX API not available or blocked at least by default).

Personally, I won't choose any other brokers other than those above. They are reputable and have been in the industry for a long time. They also offer a wide range of trading instruments and have good customer support.

Available Symbols

One of the major disadvatanges about cTrader is that there are fewer symbols available for trading compared to MetaTrader. And basically, stock trading on cTrader is only availabe for a couple of brokers. Anyway, there are still a number of symbols available for trading on cTrader. As FxPro dosn't allow connection via FIX API, the tradable symbols information cannot be collected through the FIX API gateway software. So with FxPro's data excluded, below are the lists of the statistics for the available symbols in different markets, but not all categories, such as bond, EFT and futures, are listed.

Total Number of Symbols

Pepperstone	IC Markets	FPMarkets	Go Markets	BlackBull
346	123	1000	77	2101

Please note all the data are collected via FIX API. Some symbols may not be available for trading due to the broker's restrictions.

Forex Pairs

Pepperstone	IC Markets	FPMarkets	Go Markets	BlackBull
75	62	65	45	55

Commodities

Pepperstone	IC Markets	FPMarkets	Go Markets	BlackBull
		7

Gasoline is considered as a commodity in this category.

Metals

Pepperstone	IC Markets	FPMarkets	Go Markets	BlackBull
13	11	13	2	7

Indices

Pepperstone	IC Markets	FPMarkets	Go Markets	BlackBull
20	26	16	13	16

Energies

Pepperstone	IC Markets	FPMarkets	Go Markets	BlackBull
	5	5	2	2

In this category, oil and gas are included.

Cryptocurrencies

Pepperstone	IC Markets	FPMarkets	Go Markets	BlackBull
10	4	6	7	26

Stocks

Pepperstone	IC Markets	FPMarkets	Go Markets	BlackBull
nyse		nyse		nyse
nasdaq		nasdaq		nasdaq
		ams		ams
		mad
		etr		etr
				bme
		hkg

NYSE Stock Market

Pepperstone	IC Markets	FPMarkets	Go Markets	BlackBull
55		12		980

NASDAQ Stock Market

Pepperstone	IC Markets	FPMarkets	Go Markets	BlackBull
40		7		745

Not all categories, such as bond, EFT and futures, are listed.

Please note the above statistics are based on the data collected in May 2024. The number of symbols may change over time, and the numbers were compiled with the best effort and may not be exactly accurate. It only serves as a reference for what roughly you can trade with cTrader with these brokers.

Basically if simply based on the number of symbols, FPMarkets, Pepperstone and BlackBull are good choices. Particularly, BlackBull has the crasy number of symbols that you can trade, and they actually more symbols on cTrader than on MetaTrader. If those brokers don't suit you , all other brokers are good too, just that they have fewer symbols available for trading, and oftenly you won't need to trade as that many as tickers anyway. It is surely hoped that the number of symbols available particularly for the stock markets (i.e. ASX) for trading on cTrader will increase in the future.

algorithmic Trading Support

There are two options when it comes to algorithmic trading with cTrader.

The first option is to use the cTrader's a complete package of automate trading libraries. This is a great option for traders who are new to algorithmic trading and want to create simple trading robots. However, there is a bit of learning curve to use the cTrader's libraries. Also, the large part of your trading software may not be resued for other trading platforms.

The second options is to use a good FIX API library such as QuickFIX. In this case, you don't have to reply on what cTrader's maker can provide. What you have to do is to talk to cTrader's trading server or any FIX API enabled server which is provided by the broker. This is a great option for traders who are experienced in algorithmic trading and want to create complex trading robots. FIX API is a standard protocol that is used by many brokers and trading platforms. This means that you can easily reuse your trading software for other trading platforms.

If you are intereste in the second option, you can have a look at another relevant article: Trading with FIX API in C#. It mainly talks about how to use FIX API in C# but the idea is the same and it follows the same FIX protocol which is programming language neutral. Also, if you are interested building a general gateway for algorithmic trading, you can have a look at this post Building an Efficient Gateway: Connecting Your Trading System to Brokers.

FxPro provides cTrader but it doesn't allow connection via its FIX API. If you are trying to connect to cTrader via FIX API with FxPro's settings, you may get the "RET_ACCOUNT_DISABLED" error. So, if you are interested in algorithmic trading, you may want to consider other brokers that support cTrader and FIX API.

Conclusion

Luckily, there are still a few reputable brokers that support cTrader as a trading platform. If you are looking for a powerful and easy-to-use trading platform, cTrader is definitely worth considering. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced trader, cTrader has a lot of features that can help you trade better. If you are interested in algorithmic trading, cTrader is a great platform to use as it provides official libraries for creating trading robots and indicators. Overall, cTrader is a great platform for traders of all levels.

Credits

Photo by Isaac Smith on Unsplash