Traders in the financial market can choose to trade a diverse range of financial instruments like stocks, forex, crypto, commodities, and options. The NAS100 is a financial instrument in the stock market that you may decide to add to your trading arsenal if you have not done so already. NAS100 also known as NASDAQ 100 or US 100 is a stock market index that is popularly traded today. This index is made up of 101 equity securities from some of the largest non-financial companies.
The equity securities in NAS100 are decided based on market capitalization, as only the companies with the highest value are listed in the index. It is important to note that only non-financial companies are listed in the NAS100 index and no financial company is included. The NAS100 which was launched in 1985 consists of industrial, technology, retail, telecommunication, biotechnology, healthcare, transportation, media, and service companies. Like every other financial instrument, a retail trader will most likely need to trade NAS100 through a reputable stock market broker.
In this post we cover some of the best South African Brokers with NAS100 what trading conditions they offer when trading this index and what you should know about trading the US100 index.
South African Brokers with NAS100
Exness
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Trading Forex and CFDs entail risk.
Your capital is at risk.
| 🏦 Regulation: FSCA, FSC, CMA | 💰 Spreads: as low as 0.3 pips |
| ⚖️ Max. leverage: 1:Unlimited | ▶️ Min. deposit: 170 ZAR/10$ |
Exness is a well-known broker that is licensed by the South Africa’s financial regulator- FSCA. South African traders have access to trade a wide range of financial instruments such as forex, stocks, indices (including the NAS100 index). As a trader, you can easily attach this broker to popular trading platforms like MT4 and MT5. Exness refers to the NAS100 index as USTEC (US Tech 100 index). The maximum leverage offered by Exness to South African traders when trading NASDAQ is 1:400, for other assets such as currency pairs it can be up to up to 1:2000 when trading on the MT5 and even ulimited when trading on the MT4.
The USTEC can be traded on the broker’s standard and professional accounts. The raw spread, zero, and pro accounts are all professional accounts with slightly varying trading costs. The standard account has now an average spread of 38.6 pips for the USTEC (NAS100). The spread for USTEC on the raw spread account is an average of 10.5 pips while the zero accounts have zero spread and the pro account has an average spread of 24.1 pips.
The standard and pro accounts do not have commission fees for the USTEC. While the raw spread and zero accounts have commissions of $0.625 per lot and $1.25 per lot respectively.
Screenshot taken from the official Exness site (Trading > Indices)
Prices are indicative only. Check your platform for the most up to date prices.
Pepperstone
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Trading Forex and CFDs entail risk.
Your capital is at risk.
| 🏦 Regulation: CMA, FCA, ASIC, BaFin | 💰 Spreads: as low as 0.0 pips ($3 per side per lot commission applies) |
| ⚖️ Max. leverage: 1:400 | ▶️ Min. deposit: No minimum deposit |
Pepperstone offers a variety of indices to trade, including the NAS100 index. This index is tradeable on this broker site for 23 hours a day, between 1:00 am and 11:59 pm GMT. Once in a while, Pepperstone market analysts provide some insights into market developments of the NAS100 index which could give investors an edge in the market. The spreads for trading this index on Pepperstone average 1.40 pips on both the razor and the standard account.
Pepperstone also allows its clients to diversify their portfolios as it avails more than 1,200 different assets. These include CFDs on forex, stocks, indices, commodities, cryptocurrencies, and ETFs. The maximum leverage on this broker site for South African traders is 1:400. However, for the indices, clients have access to a maximum leverage of 1:200. The broker provides four powerful platforms to trade on which include MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, TradingView, and cTrader. Finally, Pepperstone is under the regulation of several organizations including the FCA, the CySEC, the ASIC, and the CMA.
Screenshot taken from the official Pepperstone site (Markets > Indices > NAS100)
Prices are indicative only. Check your platform for the most up to date prices.
XM.com
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Trading Forex and CFDs entail risk.
