Tag: Forex Broker

Hamilton Club is a forex and CFD broker that is located in Saint Vincent & the Grenadines. On their website, the company explains that they have had more than ten years of experience in the Forex market and that their attractive trading conditions have helped them to form a large client base. The broker also takes credit for helping their clients earn 2.5 million daily and has earned awards, both for being innovative and for Best Russian Broker 2018. After investigating, our research revealed that this broker is ideal for one specific type of trader. Keep reading to find out if you belong in that category, or if you should continue looking elsewhere.

Account Types

In total, Hamilton offers four different account types, with the choices being Standard Micro, Standard, Professional Micro, and Professional accounts. This broker assigns status levels to each account type, based on a certain deposit minimum that is made. Status levels range from the default Silver and top out at Diamond status. So, for example, the most basic account would be a Silver Standard account, while a Diamond Professional account would be the account type with the lowest trading costs, but we will explain how costs are affected in more detail later.

One of the main differences for the account types would be that the Micro account options both offer trading on currency pairs, raw materials, and metals. Meanwhile, both of the main account types offer trading on currency pairs, raw materials, metals, stocks, indices, and cryptocurrencies. The Professional account types offer lower spreads and commissions than those available on the Standard accounts, but exact details differ, based on the status level we mentioned earlier. The accounts share the same leverage options.

Platform

Like many of their competitors, this broker exclusively features the MetaTrader 4 platform as their sole trading platform. Allow us to catch you up to speed if you aren’t already aware of what this trading platform offers. Many traders would point out the easy to use, customizable user-interface as a clear advantage to choosing this platform, while others would mention the built-in programming language, which allows one to create your own advisors and indicators. MT4 also comes with many built-in tools, technical indicators, analytical objects, and more.

The platform is highly accessible, so traders should have no problem accessing it from anywhere, even on the go. The program can be downloaded on PC, Mac, iOS, and Android. Keep in mind that this also means you can access MT4 from your smartphone, tablet, or any other device that supports the App Store or Google Play. To access the download links, you can select the ‘Trading Platform’ from the website’s main menu.

Leverage

Regardless of which account type you choose, you’ll have access to the same leverage options, starting from 1:1 and including 1:50, 1:100, and the highest option, 1:500. Generally, many professional traders feel that choosing leverage of around 1:100 is ideal. However, those that enjoy high-risk, high-reward trading prefer high leverages, so the 1:500 option would be perfect. Overall, this broker is offering an excellent selection of leverages, including the most ideal option, and an option that is high above average. Whatever your situation is, you should be satisfied with these choices.

Trade Sizes

The smallest allowed trade size would be one micro lot on all account types. Micro accounts limit the maximum trade size to 1 lot, while there is a limit of 50 lots on the other account types. Also, only one open position is allowed on the Micro accounts, but there is an unlimited amount offered on the main account types. Therefore, you’ll want to avoid Micro accounts if you prefer a larger trading volume and opening multiple positions at once. The stop-out level is set at 30% on Micro accounts and 20% on the main account types.

Trading Costs

On the website, one can use an interactive chart that shows what type of commission would be charged. First, you would choose a status level: Silver is the default, then there is Gold, Platinum, and Diamond. Next, you would choose an account type, with the options being Standard + Standard Micro and Professional + Professional Micro. Finally, you can select an instrument from a drop-down list in order to view the applicable commissions and spreads. From what we learned, opening a Professional account, including the Mini version, grants commission charges that are always 0.002% lower than those charged on the Standard account types. Below, we have provided some examples for different scenarios, but you can also use this chart to compare the results yourself.
Silver Status: 0.013% for the majority of instruments on Standard account types, going as high as 0.16%; conditions are always 0.002% lower on each asset for the Professional account types. (Default)

Gold Status: 0.011% for the majority of instruments on Standard account types, going as high as 0.14%; conditions are typically 0.002% lower on each asset for the Professional account types. (Requires a $10,000 deposit)

Platinum Status: 0.09% for the majority of instruments on Standard account types, going as high as 0.12%; conditions are typically 0.002% lower, or more, on the Professional account types. (Requires $50,000 deposit)

Diamond Status: 0.007% for the majority of instruments on Standard account types, going as high as 0.1%; conditions are typically 0.002% lower on the Professional account types.

In addition to the applicable commission charges, one should be prepared to pay rollover interest on any positions that are held overnight.

Assets

The Micro account versions of the Standard and Professional account types offer the least variety of tradable instruments, with options bring limited to currency pairs, raw materials, and metals. The Standard and Professional account types offer trading on all of these options, including a larger variety of metals, stocks, indices, and cryptocurrencies. The website doesn’t offer more specific information on the assets in each category, so we cannot go into further detail about each category.

Spreads

Remember earlier, when we explained how the interactive chart on the website can be used to view commission charges? The same exact chart can be used to gain examples of spreads. However, the differences in the spread on each account status and account type vary more greatly. From what we learned, it seems that each status level affects the spreads, as well as whether the account is Standard or Professional. Of course, the spreads are highest on the Silver account status and are best on the Diamond status.

The Professional account types also seem to offer spreads that are significantly lower than those offered on the Standard account types. It seems that spreads are higher than average on all of the Standard account options, but can be lower than average on all of the Professional account types. Comparing all of the options can be exhausting, so we provided an example using the AUD/CAD currency pair below. Note that spreads are floating. If you’d like, you can use the interactive chart by choosing ‘Trade on Forex’ under ‘Products and Services’.

The spread on AUD/CAD is 2.5 pips on the Silver status Standard account types. On the Professional account types of the same status, the spread is 1.2 pips. On the same asset type, the spread is 2.3 pips on the Gold Standard accounts and from 1 pip on the Professional account types. The same asset type has spreads starting from 2.1 pips on the Platinum Standard accounts and from 0.8 pips on the Professional account types. The best status level, Diamond, offers spreads from 1.9 pips on the Standard account types and from 0.6 pips on the Professional account types.

Minimum Deposit

All account types are automatically assigned the Silver status level, which doesn’t seem to require a minimum deposit. To earn the Gold account status, you’ll need to make a deposit of $10,000. The next best account would be the Platinum status level, with a minimum deposit of $50,000. The very best status would be Diamond. A $100,000 deposit is required to earn this title, so acquiring this status level will be beyond many trader’s reach. As we explained earlier, this broker offers the very best conditions to those that can afford the higher deposits. This isn’t uncommon in the Forex world, but we wish that it was more realistic for an average trader to afford one of the better two account types.

Funding

This broker does not offer much information about their funding methods and procedures. We do know that MNP, Visa/MasterCard, WebMoney, Qiwi, and Rhaekc are all listed on the website, so we assume that these are the methods currently offered for funding and withdrawing. The website doesn’t offer details until your account has been approved, so we can’t say much more from there. The best advice for this situation would be to be prepared in case there are any withdrawal fees and to try to request withdrawals in advance of when you’ll actually need the funds. Otherwise, you could reach out to support for more information.

Bonuses & Promotions

All promotional offers are valid on all account types. Terms and conditions apply to all of the options, but those details are not available on the website, so be sure to contact your account manager to ask for the details. Keep in mind that there are likely conditions, like a certain deposit requirement to apply for a bonus, limits on when the client can withdraw funds, etc. that you’ll want to consider if you’d like to qualify for any of these offers. All opportunities have been listed below.

-Deposit Bonus: Get an additional 25%-100% added to your trading account, based on your deposit amount. The broker applies status levels to each deposit amount and the status level determines how much of a deposit is needed. Note that these status levels are given different names that the main status levels, and really only matter with regards to this section. The levels are as follows:

• VIP White: $10,000 deposit = 25% bonus
• VIP Blue: $50,000 deposit = 50% bonus
• VIP Black: $100,000 deposit = 100% bonus

-Trade After Pay: Begin trading for bonus funds and the company will provide 10 days to replenish the funds.

-Commission Compensation: Broker will refund two times the amount paid in commission fees directly to the client’s trading account.

-Interest on Deposit: Earn 1-2% per month on your deposit, adding up to a total of 12%-24% paid back in interest. Note that 12% interest is paid back for VIP White status, 50% for VIP Blue status, and up to 24% for VIP Black status.

Educational & Trading Tools

We’ll start by highlighting the educational opportunities available on the company’s website. First, there are free 14-day Forex courses that are aimed towards providing one with enough knowledge to be prepared for trading. The company offers a Basic, Advanced, and Professional course, so these can be beneficial for traders of all different skill levels. In addition, you’ll find a Forex Glossary, which is filled with helpful definitions. All of the technical tools include Copy Trading, Analytical Research, an Event Calendar, Trading Forecasts, AutoChartist, Prime News, Macroeconomic Indicators, and FxWirePro.

The latter is a professional information service that allows you to receive the actual stream of news from the financial markets directly. Copy Trading provides the ability to choose for your account to automatically copy the trades of a selected professional trader. This could be a golden opportunity for those that don’t have much knowledge, although you may want to test this feature with caution, just to be sure that your chosen trader really knows what they’re doing.

Demo Account

Considering the fact that the website does not mention demo accounts and we could not find anywhere to sign up, we must conclude that this broker simply doesn’t offer the ability to open practice accounts. Sadly, these account types can be extremely beneficial for those that need experience trading. This isn’t enough of a reason to choose another broker, but we do wish this broker would add these account types in the future.

Customer Service

Hamilton provides customer support 7 days a week via email, phone, ticket, or social media. All clients will use the same email address to contact support, but there are multiple phone numbers listed, so you’ll need to use the best one based on your location. A ticket can also be created by choosing ‘Questions’ under ‘Support’ when logged into your account. This broker is also active on social media and updates their Facebook regularly. Support can be messaged directly via Telegram as well. All contact information, including links to social media accounts, have been listed below.

Email: [email protected]

Phone:

• United Kingdom: +44 (8000) 698-465
• United States: +1 (888) 718-65-94
• Canada: +1 (888) 718-65-94
• Russia: +7 (800) 200-00-51
• Mexico: +52 (800) 269-44-52
• France: +33 (805) 0-888-59
• Japan: +81 (120) 963-036

Address: First Floor, First St. Vincent Bank Building, James Street, Kingstown, St. Vincent & the Grenadines.

Social Media:

• VK: vk.com/hamiltonclub
• Facebook: Facebook.com/hamilton-club-480213925679638
• Ok: Ok.ru/group58415991160893
• Telegram: t.me/HamiltonResearch_bot

Countries Accepted

Hamilton Club’s convenient location in St. Vincent & the Grenadines makes it possible for them to provide less restrictive rules. Therefore, all countries appear to be accepted. We were especially happy to note that the United States is included in this list, and the company even provides a direct phone line to clients located in the US.

Conclusion

Hamilton Club is a forex and CFD broker that offers trading on various assets, including cryptocurrencies, on four different account types. Some of the highlights would be the flexible leverage offers on all account types, the fact that clients from all locations are accepted, and the great educational offers and trading tools available. However, the best trading conditions are reserved for the clients that can make larger deposits. Another downside would be the lack of information on the site about funding.

This broker definitely rewards those that afford to make larger deposits. If you can afford the $10,000-$50,000 deposit requirement that grants a better account status level, then you’ll have access to the very best trading costs. Otherwise, you may have a harder time profiting under the conditions on the most basic account types. This is an excellent broker for those that are more established, but we are always looking for advantages for the underdogs.

Genetrade is an offshore broker located and regulated in Belize. As one of the attractive solutions for broker companies that seek an easy entry and regulation, Belize regulatory authority – International Financial Services Commission (IFSC) has a sound name but not much to offer in terms of client protection. Genetrade is one such brand under Genius Trading LTD company, using its own payment processing company in Cyprus. Owning such a company makes easier approvals for VISA and MasterCard transactions.

Genetrade has a good and polished website where information is structured and covers important topics for investors. Although, a lot of redundant, empty marketing words are used, common for brokers that just fill the page without any argumentable, defined content. Genetrade highlights the high leverage level and bonus promotion, one of the two most effective lead collectors for offshore brokers. Still, this can be understandable considering Genetrade needs some popularity. This review will evaluate whats great about this broker as many that try to break through the competition offer good value for money.

Account Types

From the moment you open the Account Types page, Genetrade wants to point to benefits traders will have. Transparency, fast executions without re-quotes, no Dealing Desk, MetaTrader 4 platform, Global customer support, and Account Manager. This is what most traders want to hear, we will test these claims in the next sections. Account types are limited to two, and they differ by lot trading sizes, and that’s all.

Micro Account allows trading in 0.01 lots or micro-lots, while Standard Account contract size is 100.000 units or one lot. Available base currencies for both Account types are USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, HUF, PLN, and ZAR. Furthermore, accounts are commission-free, have low spreads, and swap-free for Islamic clients. Genetrade does not restrict trading styles such as scalping, hedging, or news trading. Overall, great offer without many Account types with different packages and scaling deposit levels which is common with other brokers.

Platforms

Genetrade is focused only on the MetaTrader 4 platform. MT4 is available as a direct web browser version without any installation which looks like the ordinary desktop MT4 variant. Mobile versions are supported for Andriod and iOS and desktop for PC and Mac. Once launched, the MT4 Platform will log in with blazing speed. The communication lag to the server was a very fast 40ms on average.

Everything is set to default except the one-click trading buttons are turned on. The execution times are averaging a bit above 100ms which is very good compared to other brokers. Traders will have the latest version of the platform that feels really responsive to Genetrade’s servers. The margin levels will not reflect the leverage you have selected during the registration so traders will have to remember what is set during the sign-up process or calculate manually. MT4 is the standard among brokers and actually trading quality depends on how good is the broker network connection.

Genetrade has one more web platform, Sirix This platform has a social module integrated and is shown on the right side as a social feed of other traders. This way clients that do not have any skills can copy the trades of others, follow them and analyze them to develop their ideas. This platform is available for real accounts.

Leverage

One of the selling points of Genetrade Is the leverage up to 1:1000. This is available for both account types and all assets. This also means Gold leverage is up to 1:1000, which is rare to see in the industry. This kind of leverage cannot be allowed within regulated brokers in the EU or USA and can be attractive to some high-risk traders. It is not obligatory to use this leverage, clients can change it to lower values.

Trade Sizes

Trade sizes are divided by the two account types, Standard and Micro. The minimal trading volume is 0.01 lots for the Micro as the name suggests. Volume steps are also in 0.01 lots giving traders to employ low risk, precision scale in and out strategies. The maximum volume for one trade is 50 lots. The Standard Account has the minimum volume set to 1 lot and apparently is catered for bigger deposits. Combining this with high leverage also opens the trading field for a lower deposit, high-risk traders.

Trading Costs

Genetrade does not charge commissions for any of the account types. Trading costs in terms of swaps for non-Islamic accounts are under normal levels. Not all swaps are negative, For EUR/USD the swap is +2.19 and –9.21 points for a long position. Gold has -10.14 long and -0.42 short position swap, although the majority of forex pairs have a negative swap. Genetrade is very transparent for fees and trading costs and presents all instrument swap table. We have checked the accuracy and found out the table is not updated to the levels in the MT4 platform. After 100 days of trading inactivity, the client’s account will be regarded as dormant and a $10 fee will be charged every month.

Assets

Probably one of the weakest points of Genetrade is the assets offer range. This is Forex focused broker, there are no commodities, shares, indices or crypto. Precious metals are limited to two, spot Gold and Silver. A total of 57 currency pairs reveals that at least the Forex category is fully developed. Apart from the major pairs, there is a fair number of exotic pairs. Traders can find USD/RUB, USD/PLN, USD/HUF, USD/HKD, USD/HKD, USD/ZAR, USD/CNY, USD/TRY and Scandinavian currencies under US Dollar-denominated exotics.

Furthermore, the options are extended with the EUR denominated combinations and also some with GBP. Certainly, Forex traders do not need to look elsewhere.
If you stumble under the Indicies category on the Genetrade website, you may see that it is available, in practice it is not yet introduced. The Genetrade staff informed us that they plan to expand soon.

Spreads

When brokers promote variable spreads from 1 pip the statement will hold even if it is 50 pips. Genetrade 1 pip spread was never reached even for the most liquid pair. Although, the EUR/USD pair spread is around 1.7 pips which is acceptable. The spread level for other currencies varies considerably, so, for example, the GBP/JPY has a 4.5 pip spread, AUD/NZD 4.9, EUR/NZD 8.5 pips and the GPB/NZD has a wide 10.8 pips spread in normal conditions. Taking a look back at the “from 1 pip” offer will make traders aware that it is just pure marketing. For the spot Gold and Silver, the spread is around 4 pips, making it one of the top 50 spreads offered for these assets.

Minimum Deposit

Since Genetrade is still new and offers basically one account type, it tries to attract new traders to the pool. If low spreads and assets range does not work, the minimum deposit will. For $5 you can apply for a live account for both types, although we are not sure if a $5 deposit is normal for the 1 lot minimal trade Standard Account sets.

Deposit Methods & Costs

The payment options for withdrawal and deposit vary from area to area. Clients can see the options once they login to the Members area. Globally, Genetrades will accept deposits from Bank Wires, Credit /Debit Cards, Skrill, PayTrust, Bitwallet, and Netteler. There are no fees for any deposit method except for Skrill charged 2% of the deposit amount.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

The minimum withdrawal is $10, no fees are charged by the Genetrade. When clients request multiple withdrawals is a short time, Genetrade will process it as one to minimize the transaction costs. In the Terms and Conditions document, there is a statement that enables Genetrade to impose fees and limits to their system at any time. The support staff told us that this case has never happened, probably it Is set there for future changes or just as a legal safety.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Processing time is usually instant, for Bank Wires It depends on the client’s bank and will take between 3-5 days. Genetrade will process the request in a few hours. Interestingly, If the client has used the Credit/Debit Card for deposit, any profits made will be sent by Bank Wire, but also a client can choose his e-wallet. Most brokers will only use the Bank Wire method for profits. Withdrawals are possible even when the markets are closed.

Bonuses & Promotions

Genetrade has a very interesting bonus that is not based on the trading volume. A simple idea, 50% Deposit Bonus up to $5,000 will be credited without any deposit minimums. After a withdrawal request, the bonus will be canceled and any profits gained are available for withdrawal too. This kind of bonus is additional equity that enables bigger positions and potentially a bigger share of profits. What is great about this bonus is that there are no special conditions or funds lockup. For the broker, it affects the number of withdrawal requests as traders want to utilize the bonus funds as long as possible.

Educational & Trading Tools

Apart from the mentioned Sirix social trading platform, Genetrade has no educational material available. Also no news or analysis section. Genetrade probably does not see immediate value from this and want to keep focused on assets expansion.

VPS service is available for free. This feature is online 24/7 but has certain requirements. Traders need to maintain at least $5000 equity and trade at least 5 lots per month. This is valid for all client’s accounts cumulatively. Even if you do not qualify for free VPS, it is still available for $28 per month.

Customer Service

Genetrade support is available, although not 24/5 as described. The chat was not always available, and when it was there was no waiting queue. Support representatives act politely and give relevant answers to our questions, still, there is a room for improvement to give better answers. Genetrade is also reachable via email but we did not find a phone line that is stated on the web site. Overall, the support this broker provides is better than average.

Demo Account

The demo registration process is easy after filling the email and other details. To our surprise, Genetrade had internal server errors that blocked us to make one. Only the real account worked. We have approached the support with the issue just to receive a reply to try again later. We are unsure if this is just a mechanic to open a real account instead since it just requires $5.

The demo is not time-limited if traders are active. After 90 days of inactivity it will be closed automatically, but another one is always possible. You can maintain up to 5 demo accounts at one time.

Countries Accepted

Genetrade does not have a long list of banned countries. Full information on this is not disclosed on the website or the legal documents. The list we got is from their support: United States, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Cuba, Iran, Belize, Burundi, Iraq, and Mali.
Interestingly, Japan is not on the list, and as we are told, clients form Japan are Genetrade’s target group. This is further confirmed by the Japanese version of their web site.

