Best Trading Brokers Hong Kong 2026: SFC-Licensed vs Offshore, Named Plainly

Which broker gives free trading signals in Hong Kong?

Only Base Markets, and only through our link with a $400 deposit that stays in your account as your own trading capital. Every other broker here requires the paid Telegram subscription, and the calls are identical either way.

We are an affiliate: we earn commission when you open an account through our links, and Base Markets additionally unlocks our signals feed for readers who deposit $400. That is why it is rank 1. Base Markets is licensed by the Financial Services Commission of Mauritius (Licence GB25204723) — a real third-country licence, but not an SFC licence and not a tier-one one.

If you would rather trade at an SFC-licensed firm, do that and take the signals through our Telegram bot instead. Every signal carries an exact entry, take-profit and stop-loss, so it executes the same anywhere.

Open a Base Markets account through our link and deposit $400 — the capital stays in your account, yours to trade — and you unlock full signals access free: 1) Open the account. 2) Deposit $400. 3) Send proof on Telegram and receive every signal. Base Markets is licensed by the Financial Services Commission of Mauritius (Licence GB25204723, company 223521) and publishes no retail-loss percentage, because Mauritius does not mandate one. The absence of a figure is not evidence of lower risk, and an FSC Mauritius licence carries no SFC supervision and no Hong Kong investor protection.

What percentage of retail traders lose money with these brokers?

Pepperstone's Bahamian entity publishes that 79.6% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. Capital.com's international entity publishes 79.75%. Base Markets publishes no figure, because Mauritius does not mandate one. Both percentages were read from the brokers' own sites on 15 August 2026.

These figures are entity-specific disclosures, which is why a single "Pepperstone's loss rate" number is wrong in most markets. The same brand publishes 72.9% under its UK licence, 88% under its Kenyan licence and 79.6% under the Bahamian licence that would hold a Hong Kong resident's money. Always take the figure from the page the sign-up link actually lands on.

And read them for what they are. A number near 80% is not a claim that the remaining fifth get rich; it is a regulator-mandated statement that leveraged trading is, for the retail population as a whole, a loss-making activity after costs. Our signals are analyst opinions with a published track record. They do not repeal that arithmetic.

Which broker is best for MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 from Hong Kong?

Pepperstone offers the widest line-up of the brokers we cover — MT4, MT5, cTrader and TradingView. Base Markets is MT5-only. Capital.com supports MT4, MT5 and TradingView alongside its own app. SFC-licensed firms such as Interactive Brokers, Futu and uSMART run their own proprietary platforms instead.

MT5 is newer, with more timeframes and order types and a built-in economic calendar; MT4 is lighter, older and has the deepest library of third-party indicators and expert advisors. Neither is objectively better. What matters is which one your broker supports and which one you already know how to drive.

Do not let the platform decide the regulator, though. Choosing a Bahamian counterparty because you like a charting package is the wrong order of priorities, and it is a decision you only notice was wrong when something goes wrong.

How do I verify a broker on the SFC register before depositing?

Read the footer of the exact sign-up page to get the legal entity name and licence reference, search that entity on the SFC public register, and check both that it appears and that the regulated activity you want — Type 1 for securities, Type 3 for leveraged FX — is on the licence. If it is absent, search the foreign register the footer names instead.

Our general walkthrough is in the guide on checking that a broker is licensed.

• Entity, not brand: "Interactive Brokers" is a global group; Interactive Brokers Hong Kong Limited (CE ADI249) is the Hong Kong licensed corporation.
• Activity type, not just presence: a licence for dealing in securities is not a licence for leveraged FX.
• Foreign registers count too: if the footer names the Securities Commission of The Bahamas, search that regulator's own register for the licence number. A licence number that cannot be found on the regulator's site should be treated as unproven.
• What a licence does not do: it tells you who supervises the firm. It does not promise fast withdrawals, good pricing, or profit.

How do trading costs, funding and stops work at these brokers?

Pepperstone's pricing is mechanism-based: the Standard account carries the cost inside the spread, while the Razor account quotes a raw spread plus a fixed commission per lot per side. The exact figures depend on the entity your account sits under, so take them from that entity's own pricing page rather than from a comparison table.

We will not print a pip or commission number here. The verifiable cost documents belong to Pepperstone's European entity, and pricing genuinely differs between entities — publishing a euro-denominated European commission next to a Bahamian account would be precise-looking and wrong. Confirm the current schedule in-account before you size anything.

On funding, Pepperstone's own funding-and-withdrawals pages name cards, bank transfer, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Neteller, Skrill, UnionPay and USDT among its methods, with withdrawals described as fee-free in most countries and international transfer charges passed on. We did not find HKD-specific local rails named on those pages, so confirm currency, conversion and settlement in writing before you fund.

Finally, one execution detail that matters more than any spread: Pepperstone does not offer a guaranteed stop-loss. Its own FAQ describes a stop as a trigger for a market order, so your fill can slip through the level in fast markets. Never size a position on the assumption that a stop is guaranteed.

Prefer the most-regulated broker we earn from? Pepperstone offers MT4, MT5, cTrader and TradingView and holds tier-one licences in other markets — but a Hong Kong resident is onboarded by its Bahamian entity, not by an SFC-licensed corporation. Open it only if you have consciously accepted that trade-off. Pepperstone: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 79.6% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider (published by Pepperstone Markets Limited, the Bahamas-licensed entity that onboards Hong Kong residents; read from pepperstone.com/en/ on 15 August 2026). This entity holds no licence from the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong.

Or compare the breadth option: Capital.com pairs a large market range with a well-regarded app. A Hong Kong resident is onboarded by its Bahamian entity, Capital Com Online Investments Ltd — not an SFC licence. 79.75% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider (published on capital.com/en-int, read 15 August 2026; entity: Capital Com Online Investments Ltd, licensed by the Securities Commission of The Bahamas, SIA-F245). Not SFC-licensed.

The verdict, stated the way we would say it to a friend

If you want a Hong Kong regulator behind your account, open it at an SFC-licensed corporation — Interactive Brokers Hong Kong (CE ADI249) and Futu Securities International (CE AZT137) are the two we verified ourselves — and do not let any comparison table talk you out of it. If you specifically want raw-spread FX with a four-platform line-up and you have knowingly accepted a Bahamian counterparty, Pepperstone is the strongest of the offshore options we cover. And if free signals are what you came for, that runs through Base Markets, at rank 1 for that reason alone.

What you will never read here is that an offshore CFD account is "SFC-approved". It is not, and the pages that suggest otherwise are the reason we wrote this one.