Your capital is at risk.
| 🏦 Regulation: FSC, FCA, CySEC, ASIC | 💰 Spreads: as low as 1.0 pip |
| ⚖️ Max. leverage: 1:1000 | ▶️ Min. deposit: 70 ZAR/5$ |
XM.com allows traders in South Africa to trade the financial markets with a ZAR account. This broker operates in South Africa via its entity that is licensed by IFSC in Belize. In South Africa, traders are allowed to trade about 55 forex pairs including some zar currency pairs like the EUR/ZAR and USD/ZAR. Traders with an interest in the stock market have access to trade on about 1300 stocks and 30 indices including the NAS100 index.
Traders interested in trading CFDs like the NAS100 or any other financial instrument can easily integrate this broker with the MT4 and MT5 trading platforms. XM.com offers NAS100 as both cash and futures CFDs. This broker refers to NAS100 as US100. The US100 cash and US100 futures have spread from as low as 1.1 and 3 respectively. The margin requirements are 0.2%, which means you can use up to 1:500 leverage when trading the NAS100 index.
Screenshot taken from the official XM.com site (Trading > Instruments > Equity indices > US100Cash)
Prices are indicative only. Check your platform for the most up to date prices.
Plus500
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CFD service. Your capital is at risk
| 🏦 Regulation: FSCA, ASIC, FMA | 💰 Spreads: as low as 0.6 pips (Dynamic spreads) |
| ⚖️ Max. leverage: 1:30 | ▶️ Min. deposit: 750 ZAR/100$ |
Plus500 is a CFDs provider that accepts clients from South Africa. The CFD provider is regulated in various jurisdictions, these include the FSCA in South Africa, the CySEC in Cyprus and the ASIC in Australia. Plus500 allows clients to trade assets from a variety of markets. Luckily, this broker also allows South African traders to invest in the NAS100 under the symbol, US-Tech 100. The spread for trading this asset can go as low as 1.9 pips and the maximum leverage can go up to 1:20.
Interestingly, trading on this asset does not expire daily, meaning investors are free to trade it 24/7. Forex currency pairs have the highest leverage accessible at 1:30. Additionally, spreads on forex pairs can be lower starting from 0.8 pips for major currency pairs. As such, investors can easily diversify their portfolios. The in-house-built Plus500 platform is the only platform available to use in trades. The broker has a minimum deposit of 100$ or 750 ZAR.
Screenshot taken from the official Plus500 site (All Instruments > Indices > Country Indices > NQ (US-Tech 100) > View full details)
Prices are indicative only. Check your platform for the most up to date prices.
FP Markets
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Trading Forex and CFDs entail risk.
Your capital is at risk.
| 🏦 Regulation: FSCA, CySEC, ASIC | 💰 Spreads: as low as 0.0 pips ($3 per side per lot commission applies) |
| ⚖️ Max. leverage: 1:500 | ▶️ Min. deposit: 100$ |
FP Markets is an ECN broker authorised and licensed to operate in South Africa by the FSCA. With this broker site, South African traders can trade the Nasdaq 100 index under the symbol, US100. This index tracks the market capitalisation of the top 100 largest publicly-traded non-financial businesses on the Nasdaq Composite index. It is offered as a CFD, meaning that investors can speculate on its rise or fall without having to purchase the underlying equities. Notably, investors can trade this index with fairly low spreads averaging 1.51 pips.
The maximum financial leverage accessible on this broker site is 1:500. However, for the US100 index, the maximum leverage is 1:200 and is tradeable 24 hours a day. While this index is a great choice for investors, there are many other assets clients can invest in. In total, there are over 10,000 trading instruments spanning the forex, indices, commodities, bonds, metals, stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies markets. The platforms available for trading include WebTrader, MetaTrader 4 and 5, cTrader, and Iress.
Screenshot taken from the official FP Markets site (Trading > Markets > Indices > US100)
Prices are indicative only. Check your platform for the most up to date prices.
XTB
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Trading Forex and CFDs entail risk.