Conclusion

Genetrade is an ECN STP model broker that utilizes the regulatory liberty to provide high leverage, better deposit/withdrawals, account types conditions, bonus model and wider global client coverage. As a new broker, it does not have a large client pool and the situation may change as it gets bigger. Traders will not enjoy tight security but will have more freedom, both for trading and off trading. The main drawback, for now, could be the lack of other trading instruments categories.

Looking at the benchmark sites, this broker does not have notable reviews except the one about the possible fake arbitrage trading foul that Genetrade does not allow. Genetrade is a good example of how bonuses could be made to benefit both the trader and the broker without complex, unethical rules. Furthermore, trying out this broker service is affordable considering the low deposit requirements. In the long term, traders will need to understand the risk of a growing and changing broker such as Genetrade to the extent that conditions offered now might quickly change tomorrow.

VT Markets is a brand of Vantage International Group Limited, under a Vantage Global Prime Pty Ltd company regulated by ASIC. This group also has VantageFX and KlimexCM brands under their control. VantageFX is much more popular than newly established VT Markets and this is an attempt to get around more restrictive ASIC regulation for overseas operations. This caused Vantage International to open different brands under different regulators like the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA).

VT Markets internationally are regulated by this authority yet also regulated by ASIC for Australia clients. VT Markets is a kind of an extension of VantageFX to Asia-pacific region setting targets to China, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore markets. Although still new and unpopular, judging by other brands, this broker has a solid set up to bring quality service to traders, developed IT solutions and structure for features, and a good business model for sustainability. We will research each section to see what makes VT Markets stand out.

Account Types

VT Markets offers VIP ECN Account and Standard STP (Straight Through Processing) Account. The VIP Account is still not available and as to when will more options come online is unknown. It is said that traders will have a lot of account types to choose from, based on their trading style. Unfortunately, it is just one – Standard STP for now. This account encompasses all the styles, EAs, scalping, hedging, news trading, all allowed. The opening process is simplified, primarily oriented to Asian clients, where VT Markets is focused on. This is a Metatrader 4 platform only account, no commissions, with low spreads.

VT Markets put a lot of effort to connect with as many liquidity providers as possible to get the best spreads but also fast executions. Over 13 large and well-known LPs are listed, among them, JP Morgan, Bank Of America, Barclays, Citi Bank, Deutsche Bank, and more are connected via oneZero Financial Systems company’s MT4 Liquidity Hub. This is one of the leading choices brokers worldwide decide to implement for connection to liquidity providers. The MT5 platform accounts will be possible in the future and it is one of the VT Markets objectives. In the next sections, we will test the technology this broker speaks about and if it holds to the words on the transparent and informative website.

Platforms

As already mentioned above, Metatrader 4 is the only available platform available in all of its iterations for desktop and smart devices. MT4 web is also set up for those that do not want to install anything. The MT5 is announced to be adopted as Metaquotes slowly develops the support for that platform, although many brokers have adopted MT5 a long time ago. VT Markets MT4 is in default settings, latest build, pinging to the North Virginia server in 1.15ms, although the first issue we have noticed is the black, waiting for update chart on USD/CHF currency pair. The reason behind this is that the normally quoted-pair is called USD/CHF-VIP instead. We assume this is because of VT Markets preparation for the VIP ECN Account package, yet, this pair is not exotic in any way.

Whatsoever, almost all of the Forex pairs have the VIP suffix, leaving us confused about VT Markets decisions on account types range. The execution times are above 200ms mark averaging 250ms showing mostly slower executions times compared to other brokers, especially concerning STP ECN types where VT Markets belong. Whatsmore, the Take Profit order we have set on AUD/JPY pair has not executed when reached for unknown reasons.

VT Markets also features its App for mobiles but not available from Google Play Store or Apple. The app is all in the Chinese language and it is specifically designed for that region, where English is not well adopted. The App features K chart, Stop Loss/Take Profit orders, alarm module, data analysis and reporting system, Forex forum and social elements.

Leverage

VT markets feature 1:400 leverage on the Standard STP accounts. Of course, this is valid for Forex, the leverage will vary from asset to asset. Metals leverage is 1:100, Commodities 1:50. Generally, this leverage is high comparing to other brokers allowing small deposits a high-risk breakthrough to thousands. Even for Gold 1:100 leverage is very attractive. Indicies leverage is also 1:100.

Trade Sizes

Trading sizes are optimal, starting from micro-lots minimum order size (0.01 lot) to 50 lots for Forex. Volume steps are also in micro-lots allowing full precision in trading and flexible money management. Stop Gold follows the same levels, up to 50 lots maximum and Silver up to 25 lots. Stops level is at 20 points.

Trading Costs

VT Markets will not charge conversion fees, commission or any other fees related to trading. Apart from spreads, swaps are the only type of cost traders will face when trading. The swaps are all under normal levels and it is common to see positive values on many instruments. In fact, we had trouble finding a Forex pair without a positive swap on one side. EUR/USD has -10.57 and +6.62 points on the short side, GBP/JPY +3.08 long swap and -6.33 short, AUD/NZD has +0.08 on long and -0.99 points on the short overnight swap. For sure, this is a good sign for traders that the broker is not obsessive with profits even though swaps are marginal costs.

Assets

This category is probably the weakest point of VT Markets. There is a bit of everything for all sets and we are not sure if some instruments are available for VIP ECN Accounts only as their name suffix implies. Forex has a total of 38 currency pairs are on the list with the VIP suffix. Without the VIP mark, there are just 5, EUR/USD, AUD/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD and a pair that is more interesting for the Asia-Pacific zone – USD/HKD. For anyone looking for exotics, SGD is present across all major pairs like SGD/JPY, NZD/SGD, etc. Some Scandinavian currencies and TRY are listed, giving enough instruments for classic Forex traders. 

Precious metals range is different than what is announced on the VT Markets website. Namely, Palladium and Platinum are not listed in the MT4 platform. Spot Gold, Silver and Copper are available though, but taking into account that Silver and Gold move almost in sync, metal traders will not have another asset to diversify. 

Indicies range is good, covering all the majors and as expected, more indices specific for the Asia-pacific zone. A total of 15 indices counting the VIX and US Dollar Index are on the MT4 platform. APAC zone traders would like the ASX SPI200, Hang Seng Index, China 50, ES35, and Nikkei 225 index. 

The commodity offer is better than average in the industry. A total of 10 commodities are tradeable as CFD. Including Orange Juice, Cotton, Cocoa, Sugar, and Coffee. Energies set is also extended and traders can find WTI, Brent Oil, Natural Gas, Heating oil, Low Sulphur Gasoil, and Gasoline. If we could pick a broker type based on the asset offered, VT Markets would certainly be a commodity broker.

Shares offer range is good, although it is also oriented towards the APAC zone traders. The shares range is equally divided into US and HK companies with over 100 total listed. The biggest from both sets are selected including banks, oil and tech giants many are familiar with. We do not see any VIP suffix here meaning that shares are open for all account types. Traders that want to trade companies not listed elsewhere will probably find them with VT Markets if it is in the Asia-Pacific region.

Spreads

Like with some other ECN STP brokers, VT Markets also states spreads from 0.0 pips. This is not correct and by our estimation, the minimum variable spread recorded was 1.1 pips. That spread is for EUR/USD currency pair although it is surprising that the spread did not go over 3 pips for any other pair. For example, AUD/SGD is 2 pips, SGD/JPY 1.5 pips, and even GBP/JPY is 2 pips. The biggest spread was for GBP/HKD pair at 31 points which are good for their Average Daily Range. Both Silver and Gold had spread of around 3 pips and Oil around 4. Looking at other assets we can conclude that the spreads are not the best, certainly not form 0.0 pips but very even and competitive. 

Minimum Deposit

This amount is very obscure and is hard to find. What we could get from the support and the Product Disclosure Statement is that the minimum is 200 AUD or equivalent. VT Markets describe themselves transparent, and with most of the information, this is truly making us wonder why the minimum is not published on the website. 

Deposit Methods & Costs

Depending on the jurisdiction and where the trader comes from, the deposit methods will vary although all will be listed from the VT Markets client portal. All the possible methods are Bank Wire, VISA, MasterCard, BPAY, Neteller, Poli, and Skrill. VT Markets does not charge fees for deposits and the costs may arise from the client’s bank or payment service.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

In accordance with AML, VT Markets will do all reporting relevant transactions to AUSTRAC and process the withdrawal using the methods listed in the client’s portal available from the website. There are no fees except the fees associated with the currency conversion and the client’s bank.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Banks transfers that are local in Australia will be finished in 2 days. International transfers will take up to 7 days. E-wallet and Credit/Debit Card are usually instant. Withdrawal processing time for VT Markets is 1 business day.

Bonuses & Promotions

VT Markets has a rebate scheme that is directly credited to the MT4 platform on a daily basis. Now this rebate program is available for the Standard STP Account although what amounts are in question is undisclosed. VT Markets has bonus promotions from time to time and mostly targeted for Chinese clients. We have found a $100 bonus for new deposits program in 2018, as per bonus requirements, traders only had to trade 2 lots to claim the bonus. For now, no bonuses are offered.

Educational & Trading Tools

VT Markets does not have any education material or at least not at the moment of writing this review. It is stated on the website that” a plethora of content under both the News and Education menu tabs.” These tabs do not exist yet. On the other hand, VT Markets have a Tools section with a few different products. MT4 Smart Trader Tools is a package of additional apps that could be inserted into the Metatrader 4 platform. The exact content of this package is not disclosed, the page reserved for this product is not yet complete. 

EAs are supported and encouraged. MT4 is the main base for new EAs and from the description on the VT Markets website, VPS service is available for free. Still the “VPS page” is mentioned but nowhere to be found. For now, clients will have to check with the support for this service.

Trading Central signal service is offered and sent by email to live clients. MT4 signals are also described that come with Metaquotes by default. The signals that come from Trading Central are not deeply described just the statement that TV Markets are not responsible for any losses made from using the signals.

The economic calendar page is created and contains the classic Metaquotes calendar. This calendar is basic in features without any kind of filters. The events are described well with the addition of a chart of historic levels. The impact of an event is marked as well as expected values. There is nothing special about this calendar. 

Customer Service

VT Markets customer support is available through phone, email, and chat. The broker boasts about “24h award-winning support”, this is not what we have encountered. The chat is offline and the email response takes longer than 24 hours. Yet we are certain that the support staff is well trained to answer all the questions and concerns.

Demo Account

The demo account is easy to make with an email confirmation process. It is limited to 90 days and reflects the actual trading environment. In the legal documents, it is stated that the real account might be different from the demo. As this account is available with the desktop MT4 version, bot EAs and the Trading Central signal service can be tried out.

Countries Accepted

VT Markets legal documents state Japan, United States, and North Korea are not available for their services. We also know that other countries do not allow trading or fall under high-risk jurisdiction according to The Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Conclusion

TV Markets is an extension brand for adapted for the APAC region and shares the same legal documents with VantageFX, another brand under the Vantage Global Prime company. The structure of this group is distributed to cover all possible clients across the globe and features of a competitive broker. This way, VT Markets has two regulations CIMA and ASIC. Only clients from Australia will be under the ASIC, all other global coverage comes under the CIMA as stated in the legal documents.

Another key point traders should know is that VT Markets is closely working with Hong Kong, the mobile app is available only in Chinese and via the installable APK android package. Traders will probably have conditions with VantageFX as VT Markets feels specialized. Furthermore, this broker has still an unfinished website, packages, tools, and education material that is mentioned. On the other hand, This broker can be a good choice for APAC clients in the future. We also encourage the transparency and efforts to bring additional value to traders, no restrictions on any kind of trading style and EAs support.

Go Capital FX is an unregulated broker brand owned by Lancelot Equity Ltd located in the Commonwealth of Dominica. This company does not have a license to trade with CFD derivatives or other financial instruments and is not under any supervision by the international or local authority. The registration number provided on the web site cannot be confirmed nor it means anything for an investor.

Another domain owned by Lancelot Equity is the gocapital123.com that has almost the same structure. All this aside, the Go Capital FX website has a clean design although does not have any points related to the trading conditions. Published content is very general, redundant, oriented towards people with no experience, with marketing phrases that are generally not allowed in the industry. We will go through each section to find if there is anything of value for traders.

Account Types

Go Capital FX does not have any account types to select, all the information is obscured. The only instance we found is in the Terms and Conditions document stating that the leverage is set according to the account type. Since this document does not provide any more info on the subject we can confirm that no account types are offered. Islamic Account is offered and arranged through the contact form within the Traders Cabinet.

Platforms

The only platform available is the Metatrader 4, desktop versions for PC and Mac only. No smart devices option is offered. The MT4 platform, once installed, will quickly show the Go Capital FX servers with the ping time of 39ms. The client version is the latest with default settings although the welcome message does not point to Go Capital FX but to PBN Capital (pbncapital.com). We are not sure if the feed comes from this company or if it just an error since this company is not mentioned anywhere on the Go Capital FX website. The execution times were always below 100ms and this is even better than the time promoted. As Go Capital FX presents itself as No Dealing Desk ECN broker, order executions are fast enough.

Leverage

Go Capital FX website presents up to 1:300 leverage level but we were unable to confirm this on the MT4 platform, just the 1:100 level. To modify this, traders will have to contact support.

Trade Sizes

The minimum trade size is 0.01 lots or 1 micro-lot. The maximum is 100 lots with the ability of 0.01 lots volume steps. This is a common setting for many brokers as it allows traders to have better precision and Money Management. The same applies to precious metals and Cryptocurrencies.

Trading Costs

Based on the MT4 feed, there are no commissions. The Swaps are very precise, displayed up to 5 digits which may confuse traders as it is not common practice. Starting from the EUR/USD pair, a long position swap is -9.794 points and long +6.112. GBP/CHF pair also has one positive swap for a long position at 2.793 and -7.449 points short position swap. For the Bitcoin/USD, the swap is not negligible sitting on -539.726 points on both sides. Overall, trading costs are under normal ranges but traders should check the specification of the instrument before opening a position.

Assets

Go Capital FX covers all the asset categories, and each is has a good range. Forex has a total of 45 currency pairs. Traders can expect all the majors listed in the MT4 platform, and also a good variety of exotic currencies like CZK, HUF, PLN, CLP, CNH, MXN, and SGD. These are also found under EUR and USD combinations.

Go Capital FX does not stop there and goes wide with the Commodities too. A total of 12 assets including the WTI and Brent Oil. Big attention to metals is given so traders can find Zinc, Aluminium, Nickel, Silver, and Gold. Only Copper, Platinum, and Palladium are missing for the most complete list. Furthermore, Cocoa, Sugar, and more commodities are available.

The indices range is not bad, with a total of 14 across the globe. The majors are there and the less common ones are the Russian RUS50 Index and the Hang Seng index.
Go capital FX has an average Stocks range that covers some popular major companies in the US and a few of worldwide companies. A total of 55 stocks are listed.

Cryptocurrencies follow similar depth as with other categories, making Go Capital FX better than average in the industry. Of course, Bitcoin is unavoidable, with more interesting versions like the Bitcoin SV and Bitcoin ABC, which is rare to see. The description in the MT4 platform was not correct for these and some other coins, as admins did not know their full names. Other, more exotic coins are Zcash, Monero, TRON, IOTA, Neo, EOS and Dashcoin. The total number of cryptocurrencies listed is 14.

Spreads

Again, like with the rest of the key trading information, the spreads are not published. Based on the MT4 platform the spreads are in the industry average. To give an example, the most liquid currency pair – EUR/USD has a 1.6 pips variable spread, AUD/NZD – 3.7 pips, and the biggest spread among the majors is for GBP/NZD at 7.9 pips. For Gold the spread is 43 pips, meaning it is a bit above than usual, and for Bitcoin/USD it is 25pips.

Minimum Deposit

This information is obscured and mentioned in the deposit manual page only. The minimum deposit amount is 10 currency units selected as base account currency during the registration. This is valid for any kind of deposit method. As to what kind of currencies are available is not disclosed.

Deposit Methods & Costs

Go Capital FX states a very unspecified description of deposit channels possible. This broker has a very flexible stance in terms of how clients can deposit. Later on, it is specified that if clients deposit with a Credit/Debit card, the standard fee of 2.5% will be charged for the transaction. This is not true, especially if there is no conversion, implicating that this fee is specific to Go Capital FX. No other fees exist for other deposit methods clients had agreed with the broker. The maximum amount for cards deposit is $10.000.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

According to the information published on the website, Go Capital FX will not charge fees for card transactions. Bank transfers have a fee of $30-50 depending on the bank location. Clients should note paragraph 9.3 under Terms and Conditions that tax fees can be deducted from the withdrawal amount by Go Capital FX. It is not common to see an abroad company deal with the taxes of other country residents.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Bank Transfers are processed in 24 hours by Go Capital FX. The transfers could take up to 10 days to reflect on the client’s bank account. For Credit/Debit cards, this time is 5-8 days, which is unusual.

Bonuses & Promotions

Under the promotions section, Go Capital FX presents an unlimited demo account. In the Terms and Conditions document, bonus conditions are mentioned under section 13 and they may exist. A client must trade a minimum trading volume of the bonus amount divided by 4 to withdraw bonus funds. Profits realized and the bonus amount cannot be withdrawn until the conditions are met.

Educational & Trading Tools

Go Capital FX has a simple News section that is updated monthly on average. The news is global, most popular and not longer than one page. Apart from the MT4 manual, there is also a “Wiki-forex”. This is just a short glossary of terms used in trading and Finance. FAQ section contains a dozen general topics about trading, and this is all educational material published.

Customer Service

Upon registration Go Capital FX uses the phone you have provided to contact you to gather more information about you and the size of your bank accounts. During this sales process, you may be able to ask anything related to trading. No broker phone is published on the website, chat service does not exist.

Demo Account

The Demo is available for MT4 after a sign-up process. Once traders log in they may be surprised that only $1000 of practice funds are deposited. This will not last much even if trading in micro-lots. Go Capital FX stated that it is possible to open an unlimited number of new accounts without time limits.

Countries Accepted

No information about countries anywhere on the web site. It is probably limited to the list of countries upon registration.

Conclusion

This broker has received many negative reports from other regulators and users. Many countries have banned this broker from dealing with its citizens. The biggest concerns are the withdrawals that are not paid out and no communication with the traders after. Other issues mentioned in this review point to a very risky business that is common with unregulated, offshore, obscure brokers that do not have any information to prove their identity or location. If we take these concerns aside, Go Capital FX has great instruments offer, competitive conditions and good executions.

JFD Bank has offices located in Cyprus, Germany, Spain, Bulgaria, and Vanuatu and is regulated by the CySEC, BaFin, and VFSC. This broker offers three different platforms and multiple types of trading instruments and has won multiple awards every single year since 2013. If you like the way this broker’s profile sounds so far, you’ll definitely want to keep reading to find out more.

Account Types

JFD provides the same account type to all of its clients. The company explains that they believe this is the most transparent option, and that each trader deserves the best market access, so there was no need to feature several different accounts. This can certainly provide an advantage to some traders, but we wonder if the lack of specialization could have any negative effects. Rather than offering better spreads or trading costs to some, the company aims to reward higher volume traders through rebates and other types of promotions. The company can get technical when it comes to commission fees and deposit fees, so you’ll need to read through the rest of our review to find more specific information on these sections. Below, you can find a quick overview of this company’s account specifications.

Standard Account
Minimum Deposit: 500 USD/GBP/EUR/CHF
Leverage: Depends on Asset (more on this later)
Commissions: Charged on FX, CFDs, Metals. (more on this later)
Platforms: MT4 & MT5, Guidance

Note that there is a difference between JFD Group LTD and JFD Overseas LTD. The difference only seems to affect transaction fees, and clients in different locations are handled by one certain branch of the company. You’ll be able to pinpoint which branch you’d be dealing with later on in this review. Personal ID and address documents must be submitted and approved before traders can use their account for trading. Once documents have been submitted, it takes 1-2 working days for approval.

Platform

This broker offers the ability to choose from the MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5 platforms, in addition to a platform of their own. We will provide some information on MT4 and MT5, the most popular trading platforms in the world, first. Starting with similarities, both platforms are equally accessible through Webtrader, mobile, or PC, offer add on widgets and tools, technical analysis tools, and 1-click trading, among many other features. MT5 offers access to more markets, supports ten more languages, and provides a few more pending order types, etc.

