An independent reference for Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Every figure on this site carries a named primary source and a retrieval date: regulator reports, exchange rules, peer-reviewed papers and vendor pricing pages. Where sources disagree, we publish the disagreement instead of averaging it away.
AI trading is legal and regulated in all three markets — under technology-neutral rules (ASIC, FMA, FCA), not AI-specific statutes.
The dominant retail risk is leverage and fraud, not model error. 68% of Australian retail CFD investors lost money in FY2024 (ASIC REP 828, 20 Jan 2026).
Independent evidence does not show AI beating the market after costs. The Eurekahedge AI Hedge Fund Index returned 9.8% annualised (Dec 2009–Jul 2024) against 13.7% for the S&P 500.
Realistic directional accuracy is roughly 55–65% in careful peer-reviewed work. Claims of 90%+ are typically attributable to look-ahead bias.
of Australian retail CFD investors lost money in FY2024
ASIC REP 828, 20 Jan 2026
scam and phishing sites removed in 2025, up from 6,270
ASIC 26-063MR, 8 Apr 2026
of UK financial-services AI use cases are fully autonomous
BoE/FCA survey, n=118, 21 Nov 2024
AI hedge-fund index annualised vs 13.7% for the S&P 500
Eurekahedge, Dec 2009–Jul 2024
Three pages carry most of the ground: what AI trading is, whether the evidence supports it, and what it costs.
Definition, the nine-step decision loop, eight functional categories with their failure modes, the semantic difference between AI, algorithmic, systematic and high-frequency trading, and a documented timeline from the 2010 Flash Crash to the IOSCO supervisory toolkit of May 2026.
The published record: AI hedge-fund index underperformance, a peer-reviewed review of 27 machine-learning equity experiments finding no conclusive evidence of returns at scale, and why no audited like-for-like live-return comparison between retail vendors exists.
Nine platforms with prices taken from vendor pages: TradingView from USD 0 to 199.95, TrendSpider 52.38 to 128.40, Trade Ideas 89 and 178, Cryptohopper 0 to 129, 3Commas, Pionex fees, QuantConnect tiers and the IBKR API. Plus what the subscription price leaves out.
Four independent deep-research passes were compiled for this site. Two of them contained regulatory documents that could not be verified against any regulator's own register — a fabricated FCA policy statement, a consultation paper with the wrong number, a supervisory guidance note that does not appear in the issuing authority's library. None of those claims appear on this site. The rule we apply is simple.
The figure appears in a named primary source — a regulator media release with its reference number, an exchange rulebook edition, a peer-reviewed paper, or the vendor's own pricing page — and we record the retrieval date.
The source exists but the page carries no publication date, or the underlying survey is more than twelve months old. It stays, marked stale, with the date it was captured.
No primary source, or the claim conflicts with one. It is not published — not softened, not attributed to "industry sources". Where credible sources genuinely disagree, both figures appear side by side.
A short extract from the full fact table. Values are reproduced as the source states them; qualifiers such as "more than" are not converted into exact numbers.
| Fact | Value | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retail CFD investors losing money, Australia FY2024 | 68% | ASIC REP 828 | 20 Jan 2026 |
| CFD customers losing money, United Kingdom | approximately 80% (CP16/40 sample: 82%) | FCA | 2019 onward |
| UK financial firms already using AI | 75% of 118 respondents | Bank of England / FCA survey | 21 Nov 2024 |
| Fully autonomous AI use cases | 2% | Bank of England / FCA survey | 21 Nov 2024 |
| Top three cloud providers, share of named providers | 73% | Bank of England / FCA survey | 21 Nov 2024 |
| Scam and phishing sites removed, calendar 2025 | 11,964 (prior 12 months: 6,270) | ASIC 26-063MR | 8 Apr 2026 |
| AI use cases reviewed across 23 licensees | 624 | ASIC REP 798 | 29 Oct 2024 |
| Retail CFD leverage caps, AU and UK | 30:1 major FX down to 2:1 crypto | ASIC 20-254MR; FCA PS19/18 | 2019–2021 |
| Algorithmic share of trading volume, US/EU/major Asia | approximately 60–75% | Select USA | 2018, restated to 2025 |
| AI hedge-fund index vs S&P 500, annualised | 9.8% vs 13.7% | Eurekahedge | Dec 2009–Jul 2024 |
| Realistic directional prediction accuracy | approximately 55–65% | Peer-reviewed studies (Yu & Yan; Ding et al.; Sirignano & Cont) | 2019–2025 |
| FCA review of algorithmic trading controls | 10 principal trading firms | FCA multi-firm review | 21 Aug 2025 |
Yes. None of the three regulators bans the technology or has a bespoke AI trading law; existing financial-services obligations apply to AI and non-AI systems alike. What triggers a licence is the activity — dealing, advice, portfolio management, market access — not the label on the software. Full detail by jurisdiction.
No, and no audited benchmark of live retail bot returns exists. Backtest-overfitting research shows that selecting the best result out of many trials manufactures apparent skill; the published AI hedge-fund record is below the S&P 500 over fifteen years. The evidence in full.
Retail tools run from USD 0 to about USD 200 per month, with Trade Ideas Premium at USD 178 per month or USD 2,136 per year at the top of the compared set. Subscriptions exclude broker commissions, exchange data, spreads, slippage and tax. Price and quota tables.
Fraud and leverage, in that order — not model error. Between 68% and roughly 82% of retail CFD accounts lose money, and AI-branded scam sites are being removed by the thousand each year. Verify the promoter's licence before anything else. Scam patterns and checks.