BEST EXECUTION AND ORDER HANDLING POLICY 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 etoro (Europe) Ltd (the Company ) is an Investment Firm regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission ( CySEC ) with license number 109/10. 1.2 This Policy is issued pursuant to, and reflects Compliance with, the European Directive 2004/39/EC Of 21 April 2004 on Markets in Financial Instruments (MiFID) and with the implementation in Cyprus legislation on Investment Services and Activities and Regulated Markets Law of 2007 Law 144(I)/2007 (the Rules ) that apply to the Company. It is not intended to create third party rights or duties that would not already exist if the policy had not been made available and it does not form part of any contract between the Company (or any of its affiliates) and any client or prospective client. 1.3 What follows is an overview on how trades and orders are executed, the factors that can affect an execution s timing and the way in which market volatility plays a part in handling orders when buying or selling a financial product. 1.4 Upon acceptance of a client order and when there is no specific client instruction regarding the execution method, the Company will endeavor to execute that order in accordance with the Best Execution policy. 1.5 Nevertheless, whenever there is a specific instruction from a client, the Company shall execute the order following the specific instruction. In fact, any specific instructions from a client may prevent the Company from taking the steps that it has designed and implemented in the execution policy to obtain the best possible result for the execution of those orders in respect of the elements covered by those instructions. 1.6 This Policy is available to clients upon request and is also made available on our Website. The Company reserves the right to amend or supplement this Policy at any time. 2. FINANCIAL PRODUCTS TO WHICH THIS POLICY APPLIES 2.1 The financial products to which this Policy applies are all of the products offered by the company. Different execution methodologies may apply to different products. 2.2 The trading conditions of the above products are available on the Company s official website at www.etoro.com. 3. COMPANY S APPROACH TO BEST EXECUTION 3.1 The Company identifies and seeks to obtain the most favorable terms reasonably available when executing an order on behalf of a client. 3.2 To do this, the Company relies on three basic components: state of the art technology for routing, monitoring and executing orders; careful consideration of the elements of order execution; regular and rigorous examination of the overall execution quality.
3.3 When executing a buy or sell order, the Company always considers: the classification of the client as retail or professional; the nature of the client order; the characteristics of the financial instruments that are subject to that order 4. THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN EXECUTING CLIENTS ORDERS 4.1 Typically, the Company uses automated systems to route and execute client orders. With respect to certain instruments, such as securities and BitcoinCFD (such as shares, stocks, BitCoin, BitCoin derivatives, bonds and/or other debt instruments, including government and public issues), the execution is not effected automatically but rather in one or more intervals each trading day (as shall be elected by the Company), on the basis of best prices available to us from our liquidity providers along with our markup. Unless otherwise specified in the products description, when clients orders are received by the Company, it is automatically executed. 4.2 For OTC financial instruments and/or financial instruments whose underlying asset is a OTC financial instrument (such as securities CFDs), the Company may trade against its own proprietary desk or will route the orders to other market maker firms. Many of these firms also provide automated executions of orders. 5. ORDERS FOR BITCOINS, SECURITIES AND CFDs 5.1 We may utilize another executing broker, including an affiliate or a non-affiliated third party, including etoro (UK) Limited, to execute your orders/or and transactions. Such executing brokers shall have the benefit of all of our rights and remedies and limitations on liability under these Terms and Conditions. We reserve the rights to decline any order or transaction, at any time, in our sole discretion. You shall be responsible for monitoring all Your orders until We confirm execution or cancellation of the order. 5.2 Any order or instruction you give us will not take effect unless actually received and acknowledged by us. We shall be entitled to act upon any order or instruction which we reasonably believe is given by you or on your behalf without further enquiry as to the genuineness, authority or the identity of any such person giving or purporting to give such order or instruction. The execution of an order by us shall constitute a binding agreement between you and us on the terms of such executed order. 5.3. You acknowledge that it may not be possible to cancel or modify an order with respect to certain types of transactions, such as CFDs with respect to securities and/or the Peer-to-Peer internet commodity further described at http://bitcoin.org ( Bitcoins ). Any attempt to cancel or modify an order is simply a request to cancel or modify and shall not be recognized by etoro, unless specifically approved by Us. etoro shall not be liable to for any loss You may sustain in the event of a non-cancelation of said orders, regardless if the security price becomes highly volatile, the occurrence of a market event and/or upon an excessive movement in the underlying market or the like.