MT4 is most commonly offered by Forex brokers since it is favored above the newer version. The company’s third-party platform, Guidance, offers many of the same advantages, with some key differences. Webinars are embedded in the platform, as well as built-in social tools. You can compare all of the platforms in more detail by choosing ‘Trading’ > ‘Platform Comparison’. This program is offered through the web or via download on PC.

Leverage

The company’s leverage limits are based on the type of asset that is being traded. Major CFDs have a leverage cap of up to 1:30, while minor CFDs set the limit at 1:20. Commodities and other non-major Equity Indices, such as Crude Oil and Hong Kong 50 Index are capped at 1:10, while individual Equities are capped at 1:5, and Cryptocurrencies offer leveraged trading of up to 1:2. Sadly, this is much lower than the advertised 1:400 leverage ratio. That number is reserved for what the company considers to be ‘professional’ clients. The company runs a program in the background whenever clients are signing up that automatically decides whether they are deserving of the highest leverage offer, based on experience and so forth. It’s possible that you may qualify for the better leverage option if you have experience in the field.

Trade Sizes

The minimum order size in Forex trading is 0.01 lot or 1 micro lot. For CFDs on indices, and commodities is 1 lot (= 1 CFD). The minimum order size for DMA equity CFDs is 1 lot (= 1 stock share). However, there is an exception to some instruments where the mini lot size (0.1 CFD) is enabled. Margin call is set at 100% and stop out levels are set at 50%.

Trading Costs

Trading costs are applicable to all of the following: Commissions, overnight financing, inactivity fees, and for currency conversions. It isn’t surprising to see commission fees and overnight financing charges on this list, but we do wish this broker didn’t charge inactivity fees. These fees are likely charged to help close out abandoned accounts, however, it can be frustrating to find that your account has been charged if you take a break from trading for a few months. Below, we have listed all of the exact fees in detail.

Commissions: CFDs, FX, and metals are all subject to commission fees. These fees differ slightly, although they are very similar, so we will provide the USD fees as examples. The fees are 0.03 on FX, 3.0 USD on precious metals, 0.05% of order volume/minimum charge of 5 EUR on CFDs on stocks from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, or the UK. There is a 2cps /5USD minimum charge on CFDs on stocks from the US and a 2.5cps/5USD charge on ETFs. CFDs on indices and commodities are subject to a 0.10 USD charge. Note that zero commission fees are charged when cryptocurrencies and physical stocks of France, the US, Germany, Dutch, and Spanish stocks, however, the company does maintain the right to charge a preset limit at their discretion. If you’d like to view the exact charges in EUR, GBP, or CHF, you can do so under ‘Trading’ > ‘Account Specifications’. The website states that there are different charges for traders of high volume (10 million USD per month).

Overnight Financing: 3.25% +/- Libor, excluding CFDs on Futures Contracts. Swap fees may be subject to fluctuations in the market.

Inactivity Fees: After three calendar months with no activity, accounts will begin to be charged inactivity fees of $20 per month. If there are no funds in the account, these charges will not be applicable, and these fees will not be charged on accounts that have never been funded.

Currency Conversions: 1% fee

Assets

This broker offers 1500 plus instruments over 8 asset classics. The bulk is made up of more than 600 physical stocks, 64 currency pairs, and 400 plus shares. The company also offers 2 precious metals, 15 Index CFDs, 7 Commodities, 21 ETFs, 4 ETNs, and 5 cryptocurrencies. The sheer number and variety of trading instruments set this broker apart from the crowd, and everyone should be satisfied with options that are available here. This certainly makes JFD Bank worth consideration, if you are interested in trading more than just standard options.

Spreads

The website was very vague about what type of spreads one should expect to see, so we reached out to support to gain some clarity. Our support agent assured us that the company uses Inner-Banking Core Spreads from 0 pips for FX. Support also stated that there are no minimum spreads and that the company provides the best possible spreads available from the bank, with no manipulation. Spreads can be monitored from within the trading platform, so you may want to take a look, just to make sure that these options are as low as support makes them out to be.

Minimum Deposit

There is an initial minimum deposit requirement of $500 USD. Once that requirement has been met, there are no further minimums one must meet when making future deposits. If you compare this amount with the competition, you’ll find that several other brokers do offer much lower deposit minimums, more in the range of $100. Some don’t even require minimums at all. On the other hand, the fact that there is only one account type means that the broker is likely offering some better conditions, most likely resulting in the larger deposit with them. Fortunately, this amount is realistic, even if one may have to save up for a moment to afford an account.

Deposit Methods & Costs

Deposits can be made through the following methods: Bank Wire Transfer, SafeCharge (Visa, Maestro, & MasterCard), Skrill, Neteller, and SOFORT (if available in your country). Note that deposits must be made through bank accounts that match the name on the client’s account. Transaction fees and percentage fees are applicable on all deposits and vary based on the currency used. Transaction fees are different for every payment method, currency, and whether it is through JFD Group or the Overseas group. You can view exact transaction costs online, but note that most of them are around .25 cents USD. Below, we have listed all fees associated with depositing.

SafeCharge (Visa, Maestro, & MasterCard)

EUR & GBP: 1.9% Percentage Fee + Transaction Fee

USD & CHF: 2.95% Percentage Fee + Transaction Fee

Skrill & Neteller

2.90% Percentage Fee + Transaction Fee

SOFORT

1.8% Percentage Fee + Transaction Fee

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

All deposit methods are available for withdrawal. The company processes withdrawals back to the original form of deposit, so you may want to consider withdrawal fees when choosing a deposit method. When it comes to SafeCharge withdrawals, note that Standard Credit would be any amount previously deposited, while Credit Extra would refer to any extra profits. We have listed the associated costs below.

• Bank Wire: No fees charged on behalf of JCB. (Fees may be charged on bank’s side)
• SafeCharge (Visa, Maestro, MasterCard): 0.88 units on Standard Credit/7.38 units on Credit Extra
• Skrill: 1% of withdrawal amount, maximum of 10EUR/11USD/8GBP/11CHF
• Neteller: 2% of withdrawal amount, a maximum of 30 USD

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Skrill and Neteller would be the fastest withdrawal methods, due to the fact that both are processed within 24 hours of the time the request was made. SafeCharge can take 2-3 processing days for Standard Credit and 3-10 days for Credit Extra, meaning that it will take longer for the company to process any profit back to the client. SOFORT is returned within 1-3 business days. Bank Wire varies based on the bank’s location. German Banks typically take 2-3 working days to credit funds, European banks can take 3-5 working days, and banks outside of Europe can take 4-7 working days to credit funds.

Bonuses & Promotions

At this time, there do not seem to be any promotional opportunities. It’s always nice to see these offered since it can be a great way to earn a little extra on an initial investment or through some other type of opportunity. This shouldn’t stop one from choosing this broker since this isn’t something that is always offered. Check back in the future to see if anything has changed.

Educational & Trading Tools

This broker focuses more on providing educational tools, rather than offering trading tools, like calculators, an economic calendar, etc. (Although an Economic Calendar is available within the Guidance platform). The company does have a section devoted to Market Analysis, however, where you’ll find some helpful articles that point out trends in the market and relevant news. The most important educational opportunity we found was under the Webinars section, where the company live streams different subjects periodically. Some of the titles of past streams included ‘Pair Trading’ and ‘DAX: Long or Short?’. The company seems to live stream every day and the schedule can be viewed under ‘Research’ > ‘Webinars and Live Events’. Finally, traders will find a Forex Glossary located under this section.

Demo Account

JFD provides the ability to open free demo accounts that mimic the conditions offered on their real accounts. This is a great way to test out the broker before making the decision to sign-up, and demo accounts can be an excellent learning tool for beginner traders. The demo accounts are supported on MT4 and MT5, but you won’t be able to practice on the Guidance platform. In order to open the demo, you’ll need to select a platform and enter details like your name, telephone number, email, and country. You’ll also choose what currency you’d like to use for your practice account and select a deposit that ranges from $500 (The company’s minimum deposit limit), up to a maximum of $5,000,000. You may want to choose more of a realistic deposit minimum to ensure that you’re making realistic trades.

Customer Service

Support is available 24 hours a day, 5 days a week over LiveChat. To be more specific, exact support hours for LiveChat are from 23:00 CET Sunday through 23:00 CET Friday, while all other departments are available from 8:00-17:00 CET Monday thru Friday, aside from banking holidays. In addition to the instant contact option LiveChat, support can be reached through phone or email. This broker is also active on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn. The contact information has been listed below.

• Phone: +49 (0) 69175374271
• Email: [email protected]

Countries Accepted

JFD Group LTD is only authorized to serve clients located in the EEA or in other countries where it is legal to do so, including Belarus, China, Switzerland, Turkey, UAE, and Ukraine. JFD Overseas Ltd serves clients that are located in another third country. Restrictions apply to offering services to clients of the United States of America, Russia, and to any clients located in countries where it would be illegal. Note that you can select the US on the account sign-up page and open account from that location, so there may be no issues trading from there.

Conclusion

JFD Bank offers trading on 8 different asset classes, including crypto options, and provides three different trading platforms to choose from. The company offers one account type with a $500 minimum deposit. Spreads seem to be competitive, based on what we learned from support, but the company does charge fees for deposits and withdrawals. Leverage options are lower than average unless you qualify as a ‘professional’ client. Support seems to be easy to reach, although they are not available on the weekend. Overall, the trader needs to decide whether the larger deposit minimum, low leverage options, and funding fees are made up for by the huge variety of trading instruments and the low trading costs.

Mira Capital Markets is a forex and CFD broker that was established in 2013 and located in Dubai. The company has acquired a growing client base of 117k people since its establishment in 2013. Despite their smaller size, this broker is still able to bring some competitive trading costs and a worthy product portfolio to the table. Since the company doesn’t explain much about themselves, we did some research to find out exactly what this broker brings to the table.

Account Types

Mira Capital Markets offers three different account types with the Classic, Standard, and VIP account being the available options. Traders should choose an account type based on skill level, affordability, and other trading needs, such as the need to have access to trading commodities or to make larger trade sizes. Below, we have provided a more detailed outline of each account type.

Classic Account

This account type is aimed towards those that are just getting started and offers the chance to improve upon skills, while only taking minimal financial risks. This account type offers the lowest deposit requirement but limits tradable instruments to Forex, Gold, and Silver. The maximum balance on this account would be up to $10,000.

-Minimum Deposit: $1,000
-Leverage: Up to 1:100
-Spreads: 2 pips
-Commissions: None

Standard Account

This account type is meant for more experienced traders and holds a balance between $5,000 and $10,000. Additional perks to opening one of these accounts would be access to bonus opportunities, and the ability to trade more metals, indices, stocks, and futures, in addition to currency pairs. Maximum trade sizes and the number of open positions allowed are more lenient with this account type.

-Minimum Deposit: $5,000
-Leverage: From 1:1 Up to 1:200
-Spreads: 2 pips
-Commissions: None

VIP Account

This account type is meant for professionals, with no balance limit, and offers better trading conditions than its counterparts, including unlimited maximum trade sizes, no limit on the maximum number of open positions, and lower spreads. Tradable instruments include currency pairs, metals, indices, stocks, and futures.

-Minimum Deposit: $10,000
-Leverage: From 1:1 Up to 1:1000
-Spreads: 1.6 pips
-Commissions: None

Account verification is also required and must be completed before withdrawals can be processed. MCM requires photo ID and proof of address, alongside some basic information, such as name, birthdate, passport number, etc. If you have any questions, email [email protected].

Platform

If you decide to open an account through this broker, you’ll be trading on the award-winning MetaTrader 4 platform. MT4 offers leading trading and analytical technologies, as well as additional services. Some of these features include interactive charts and more than 65 built-in technical indicators and analytical objects. MT4 truly has everything you could need for forex trading. MT4 can be downloaded on PC, Android, Linux, or iOS.

The MCM website also provides instructions for users that are using a Mac computer. (Mac users typically encounter issues because the software is not supported; however, the broker’s website includes instructions for downloading the software via Wine). An online, browser-based version is available as well, so any Mac users that are having issues with the download, or any trader that would like to opt not to download MT4 will still be able to access the platform conveniently. Download links are available on the website under the ‘Instruments’ category.

Leverage

The Classic account offers a basic leverage option of up to 1:100. Many successful traders will tell you that this amount is ideal and would choose this option even if higher options were available. This would also be a good choice for anyone that hasn’t grown accustomed to trading. If you’re looking for something a little higher, the Standard account offers a higher option of up to 1:200. For the majority of traders, the leverage caps so far will be more than satisfying. On the other hand, if you prefer more of a high-stakes experience, you’ll be happy to know that the VIP account offers a leverage option of up to 1:1000.

Having the ability to trade with leverage this high can be dangerous, so proceed with caution. Note that the leverage on Shares and Bonds is limited to 1:50. Many other brokers place stricter limits on their leverage caps, this broker provides their clients with the ability to decide how high they’d like to go for themselves. If you’re one of the few that can handle this option, then there is a real advantage here.

*We did find a discrepancy on the website when it comes to the leverage cap on the Classic account. On the ‘Comparison of Trading Accounts’ page, the maximum leverage is listed as 1:100 on this account type. However, if you click on ‘Read More’, or go the Classic Account’s direct page, you’ll find that the leverage cap is listed at 1:1000 and this is the amount listed in reviews on other sites. Since the amount differs so significantly, we reached out to support and confirmed that the 1:200 limit is correct.

Trade Sizes

The minimum allowed trade size is one micro lot for all account types. Maximum trade sizes differ more significantly. On the Classic account, the maximum is 10 lots, on the Standard, it is 50 lots, and the VIP account does not set any limit. There is also a limit on the maximum number of open positions, with the limits being 50 on Classic, 100 on Standard, and once again, no limits on the VIP account type. The margin call/stop loss level for all of the accounts is set at 30%/50%.

Trading Costs

The majority of brokers make their profits through commission fees, spreads, and rollover interest. In the case of MCM, there are absolutely no commission fees charged on any of their account types, which provides an immediate advantage. The catch that typically comes with a lack of commission charges would be higher spreads, which seem to balance out the costs. At a glance, this broker does seem to offer spreads that are a bit high, but the trading costs actually turn out to be competitive. We will offer more detail on that later. Keep in mind that rollover interest will be applied to any positions that are left open overnight.

Assets

The Classic account type only allows for trading on forex, Gold, and Silver instruments. Both the Standard and Classic account types offer access to the company’s entire portfolio, including forex, metals, shares, commodities, indices, and bonds. Forex options include 44 currency pairs on all account types. Trading Shares are available with a leverage of up to 1:50 on nearly 100 different shares in companies like Facebook, Walmart, and Pepsi. Several commodities are offered, including metals, energies, and agriculture options. US, European, and Russian indices are offered as well. Trading Bonds also limits maximum leverage to 1:50 and offers three options. In order to view all of the available instruments, you can select ‘Products’ from the top of the website and then choose a category.

Spreads

Earlier, we mentioned that the trading costs with this broker are competitive, although their spreads may seem high at first glance. Keep in mind that the industry average is typically around 1.5 pips, which is usually charged in addition to commission charges. The best spreads with this broker are available on the VIP account and start from 1.6 pips. On the Standard and Classic account types, the spreads are from 2 pips. However, these spreads are actually on the lower end of things, considering that no commission fees are charged.

Minimum Deposit

The deposit requirements with this broker may be high enough to force some of their potential clients to look elsewhere. The lowest deposit amount of $1,000 is exclusively available on the Classic account. Considering that some large brokers don’t even require a minimum deposit, we must say that this is high, especially for a basic account type. Trading on the Standard account requires a larger deposit of $5,000.

Those that don’t have that kind of cash on hand may feel frustrated by this amount, although we will point out that the Classic account offers the same spreads as this account, so there isn’t much to lose if you have to stick with the first account type.

Also, note that the maximum amount of funds these two account types can hold would be $10,000. Ten thousand dollars is also the deposit requirement for the VIP account, so you’ll want to open this account if you’re funding with a large amount. Considering that this account type offers the best spreads and some additional features, we aren’t really surprised to see a higher minimum listed here.

Deposit Methods & Costs

Methods: Bank Transfer (USD), Credit/Debit Card, Prepaid Card, and E-wallets. The latter options include Qiwi, Yandex Money, Azulpay, CorpBanca, PayU, and Perfect Money, all of which are lesser-known options than the popular Bitcoin and others. If you’ve opened a VIP account, you’ll have to deposit via Bank Transfer or with an E-wallet, due to the fact that the other payment methods have a limit of $4,000. (The VIP account requires a deposit of $10,000) Third-party deposits are prohibited, so be sure that you’re using an account under your own name.

Charges: If you are using a Credit/Debit Card or paying through a non-UK bank, there may be instances where a small fee is charged by your provider. MCM is willing to refund this amount to the client’s trading account upon receipt of proof charges, so be sure to let support know if you are charged for making a deposit. If depositing in a method other than USD, conversion charges may apply.

Processing Time: Deposits through credit or debit are credited instantly and International bank deposits are credited once cleared with MCM’s bank, usually within 5 business days. Deposits can only be credited within business hours (8 am to 5 pm UK time, Monday through Friday)

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

Withdrawals can be processed back to Bank Transfer, Credit/Debit Cards, E-Wallets, or to the Mira Debit Card. This means that all of the deposit methods are available for withdrawal, aside from Prepaid Cards. If you’re making a withdrawal for more than $2,500, you’ll need to use Bank Transfer or an E-wallet, due to the limits placed on card withdrawals. The company does not charge any fees on withdrawals.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Withdrawals cannot begin to be processed until your account has been fully approved. As long as the client has an approved account, E-Wallet withdrawals or withdrawals to the Mira Debit Card are processed instantly. Withdrawals back to Credit/Debit cards or Bank Wire Transfer can take between 1-5 business days to be processed and posted.

Bonuses & Promotions

We wish that we could provide a detailed review of this section, but this broker’s website barely covers any information about their bonus options. What we do know is that a 100% bonus is available on the first deposit on the Classic and VIP account types. This means that the smallest deposit one could make to qualify for the bonus would be $5,000. However, we couldn’t find any information about the terms and conditions for this bonus. On another note, we noticed that there is a Mira Debit Card option available for withdrawals. How does one acquire this card? What are the fees associated with it? The website doesn’t offer any details. All we know is that one of the advantages of having this card would be instant withdrawals.

Educational & Trading Tools

Education: We wanted to highlight the educational opportunities that this broker has made available due to the fact that seminars, video lessons, and private webinars are all offered free of charge to their traders. There is importance in educating one’s client base, and these options go into much more depth than what is commonly offered by brokers today. Below, you can view all of the available resources.

-Forex Glossary-Free seminars
-More than 25 free video lessons
-Free Private Webinars
-Free Demo Accounts

Trading Tools: A few tools are offered, meaning that this area has less to offer than the previous section. If the company would add some financial calculators to the website, in addition to the tools listed below, then we would consider the options in this category to be more complete.

-Live Trading Conditions
-Important News
-Economic Calendar
-VPS (Virtual Private Server)

Demo Account

Like the vast majority of other online brokers, MCM offers free demo accounts to their clients. These accounts provide traders with the ability to get acquainted with the MT4 platform, test out the market, check trading conditions with the broker, and to gain general practice, all while using a virtual currency. There’s a lot to love about these simple practice accounts. Another plus side to opening a demo with this broker would be that the accounts are more customizable than they are elsewhere. Traders are able to type in any starting amount they’d like, down to the cent. Many other brokers predetermine how much is given in virtual funds, and we often see preset amounts that are much more than realistic.

You can also choose leverage from 1:100 up to 1:500. Note that there is no option to test out the leverage cap that is offered for this broker’s VIP account and that the other account types only offer leverages up to 1:100 and 1:200. Therefore, you’ll want to stick with these two options if you’re looking for a more realistic practice session. In order to open a demo account, you can select ‘Demo’ from the top section of the website. The broker then asks for a few details, including your name, email, country, city, and phone number. If you ever need to top up your demo account, MCM provides the option to replenish your demo with any chosen amount of funds directly from the website, thus eliminating the need to get in touch with support.