Your capital is at risk.
| 🏦 Regulation: FSCA, CySEC, ASIC | 💰 Spreads: as low as 0.5 pips |
| ⚖️ Max. leverage: 1:500 | ▶️ Min. deposit: No minimum deposit |
XTB is yet another broker that accepts South African traders and avails of the NAS100 index. This index is available on this broker site under the symbol US100. It is available to trade for 23 hours a day from 12:00 am to 11:00 pm. The spreads for trading this instrument are fairly low starting from 0.8 pips. For clients looking for some insights into the developments around the US100 index, the broker provides market analysis for this asset under the news and research section.
Further, South African traders have fairly high leverage when trading this index going up to 1:200. Comparably, forex trading has a leverage of up to 1:500 allowing traders to control larger positions in the market. The trading platform available to investors is the xStation 5 built by XTB developers. Other than trading indices, clients can also trade CFDs on forex, commodities, equities, cryptocurrencies, and ETFs. Finally, South African clients would be glad to know that XTB is authorised and licensed by the FSCA among other top-tier regulators.
Screenshot taken from the official XTB site (Trading services > Range of Markets > Indices > Check all instruments > Show all > US100)
Prices are indicative only. Check your platform for the most up to date prices.
AvaTrade
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Trading Forex and CFDs entail risk.
Your capital is at risk.
| 🏦 Regulation: FSCA, ASIC | 💰 Spreads: as low as 0.9 pips |
| ⚖️ Max. leverage: 1:400 | ▶️ Min. deposit: 100$ |
AvaTrade is duly licensed to operate in South Africa as it is regulated by the region’s financial authority- FSCA. Apart from its South African regulatory license, Avatrade is also regulated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), based in Australia. You can easily integrate AvaTrade with the MT4 and MT5 trading platforms. Beginner traders or busy investors can choose to copy trade successful traders via any of the two social trading platforms (DupliTrade and ZuluTrade) provided by AvaTrade.
Apart from access to speculate on individual stocks and indices like the NAS100, traders have access to trade about 55 forex pairs including EUR/ZAR and USD/ZAR. AvaTrade refers to NAS100 as US Tech 100. NASDAQ 100 has a spread of 1.00 over the market and a margin of 0.50%. The sell swap of NASDAQ 100 is now -0.0006%, while its buy swap is -0.0216%. The maxmimum leverage you can use when trading NASDAQ 100 at AvaTrade is 1:200 while the overall max leverage at AvaTrade is 1:400. The minimum trading deposit for South African traders is $100. AvaTrade spreads start from as low as 0.9 pips.
Screenshot taken from the official AvaTrade site (Trading Info > US_TECH100)
Prices are indicative only. Check your platform for the most up to date prices.
How to choose a NAS100 broker in South Africa
Guide
The broker you choose to trade with will significantly impact your trading career. There are so many brokers that pose to be legitimate but are not. Even among the legitimate brokers, there are a lot of factors to consider before choosing a NAS100 broker that suits your unique trading needs. If you are more of a beginner trader with limited trading capital you may choose to go for brokers with low minimum trading deposits. Meanwhile, more experienced traders with a sizable trading capital may choose to trade using brokers that offer pro accounts with commission charges and zero spreads. We have analyzed some of the best NAS100 brokers using the following metrics.
- Regulated in South Africa: A broker may be regulated in another region and not in South Africa. It is important to ensure that the broker you choose to trade with within South Africa is regulated by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA). The FSCA is responsible for overseeing activities in South Africa’s financial markets.
- NAS100 trading fees: Brokers are not charity organizations as they aim to generate profits to successfully run their businesses and satisfy stakeholders. Hence, they charge trading fees like spread and commissions. Smart traders will always choose brokers with low trading fees for NAS100.
- Customer reviews: It is important to get a feel of real customers' experiences. You can easily get real reviews from reputable third-party review websites like Trustpilot
- The trading platform: Every broker has a trading platform it associates with. Some brokers integrate with popular trading platforms like MT4, MT5, and TradingView. While some other brokers have their own custom-made platforms. You should check that you are comfortable with the trading platforms available with a broker before choosing to trade with them.
Benefits of trading NAS100 with South African Brokers
What are the benefits of trading NAS100?