5.4. Except for excluded transactions as set forth in http://www.etoro.com/en/customerservice/fees/, any open positions held by you after the relevant hour as set forth on http://www.etoro.com/en/customer-service/fees/ (the Overnight Hour ) which is considered the beginning and end of the trading day are considered to be held overnight, and are subject to overnight fee/credit as explained below. You acknowledge that when holding such position open after the Overnight Hour, an overnight fee/credit will be either added or subtracted from your account with respect to such position. The overnight fee/credit amount is a constant fee/percentage of the position value/dollar amount per units and is based on a number of factors including among others, whether the transaction is a buy or a sell, interest rates, the currency in which it is denominated, instrument differentials, daily price fluctuations and other economic and market related factors. The overnight fee/credit for each instrument is displayed on http://www.etoro.com/en/customer-service/fees/ link for each specific Instrument on the trading platform. Please note that as most liquidity providers (which include global banks, financial institutions, prime brokers and other market makers) across the globe are closed on Saturdays and Sundays, so there is no overnight on these days, but most liquidity providers still apply interest for those two days. To account for that, We will book two/three days of overnight fee/credit on the day relevant for such Instrument as set forth on http://www.etoro.com/en/customer-service/fees/ (the WE Overnight Day ), which makes a typical We Overnight Day overnight fee/credit a multiple of the amount on the preceding weekdays, all as set forth on http://www.etoro.com/en/customerservice/fees/. Market holidays will be charged on a daily basis and not in advance before the holiday (for instance if any of the currencies traded has a major holiday). In deciding whether to open a position for a specific Instrument, you acknowledge that you are aware of the overnight fee/credit and authorize us to add or subtract such a overnight fee/credit to or from your account. 5.5 When an individual stock which is a constituent of a cash stock index goes ex-dividend, this will have a weighted effect on that cash index, known as the index dividend or index impact. We will make adjustments to those accounts with a position in an affected index, if that position is open on the relevant Overnight Hour on the day prior to the ex-dividend date of the constituent shares. We reserve the right to effect such adjustment within 30 days following the ex-dividend date. We will credit long positions and debit short positions (by means of a cash adjustment) to your Account. In doing so we will make our best efforts to effect such adjustment on the basis of good faith and fairness and, where appropriate, by taking such action as is consistent with market practice and/or taking into account the treatment we may receive from our counterparties or any relevant third party. As a result of such event, we may determine the appropriate adjustment to be made to the CFD price or contract quantity as we consider appropriate to account for said event. 5.6 Orders for Bitcoins and Securities CFDs (including shares, stocks, bonds and/or other debt instruments, including government and public issues). 5.6.1 The execution price reported to You on the relevant confirmation of the buy or sell order shall reflect the prices made available to us at the time of execution to which our spreads and commissions shall be added or deducted, as the case may be. Such bid-ask prices shall not necessarily reflect the closing price for the underlying security as quoted on the relevant exchange in which the security is traded and/or the prices presented in charts and/or other market information made available by us. etoro disclaims any liability with respect to any such discrepancies.
5.6.2 When entering into an order for Securities and/or Bitcoins CFD, You irrevocably and unconditionally agree to accept the security bid/ask prices in which the transaction shall be executed as shall be reflected on our trading platform as final and binding. Our prices may differ from the current prices on the relevant exchanges and you acknowledge that a transaction shall be effected even though the relevant security and/or Bitcoins never traded at the level of your transaction. 5.6.3 When effecting such transactions, etoro may or may not acquire or sell the underlying security and/or Bitcoins for its own account to cover said orders. We can elect to acquire the underlying securities and/or Bitcoins at any relevant exchange in which such underlying asset is traded. 5.6.4 We may in accordance with our Order Execution Policy, aggregate your orders with our own orders, orders of any of our associates and/or persons connected with us including employees and other clients. Furthermore, we may split your orders when executing them. You accept that aggregation and split of your order may result in you obtaining a less favorable price than if your orders had been executed separately. 5.6.5 Without derogating from the generality of the foregoing or any other provision of these Terms and Conditions, We further reserves the right NOT to execute buy or sell orders for Securities and/or Bitcoins CFDs and/or to close any open positions therein, without any further notice to you, in the following circumstances: (1) Your order violates exchange Rules or securities or commodities laws, regulations or Rules, or is intended to defraud or manipulate the market; (2) abnormal market conditions and/or a significant disruption in or premature close of trading in of the underlying security and/or the market on which the underlying security is traded; (3) Force Majeure, acts of God, war (declared or undeclared), terrorism, fire or action by an exchange, regulatory or governmental authority that disrupts trading in the relevant security; (4) in the event liquidity providers are unable to provide liquidity to Us. 6. THE ELEMENTS OF OUR BEST EXECUTION POLICY 6.1 Routing determinations are based on five main criteria and are regularly reviewed by the Company. Hence to determine the best way to execute an order for a client the Company takes into consideration: (1) Speed and Likelihood of the Execution. Due to the levels of volatility affecting both price and volume, the Company seeks to provide client orders with the fastest execution reasonably possible. (2) Price Improvement and Overall Consideration of Costs. Orders are routed to market makers and/or market centers where opportunities for price improvement exist. (3) Size Improvement. In routing orders, the Company seeks markets that provide the greatest liquidity and thus potential for execution of large orders.