Customer Service

24/5 customer support is available through LiveChat, phone, or email. Note that the ‘Live Chat’ button at the top of the website does not seem to be working, but the chat window can still be accessed by clicking the hand to the right of the screen, and then selecting the option from there. Phone support is limited to English only, so you’ll want to use chat or email if you speak another language. There are two email addresses available, so be sure to email support for various inquiries and to email the compliance team if you’re having issues with documentation. The company is active on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Below, you can find the various contact information listed on the website.

-Phone: +44 (20) 80776419
-Email: [email protected]/[email protected]
-Address: 302/02 Boulevard Plaza Tower 2 – Emaar, Business Bay, Dubai, UAE

Countries Accepted

MCM does list any restrictions on its website. We tested the sign-up process out from our US-based offices and were relieved to see that this option is definitely available. If you’re concerned that there may be limitations placed on your country, you can visit the sign-up page and check for your country.

Conclusion

Mira Capital Markets is a forex and CFD broker that offers the ability to trade a variety of assets on three different account types. Leverage options on this broker’s Classic and Standard accounts are about average, but the leverage offer on their VIP account is exceptionally high. There are no commission charges, and trading costs could be considered competitive with all things into consideration. The broker also provides excellent educational opportunities and customizable demo accounts.

When it comes to funding, the broker does not charge fees on deposits or withdrawals, a variety of funding methods are available, including some lesser-known e-wallets, and a few methods provide instant withdrawals. Despite some of these positive qualities, the high deposit requirements may force some of their potential clients away, since the most affordable account requires a $1,000 deposit.

Customer support is available 24 hours a day, but you won’t be able to get in touch with them over the weekend. This broker may be worthy of your loyalty, but you’ll need to weigh the positive and negative qualities for yourself.

ProfitIX is a forex and CFD broker located in St. Vincent & the Grenadines. The company was just established this year, in 2019, but they’ve already generated enough popularity to receive several reviews online. On their website, this broker claims that their strongest commitment is keeping the most demanding of traders satisfied, by offering first-rate market conditions, ultra-fast execution, fund security, price stability, low latency, and exceptional customer service quality. It’s easy to promise all of those things, but what really matters is whether this broker is following through with their promises. Keep reading to find out.

Account Types

This broker offers five different account types, with the options being the Mini, Advanced, Executive, Prime, and VIP accounts. There is no need to compare minimum deposit requirements, leverage caps, or available platforms. It is suggested that trading costs are better on the account types that require larger deposits, but this broker’s website can be very vague when it comes down to explaining the real differences. Below, we have provided a quick overview of each account type.

Mini Account:
This account type is designed to suit novice traders and offers zero commissions with spreads starting from 3 pips. This is the most affordable account type, with a minimum deposit requirement of $250 and it also offers the maximum leverage offered by the company, up to 1:400.

Advanced Account:
This account type is aimed more towards expert traders. It requires a larger deposit of $2,500 USD, offers leverage options up to 1:400, and comes with variable or floating spreads. An account manager is also supplied.

Executive Account:
This account type is also designed for expert traders, with a $25,000 minimum deposit requirement. It offers the ability to trade on all of the available assets. Like with the Advanced account, spreads can be variable or floating.

Prime Account:
You’ll need to deposit at least $100,000 USD to open one of these account types. This account was designed to offer competitive pricing and is the only account type so far to provide fixed spreads. All assets are available for trading on this account type and leverage go up to 1:400.

VIP Account:
The VIP account was made for high net-worth traders and active participants, who often trade larger volumes. The account offers fixed spreads and mentions a “low market price difference” as an advantage. All assets can be traded on this account type. The website does not list the deposit requirement, so you’ll need to ask your account manager.

Platform

This broker offers trading on a platform that we don’t see offered quite enough, the MetaTrader 5 platform. MT5 is the newer version of MT4 and has kept many of the same concepts and qualities that traders loved about the classic version while adding more pending order types, technical indicators, additional trading features, timeframes, and more. The developers kept this platform’s layout similar to the one available on MT4, but programming and other features have been added. The program is accessible through its browser-based version, WebTrader, and also via download on PC, Apple products, and Android devices.

Leverage

Leverage options with this broker range from 1:1, up to 1:400 and the maximum amount is allowed on all four of the account types. This is significant, considering that many brokers limit the maximum leverage for account types that require larger deposits. If you’re not familiar with leverage, you should know that choosing the 1:1 option would mean that you are simply trading with the funds that are already available in your account.

Choosing higher leverage, take the highest option of 1:400, for example, would mean that you are trading with 400 times the funds you have available in your account. This really opens the door to opportunity, but trading with leverage that is too high for your skill level or account balance can be a slippery slope to failure. Overall, we are happy to see such high options available and it is nice to see that this broker is willing to allow clients to make their own decisions. Simply remember to be wary of larger options if you are not ready for the risk.

Trade Sizes

All account types seem to offer micro lots as their minimum trade size, however, we aren’t completely certain if this is available on the VIP account, since that account type is designed for higher-volume trading. The Mini and Advanced account types offer maximum trade sizes of 10.00 lots.

Trading Costs

Where most brokers profit from spreads, commissions, and rollover fees, this broker primarily profits from spreads, in addition to rollover interest when applicable. That means that no commission fees are charged on any of their account types. Rollover charges are only applicable on positions held past a certain time. You can view Market Hours on the website in order to determine the closing time for each market if you wish to avoid these charges.

Assets

ProfitiX gives its clients access to over 10,000 financial markets, including currencies, commodities, stocks, and other derivatives. On their account types page, it is suggested that these opportunities are more limited for those operating Mini and Advanced accounts. Currency pairs offer trading 24 hours a day, but the website does not explain what majors, minors, or exotics are offered. Oil, Gas, Brent Crude, and other commodities are available for trading with zero commission charges. Hundreds of shares are offered, in addition to spot metals, which include Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Pallidum. Several stock indices are also available. If you’re interested in trading cryptocurrencies, you’ll be happy to know that Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Gold are available options.

Spreads

The account type that offers the most specific information on spreads would be the Mini account, which offers variable spreads from 3 pips. At first glance, this spread seems high, considering that the market average would be around 1.5 pips. However, one must remember that no commission fees are charges on accounts with this broker, which essentially lowers the trading costs, despite the higher spreads. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether this account type is offering competitive pricing, based on those qualities.

We know that the spread can be floating or variable on the Advanced and Executive account types, but the website skips over exact numbers. Moving on, the trading costs on the VIP account are described as being low, but no exact numbers are offered there either. We do know that spreads are fixed on this account type, which should ultimately lead to better conditions. What we don’t understand is why this broker fails to be more transparent about exact spreads in this area, especially since it plays such a crucial role in selecting an account type.

Minimum Deposit

The most affordable account offered by this broker would be the Mini account, which requires an average, $250 deposit minimum. We aren’t surprised to see this amount listed, but it would be nice to see the broker lower the amount a tad since this is a Mini account we’re talking about.

Moving up, there is a $2,500 deposit requirement for Advanced accounts. This is still a realistic amount, although it may be too large for some beginners. From there, you’ll need to make more significant deposits of $25,000 on the Executive and $100,000 on the VIP accounts. Obviously, these account types are meant for traders with larger financial means. The VIP account does not list a deposit minimum, but it’s safe to assume that the amount would be more than the Executive account’s $100,000 minimum.

Deposit Methods & Costs

Deposit methods include Visa/MasterCard, Western Union, Diner’s Club International, Neteller, Skrill, and Money Gram. Deposits are advertised as being quickly credited, within five minutes. There are no fees charged on deposits.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

All of the available funding methods are also available for withdrawals. Although the website is vague when it comes to funding, we were happy to find the information listed that mentions no extra fees are charged on withdrawals. Even many bigger brokers charge some type of commission on withdrawals and these fees can really add up in the long run, so there is a slight advantage to choosing this broker when it comes to this. Not having to worry about withdrawal fees mean that you can make smaller, more frequent withdrawals if you’d like to, without worrying about fees eating into your profits.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

This broker advertises fast withdrawals but doesn’t provide any actual timeframes to back up their statements. We found some comments elsewhere that did mention fast withdrawal times, so we’re hopeful that the company is making an accurate statement. Still, we would advise making your withdrawal request ahead of time to avoid any delays. It would also be safe to assume that Western Union and Money Gram may take longer to be processed than the other methods.

Bonuses & Promotions

ProfitiX is not currently offering any bonus opportunities. This is disappointing, but this isn’t something we expect all brokers to offer. The fact that the company has been around for less than a year suggests that they may need more time to become established and to draw in a larger client base before they can afford to make these types of opportunities available. Hopefully, the broker will have added some extra opportunities to profit by the time you read this article, should you decide to sign up.

Educational & Trading Tools

Educational offers are slim and made up exclusively of educational videos. These videos are detailed and provide an immersive learning opportunity, although we do wish that the company offered more in the ways of education. When it comes to trading tools, you’ll find an Economic Calendar and Daily News under the ‘Analysis’ tab of the webpage.

Demo Account

Sadly, this broker does not currently offer demo accounts to their clients. We’re curious whether they simply don’t understand how much of an opportunity these accounts can provide to beginner or novice traders, or if it is on the agenda to add these practice account types in the future. If you have your heart set on practicing frim a demo, you could always open one with a different broker, while trading from a real account with this broker. You’d still benefit from the practice, but trading conditions would differ slightly, which would take away from some of the demo’s advantages.

Customer Service

Multilingual support is available 24 hours a day, 5 days a week via LiveChat, email, phone, or through their website’s contact form. The company is also active on Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit, so be sure to add them to any of these social media outlets you use if you decide to open an account. You’ll find all of their listed contact information below.

Phone: +18007997635
Email: [email protected]
Address: Carenage Bay Canouan Island, VC0450 Kingstown, St. Vincent & the Grenadines
Social Media:
Facebook.com/profitxofficial
instagram.com/profitx_official_
reddit.com/user/profitX

Countries Accepted

The ProfitiX website mentions that clients located in the United States are not allowed to open accounts. However, you’ll often find that these terms are much more lenient, especially with brokers like this one that is located in St. Vincent & the Grenadines. After testing the sign-up page from our US-based offices, we had no problem creating our account. In order to bypass the restriction, you’ll need to select ‘US Minor Outlying Islands’ as your country. Under ‘State’, you’ll choose ‘Other State’ from the bottom of the list. You can then add your real phone number, address, and zip code and you will be allowed to open your account with no issue.

Conclusion

ProfitiX is a newly established broker that hasn’t done quite enough to make their advantages known. The lack of detail on their website makes us wonder how much of an advantage there would actually be in making a deposit of $100,000, over simply opening an account with a $250 requirement. This doesn’t mean that the advantages aren’t there, but the company’s lack of transparency makes us wonder.

On a positive note, the leverage options are very flexible with this broker and their customer support team can be reached easily. They also charge zero commissions and withdrawal fees, both of which can really save money in the long run. This broker is missing some of the extra little things that add to the experience, like bonuses and demo accounts. There could very well be a chance to profit with this broker, although it seems that the best way to do so would be to make a larger deposit.

VideForex is an offshore FX broker that has been in operation since 2017. Based in Seychelles, this broker operates as part of the Vanuatu-based Finance Group Corporation. Offering proprietary trading software and a unique spin on customer support, we set out to complete an exhaustive VideoForex review that would allow all traders to understand exactly what this brokerage has to offer.

Account Types

There are three account types to choose from, including Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Each of the three offers their own set of features, but the shared features of the three include 247 support, 1-hour withdrawals, free demo accounts, and the provision of a copy trading tool. After that, there are some variances between the account types, so we’ve listed all of the features of each below.

Bronze account features:
24/7 Live video chat support
Withdrawals in 1 hour
Demo account
Copy Trading tool
Bonus +20%

Silver account features:
24/7 Live video chat support
Withdrawals in 1 hour
Demo account
Copy Trading tool
Master class (web session)
Bonus +50%
First 3 risk-free trades

Gold account features:
24/7 Live video chat support
Withdrawals in 1 hour
Demo account
Copy Trading tool
Master class (web session)
Personal success manager
Bonus +100%
First 3 risk-free trades

Platforms

As mentioned previously, VideForex is using its own trading platform, but that platform doesn’t seem to have any name or title (ex. MetaTrader). The platform is made available in three versions: Web, Android, and iPhone. While there isn’t much that we can truly say about the platform without extensive testing, we can state that it offers a clean design and user-friendly layout. Traders will easily be able to find setup and execute trades. Although the company has not offered any information regarding the benefits of using the web version of the platform, they had the following with regards to the mobile version on their website:

APPLICATION FEATURES:
CFD and Options trading
Deposit and withdrawal via APP
60 seconds
My account
My portfolio

APPLICATION BENEFITS:
Instant execution of trades
Live charts of every option
Traders can view their entire trade history
Same login as the web-based platform
Download for free

Leverage

VideForex provides no information with regards to the type of leverage that they offer and we were not able to locate this information elsewhere on their site, so we took the opportunity to put their customer service team to the test. During a live chat session, we were told that the maximum leverage ratio was 1:100. We did note in the terms and conditions that it is possible to trade without leverage, but if you do, you may be required to pay a fee. For more on that, please see the ‘Trading Cost’ section below.

Trade Sizes

The site also provided no information regarding the minimum required trade size, so again, we took the opportunity to ask this question via live chat and learned that the smallest allowed position must be equal to 1USD per trade. Most brokers have this requirement set in lots (or micro lots), so the answer was surprising, but not alarming. A requirement of a $1 investment is very reasonable and no cause for concern.

We noted in the VideForex user agreement that the minimum size of a trade may be different for each type of CFD, and they ask that you refer to the platform in order to see both the minimum and maximum position sizes. As such, we highly recommend using a demo account if you are considering trading with this FX brokerage.

Trading Costs

The agent that we spoke with told us there were no commission charges or trading fees, but while waiting for a response to our chat, we found the following information with the VideForex terms and conditions: “The company reserves the right to charge a commission for opening an unleveraged Cryptocurrency CFD trading position which shall vary from 1% to 2.5% of the transaction. For leveraged CFD cryptocurrency positions, the company will charge a commission fee of up to 5% of the transaction.” So, it appears that if you open any unleveraged positions you may incur these fees.

Note also that VideForex does reserve the right to charge $10 per month for each and every month wherein the client has not executed at least one trade. To avoid this charge, be sure that you do enter into a least one position monthly.

Assets

The firm claims to offer over 100 assets in total but does not provide an asset list, so there’s no way to know exactly what these are. Again, we turned to the user agreement for information and found the following list with regards to the different types of CFDs that VideForex offers within its platform:

• Forex: CFDs in currency pairs (FX)
• CFD stocks
• CFDs in Cryptocurrencies

If this information is correct, then we can deduce that the 100+ assets are comprised of currency pairs, stocks, and cryptocurrencies. That would leave out assets such as indices, commodities, and more.

Spreads

Was there any information on the website with regards to spreads? You guessed it! No. We did ask for the spread average during our live chat session and did not receive a direct answer to that question. What we did receive is the following respond: “If you are going to use binary as your main trading tool – there is no spread as you may know. If you would like to use CFD – than of course spread will affect your trading. Please change the view to candles. Trading view will allow you to check actual spread for any particular asset.” So, look to the platform if you’d like information on spreads for each asset.

Minimum Deposit

New clients are asked to submit an initial deposit in the amount of $250. We’re assuming that this will provide one with the lowest account tier, which is Bronze. We noted in this VideForex review that the firm mentions two other deposit amounts, $1,000 and $3,000, in relation to increased deposit bonuses. It very well could be that these two amounts are linked to the Silver and Gold accounts, respectively, but we were not able to confirm this.

Deposit Methods & Costs

Clients of this Forex broker can fund your account using a number of payment methods including:

• VISA/MasterCard
• Bank wire transfer
• Bitcoin
• Ethereum
• Litecoin
• Altcoins
• Neteller
• Skrill
• Perfect Money

There is a 5% transfer fee charged on all credit card deposits, where the is no charge on any other deposit method. A deposit request via credit, debit card or via e-wallet will be processed within 3 hours. It can take Videforex up to 3 business days to process incoming bank wire transfers and to verify that the funds have been received.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

Oddly enough, VideForex does not show bank wire transfer in the list of accepted withdrawal methods, but this could just be an oversight. The costs appear to be the same as above, with a 5% fee on credit card transfers, but we’d advise that you confirm this with a support agent. We did note two items within the user agreement that we felt were worth sharing. The first was that any international wire transfer withdrawal will be charged an upfront $50 transfer fee. Secondly, on funds that were not active, i.e., with which trader has not made 1x turnover, a maintenance fee of 20% on each of the withdrawal amounts do apply, and these will need to be paid by the trader.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

The search for something truly positive to say about this FX broker took a bit of time, but here it is: VideForex offers 1-hour withdrawal processing. That’s right. Within an hour or less you could have your money in hand. Obviously, this would not apply in the case of bank wire transfers but is possible with other payment methods, especially e-payments. Keep in mind that you must have submitted your ID and address (Know Your Customer) documents and had those approved before being able to request a withdrawal. Many choose to complete this step prior to making a deposit to ensure there will be no issues when it comes time to make a withdrawal.

Bonuses & Promotions

VideForex does offer deposit bonuses ranging from 20% up to 100% of the total deposit amount. The following are the deposit amounts which are required in order to claim a bonus:

• $250 = 20% Bonus
• $1,000 = 50% Bonus
• $3,000 = 100% Bonus

As always, there are terms and conditions surrounding bonuses, so please be sure to read through those completely prior to accepting a deposit bonus on your account.

In addition to bonuses, VideForex offers a weekly trading contest that offers a total prize fund of $20,000 which is distributed among 20 total winners. It appears that at least some of the prizes are offered in the form of bonus funds, starting with the participant who comes in 6th place. Positions 1 to 5 are said to have been awarded cash prizes (an iPhone 10 went to the 5th place winner). Here again, we recommend reading the terms and conditions to fully understand the rules.

Lastly, Silver and Gold account holders are provided with the ability to have their first three trades be risk-free. This is what the broker’s user agreement had to say about that: “If the total of the first three transactions is negative, Videforex will compensate the loss in the form of bonus and bonus rules will apply. The compensation of risk-free trades can not exceed the amount of the initial deposit. To use this service, you need to apply for it in advance. Simply contact your account manager and negotiate details.”

Educational & Trading Tools

All three account types are treated with a copy trading tool. There are no additional details regarding this tool on the broker’s website, so we’re going to assume that it is built into the trading platform as standard. Silver and Gold account holders are provided with access to a web session “Master Class” that presumably teaches how to trade Forex. Again, no additional details were provided about how or when to access this class. Aside from these two extras, it would seem the only other tools would be those within the trading platform.

Customer Service

VideForex is said to offer 24/7 live video chat support, which we would have assumed was exactly that – a video chat with an agent. However, having tested it, we can state that this is not how it works. Instead, you’ll have access to live chat, just the same as what most all Forex brokers offer, but be able to see a pre-recorded video of a person (a VideForex employee?) that plays on a loop. The same video seems to be played along with each live chat and to be quite honest, we found it to be quite comical. Technically, it is live video chat support, but do not expect to sit down face-to-face with an agent.

A primary contact number is provided and is as follows: +18499370843. Additional contact numbers are shown below. There is also the option to request a callback or to send an email using the contact form provided on the broker’s website. Due to the fact that we did put the video chat to the test, we can state that the response time was good. Our questions were answered within one minute or less, so no problems to report on that front.

Demo Account

Free demo accounts are available and with this broker, we truly advise that you create one, even if you are an experienced Forex trader. The reason for this recommendation is the fact that far too little trade-related information is provided on the VideForex website. We were able to get some answers from a support agent, but if you want to see what assets are offered, what the spreads are like, and more, you’re going to need to get into the trading platform and do some exploration.

Countries Accepted

It appears that residents of the United States and U.S. territories are not welcome, as the site states the following: “Videforex nor its agents or partners are not registered and do not provide any services on the USA territory.” This is at least somewhat surprising, as most brokers operating from Seychelles do in fact accept U.S. traders. It would seem that all other locations are accepted, but do check with customer support if you encounter any issues with creating a new account.

