Risk warning. CFDs, leveraged FX and options are complex instruments carrying a high risk of rapid loss, and a majority of retail investor accounts lose money. General information, not financial advice.
Affiliate disclosure: some links on this page are affiliate links. If you open an account through one we may earn a commission at no cost to you. It does not change what is written below, including the parts that argue against using this platform.
Most write-ups of AvaOptions are feature tours. This one is a sceptical review, which means it spends as long on who should stay away as on what the platform does — because the honest answer for a large share of the people who find this page is "not yet, and possibly not ever".
What AvaOptions actually is
AvaOptions is one of AvaTrade's trading platforms, built for vanilla FX options rather than spot forex alone.
A vanilla option is a contract giving the right, but not the obligation, to buy (a call) or sell (a put) a currency pair at a set strike price by a set expiry. Its value moves with the underlying price, with the time remaining and with volatility, and — this is the defining property — you can close or adjust the position before expiry rather than waiting for a yes/no outcome.
That property is the entire dividing line between a vanilla option and the all-or-nothing products regulators removed from the retail market, and it is worth being exact about the difference because the marketing language around "options" is deliberately blurry.
The regulatory line, stated with the dates
This section exists because "options" is used to describe two things that could not be further apart in law.
Binary options are banned for UK retail consumers. The FCA's permanent prohibition on the sale, marketing and distribution of binary options to retail consumers came into force on 2 April 2019 under PS19/11, and its scope goes further than ESMA's by capturing securitised binary options as well. ESMA had prohibited binary options for retail investors under its product intervention agreed on 27 March 2018.
CFD-like options are restricted, not banned. The FCA's permanent restrictions on CFDs and CFD-like options sold to retail clients came into force on 1 August 2019 for CFDs and 1 September 2019 for CFD-like options, requiring firms to limit leverage to between 30:1 and 2:1, close out positions at 50% of the margin needed to maintain them, guarantee a client cannot lose more than the total funds in the account, stop offering monetary and non-monetary inducements, and display a standardised risk warning.
So: a vanilla FX option offered by a regulated firm is a legitimate regulated product, and a fixed-payout binary is not available to UK retail consumers at all. Our comparison binary options vs CFD trading covers the product difference, and is Olymp Trade available in Europe covers what the ban means in practice for platforms built on the banned model.
The caveat that matters more than any of this: availability follows the entity, not the brand. Which AvaTrade entity onboards a client, and therefore which products and protections apply, depends on the country. Confirm it before depositing rather than assuming this article describes your situation.
You can explore AvaOptions or open a free AvaTrade demo to look at the interface without committing capital.
Calls, puts and premium: the mechanics
Two building blocks, and one asymmetry that decides how dangerous this is.
- Call — profits if the pair rises above the strike by expiry. You pay a premium to hold it.
- Put — profits if the pair falls below the strike by expiry. You also pay a premium.
When you buy an option, the maximum you can lose is the premium. Your downside is capped and known before you enter, which is genuinely unusual and genuinely useful.
When you sell (write) an option, you collect the premium up front and take on the risk of the move against you, which can be far larger than the premium received. This asymmetry is why the same instrument is described as conservative by one trader and reckless by another: they are on opposite sides of it.
The premium itself is driven by three things — how far the strike sits from the current price, how much time remains to expiry, and implied volatility. That third input is the one with no equivalent in spot trading, and it is why an option can lose money while the underlying moves in the direction you predicted. Time decay does the same: hold a bought option through a flat week and it is worth less on Friday than Monday with nothing having happened at all.
What options let you do that spot cannot
Three things, and they are real advantages rather than marketing.
Hedge a position with a defined cost. Holding a long spot position into a scheduled event, a bought put caps the downside for the price of the premium while leaving the upside intact.
Trade volatility rather than direction. Multi-leg structures can be built to profit from a large move in either direction, or from the market staying still. There is no way to express that view in spot at all.
Size risk to an exact number. Because a bought option's maximum loss is the premium, the risk on the trade is known before entry rather than dependent on a stop being filled at the price you asked for — which, as slippage in trading sets out, is not guaranteed.