(4) Overall Execution Quality. When determining how and where to route or execute an order, the Company s traders draw on extensive day to day experience with various markets and market makers, focusing on prompt, sequential and reliable execution. (5) Clients specific instructions. The Company will always execute client orders in accordance with the instructions given by that client or on its behalf. Consequently, if a client requires an order to be executed in a particular manner and not in accordance with the Company s best execution principles set forth herein, the client must clearly state his/her desired method of execution when he/she places the order. To the extent that a client instruction is not comprehensive, the Company will determine any non specified components of the execution in accordance with these best execution principles. The above execution factors may not apply or may partially apply to financial instruments which are not, by their terms executed immediately, such as securities CFDs. Such instruments are executed in specific one or more intervals each trading day. Further details on how we execute the orders with respect to such financial instruments are available on the Company s official web site at www.etoro.com. 6.2 The Company invites the clients to bear in mind that the duty of best execution not only relates to price but also involves the consideration of various factors including cost, speed and likelihood of execution and settlement. Even if a trade appears not to have been executed at the best possible price, it does not necessarily constitute a violation of the duty of best execution. 7. REGULAR REVIEW OF EXECUTION QUALITY AND OF EXECUTION VENUES 7.1 The Company regularly evaluates the overall quality of its order executions. The Company studies the quality of executions for listed and OTC retail market orders. 7.2 The Company s Management periodically evaluates the execution quality and makes recommendations regarding order routing practices. 8. EXECUTION VENUES CURRENTLY CHOSEN 8.1 Execution Venues are the entities with which the orders are placed or to which the Company transmits orders for execution. For the purposes for the financial instruments provided by the Company, the Company acts as the Sole Principal and is always the sole Execution Venue of the Clients orders. ; 8.2 The Company acknowledges that the transaction entered in Financial Instruments with the Company are not undertaken on a recognized exchange, rather they are undertaken through the Company s trading platform, and accordingly, they may expose the Client to greater risks that regulated exchange transactions. Therefore the Company may not execute an order, or it may change the opening (closing) price of an order in case of any technical failure of the trading platform or quote fees. The Client is obliged to close an open position of any given Financial Instruments during the opening hours of the Company s Trading platform. The Client also has to close any position with the same counter party with whom it was originally entered into, thus the Company. 8.3 The Company places significant reliance to the above execution venue(s) based on the above mentioned factors and their relevant importance. It is the Company s policy to maintain such
internal procedures and principles in order to act for the best interest of its client and provide them the best possible result (or best execution ) when dealing with them. 9. PRICE VOLATILITY 9.1 In order to minimize such a risk, the Company has in place procedures and arrangements which to the furthest extent possible provide for the prompt, fair and expeditious execution of client orders. 10. EFFECTS ON ORDER EXECUTION Clients should be aware of the following risks associated with volatile markets, especially at or near the open or close of the standard trading session: Execution at a substantially different price from the quoted bid or offer or the last reported sale price at the time of order entry, as well as partial executions or execution of large orders in several transactions at different prices. Opening prices that may differ substantially from the previous day s close. Locked (the bid equals the offer) and crossed (the bid is higher than the offer) markets, which prevent the execution of client trades. 11. ALTERNATIVE TYPES OF ORDERS Given the risks that arise when trading in volatile markets, you may want to consider using different types of orders to limit risk and manage investment strategies. (1) Market order. With a market order the client instructs a broker to execute a trade of a certain size as promptly as possible at the prevailing market price. Financial institutions are required to execute market orders without regard to price changes. Therefore, if the market price moves significantly during the time it takes to fill a client s order, the order will most likely be exposed to the risks outlined above, including execution at a price substantially different from the price when the order was entered. (2) Limit order. With a limit order, the client sets the maximum purchase price, or minimum sale price, at which the trade is to be executed. As a limit order may be entered away from the current market price, it may not be executed immediately. A client that leaves a limit order must be aware that he/she is giving up the certainty of immediate execution in exchange for the expectation of getting an improved price in the future. Limit orders may be routed to an exchange without human intervention. (3) Stop order. Different from a limit order, a stop order allows selling below the current market price or buying above the current market price if the stop price is reached or breached. A stop order is therefore a sleeping order until the stop price is reached or breached. When the stop price is reached or breached, the stop order is converted to a market order. See section 10.1(1) for market orders.