Conclusion

The lack of information on the VideForex is a bit concerning. For a brokerage that has been in operation for a while now, you’d expect the site to offer a lot more information. Obviously, lack of information doesn’t mean that there is a VideForex scam going on. We’d just prefer to see key details presented front and center. At this time, we’re going to highly recommend that you create a demo account and fully test the platform and as many services as possible before deciding that this company is the right Forex broker for you.

Traders who are looking for low trading costs and access to software will thoroughly enjoy what CWG Markets has to offer. The broker, based out of the United Kingdom, lets you trade through the MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5 platform, whichever you prefer. Most competitors only offer one, with plenty who only provide traders with the less advanced MT4 version. However, not only does CWG give you access to both, but you can choose between paying no commissions or having a 0-pip spread. The 3 accounts types that are available through this broker let you trade a variety of instruments and products. Leverage, however, is limited. So are a few other services. Here is what you need to know about opening an account with CWG Markets.

Account Types

You can choose between a Classic, Advanced, and Institutional Account. All 3 allow traders to have either the US dollar, British pound, or Euro as the default currency.

Classic:
Minimum Deposit: $200
Spreads: From 1 pip
Commission: $0

Advanced:
Minimum Deposit: $200
Spreads: 0 pips
Commission: $3 per open/close ($6 per round trip trade)

Institutional:
Minimum Deposit: $50,000
Spreads: 0 pips
Commission: $1.5 per open/close ($3 per round trip trade)

In certain ways, the Advanced and Institutional accounts may fall under one category. Even though both the Classic and Advanced require the same minimum deposit, there are differences between the two. First, the Advanced account seems to be more suitable for expert traders who value a low spread over higher commissions. Institutional is for seasoned traders who have over $50,000 capital. The Classic allows beginners to generate profits and take their time to grow without incurring commission costs.

The main difference between the Classic and Advanced accounts is that the latter has a $3.00 commission but no spread. Meanwhile, the Classic has 0 commissions but a 1 pip spread. Choosing between the 2 depends on your strategy. If you like to “scalp” or use leverage to profit from small price movements, then the advanced account is appropriate due to its minimal spread. The Classic is recommended for traders who want to avoid commissions.

Platforms

CWG Markets allow you to trade through both MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and, its more advanced version, MetaTrader 5 (MT5). Through these platforms, you can design a custom algorithm that automatically executes trades on your behalf (if conditions that you set are met). The tool is especially valuable to day traders, who, without an automated method, might struggle to compete with the speed of trading computers when opening and closing positions.

MT4 and MT5 are both available on MacBook, Windows, Android, and iOS. In addition, you can passively run your account through profit targeting, stop-loss, and tracking stop-loss orders.

Leverage

Classic, Advanced, and Institutional account holders all have a maximum 1:30 leverage. Experienced and professional clients, such as those trading on the behalf of other businesses or people, can have up to a 1:100 leverage. Again, this is the case regardless of whether a trader is a Classic, Advanced, or Institutional account holder.

Trade Sizes

The minimum trade size is 0.01 and there is no maximum. This applies to all account types.

Margin Call: 100%

CWG’s margin call also acts as the stop-out level. It is designed to prevent your account from having a negative balance, where you would owe the broker money because your trades incurred significant losses. If you get a margin call, CWG will give you 2 business days to either deposit funds in the account (to bring it back to the maintenance requirement) or close some of your trades.

Otherwise, CWG will automatically close some or all of your positions, up until your invested funds meet the required margin level.
Margin requirements are also different from one ForEx pair to another. This is also the case for the different CFDs, commodities, and indexes that are available through CWG. You can check the margin levels for each instrument when you log in to your trading account.

Trading Costs

CWG charges Advanced account holders $3 every time they open or close a position. When you fully enter and exit a trade, the commission is $6. Institutional traders are charged half of what Advanced account holders pay in commission ($1.5 per entry or exit and $3 per fully closed trade).

Classic members pay $0 in commissions, but they do incur fees because of the spread. However, given that a 1 pip difference between the bid and ask prices is not significant, these charges are not hefty in comparison to the commissions. Advanced and Institutional traders only incur commission costs because they have a 0 pip spread. However, there are interest fees on overnight positions, which are different from one FX pair to another. Interest rate decisions, monetary policy, and economic factors impact the overnight swap fees.

Assets

You can trade over 60 currency pairs through CWG Markets, including major ones and exotics. Just as importantly, their website contains valuable and updated information on each FX symbol, such as live spreads, candle charts, and news feeds.

CWG also offers XAG.USD (spot silver) and XAU.USD (spot gold), alongside commodity futures (copper, natural, and oil). You can trade major market indices CFDs. The S&P 500, Dow 30, FTSE 100, Hang Sing, and Nikkei 225 are amongst the available index CFDs.

Spreads

The spread is 0 pips for Advanced and Institutional account holders. Classic traders have a 1 pip spread. Both of which are very low and desirable figures. Not many other brokers offer spreads that compete with any of CWG Markets’s account types. However, it is important for you to keep in mind that these are the minimum spread amounts. Each currency and financial instrument has its own spread, which can vary based on market conditions. In addition, some FX pairs have a floating spread that changes on a regular basis.

Minimum Deposit

To get started with Classic or Advanced, you need to transfer no less than $200. An Institutional account requires a minimum $50,000 deposit. While you can choose between the US dollar, British Pound, and Euro as your account currency, you can’t change that once you start trading.

Deposit Methods & Costs

Deposits can be done through your debit or credit card, Skrill, Neteller, China Union Pay, or as a wire transfer from your bank. CWG Markets don’t charge for deposits, but they warn than an account holder’s bank or financial institution may have fees that apply to international transfers.

The fastest way to fund your account is through a debit or credit card or an e-wallet (such as Skrill and Neteller). It takes only 1 to 2 hours to process the transaction. Deposits through bank wire transfers and credit cards can take 2 to 4 days and 3 to 5 days, respectively. While waiting on a deposit, you can track its status through the Members Area on CWG’s website.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

When you want to withdraw money, go to the Members Area and enter the amount you want to transfer. In addition, to request a withdrawal, you should briefly give them a reason as to why. Some might find this to be intrusive, but CWG does this to make it easy for you to track accounting items. Certain government regulations also require them to do so.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Withdrawals can take anywhere between 24 hours and 4 business days. Generally speaking, requests made before 2 pm GMT are processed that day. Otherwise, they will be taken care of during the next business day.

In most cases, you should expect withdrawals via debit or credit card, an e-wallet, PaySafe, or China Union Pay to take 24 hours. However, if the bank or CWG needs additional information from you, you might have to wait between 2 and 4 days. This is how long it normally takes for bank withdrawals to process, regardless of whether or not you needed to submit documents.

Educational & Trading Tools

CWG provides you with customizable charts, allowing you to choose a timeframe and chart type (such as candlesticks). This is complemented by tools that let you draw graphics and compare various technical indicators. Just as importantly, the broker has a daily economic calendar, which you can change to have it highlight weekly or monthly events. You can also use the calendar to review past data releases for up to one month.

Customer Service

As an account holder, you get trading support from CWG on an individualized, one-on-one basis. Their customer service team is available 24 hours a day during weekdays. You can contact them via phone, email, or through their online live chat tool.

Customer Service: +44(0)2039471777
Technical Support: +44(0)2039471777
Email: [email protected]

Demo Account

CWG’s demo account gives you access to $50,000 in paper money. You will trade live quotes to test your strategy and become more comfortable with the platform’s tools before you risk your actual money. Another advantage of the demo account is that you have access to different charts and graphs for free. With a live account, you have to pay for these tools. This gives you the chance to further look into CWG’s offerings before depositing funds and opening a live account.

Having said that, there are certain disadvantages. While the demo account lets you trade live quotes, it doesn’t charge you interest for overnight positions nor does it expose you to the risks associated with the spread price. Just as importantly, there are no margin calls with the demo account. Keep these factors in mind when you switch from the demo to the live account. Your returns on the former may not entirely match how you will perform when trading actual money.

Countries Accepted

The broker is registered in the UK and their accounts are backed by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). In case CWG becomes illiquid or goes bankrupt, the FSCS compensates every account holder with up to £50,000 (almost $65,000). Outside of the UK, clients from all over the world can open a CWG account and almost every country is listed in the new clients’ application form. Having said that, CWG’s website specifically notes that traders in the US and Belgium need to review their local laws that govern the financial markets. In other words, if you are in the US or Belgium, be sure that your trading strategies and the instruments you trade are in compliance with your country’s regulations.

Conclusion

The flexibility that CWG offers is incredibly helpful. Through choosing between their different account types, you can opt for either a nonexistent spread or no commissions. Many other brokers will charge you both of these fees. Just as importantly, CWG is a safe firm to work with and your funds will be insured by the FSCS in case the broker is unable to pay you back. Technical analysts can access the MT4 and MT5 platforms’ graphics, charting tools, and customizable features. If you prefer to focus on the fundamentals, economic calendars and live news feeds are also available through CWG.

Having said that, by opening an account with this broker, you are limited to their 1:30 leverage. Traders can, however, increase it to 1:100, but they have to provide CWG with a proven track record of profitability and effective risk management. If you are based out of the US or Belgium, you might have to do some extra homework on local regulations that govern the financial markets. CWG is based out of the UK and advises traders in the US and Belgium to bear the responsibility of compliance with their countries’ laws.

CryptoRocket is an FX brokerage offering private cryptocurrency and Forex CFD trading to traders around the globe. The demand for being allowed to trade privately continues to grow, and this broker most definitely meets that need. But what else do they bring to the table? In this CryptoRocket review, you’ll learn exactly what this FX broker is offering and upon reaching the end, should be able to decide whether or not they are a suitable selection for you.

Account Types

You won’t find any tiered accounts or account levels here. There is one main account type, which means that all traders are treated as equals. Each will have access to the same spreads, rates, platform, etc. The signup process for an account will only require that you enter a valid email address and select a password (which needs to be entered twice). In keeping with the offering of private trading, there will be no need to share your name, address, or even country of residence in exchange for an account. If you truly wish to trade Forex anonymously, look no further than CryptoRocket.

Platforms

All who decide to trade with this broker are given access to the MetaTrader 4 platform. This long-standing, intuitive, user-friendly platform has been around for quite some time and continues to be the top choice within the FX marketplace. MetaTrader 5 may at some point claim the top spot, but that doesn’t appear to be happening anytime soon. The platform is available as WebTrader, and of course in application format for a variety of internet-connected mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Note also that this is among a small number of brokerages actually offering an MT4 download for Mac systems.

Leverage

CryptoRocket offers a generous maximum leverage ratio of 1:500. There are, of course, some offshore brokers that offer higher leverage (1:2000 is the highest that we’ve ever seen), but the ability to trade with 500 times your capital should be more than sufficient. The leverage setting can be changed and can be set to as low as 1:1 if you are someone who prefers to trade without leverage. There are actually several increments to choose from and the setting can be changed at any time, provided that you have no open trades.

Trade Sizes

Micro lot trading is available, so the smallest allowed position size is 0.01. This is also the base incremental step-up trade size as well. The largest allowed position is 1,000 lots, which also happens to be the largest allowed by MetaTrader 4, by default. The firm does allow all types of Forex strategies, such as scalping, so the ability to trade in micro-lots will certainly prove advantageous to traders who use these types of methods.

Trading Costs

There are no per-trade commission charges to pay, so expect that the cost of trading will be paid through the spreads. Even so, the spreads that we noted during this CryptoRocket review were quite reasonable. There will be swap fees (rollover costs) on trades that remain open after market hours. These vary by individual asset and can be viewed from within a demo or live account. There were no other costs that we noted in relation to trading.

Assets

FX choice offers six different asset groups, including:

• 55 Currency Pairs
• 11 Indices
• 104 Stocks
• 30 Cryptocurrency Pairs

The number of stocks may seem like the highlight here, but what truly impressed us was the variety of cryptocurrencies. Traders who team up with CryptoRocket will be able to trade with not only the following pairs but also many more.

• BTC/USD
• DASH/USD
• ETH/USD
• LTC/USD
• BCH/USD
• XRP/USD

Spreads

The lowest noted spread was 0.1, which was on the EUR/USD pair. Since that pair tends to be linked to lower spreads naturally, below, we’re providing some additional spreads that we noted within the platform at the time of reviewing this broker.

• GBP/USD: 1.2
• USD/JPY: 0.6
• USD/CAD: 0.8
• EUR/GBP: 0.9
• GBP/JPY: 1.6

As mentioned previously, these spreads are truly not bad at all for a broker that doesn’t charge any commissions.

Minimum Deposit

There is no minimum deposit requirement, so the decision of how much money to start with will be entirely up to you. If you’re struggling with this decision, you may want to start out with a demo account to get a good idea of how much various trades cost. In general, cryptocurrency positions tend to be pricier than other standard assets, so if you plan to trade with that asset group, take note. Of course, the ability to trade in micro-lots will help those who wish to avoid as much financial risk as possible. The average first deposit within the FX industry is $100, which can prove a tad restricting, but should be enough to test the waters.

Deposit Methods & Costs

CryptoRocket primarily accepts Bitcoin for deposits. We say primarily because they have worked out a way for clients to use their credit or debit card to easily purchase Bitcoin which is then instantly deposited into an account with them. By way of a partnership with Bitcoin seller, Instacoins, traders can purchase and transfer Bitcoin into their CryptoRocket account in literally only one step. This is excellent because to put it simply if something is complicated, traders will avoid doing it. Bank wire is also a deposit option for those who are not there for anonymous trading. There are zero deposit fees, which is also excellent.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

With Bitcoin serving as the primary deposit method, it goes to reason that it will also be the primary withdrawal method. Once again, CryptoRocket has taken the high road and is absorbing banking costs and making withdrawals free. There is no minimum withdrawal amount in place and no limit to the number of monthly withdrawals that one can make. The only thing needed in order to make a withdrawal is an e-wallet address for the funds to be sent to.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Most withdrawals are reviewed and processed within only a matter of hours. The great thing about Bitcoin is the speed at which digital coins change hands. Once the payments department has transmitted your withdrawal, the funds should arrive immediately. There can be a short wait for incoming funds to clear the blockchain, but even with that, cryptocurrencies are still the fastest way to send and receive money privately, with no need to share any personal or payment information with a Forex broker.

Bonuses & Promotions

There are currently no trading contests or deposit bonuses being offered. There is, however, a ‘Refer-A-Friend’ promotion in place that allows you to earn $5 per trade (round turn) taken by those who sign up for an account via your personal referral link. For more information on this promotion, please visit the broker’s website.

Educational & Trading Tools

There are no educational resources provided, aside from a few guides and articles, which do include Bitcoin Whale Alerts. There is a small FAQ section available as well, and this answers key questions that prospective clients may have. As for trading tools, there are no extras on-site, but MetaTrader 4 is loaded with built-in charts and tools that can be used. Expert Advisors are not provided, but they are allowed. So, feel free to use your own EAs or those which have been purchased from outside parties.

Customer Service

The CryptoRocket customer support team is available 24/7 and can be reached via live chat, phone, and email. It is possible to request a callback, and that call should be received in 24 hours or less. The primary support language is English, but we were told that there are a few multilingual support staff members onboard. To reach out for help via email, use the provided contact form on the broker’s website. This is an area in which the broker scores highly. Their support team proved to be extremely responsive and knowledgeable when tested. Many brokers claim to offer stellar support, but few actually deliver the way this broker does.

Demo Account

Not only does CryptoRocket offer demo accounts, but they offer unlimited demos. This means that you can have more than one practice account for an unlimited amount of time (provided that you are actively using them). An added benefit is the fact that CR demo accounts offer real-life trading conditions and pricing which is the same as what is provided within the live platform. Their demo accounts allow you to choose a leverage ratio and starting balance. A demo account can be created within the actual platform or by using WebTrader.

Countries Accepted

Being headquartered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, as this FX broker is, means several things. For one, it means that standard regulation is not possible, even if they wanted it, because there is no governing regulatory system in place. Secondly, it means that CryptoRocket is allowed to establish its own rules with regards to who to accept into their platform. The truth is that by permitting truly private trading, no one is barred from the platform. So if you’re in the U.S. or China and have grown tired of being shut out of the world of Forex, a broker such as CR is an available option for you.

Conclusion

The positives of trading with CryptoRocket are crystal clear, as are the drawbacks. If you’re looking to trade FX anonymously, you’re in luck. If you’re looking for a regulated broker to trade with, you’re not. The final result of this CryptoRocket review was that we discovered a broker that offers plenty of assets, a reliable platform, solid trading conditions, high leverage, excellent support, and easy banking. You won’t find a lot of flash and fluff but with this firm, but will find a brokerage that does a bang-up job of providing exactly what FX traders want from a broker.

Orbex webpage itself is easy to navigate, with a handy FAQ page with a search feature, enabling clients or prospective clients, to efficiently pinpoint information. Orbex is regulated under CySec, FCA, and other regulatory agencies as shown in the photo below.

Account Types

Orbex offers 3 types of trading accounts to choose from Universal Mini, Universal/ECN Standard, and Universal/ECN Advanced. Islamic accounts are also available. However, when you click on another link within the ‘account types’ link, you are then advised that there are in fact 4 account types: Fixed, Started, Premium and Ultimate. This is incredibly confusing. Perhaps there was a change in account types, but it is not clear which ones are actually currently available, especially when the FAQ page mentions all 7, and the live chat is not often responsive.

Platforms

Orbex offers MetaTrader 4 which is always a positive attribute, and most clients are satisfied with this. Desktop and mobile versions are all available.

Leverage

Due to regulation and ESMA policies, the leverage caps are as follows, excluding ‘professional trader clients’ who can make use of up to 1:500 leverage:

• 30:1 for major currency pairs
• 20:1 for non-major currency pairs, gold and major indices
• 10:1 for commodities other than gold and non-major equity indices
• 5:1 for individual equities and other reference values; (e.g.: Shares CFDs)

Trade Sizes

With Orbex, the minimum trade size allowed is 0.01 lots and the maximum being 50 lots.

Trading Costs

Commission fees are only applied to two accounts; Premium ($8) and Ultimate ($5), both amounts round turn. For swaps, you can calculate them with a tool found on their website.

Assets

Orbex offers Forex, Energies, Precious Metals, and Cash Indices. A full list of all assets available is found on the website, which is handy as this saves opening a demo first.

Spreads

The spreads vary between floating and fixed, and depend upon the account that you choose.

• Fixed – fixed spreads
• Starter – variable spreads
• Premium – spreads start from 0 pip
• Ultimate – spreads start from 0 pip

Minimum Deposit

The minimum deposit requirements with Orbex are as follows:

• Fixed $500
• Starter $200
• Premium $5,000
• Ultimate $25,000

Deposit Methods & Costs

The website sets out all deposit methods you may use to fund your account, and there is a fair variety: Credit/Debit Card, Skrill, Neteller, Web Money, Wire transfer, Fasapay, K-net, and Sofortüberweisung. No fees are charged by Orbex.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

Withdrawal methods with Orbex are the same as deposits, and you can only withdraw your funds via the same way you deposited (Credit/Debit Card, Skrill, Neteller, Web Money, Wire transfer, Fasapay, K-net, and Sofortüberweisung). No fees are applied however for bank wire transfers, your bank may apply a fee, so be sure to check with your provider before requesting a withdrawal.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

It is very useful to note that Orbex has a table on the website clearly setting out all deposit and withdrawal methods, fees and timescales. For withdrawals, the timescales to process are as follows:

• Moneybookers: up to 24 hours
• Credit/Debit Card: 3-5 business days
• Neteller: up to 24 hours
• Web Money: up to 24 hours
• Wire transfer: 3-5 business days
• Fasapay: up to 24 hours
• K-net: ‘n/a’ so assumably instant
• Sofortüberweisung: up to 24 hours

Bonuses & Promotions

Orbex does not currently offer any deposit bonus schemes or promotions.