AvaOptions at a glance
| Feature | AvaOptions |
|---|---|
| Product type | Vanilla FX options — calls, puts, multi-leg strategies |
| Offered by | AvaTrade, a multi-entity regulated broker |
| Close or adjust before expiry | Yes |
| Maximum loss on a bought option | The premium paid |
| Risk on a sold option | Can substantially exceed the premium received |
| Binary or fixed-time product | No |
| Other AvaTrade platforms | MT5, MT4, WebTrader, AvaSocial |
The sceptical part
Here is where a feature tour would stop and this one does not.
Options add two variables you have never traded before. Time decay and implied volatility do not exist in spot. A trader who is comfortable with direction and stops now has to be right about direction *and* magnitude *and* timing, and being right about only two of the three loses money. This is the single most common way people lose on bought options, and it does not feel like being wrong.
The cost is harder to see than a spread. On spot you can watch the spread on the chart. On an option the cost is embedded in the premium, which is a function the platform computes. That is not dishonest — it is how options work everywhere — but it removes the intuitive cost check you have been relying on, and it makes cost comparison across venues genuinely difficult.
Selling options is a different business. The interface makes writing an option as easy as buying one. The risk profiles are not comparable and no platform layout can make them so. If you take one thing from this page: do not sell an option because the premium looked like free money.
Complexity is not an edge. A multi-leg structure is not more likely to be profitable than a simple spot trade with a stop. It is more likely to feel sophisticated. Traders migrate to options after a run of spot losses reasonably often, and adding two variables to a process that was not working is not a fix.
Who it does suit
Traders who already run spot positions competently and want a defined-cost hedge around events. Traders with a specific volatility view that spot cannot express. And traders who want to learn options with a capped-loss instrument in an interface that shows combined exposure across spot and options, which is a genuine convenience over running two accounts.
If that is you, the sane route is a demo first, then bought options only, at a premium you could write off entirely without it mattering. Build the fundamentals first with forex risk management and position sizing and how leverage works, and be honest about the demo's limits — see how long you should believe in a demo account.
The bottom line
AvaOptions is a legitimate regulated vanilla-options platform and the opposite of the banned binary model — the FCA's ban on binary options for retail consumers took effect on 2 April 2019 and this is not that product. It is also two new variables bolted onto a discipline most retail traders have not mastered in one variable, and no interface fixes that.
Start on a free demo, buy rather than sell while you learn, and read the full AvaTrade review and AvaTrade fees and spreads for the wider platform picture. For the head-to-head against a raw-spread broker, AvaTrade vs Pepperstone.
Risk Warning
CFDs and options are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. A majority of retail investor accounts lose money when trading these products — provider figures are entity-specific and updated periodically, commonly disclosed between 51% and 89%. Availability and the regulating entity vary by country. This article is general information, not financial advice — verify the current product terms directly with AvaTrade and never risk money you cannot afford to lose.
Sources
- FCA — PS19/11, product intervention measures for retail binary options; the permanent ban came into force 2 April 2019 and captures securitised binary options: fca.org.uk
- FCA — permanent restrictions on the sale of CFDs and CFD-like options to retail consumers, in force 1 August 2019 (CFDs) and 1 September 2019 (CFD-like options): fca.org.uk
- ESMA — agreement to prohibit binary options and restrict CFDs for retail investors, 27 March 2018: esma.europa.eu
Frequently Asked Questions
Are AvaOptions the same as binary options?
No. AvaOptions are vanilla FX options — standard call and put contracts whose value changes with the underlying price and time, which you can combine into strategies and close before expiry. Binary (fixed-time) options pay all-or-nothing on a yes/no bet and are banned for retail clients across the EU, EEA and UK. AvaOptions is a regulated product offered through AvaTrade, not a binary platform.
Do I need a separate account for AvaOptions?
AvaOptions is one of AvaTrade's platforms, offered alongside MetaTrader 5, MetaTrader 4 and WebTrader under the same AvaTrade account and regulation. You choose the platform when you trade; confirm which AvaTrade entity and regulator onboards you for your country before depositing.
Is options trading riskier than spot forex?
It is different rather than simply riskier. A bought option caps your loss at the premium paid, which some traders use to hedge. Sold (written) options can carry large or open-ended risk. Options add expiry and volatility as extra moving parts, so they suit traders who already understand leverage and risk management.
