Elev8 Shares Trading: $15 Commission, No Leverage and How to Get the Account

Shares trading at Elev8 is a separate product from its forex and CFD accounts. With a shares trading account you can access more than 100 US and European shares. Elev8 buys and sells on your behalf according to your requests, and you receive dividends on the shares you hold.

The terms are very different from the rest of Elev8's offer. No leverage is available. Commission is 15 USD or 0.1% per transaction, whichever is higher, with no custody fees. One lot equals 100 shares, you can trade between 0.01 and 50 lots, and you can hold up to 10 open positions. The account runs on MetaTrader 5 and has to be requested through customer support.

How to get a shares account

1. Verify your profile.
2. Make your first deposit, if you haven't already.
3. Request a shares account from customer support.
4. Fill out the application form support sends you.
5. Wait for the review.
6. Trade on the MT5 account that Elev8 converts or creates for you.

After reviewing the form, Elev8 either converts an unused real MetaTrader 5 account into a shares trading account or creates a new one. It warns that it will deny an application containing mistakes or inconsistencies, so check every field against your profile and ID before sending it.

What you own, and what you don't

Elev8's FAQ is direct about the arrangement. You don't have direct access to the shares you trade. The broker buys and sells them on your behalf. You can buy, sell and receive dividends. What you can't do is vote with the shares, receive them in physical form or transfer them to another broker.

In practice this gives you the economic result of holding a share, price changes plus dividends, inside your Elev8 account. If you want shares registered in your own name that you can move elsewhere, a stockbroker licensed in your country is the right place.

Lot sizes in real numbers

One lot is 100 shares, and the smallest trade is 0.01 lot, which is a single share. The largest is 50 lots, or 5,000 shares.

Without leverage you need the full value in your account. Ten shares at $200 require $2,000 plus commission. That is the main contrast with CFDs, where a small margin controls a large position.

What the commission really costs

The fee is 15 USD or 0.1% of the transaction, whichever is higher. That 0.1% rate only exceeds $15 once a transaction passes $15,000. Below that, you pay the flat minimum, and on small trades it is a large share of your money.

A $200 purchase has to rise 15% just to cover the cost of buying and selling. At $5,000 the round trip is 0.6%, which is reasonable. The account is built for larger tickets held for a while, and it punishes small, frequent trades.

No leverage, by design

Elev8 says shares are not suitable for leverage trading, unlike forex instruments. Your loss on a share position is limited to what you paid, and a position can't be stopped out for lack of margin because nothing is borrowed.

That makes the shares account the calmest product Elev8 offers. It also means the broker's headline features, 1:1000 leverage and a $25 minimum, don't describe it. The Elev8 leverage guide covers the CFD accounts.

Shares account against CFD accounts

Elev8's platform comparison also lists stocks among the tradable assets on its regular platforms, which are CFDs on share prices. A share CFD and the shares account are different things. The first is a leveraged contract on the price; the second is an unleveraged holding with dividends.

Hours for share trades

Share trading follows the hours of the exchange each stock belongs to, according to Elev8's FAQ. US shares trade during New York hours and European shares during their home sessions. Orders outside those hours get a Market is closed message. The symbol's Specification window in MT5 shows the exact schedule.

Who the account suits

• Investors who want exposure to well-known companies without leverage.
• People making larger purchases, where a $15 fee is a small percentage.
• Buy-and-hold traders who value dividends.
• Muslim investors who prefer unleveraged holdings, subject to their own screening of each company.

It suits others poorly. Day traders in shares would be eaten by the minimum commission. Someone with $100 to invest can't use it sensibly. Anyone who wants voting rights or portability needs a conventional stockbroker.

Before you apply

• Decide how much you will put into each position, and work out the commission as a percentage.
• Check that the companies you want are among the 100 or so offered.
• Read the terms that apply to the shares account in your client documents.
• Ask support how dividends are credited and whether any tax is withheld.
• Keep records of every purchase and sale for your own tax return.

Dividend tax and reporting depend on your country, and Elev8's FAQ doesn't cover them. Ask a tax adviser if the amounts are significant. For the costs of Elev8's other products, see our Elev8 fees guide, and for the account range, the account types guide.

Think about currency as well. The account is in US dollars, so European shares and your own local currency each add an exchange-rate effect to your result. A share can rise while a currency move cancels the gain, and the reverse can happen too.

Set your own rules for the ten positions. Decide a maximum for any single company, perhaps a fifth of the account, and a reason for owning each one. With no leverage and no stop out, the main risk is concentration in a few names, and a simple limit deals with it.

Frequently asked

Related reading

• Elev8 account types
• Elev8 fees
• Elev8 platforms
• Elev8 Islamic account
• Our full Elev8 review