Educational & Trading Tools

Orbex does offer a very wide variety of trading tips, tools, and analysis which can be found directly on the website, which could assist you in your everyday trading.

Customer Service

You may reach out to Orbex customer service via email, live chat, and telephone on a 24/5 basis (GMT + 3).

Demo Account

Demo accounts are available for those who wish to backtest Orbex services prior to trading with them live.

Countries Accepted

One must note that due to CySEC regulation, Orbex does not offer services to residents of certain jurisdictions such as the USA, Cuba, Sudan, Syria, and North Korea.

Conclusion

Although this broker was a little confusing to understand the account types at first, the customer support was overall friendly and helpful to explain and clarify any queries we had. The minimum deposit requirements may not be ideal for beginner traders, but for the more experienced, we think this broker offers a fair variety of instruments to trade, a good amount of deposit/withdrawal methods, and fair trading conditions.

HYCM is very well established and has been providing its services including trading services for around 40 years. This broker is fully regulated under more than one body including the FCA and CySEC. They have certainly made sure to stay ahead of the game by offering MT4 and MT5 as well as a strong variety of tradable instruments.

Account Types

HYCM offers 3 account types: Fixed (fixed spreads from 1.8 pips), Classic (variable spreads from 1.2 pips) and the Raw account (raw spreads from 0.2 pips). Only the Raw account is charged commission fees of $4 per lot, per trade, per side. Islamic account versions are also available for all 3 account types.

Platforms

HYCM offers both MT4 and MT5 so clients can choose to trade on whichever they prefer. YOu may choose the web bases version or the mobile (iOS/Android) as you please.

Leverage

As mentioned, this broker is heavily regulated, and a possible downside to this, is that leverage caps are not particularly generous, in comparison to brokers that do not have to succumb to such policies as a result of being regulated. The maximum leverage allowed is 1:30. This does not allow clients to stretch profits very far especially when depositing small, and trading small volume.

• Forex 1:30
• Stocks 1:5
• Indices 1:20
• Commodities 1:20

Trade Sizes

Minimum trade sizes are the same for all 3 account types, which is 0.01 lot. This allows some freedom for traders, and especially perhaps beginner traders who may be apprehensive about having to place large trade sizes.

Trading Costs

The only account that charges trade commission fees is the Raw account, which has the lowest spreads, but the costs overall for the client are then balanced out by the fact that although spreads are minimal compared to the other two accounts who do not pay commissions, the Raw account clients must pay $4 per lot, per trade, per side. Although having said that, we consider this fee to be average in comparison to alternative brokers.

Swap fees vary in percentages depending on the account type you choose and which individual pair you are trading, so do bear this in mind. A full list is available on the website.

Assets

With HYCM you may trade Forex, Stocks, Commodities, and Indices. This is a strong variety, but it is a shame cryptocurrencies are not available since the crypto space is becoming more and more popular. A full list of available assets is, of course, available on the website.

Spreads

As we mentioned earlier, spreads vary from which account type you choose:

• Fixed (fixed spreads from 1.8 pips)
• Classic (variable spreads from 1.2 pips)
• Raw (raw spreads from 0.2 pips)

Minimum Deposit

The minimum deposit for the Fixed and Classic account is both $100 while the Raw account requires a minimum of $200. This is not extortionate, and most traders would consider this initial deposit requirement rather reasonable, especially given the fair spreads and 0 commission fees for the Fixes and Classic accounts.

Deposit Methods & Costs

You may deposit into your HYCM account without being charged any processing fees. You may choose to use: Card, Bank Wire, Neteller or Skrill.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

Withdrawal methods are the same as the funding methods (Card, Bank Wire, Neteller or Skrill) and do not carry any charges by the broker, either.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

HYCM processes withdrawal requests within 1 business day. This can then take 1 to 5 days to reach your account depending on your bank or credit card company.

Bonuses & Promotions

HYCM does not offer any bonus or promotion schemes.

Educational & Trading Tools

HYCM does offer webinars, seminars, and forex education reading material. There is ample free educational material all of which are free and available on the website for clients to refer to.

Customer Service

Customer service operates on a 24/5 basis via live chat, telephone, and email. Quality of customer service is also high, which makes communication more efficient and adds peace of mind for the clients, especially in the case of a complicated trade query, for example.

Demo Account

Yes, you may open a demo account with HYCM to see if their service meets your expectations. Alongside this, you have a handy ‘Help Center’ as well as an FAQ page at your disposal to learn about the broker in more depth as you practice and develop your trading skills before moving on to a live account.

Countries Accepted

All countries other than residents outside the European Union and European Economic Area are allowed to trade with this broker.

Conclusion

This broker is very transparent with their offerings, and do offer a solid service with quality customer support, and a strong variety of instruments to trade on either MT4/5. Deposits and withdrawals are fast and are not to be complained about. Overall, this broker is competitive with other brokers in the industry at the moment.

Libertex is a forex and CFD broker regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) and located in Cyprus. The company has won 30 international rewards since its establishment in 1997 and employees more than 700 people, meaning that this broker is a large and worthy competitor in the forex world. Of course, there are many excellent brokers out there. Reading about Libertex made us wonder what exactly has kept them in business for more than twenty years, so we went to work to find out.

Account Types

Technically, this broker only offers one account type. However, conditions differ based on which trading platform has been chosen, so this would be the equivalent to different account types. Options would be the MT4-Instant, MT5-Instant, and the Libertex account. Conditions are almost identical when trading on MT4 and MT5, aside from the fact that each operates on a different platform, so we will group them together.

However, Libertex’s own platform-based account type differs more significantly from the others, because it offers different leverage caps, commission charges, stop out levels, spreads, and more. Note that account verification is required when signing up; therefore, one should submit their documents as soon as possible in order to get trading. Verification typically takes between 1-2 working days. Below, you can view the differences, based on the chosen platform.

MT4/MT5 Instant
-Minimum Deposit: $10
-Leverage: Up to 1:500
-Spreads: from 0.6 pips
-Commissions: Floating (Not Specified)

Libertex Account
-Minimum Deposit: $10
-Leverage: Up to 1:200
-Spreads: None
-Commissions: from 0.03%

Platform

Unlike the majority of their competitors, Libertex offers both the MetaTrader 4 and 5 platforms, in addition to their own trading platform. MT4 is the most popular trading program among forex brokers, and for good reason. The platform offers more than 100 effective trading tools, supports trading from several different accounts, multiple analytics tools, and more. MT5, on the other hand, was designed to be a competent and sturdy trading platform, although many still prefer the earlier version. There are more features available on MT5, however. Both platforms are available for download on PC, Apple, and Android, as well as on WebTrader, the browser-based version.

If you’d like to try something different, Libertex also offers its own trading platform. The company describes its platform as being aimed towards those that prefer simpler and convenient features with the ability to quickly manage capital. Traders can make deposits and withdrawals, access market news, and easily switch between their real and demo accounts on the platform. The platform can be accessed through the web browser or downloaded for Apple or Android. Note that the available account types depend on which platform has been chosen and that trading costs and other specifics differ based on which platform you choose to trade through.

Leverage

Leverage options are least flexible on the Libertex trading platform, although it does offer a leverage cap of 1:200, which is higher than the industry average. If this amount seems too low, traders will be happy to know the MT4 and MT5 platforms both offer leverage options up to 1:500. Since trading with higher leverage means greater risks, one should only choose an account based on this detail if they are a professional trader that is used to higher leverage options, otherwise, the leverage offered for the Libertex account should be more than enough.

Trade Sizes

The minimum allowed trade size is listed at 0.01 lots, or one micro lot. Sadly, the website does not mention the maximum allowed trade sizes. On the MT4 and MT5 accounts, stop out level is set for 100% on all financial instruments, except CFD’s on stocks, where the level is set at 80%. On the Libertex account, the stop out level is 20% for investments in classical tools and 0% on investments.

Trading Costs

Libertex profits from transaction fees or commissions, spreads, and rollover fees. Their transaction fee is floating, meaning it will vary in accordance with the market spreads. On the Libertex account, transaction fees replace commissions and start at 0.03%, but there are no spreads. When trading on MT4 or MT5, spreads start from 0.6 pips and commission fees are floating. Minimum fees and conditions are detailed in the Instrument Specifications. When opening a position, you will be shown the commission as a percentage; after you close it, you will be able to view the commission amount in Trade History. Rollover or SWAP is an interest rate credited on your account or debited from it every day at 9 pm GMT, depending on the position type.

Assets

Libertex offers more than 200 trading instruments, made up of forex, precious metals, indices, agriculture, oil and gas, stocks ETF’s, and cryptocurrencies. Forex options include majors, crosses, exotics, and even the Russian Ruble. Metal options include Pallidum, Platinum, and Copper, in addition to the more popular Gold and Silver. More than 18 indices are offered from North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and South America.

You’ll find corn, wheat, coffee, sugar, cocoa, and soybean listed under the agriculture section. Five options are available under oil and gas, including a few Crude Oil options, Natural Gas, and Heating Oil. The 40 crypto options go farther than the most commonly featured options like Bitcoin, LiteCoin, or Ethereum. Stocks include some of the world’s largest companies and are sorted into convenient categories, like consumer goods, finance, and materials, just to name a few.

Spreads

If you’re trading from the Libertex platform, there are no spread charges. This provides a significant advantage, considering that almost every other forex broker is intent on profiting through spreads. Instead, the broker has replaced the spread with transaction fees, which start from 0.03%. Although the spreads are replaced by another charge, it seems that traders will save money by trading through the Libertex platform. Trading through the MT4 and MT5 platforms would provide more of a classic experience, with spreads starting from 0.06 pips. One would need to decide which platform they prefer and whether they would like to pay through spreads, or transaction charges.

Minimum Deposit

In order to get started with an account through Libertex, one would only need to deposit as little as $10. This is certainly one of the lowest options we’ve seen and doesn’t come close to the $250 industry average. This provides the opportunity for many different clients, including beginners that may be afraid to get started, those that would like to test the available deposit and withdrawal methods or processing times before making a large deposit, traders that simply don’t have a lot of funds to get started with, and more. The low deposit requirement is enough to make this broker stand out from the crowd, although we do suggest making a larger deposit if you have the means. Also, keep in mind that you’ll need to deposit at least $100 to qualify for the 100% Welcome Bonus.

Deposit Methods & Costs

Visa/MasterCard, Bank Wire Transfer, Skrill, and Neteller are the most well-known deposit methods offered by this broker. Sofort, Trustly, GiroPay, iDEAL, P24, Multibanco, and Rapid Transfer can be used to deposit as well, but these methods are not available for withdrawals. Libertex does not charge fees on deposits. Aside from Bank Wire, all of the deposit methods are processed instantly. On the longer side of things, Bank Wire Transfer can take 3-5 business days for processing.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

Libertex allows withdrawals to made to Visa/MasterCard, Bank Wire Transfer, Skrill, and Neteller. KYC documents must be approved before Libertex will begin processing your withdrawal, so be sure to provide those documents as soon as possible. Also, note that there are 0% withdrawal charges in Latin America within the Libertex platform. Below, you can compare the fees for each method.

• Visa/MasterCard: €1 ($1.12 USD)
• Bank Wire Transfer: 0.05% of the withdrawal amount (minimum €2/maximum €10)
• Neteller & Skrill: Fee Free

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Skrill and Neteller are the quickest withdrawal methods, with processing times of up to 24 hours. Processing for Visa/MasterCard withdrawals takes 1-5 days, which could be considered a little excessive. The website doesn’t mention how long withdrawal by Bank Wire Transfer can take, but we would assume that there would be a waiting period of around 2 to 5 business days on this method, based on our experience.

Bonuses & Promotions

The broker matches your deposit, meaning they offer a 100% Welcome Bonus. This is one of the most generous offers we’ve seen. In order to receive the bonus, one would first need to open an account and make their first deposit. The more quickly you open deals and trade, the faster your bonus converts to real funds. The fully withdrawable converted bonus is then applied to your trading account.

The minimum amount to qualify for the bonus would be $100, while the bonus is applicable on deposits of up to $10,000. However, checking the terms reveals that the bonus money comes from 10% of the commissions you’ve paid while trading. The company pays the converted bonus to your trading account in 2% payment chunks and time runs out within 90 days. Therefore, it may be somewhat difficult to receive the full bonus if you do not open a lot of trades.

Educational & Trading Tools

On the website, you’ll find featured news that is updated daily and a beginner level educational course. The course is made up of about 15 videos and explains some of the most important basic concepts of forex trading. The videos are fairly brief and don’t go into deep detail, although they are clear and easy to understand. The website does not offer research tools like an economic calculator or other calculators.

While it is nice to see the broker providing some educational resources, the options would not be enough to complete one’s education. Also, note that only the first five educational videos can be accessed without signing up for an account. If you’re a beginner, you’ll need to find educational material elsewhere.

Demo Account

Libertex offers free demo accounts to any traders that would like to use them. Demo accounts can be downloaded or accessed on the web and are available on any of the platforms supported by the broker. All demo accounts are credited with a balance of $50,000. This amount definitely provides room for testing the market, but it would be nice to see some lower, more realistic options available for the demo account balance. Still, this is an excellent learning tool that should be utilized by any trader that could use more experience.

Customer Service

The fastest contact method offered by this broker would be a phone call, although email seems to be a close runner up since we received a response within an hour when testing this method. Sadly, the instant contact option LiveChat is not available. The website also offers a form titled ‘Ask a Question’, which is simply a more convenient alternative to sending an email directly. Libertex is also active on social media via Facebook and Twitter, however, the social media accounts do not seem to be updated regularly. Also, note that a FAQ is available on the website and may answer some questions without the need for support.

Email: [email protected] and [email protected].
Phone: +357 22 025 100

Countries Accepted

Libertex’s list of restricted countries includes the USA, Japan, Brazil, and the European Union; countries identified by FATF as high-risk and non-cooperative jurisdictions having AML/CFT deficiencies; and countries that are under international sanctions. Refusing service to the US, Japan, and other locations is likely based on the company’s regulatory body, CySEC. We did attempt to sign up from our US-based offices, just to see if there is a way around the block. Unfortunately, the website recognizes your location based on IP address, and will not even let those in restricted countries access the sign-up page.

Conclusion

Libertex is a trustworthy option that provides the ability to open an account with as little as $10. One of this broker’s highlights would be the amazing list of tradable instruments they offer, including 20 cryptocurrencies, stocks, and a variety of other options. Another plus to trading through Libertex would be their higher than average leverage caps. Conditions depend on which platform one is trading through, with the options being MT4, MT5, or Libertex’s own platform.

The broker is also offering a 100% Welcome Bonus on all initial deposits of $100 or more. When it comes to funding, there are a few fee-free deposit methods, a couple of fee-free withdrawal methods, and processing times can be from 24 hours to 5 days, depending on what method has been chosen.

The trader is charged either through spreads or transaction fees, depending on which platform has been chosen, although the conditions still seem to be advantageous. Sadly, the US, Japan, Brazil, and a few more countries are restricted from creating an account. Taking everything into account, it is easy to see how this broker has managed to stay in business for more than twenty years in such a competitive market.

This is a relatively large, well structured, ASIC regulated broker. Since 2006 GO Markets is known as the first broker to offer the MT4 platform in Australia. The broker has some server problems at first but quickly expanded the IT infrastructure and opened new offices in London, Taipei, and Honk Kong.

Go Markets recently offered the Metatrader 5 and the web trading platform. The addition of cryptocurrencies, more features, and account types points that this broker is in the right direction and is following the trader’s needs. The website is very well designed for ease of use and has a good bland of marketing and information value. As with many companies that want to break through the competition, GO Markets tries to differentiate with some features mix that adds on to the overall trading experience. By going through the sections we will review what this broker has to offer.

Account Types

Go Markets has two distinct and feature-packed account types. The Standard Account for those that want to stick to standard floating spreads range and the GO Plus Account that features 0 pip floating spreads and the $3 commission per side. GO Markets provides a good introduction to both account types without redundant phrases. Traders of the Standard Account will get relatively low spreads comparing to other brokers from more than 22 liquidity providers. Account currencies options are great, traders can open an account in AUD, USD, EUR, GBP, NZD, CAD, SGD, CHF, and HKD. This number of base account currencies is rarely seen.

The GO Plus Account type takes raw spreads from the market but also charges a commission. This account also has a bit higher minimum deposit of $500 although this amount should be low enough for anyone that wants to trade seriously. To make this account even more interesting, GO Market included the Dedicated Account Manager service. Although further investigation showed that this service is available to both account types.

Platforms

Metatrader 5 and 4 are available for all desktop and mobile versions. The web platform is also available using the Metatrader layout and button shortcuts to GO Markets client portal, deposit, and live chat. Both MT5 and MT4 platforms are by default settings and quickly establish the connection with the server. The average execution on the MT4 is a bit slower than MT5 and is around 500ms. The MT5 though is around 200ms which is good enough. The account types do not matter much towards execution times. Go Markets does not have any proprietary trading platforms and focuses on the Metatrader only.

Leverage

GO Markets offers a leverage level of up to 1:500. This is a higher than average when compared to other brokers and shows that this broker is biased to low deposit, high-risk trading. The leverage is changeable, by default it is set to 1:100. GO Markets client portal is well designed and the leverage change is done from there for any account created by the client. Note that the leverage is scaled to the maximum account balance, for example, traders with more than $500.000 cannot have leverage higher than 50:1.

Also, anyone above $10.000 cannot have higher than 1:400 leverage. Some exotic trading instruments may have lower leverage than the set standard. Just to be clear, GO Markets states this information as a margin percentage in the MT4/5 instrument specifications, so traders may be confused with the 500% margin percentage for some exotics. For Cryptocurrencies, the leverage is 1:5. As we are informed by the GO Markets support, the leverage level is about to be revised.

Trade Sizes

Trade sizes are in-line with the two account types offered. The minimal trading volume size is 0.01 lots. Additional volume steps are also at 0.01 lots. The maximal volume is capped at 40 lots. Of course, this value differs from asset to asset, so for BTC/USD it is five lots is the maximum. For Oil, the maximum is at 20 lots with 0.1 lots minimal trade volume and step. GO Markets has set a Margin Call at 80% and a Stop Out at 50%, this is not usual levels as with other brokers (50%, 20%Stop Out) so traders will have to pay attention to risk management.

Trading Costs

Clients that choose to go with the GO Plus Account will have a $3 commission per side ($6 round trip), while the Standard is commission-free. From the MT4 platform, we have noticed a $5 commission charge for 1 lot, but that is Australian Dollar, just to avoid confusion.

Swaps are under normal levels, even for crypto at -25. Positive swaps are common, for the EUR/USD pair, a short swap is 6.08 points and long -9.55. For some exotic like the USD/HUF is 11.88 long and – 23.42 short swap. As we went on to see the swaps for each currency pair, we were impressed to see so many positive.

Assets

GO Markets does not want to leave any type of traders out, and that counts towards the asset range too. This broker covers almost all categories, Forex, Indices, Shares, Commodities, Metals, and Crypto.

Starting with Forex, a total of 50 pairs plus the USDollar index are listed. All the majors are there and the exotics offer is not bad either. AUD/CNH is a rare sight yet GO Markets is from the eastern forex block. Other exotics like the PLN, TRY, SGD, HUF, MXN, and Snadinavian currencies are not left out. All that forex traders need.

Indices offer is average with 13 total, not counting the USDollar index. China50 and the ASX are of course listed, but all other global major indices are on the list, this way the range covers all trading sessions.

GO Markets recently introduced shares from ASX (Australian Securities Exchange). Over 200 top ASX companies are listed but this offer is only for Metatrader 5 platform. Catered for Australian clients, this is a great offer.

Commodities are very limited. Some commodity traders may be disappointed as only 2 Oil assets can be traded. The spot WTI and Brent Oil. Brent Oil trading session is a bit shorter than usual, available from 03:00-24:00 GMT+3 time.

Just as with the commodities, the metals range are limited to Silver and Gold. On the GO Markets web site, more in this category are mentioned although during the writing of this review these are not yet on introduced.