Access to innovative companies with large caps and high growth
The NAS100 is home to some of the most recognized companies in the world today. These are companies with massive market capitalization and proven products and/or services that are loved by their customers. This simply means their growth is stable and relatively reliable because of their previous historical performance. The four companies that have hit the trillion-dollar market capitalization are part of the NAS100. These companies are Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), and Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL). Apart from these trillion-dollar companies, you can also find other renowned technology companies in NAS100. Some of these renowned technology companies are Cisco (CSCO). Qualcomm (QCOM), Intel (INTC), Micron (MU), and Adobe (ADBE).
The presence of these giant technology companies often creates the impression that the NAS100 is a technology index. This impression is incorrect as the NAS100 is also home to companies in other sectors like consumer services, consumer goods, healthcare, and industrials. In healthcare, the Nasdaq-100 includes some of the most prominent biotech companies, including Gilead (GILD), Vertex (VRTX), Regeneron (REGN), and Amgen (AMGN). The NAS100 Index also includes consumer-oriented companies such as Netflix (NFLX), Costco (COST), Pepsi (PEP), and Starbucks (SBUX).
Diversified trading portfolio in one index
It is possible to trade individual members of the NAS100 rather than trading the whole index as one. When you trade the NAS100, you get a very balanced portfolio of companies from diverse industry sectors. This helps to diversify your trading investment and distribute risks across multiple renowned companies. All professional traders know that to be consistently profitable, they must be very conscious of risk management. While trying to implement risk management, placing one trade on the NAS100 index might be a better choice than trying to individually trade all 102 members in the NAS100 index. Today, less than 50% of NASDAQ 100 company sales come from the United States. Investors can therefore be assured of geographic diversity. Although the focus is technology, it covers various future sectors such as smart grids and big data. Thus providing true diversification for investors.
Potential to profit in bearish markets
The stock market is not always bullish as there are times when stock market assets depreciate and this is totally fine. The positive rise in a stock asset is never a smooth ride. It is often characterized by highs and lows which leads to an overall increase in the company’s stock value over time. Apart from trading the stock market assets as CFDs, another way to potentially profit in the stock market is to buy a stock asset, hold it for a long time and sell it off for profits in the future. Investors that directly buy stock assets to hold over time will definitely experience periods of declining stock asset value. Despite this period of decline, a trader still has the opportunity to potentially profit from the markets. It is important to note that in trading, wins do not happen all the time and that there will also be losing trades for stock traders. Also, when you trade stock assets (including NAS100) you don’t need to buy the stock asset you want to trade, you only need a broker, your trading capital, and trading skills.
FAQ - South African Brokers with Nas100
How much ZAR do you need to trade NASDAQ 100?
Most of the forex brokers that offer ZAR accounts peg the minimum deposit for trading at 2,500 rands. There are minor differences in the amounts from broker to broker, but the sum of 2,500 rands is a general average. This account size offers the equivalent of a micro account, which is suitable for traders who are making the transition from a demo account to a live trading account.
Can I trade NAS100 in South Africa?
Yes, of course. There are reputable brokers in South Africa that are licensed by the FSCA. As a South African trader, it is advisable to only choose NAS100 brokers that are regulated in the region and have lots of positive customer reviews on third-party review platforms like Trustpilot.
Conclusion
Trading the NAS100 index gives access to a diverse range of stock assets. This diversification gives lower risks when compared to the idea of trading all individual members of the NAS100 index. Like every other financial instrument, you need a broker to trade NAS100. There are so many factors to consider in order to choose the right broker for your own trading needs. The most important factor is ensuring a broker is regulated in the region you are trading from. South African traders should ensure that their chosen broker is regulated by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA). The FSCA is the financial authority responsible for overseeing activities in South Africa’s financial markets. We have listed some of the best NAS100 brokers in South Africa in order to save you the stress of doing the research from scratch. You should do further study into the brokers by visiting their websites and checking out real customer reviews on a reputable third-party review platform like Trustpilot. Trading is risky but choosing the right broker can at least remove the risk of falling for scam brokers.