Finally, the cryptocurrency range is not catered for the most demanding traders but all the majors are offered. What is interesting that Cryptocurrencies are not listed on the GO Markets web site at all, and this is unclear as Crypto is one of the most attractive CFD categories. The MT4 platform shows Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ethereum, And Ripple all denominated in USD.

Spreads

The always amazing 0.0 pip spread statement is often not true for most of the trading time. However, the most liquid pairs like the EUR/USD and USD/JPY had 0 pips spread sometimes. What is certain is that 90% of the time is from 0.1 to 0.3 pips. Of course, this is valid for the GO Plus Account where commissions also apply. For Bitcoin, the spread is 22 pips, and this is one of the best spreads in the industry.

The Standard Account has a somewhat wider floating spreads. For EUR/USD Metatrader5 platform showed 1.1 pips, same as with USD/JPY, GBP/USD and even the NZD/USD pair. Generally, all majors had around 1.2 pips and this is a very good spread comparing to other brokers.BTC/USD spread is the same as with the GO Plus Account at 22 pips. The Standard Account could be an even better choice for longer-term traders.

Minimum Deposit

From 200 AUD traders can open the Standard Account and from 500 AUD GO Plus Account.

Deposit Methods & Costs

Bank Wire transfers are available but imply transaction costs that vary and are subject to the client’s bank. BPAY deposits are possible although it may depend on the client’s country, currently only for Australian clients. We are informed by the GO Market support that the handling fees described in the Product Disclosure Statement are not charged anymore.

GO Markets does not charge any internal deposit fees using Visa/Mastercard, Skrill, Neteller, and Bank Transfer. In addition to the mentioned methods, FasaPay and Poli are also available. All the deposit methods may not be available for all clients. Credit Card, Bank Transfer are accepted from all countries, Skrill and Neteller for countries outside the EU for now.

The client portal will list all the deposit/withdrawal possibilities once a client is approved.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

As GO Markets states, profit funds can only be returned to a bank account in the client’s name. No fees will be charged by GO Markets for withdrawals. The withdrawal process can be started from the client portal and all the methods as with deposits are optional.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

The withdrawal process is submitted through the client portal and will take 24 hours during business days to complete. By Wire Transfer, the withdrawal processing will take 1 business day by the GO Markets, although it will take more time for the funds to reach the client’s account. This is usually 1-5 business days. Electronic payments like Poli and BPAY withdrawals are done in a few hours. E-wallets and Credit Cards are instant once the withdrawal is approved.

Bonuses & Promotions

Thre are several mentions about promotions in the Legal Documents section of the GO Markets website. What we have found is that currently, GO Markets has a 50% off on commission for GO Plus Accounts. To apply a client has to deposit $20.000 and have this promotion for some time (a few months). For deposits of $50.000, this period is extended to about 6 months.

For those that are interested in Introducing Brokers, Affiliates or White Labels, GO markets have offers for these partnerships too. Any marketing source like a blog, email, social media, websites, etc is possible to link with this broker marketing. To apply for these programs parties need to fill a form

Educational & Trading Tools

GO Markets has invested in education material and is on par with the top brokers. Introduction to the world of Forex trading is very good, complemented with videos and webinars. The Inner Circle is for any trader level that aims to learn even more. The education is not as deep as some traders enthusiast sites have to offer but it will cover the basics and more. The Videos are not long, easy to follow and have a good concept. As with other GO Market material, it is detailed and catered to be understood. E-books are available but only for live accounts, so in a way it is not accessible for free. Webinars are also available where attendees can pose questions. Of course, registration is required for these, weekly, Inner Circle webinars.

Tools offer is also great. Traders will have familiar Autochartist and Trading Central service for automated chart drawing and analysis. Full Autochartis and Trading Central abilities are well described. For this service traders will need to deposit at least 500 AUD. With the demo account, it is also possible to see Autochartist in action, you just need to contact the assigned Account Manager.

VPS is available although certain conditions have to be met. Traders will have to reach a $1million trading volume per month or a $10 fee will be applied monthly. VPS service will be terminated if your trading account balance falls below $30.

A-Quant Daily Trading Strategies offer is a third party service that encompasses trading signals from the AI learning machine. A-Quant is a new fin-tech company from Cyprus made up from experts in Finance, AI, that have decided to create this signal service. We do not have information on the quality or the success rate of these signals although it is always good to have an extra trading tool.

MT4 & 5 Genesis offered by GO Markets is an addon pack with apps and indicators for trading environment enhancement. Specifically, better info panels, Correlation Matrix, Alarm app, Economic News Calendar, Sentiment Indicator, and a Session Map. As with the VPS, this service is available for deposits of at least $500.

GO Markets is connected to Myfxbook social trading. As some may already know, Myfxbook features thousands of traders that share their signals. Copy trading is a popular method for anyone who does not have the expertise to trade successfully. Myfxbook features some good tools for various aspects of trading and is one of the most popular websites for traders. To be able to use this tool, clients need to deposit at least $1000 and have the Standard Account type. By adding this feature to the mix, GO Markets has covered all the interest areas of traders.

Go Markets Newsfeed and analysis is very similar to the headlines you can see with popular news companies. Some simple facts are stated with additional key fundamental figures are a very good way of approaching and covering global topics. All the sources are from trusty institutions. Traders that dive into fundamentals will enjoy the Daily and Weekly news section.

Economic Calendar is packed with features but not overwhelming. The design is good with plenty of useful filters. All the information about events is presented with impact meter, historic movements chart, source links, and the ability to save the setting for the next session. This type of Economic Calendar app is common with the top brokers.

Margin Call is GO Markets’s great podcast series with very good interviews. The series has a great concept and a nice overview of the interview structure so you can know what to expect. This high-quality feature will be very interesting to many listeners as it covers some deep and interesting industry topics.

Customer Service

Chat is the first choice for a quick answer and GO Markets has 24/5 multilingual support. What we have found out that chat is not always available so the 24/5 applies to emails. The queue is not long, the GO Market representatives are relatively quick to connect with you, in about 5 minutes. They will provide very good answers and explain some issues you have with examples. Any subsequent questions will be answered promptly.

The knowledge they have is enough for any level and they speak (type) English, Chinese, Thai, Portuguese, German, and Vietnamese. Email language does not matter as they have translators for all. The phone line is also available. Overall, the support is professional and close to the top level.

Quick support app (TeamViewer) is another feature that clients can use if they want to give GO Market staff access to their computer and resolve or explain any issues. Note that this method is not always easy to accept by some clients for privacy concerns although TeamViewer is a great and efficient problem solver.

Demo Account

The demo account will last for 30 days but this limit can be revoked by request to GO Market support. The process is protected from bad inputs (fake phone number) and the login password is sent by SMS, not to the email. For anyone not willing to provide their phone number, they can go and use free online phone numbers for SMS reading. The demo can reflect both account types, all the commission and swaps will be accounted when trading, no information will be hidden. Traders can select the account type during the registration process, the base currency and the leverage level. It is great to see that the demo can be used to compare all the pros and cons of both account types without any compromise in information transparency.

Countries Accepted

The very careful and meticulous registration process will filter all the countries that are not accepted from start. The list of prohibited countries is not short, many will find this broker off-limits. Clients from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Botswana, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi, Central African Rep, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Egypt, Gaza Strip, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Myanmar, Nicaragua, North Korea (DPRK), Pakistan, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, The Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, West Bank, Venezuela, Yemen and Zimbabwe are not accepted.

Conclusion

GO Markets has a mediocre score on the user satisfaction benchmark sites. The main issues were with international withdrawals and with people who are earning profits. As claimed they were locked out of the trading, had abnormal quotes before news events, etc. Of course, as an ECN and a Market Maker broker, they are hedging against the big and profitable traders. On the other side, GO Markets features a great Education, News, and tools that are not just for marketing sake.

The asset range is good enough, the account types are affordable and diversified enough, even if only two types are offered. The support staff is also giving an impression of quality. This broker is evolving and expanding quickly into new markets, the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) region are their new focus and we can expect new trading instruments, offers, and features. We have noticed some changes and outdated clauses in the legal documents that prove this rapid change and it is for the better. A great example of this is the “handling fee” cancelation and setting all transactions to be free of charge. Moreover, changes in the account type offer allow having different trading environments for an affordable minimum deposit.

Being very clear, attentive and informative to visitors of their website shows a professional attitude that traders will notice and this is certainly their best marketing. What traders need to be aware of is that their style of trading may not be adequate for GO Markets, even if this is a relatively low latency, ECN, raw spread broker. Similar user reviews posted on the benchmarking website may point to a valid issue about the profitable traders blocking in various ways. Note that EAs, scalping, hedging and news trading are not prohibited.

Fortrade is regulated by ASIC, NBRB, and FCA. This broker is well established and relatively popular on social media, possibly due to their volume of affiliate marketing. They are known for offering their own customized trading platform as well as MT4.

Account Types

Fortrade seems to offer only one account, ‘Fortrader’ account. You may use MT4 or their own Fortrade platform (web/mobile for both). It is not easy on the website to find basic information about the properties of the live account, which is frustrating, as it meant that we needed to contact client support to ask such basic questions.

Platforms

Fortrade offer both their own tailored trading platforms in web and mobile versions, as well as MT4 web and mobile versions.

Leverage

If you refer to their FAQ page, you can find that they offer the following leverage caps, as a result of ESMA policy:

• Major FX Pairs 30:1
• Minor FX Pairs 20:1
• Gold 20:1
• Commodities 10:1
• Major Indices 20:1
• Minor Indices 10:1
• Shares 5:1
• Cryptocurrencies 2:1

Note if you apply for a professional client account, maximum leverage allowed is 1:200 however deposit requirements are higher. You will need to apply for this account in order to be given the full set of requirements.

Trade Sizes

Unfortunately, the FAQ page is not very useful to pinpoint certain information such as minimum/ maximum trade sizes so this is not something we can confirm currently.

Trading Costs

Although specifications on how a dormancy fee can be applied and when Fortrade is entitled to charge such fees of $10 so that is one thing to bear in mind if your account becomes somewhat inactive. In terms of trade commission fees, there is no clear mention anywhere on the FAQ page or the website itself. When we asked Support to clarify this, we found out that Fortrade does not charge their clients commissions (so they make a profit from the spreads instead). For swap fees, there is a calculator handy from the website. Swaps vary in accordance with your trade sizes, etc.

Assets

Fortrade advertises that they offer over 70 currency pairs. Conclusively, they offer Forex, Indices, Commodities Shares, and cryptocurrencies. There is a fair variety of instruments to choose from, meaning clients have the opportunity to diversify their portfolio if they wish.

Spreads

Fortrade offers only fixed spreads. Bear in mind they make their money from the spreads since they charge 0 trade commissions, thus, they are a little higher than the average floating spreads from the average broker. Their fixed spreads have an average of 2 pips, which is not overly competitive. You can see a full list of their fixed spreads on the website.

Minimum Deposit

Fortrade requires a minimum deposit amount of $100, which is not too high compared to other brokers.

Deposit Methods & Costs

Fortrade does not charge fees for deposits. The funding methods available are as follows: Skrill, Neteller, Paypal, Wire transfer and Card.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

Fortrade does not charge fees for their withdrawals, which are: Skrill, Neteller, Paypal, Wire transfer and Card.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Withdrawal timescales are not easily found on the website so we asked the live chat agent but it was incredibly frustrating that the response to this question was asking for client contact details to assist in opening a live account, rather than actually answering the basic questions asked. Even after much frustration and angst, we still never got to the bottom of the withdrawal processing times, but instead were demanded by the support agent to give a contact number to be assisted by an Account Manager to answer questions. Ridiculous customer service, and very pushy to get clients to open an account without knowing the full ins and outs of the account they are signing up to.

Bonuses & Promotions

Yes, Fortrade does offer deposit bonuses. When we asked the live chat agent about any deposit bonuses and where to find information on it (since it is not obviously displayed on the webpage), we were advised that yes, they offer a bonus, however, we were once again asked to give a contact number so an account manager could then give us the info. This is not efficient and also demonstrates that the agents are not fully trained or competent on the company products and services.

Educational & Trading Tools

Fortrade offers a multitude of educational services including training videos, seminars, and daily analysis articles.

Customer Service

Most of the time Customer support is efficiently responsive but at times we had to repeat ourselves and rephrase simple questions, which made it seem their support agents are not fully competent in the English Language. You may contact client support via telephone, email and live chat on a 24/5 basis (9 AM to 9 PM GMT).

Demo Account

Fortrade does offer a demo account, which is definitely handy if you are a beginner trader, however, the only issue we had with this is that you are encouraged to demo with $10,000 which for many is a highly unrealistic amount. In reality, you should only demo with what you could afford to trade with on a live account.

Countries Accepted

Due to the multiple regulations this broker is restrained by, Fortrade cannot accept clients from the USA or Belgium and is not intended for distribution to, or use by, any person in any country or jurisdiction where trading be contrary to local law or regulation, so be sure to check if your resident country is on the list before you apply for an account.

Conclusion

Firstly, the website is not easy at all to navigate, so beginner traders, find a broker that for a start, has a website that is easier to use. Secondly, customer support was painful in the sense that communication was not smooth and the quality overall is less than satisfactory. Thirdly, the trade conditions are not at all competitive; fixed spreads (and high ones at that), with low leverage… this makes profitable opportunities rather slim. This broker does not stand out for any element at all and therefore is not competitive to other brokers out there right now.

FX Choice is a Forex broker that is based in Belize and is regulated by the IFSC. The firm has actually been in the FX business since 2010 and for that very reason is viewed as being a veteran brokerage. In the FX Choice review below, you’ll not only learn exactly what this broker offers, but also learn how they differ from other brokers. The goal? To provide you with more than enough information to decide whether or not FXC is worthy of an even closer look.

Account Types

There are two account types offered, with these being Classic and Pro. With both types, the minimum required deposit amount is $100. Both also have the same leverage ratios, same lot size requirements, and most of the same assets. There are, however, some important differences that you’ll want to take note of. One being that the Pro account provides access to ten additional FX pairs. There are no commission charges on the Classic account, but the spreads are higher. On the Pro account, there are commission charges, but the spreads are tighter.

Classic Account:

• Minimum Deposit: $100
• Spreads: starting from 0.5 pips
• Commission: None

Pro Account:

• Minimum Deposit: $100
• Spreads: starting at 0 pips
• Commission: $3.5 per $100,000

Platforms

FX Choice offers both the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms. MT4 has been the preferred platform of most Forex traders for quite some time now. Even so, some traders are now making the move to MT5 and will be happy to see it as a platform option. Do note, however, that the MT5 platform is only made available to those who open a Pro level account. So, if you opt for the Classic account level, you’ll only be able to use MT4.

Both platforms are available as a download for Windows and can be accessed within any major browser using WebTrader. Both are also available in app formats and are available for download within the Apple Store or Google Play.

Leverage

The maximum leverage setting on both account types is 1:200, a ratio which some who trade Forex will consider less than optimal. If you’re looking for higher ratios of 1:500 or even higher, you’ll need to look to one of the offshore firms to provide it. The lowest allowed leverage setting is 1:25, which may also be viewed as a problem by those who wish to trade with no leverage whatsoever. On the Classic account, margin call is set to 25% and stop out at 15%. On the Pro account, margin call will take place at 100%, while stop out is set to 80%.

Trade Sizes

The smallest trade size is 0.01 micro lot and this goes for both account types. The maximum on both is 1,000 lots on all assets other than cryptocurrencies. On digital assets, the maximum trade size is capped at 5 lots. The ability to trade in micro-lots is a nice one to have. However, some may feel restricted by the maximum position size on cryptocurrencies.

Trading Costs

As mentioned previously, one will need to pay commission with a Pro account, but not on the Classic account. Essentially, you’ll be paying the broker by way of higher spreads on the Classic account. Swap, or rollover, fees are charged on both account types. Since these costs vary by the asset, you may want to create a demo account or contact the FX Choice support team for more information. The broker does keep a detailed rollover policy posted on its website.

Assets

FX choice offers six different asset groups, including:

• Currency Pairs
• Indices
• Metals
• Commodities
• Energies
• Cryptocurrencies

In total, here are 28 currency pairs available to Classic account holders, while Pro account holders have access to 38. Aside from this one difference, it appears that all other assets are available on both account levels.

Spreads

On the Classic account, spreads start as low as 0.5 pips. This is actually quite impressive, considering the fact that there is no commission charged on this account type. With the Pro level, spreads start as low as 0.0 pips. Spreads, of course, vary by the asset, so you may want to spend some time comparing the spreads on your preferred assets on both accounts.

Minimum Deposit

There is a $100 minimum deposit requirement across the board. This is relatively standard within the industry and certainly no cause for concern. With that being said, there are FX brokers that do ask for less. Commonly, brokers will ask for larger amounts on higher-level account tiers, but here, the minimum is the same for both.

Deposit Methods & Costs

FX Choice has done an excellent job of setting itself up to accept a broad range of incoming payments. The following list includes all of the payment methods that can be selected for deposits and withdrawals.

• Wire Transfer
• Bitcoin/Bitcoin Cash
• Skrill
• Neteller
• Litecoin
• Ethereum
• Ripple
• Tether
• FasaPay
• Perfect Money
• PaySafeCard
• Trustly
• Qiwi
• AstroPay
• POLi
• UPayCard
• ePayments
• Vload

Did you notice what is missing from this list? That’s right, credit and debit cards. Even so, cards can be used to purchase e-funds which can then be used to make a deposit. FX Choice does charge deposit fees on most of these payment methods. The fees vary by method, ranging from 0.5% to as high as 10%.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

PaySafeCard, Trustly, QIWI, AstroPay, and POLi cannot be used for withdrawals, but all other payment methods can. With most methods there is a nominal withdrawal fee. However, Neteller and ePayments withdrawals are free. FX Choice provides complete details on all deposit and withdrawal fees on their website.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Same-day withdrawals are a possibility during the business week (Monday through Friday). The actual wait time for a payment to arrive will be determined by the payment method. Bank wires, for example, tend to take the longest time to post. Whereas payment methods such as Bitcoin can arrive in an hour or less.

Bonuses & Promotions

There are no trading contests offered by FX Choice at the moment. They do, however, offer a referral program. To profit from the referral program, one will need to share their own personal referral link (found in your account back office) with friends, family, or acquaintances. When someone uses the referral link to create a new account and deposit with FXC, the referrer (you) would earn $25 for each $100 deposited. The earnings are capped at $250 per new trader referred. A one-time deposit bonus in the amount of 15% of the total deposit is also offered.

Educational & Trading Tools

There are no educational resources provided, aside from a Knowledge Base. The only trading tools are those which are already built into the MetaTrader platforms. There are extra services available though, including Forex signals, Autotrading service, EAs, VPS, and more. The firm has also rolled out a program titled, “Pips+” which is targeted at Pro account holders who wish to reduce their commission charges. Visit the FX Choice website to learn more.

Customer Service

The FXC customer support team is available 24/5 and can be reached via live chat, phone, and email. It is possible to request a callback, which should be completed within 24 hours or less. Multilingual support is offered, which is excellent. Whether your native language is English, Spanish, Italian, Farsi, Mandarin, or Thai, help is available. The primary contact number for client support is +52 558 526 80 32, whereas the contact number for general inquiries is + 501 227 27 32.

Demo Account

Not only does FX Choice offer demo accounts, but they also offer them in ‘real account’ format. This means that their demo accounts offer trading conditions and pricing which is the same as what is seen within real accounts. Their demo accounts allow you to choose a leverage setting ranging from 1:25 up to 1:200. A demo account can be created on the FXC website by providing just some basic personal information.

Countries Accepted

Residents of Afghanistan, Belize, Iraq, Italy, North Korea, Spain, Sudan, and the Syrian Arab Republic are not allowed to create an account with this broker. As of now, they are allowing residents of the United States and China to trade with them, which is interesting, since many brokers ban these two countries from their platform. Obviously, this could change, so check with the support team should you have any questions regarding acceptance for your country.

Conclusion

The positives of FX Choice are pretty clear. They offer two solid platforms, accept plenty of payment methods, have good spreads, and do not ask for a crazy-high minimum deposit. There is the option to trade commission-free and withdrawal requests are reviewed and paid out quickly. As for the negatives, there are fees on most payment methods, there is no weekend support, and some may find the 1:200 leverage maximum too low. Overall, the final determination of this FX Choice review is that this Forex broker is reliable and worthy of at least some consideration by those in search of a brokerage.

NSFX is regulated by MFSA (Maltese Financial Services Authority) so bear in mind that residents of the US will not be granted trading access. NSF is well established and has a neat range to offer aside from a choice of 2 forex trading platforms. In addition, they offer trading tools to assist you, as well as educational courses for the very new traders.

Account Types

NSFX offers 3 account types to choose from, including MT4 FIxed, MT4 ECN, and JForex. All accounts have the same leverage allowance (1:50), minimum trade size (0.01 lot) however the MT4 fixed account only offers fixed spreads while the other two accounts offer floating spreads. Note that the MT4 fixed account does not charge trade commissions while the other two charge $8 per lot per trade (round turn).

Platforms

The MT4 Fixed and MT$ ECN accounts both allow traders to use MT4 platform via the web based, iOS and Android versions. The JForex account uses an alternative platform, which some may not have heard of. The web and mobile versions (iOS & Android) are all available.

Leverage

Due to regulation policies, the maximum leverage allowed with NSFX is 1:50. Some traders may find this rather restrictive when it comes to maximizing profits on winning positions.

Trade Sizes

All accounts with NSFX have a minimum trade size requirement of 0.01 lot which is very reasonable and allows flexibility for the client.

Trading Costs

As mentioned earlier, the MT$ FIxed account does not come with trade commissions charges, however, the MT4 ECN and JForex account both charge $8 R/T which can accumulate and make trading with this broker rather costly, in comparison to other brokers. Swap fees are not mentioned and their live chat was unresponsive when we asked. Do bear this in mind though and check beforehand if you consider signing up.

Assets

NSFX does offer a good variety of tradable assets, however, what they do not offer is crypto pairs. With this broker, you may, however, trade the following: Forex, CFD Energies, CFD Indices, and Metals. A full list of all available instruments is available on the website.

Spreads

NSFX advertises that their spreads start from 0.4 pips. Bear in mind the MT4 Fixed account has just fixed spreads, while the MT4 ECN and JForex account both have floating spreads, starting from 0.4 pips which is competitive.

Minimum Deposit

NSFX is not very cheap to get started; the MT4 Fixed account requires a minimum deposit of $300 to get started. The MT4 ECN account has a minimum deposit requirement of $3,000 while the JForex requires a minimum sum of $5,000. This is an element of this broker that suggests it is not perhaps ideal for a first broker account for newer traders.

Deposit Methods & Costs

NSFX offers an incredibly wide range of methods to fund your account: Wire transfer, Verified by Visa with card, debit/credit card, Neteller, Skrill, and Fast Bank Transfer (which, ironically, has the least fast processing time of up to 10 business days as stated on the website). None of the deposit methods carry any fees by the broker.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

Withdrawal methods are the same as the deposit methods available (Wire transfer, Verified by Visa with card, debit/credit card, Neteller, Skrill, and Fast Bank Transfer). The only two withdrawal methods that incur a fee (2.9% of the withdrawal amount) are Skrill and Neteller.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Withdrawal processing time scales are as follows:

• Wire transfer up to 2 business days
• Mastercard up to 1 business day
• Maestro up to 1 business day
• Visa up to 2 business days
• Skrill up to 1 business day
• Neteller up to 1 business day
• Fast Bank Transfer up to 10 business days

Bear in mind the time your funds actually take to reach you/your account can depend on your provider, so always good practice to check with your provider of choice before you request a withdrawal.

Bonuses & Promotions

NSFX is not able, due to their regulation, to offer such deposit bonus schemes or promotions.

Educational & Trading Tools

NSFX does offer some useful tools to assist you in your everyday trading including Economic Calendar, fundamental analysis, Financial news. In addition, if you are looking for some trading courses prior to trading by yourself, NSFX offers e-books, forex guides, and some helpful videos. All educational material is free.

Customer Service

NSFX offers customer support via Live Chat, Email, and Telephone. Hours of operation are not stated anywhere on the website which may explain why they were unresponsive via live chat on a Wednesday mid-afternoon (GMT +2).

Demo Account

You may open a demo account to test NSFX trading conditions to see if they suit you and your trading style, and to see if you would like to then move on to a live account if you are satisfied with their service.

Countries Accepted

Due to this broker’s FCA and MFSA regulation, residents of the USA would not be able to become a client of NSFX. Of course, as standard goes, if you were to register for a live account, you would need to provide proof of address, and at this point, you will be told if your residency is accepted or not.

Conclusion

This broker does offer a solid trading service, however, for many, this is deemed quite an expensive broker to trade with, compared to other brokers in terms of minimum deposit requirements as well as commission fees. Indeed, their leverage caps are also not particularly favorable to many, but that is the sacrifice one has to take when dealing with a regulated broker.

This broker is based in Indonesia and locally regulated by BAPPEBTI since 2005. GK Invest is a part of Global Kapital Group that also includes brands such as GKFX, GKFX Prime, and GK Pro. This is a large global corporation that encompasses 18 countries and 1 million clients. GK Invest did not apply for better regulatory supervision but this does not assume a bad value proposition to traders. This broker has put some effort to get closer to clients through solid marketing, tools, education, as well as in other areas that back up their promotions. Lately, GK Invest has officially become a sponsor of the Arsenal football club as a part of the GK group. How this mix delivers to the overall quality of service will be evaluated in the following sections.

Account Types

Some important information about the accounts on the GK Invest web site is missing, like the minimum deposit for each. A total of five account types is offered. They are scaled by minimum deposit, although we have divided them into two groups, one offers fixed spreads, the second variable spreads. Standard, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Account types all offer fixed spreads, 1:100 leverage, the same number of tradeable assets, commission, and the same stop out levels (10%). The other group with variable spreads consists of two accounts, Standard and ECN Zero. The ECN Account starts with 0 variable spreads but to our surprise, also with a 5 times larger commission.

An interesting offer to some parties is the “Multilateral” account option. To expand their modes asset trading range, GK Invest packed this option as something extra. Multilateral adds on commodity Futures trading with a mix of Gold, Oil, and Crude Palm Oil that is a specific commodity to Indonesia. This account option has limits to a minimum of 1 trade lot size, 60 million IDR (around $4261) minimum deposit, etc. No limits for withdrawals or deposit amounts. We are unsure if this is just a gimmick or interesting to Indonesia clients. Only USD and IDR as account currencies are possible.

Platforms

GK Invest is focused only on the Metatrader5 platform available in Web, Desktop and Mobile versions. Metatrader 5 is superior to MT4 in some aspects although many EAs and indicators are not yet available for MT5. This can be also perceived through the Market tab within the MT5 and the MT4 platform. GK Invest allows any type of EAs and trading strategies and they even state that you should backtest them first before going live.
The MT5 platform quickly connected to the server, everything set up to MT5 defaults. The execution times on the desktop MT5 are just below 200ms, good enough for fast trading strategies. The platform is updated to the latest version.

Leverage

Leverage is always constant with GK Invest. Whatever account you select the leverage will be 1:100. This level is enough for normal risk management strategies. For traders that rely on small accounts and highly leveraged trading will be disappointed. Stop Out levels are fixed to 10% regardless of account type.

Trade Sizes

GK Invest decided to ditch micro-lots and go with 0.1 minimum trade size. The step-up volume is also 0.1 lot. The maximum one trade can carry is set to 50 lots. This kind of trading environment is too rigid for any risk-sensitive strategies. By our estimations, anything below $1000 deposit could be considered overexposed with a minimum of 0.1 lot trade size. The Multilateral Account has a minimum trade size of 1 lot although this is a different type of commodity trading.

Trading Costs

GK Invest has a $2 commission applicable to all account types. The only exception is the ECN Zero account with the $10 commission. The swaps are a bit different across account types but all are within normal ranges. EUR/USD swap is 0.5 positive and -3.5 negative. Market information documents are very detailed and clear. Each account type has an associated market information document although not in English.

Note that we have noticed a fee statement from $2 to $30 depending on the account type, during the real account registration process at step 2. We are not sure why this information is not in correlation with the commissions ($2-$10).

Assets

The asset range is modest by all means. None of the categories are wide enough to be considered a specialty of GK Invest. Forex has a total of 27 pairs. As per GK Invest’s statement, they try to differentiate by offering less liquid currency pairs, but we did not find any exotics, not even the local IDR, just the major cross pairs.

Indicies range is limited to majors and also tradeable like Futures CFD. A total of 6 major indices are listed on the MT5 platform, like the S&P 500, Dax, Dow Jones, and the rest.
Metals category is present but limited to just Silver and Gold. The trading session has a one-hour trade break every day. Although this is common with all brokers, GK Invest is also missing quotes feed during that time.

The commodity category offer is almost non-existent. Crude Oil is the only asset offered here, apart from the Palm Oil available only with the MULTILATERAL Account. GK Invest mentioned WTI and Brent oil, but these are not listed in the MT5 platform.

Company stocks category is, as with the rest of the GK Invest offer, very limited to major big, popular companies only. We fount a total of 16 companies like Microsoft, Alibaba, Amazon, Google, Netflix, although Apple is not on the list.

Note that GK Invest has an interesting category named “Inactive”. This list of assets that do not receive any signal from the servers has some instruments not found in the categories above. We can only assume that this may be a future expansion plan for the GK Invest assets offer.

Spreads

GK Invest has both variable and fixed type spreads, depending on the account type. ECN Zero states spread from 0 pips, in practice, the MT5 platform showed at least 1.3 pips for the EUR/USD. This value went up to 3.7 pips for the Standard fixed account type. In the metals category, the spread started from 37 to 60 pips for the XAU/USD. Interestingly, for WTI Oil futures, the spread was just 0.5 pips, significantly lower comparing to other brokers. S&P 500 always had 10 pips spread regardless of the account type.

Minimum Deposit

GK Invest stated that the minimum deposit is $200, although this does not apply to all account types. The Multilateral Account requires around $4200 or 60 million IDR.

Deposit Methods & Costs

The only possible method is by bank wire. The transaction cost is the sole responsibility of the client. If you make a transfer from a bank other than BCA (Bank Central Asia) or transfer it in USD, there may be a transfer fee charged by the bank. GKInvest does not charge any fees for the deposit process. This bank also holds segregated GK Invest client accounts.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

GK Invest deals only with the bank wire fund transactions, so as with deposits. The costs are covered by the broker. Note that the minimum amount for withdrawal is $10 or 100.000 IDR. The absence of Credit cards also means that investors do not have a consumer protection policy that VISA and MasterCard companies offer. Withdrawal requests are limited to once per day.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

The withdrawal processing is done in 1 business day by GK Invest. For the local Indonesian clients, the amount should be reflected in their bank account within 24 hours. For international transfers, it depends on the bank but not longer than 7 business days.

Bonuses & Promotions

There is no information about any kind of bonuses or promotions. For this reason, we assume there is none.

Educational & Trading Tools

GK Invest put some effort into education and some tools. The approach is genuine and careful to beginners and this leaves a nice impression on the visitors. The education section contains courses, videos, and webinars. Courses are just a few pages about general trading and provide some good and practical information on how to start everything up. Basic but important terms are nicely explained. The MT5 platform elementals are also very good for beginners.

There are no marketing biases to this material. The videos section does not contain high-quality material although there is one original webinar video that is 33 minutes long. Some educational sections are not complete like the webinar and weekly analysis. Still, a lot of updated content could be found on the GK Invest Facebook page, as well as other social media. Surprisingly, the GK Invest YouTube channel has a vast array of trading videos, some even longer than 1 hour. It remains unclear why the website webinar section is not complete.

The GK Invest tools offer is above average as it contains the Economic Calendar, simple profit Calculator based on pips and lots, Currency Converter, Trading Central, AutoChartist, News, the MT5 Booster, FIX API, and the free VPS service.

The Economic Calendar has great features and is completely custom made. The filter options are numerous and useful, although maybe a bit cluttered. Each event is described with a full-width history movement chart, source link, impact meter and filter with the saving ability.

Trading Central services are available and with the full ability to insert the signals and indicators to the desktop MT5 platform. Clients would need to contact GK Invest support for installation.

GK Invest’s MT5 Booster is a package of their proprietary set of indicators and applications for the MT5 platform. This package is for clients who deposit at least $2500 and features a more advanced Alarm Manager that can close positions, a custom Trade Terminal, Correlation Matrix, a kind of sentiment indicator, Session Map, better Market Watch, Excel RTD app, and a Mini Terminal.

The News service is updated with some basic technical analysis such as support levels, pivot, etc. This is maybe the least usable element of the GK Invests’ tools as it does not provide the information quality that more advanced traders may need.

Finally, the AutoChartist service is available and the page is oriented to present the possibilities and how to set it up. To wrap it up, GK Invest additionally offers VPS service as well as FIX API.

Customer Service

The GK Invest shows professionalism within their support staff. The chat service is available on the website but it seems just to send the message like an email. Still, the approach to the client is professional and ethical. All the support desks are neatly presented with a specific email, phone number and working hours. GK Invest would have above-average customer support if not for the missing chat feature.

Demo Account

GK Invest has a well-designed sign-up process for the Demo Account. The email you will receive will contain both the credentials for the MT5 platform and the client’s area on the web site. The demo account will show the swaps but not the commissions of a real account. Leverage, spreads, and the rest of the real environment should be reflected within the demo. After 30 days of inactivity, the account will be closed, although traders can always open a new one easily.

Countries Accepted

Since the complete GK Invest website and the material contained is not in English we assume that this broker accepts clients from Indonesia only.

Conclusion

During 2019, this broker claimed the number one spot in Indonesia in the transaction volume category within the Futures Exchange. Also, GK Invest holds the best broker award in 2018 for Indonesia. The local regulation does not have the prestige, insurance, and some other benefits that the largest have like the FCA, NFA, etc, but still, GK Invest shows a very detailed and secure way of accepting business. The drawback is the asset range, not open to international clients, one deposit/withdrawals method, and somewhat high trading costs compared to other brokers. Note that GK Invest offers ECN accounts but may also act as a market maker.

Visitors to the eMarketTrade’s web site will not understand what kind of broker this is. There is nothing that points out to a company except a single instance: “Kalessica Limited” in the footer. There is no location or anything mentioned about this company. After some research, we found out this is a company in Cyprus without any license to offer CFD or any kind of digital assets trading. The origin of the capital points to Bulgaria, one of gathering places for scam and prohibited broker companies from Israel. Still, we will cover each section for additional research and present what traders can expect.

Account Types

There are six account types, a table of packages scaled to the deposit level. Moreover, eMarketsTrade has two products CryptoFX and SimplexCrypto. They are the same thing except the Simplexcrypto is more tailored to beginners and is just a platform layout, not a product per se. The most affordable account type is the Bronze Chain starting from a $2.500 deposit. This account has the least of 18 features listed possible and is limited to Trading on the platform, Daily market review, webinars, and Financial market introduction.

The next tier account is Silver Chain, adding on top a Personal manager, Risk management Team and no maintenance fee. This Account type requires at least a $5000 deposit. As we go up to Gold, Platinum, and Diamond Chain type, the rest of the features are available as well as the higher deposit requirement. The Diamond Chain Account requires a $100.000 deposit with all the options like Welcome Bonus, Diamond Chain bonus, Executive crypto indicator, etc. Overall, the deposit requirements are among the highest we have seen in the industry, especially when looking at the VIP Account that requires a $250.000 deposit.

Most of the features overlap with the same function and few fees relief (like the maintenance and the withdrawal fee) that are not mentioned in the eMarketsTrade Terms and Conditions. Account types do not differ by offering a different trading environment or spreads, just by added features similar in nature.

Platforms

There is only one platform available through the web and its origin is not clear. Once a client registers, he will be able to see it after skipping the deposit process. There are two layouts CryptoFX and SimplexCrypto, also presented as products on the eMarketsTrade web site. SimplexCrypto layout hides the chart completely and lists cryptocurrencies and tokens only. To trade, clients just need to click the “invest” button. This is an attempt by eMarketsTrade to hide complex looking parts and make everything simple for beginners. CryptoFX layout includes the chart and all the available assets to trade.

The chart is based on TradingView although the same chart for BTC/USD showed a completely different price level from the TradingView.com web site chart. This was a very weird issue and seemed like a fake presentation. This was confirmed when refreshing the chart after some time. The price spike candle was always shiting to the right like it never happened before. After 15 minutes another spike is presented on eMarketsTrade chart except for this time it was a bullish candle, without a trace of the previous one.

To the right traders will see the market news feed from Investing.com that are updated but they cannot be filtered for any category, just randomly listed as they come out. Still, the news is very good and can be of use. The platform supports pending orders, take profit and stop loss that can be set by price or in pips distance. Besides, the orders can be set to expire. On the left side of the platform is the instruments list that can be set to view as a list or box, with some basic information about the daily change and current ask/bid. The spread is not presented anywhere on the platform, even manually it is hard to calculate unless using a screenshot as the price updates every second.

On top, the chart features different styles of price representation so traders can set to view as Heikin Ashi, Area, Hollow candles, Bars, etc. Indicators can be added and there is over 70 most popular. We have noticed an issue when adding any indicators that had a volume factor in their formula as none of them appeared on the chart. Even the simple Volume is not visible like it is blocked. Anyway, the rest worked as intended and could be set like with the TradingView. An additional feature is the comparison of different assets for any trader that wants to identify correlation patterns. Traders can also draw lines, shapes, channels, add text, etc.

Apart from the eMarketsTrade web platform, the mobile version is presented on the web site. When downloaded for Google Play, traders will also receive the $20 bonus, $50 free trade if you like the app and review it, and for deposits of $1000 – two Diamond Chan Account type signals. Unfortunately, we found out that the app does not exist on Google Play, all these pages and promotions are in vain.

Leverage

The leverage levels are not known. According to the eMarketsTrade support by default is 1:100. We have measured this form the platform to confirm this leverage level. For Crypto, the leverage was 1:20 and for Metals 1:10.

Trade Sizes

By looking at the web platform we did not find anything less than 1 for Bitcoin, which is very high. For Currencies, trade sizes are in units, from 1000 or 0.01 lots. The same trading size options are given for all Forex pairs. For Gold trade size was from 0.1 units and for Indices 1 unit.

Trading Costs

eMarketsTrade does not have commissions. No information on other fees is available except some are mentioned in the Account types comparison that we were unable to confirm. The trading cost falls to swaps only and they are under normal levels. None of the swap levels are positive for any trading instrument however for BTC swaps are low compared to other brokers at -1.5 points. EUR/USD, on the other hand, had -27 points on both, long and short sides. Higher than for example USD/CNY that had -25 on both sides. Generally, the swaps did not have any difference whether a trader goes long or short, all instruments had the same or similar negative swaps.

Assets

If traders select the CryptoFX layout in the platform, all the assets will be listed. eMarketsTrade has an average number of assets and focuses on cryptocurrencies.
Forex offer covers all the majors, minors and some exotic pairs like the USD/CNY, USD/RUB, and Scandinavian currencies (DKK, SEK, NOK) making a total of 32 pairs.
Stocks are limited to 24 companies and banks, like Apple, Ferrari, Nvidia, Facebook, all well known to a wider audience.

In the metals and the commodities range, eMarketsTrade does not have much to offer considering they are specialized in crypto. A total of 3 metals and just two commodities – Natural Gas and Oil. Gold, Silver, Platinum are available from the metals category.
Finally, where eMarketsTrade shines – Cryptocurrencies. On the list are Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, DASH, Ethereum, Ripple, Monero, NewEconomyMovement, Stellar Lumens, Zcash, IOTA, NEO, Cardano, and Golem token. All these cryptocurrencies are also available to trade in Bitcoin crosses like LTC/BTC, IOTA/BTC and the like. This range of crypto is certainly above average comparing to other brokers.

Spreads

The main issue is that the trading conditions and spreads are nowhere on the eMarketsTrade website. Whatsmore, their platform does not show the spread at all. There is no document to ask or download, so we had to calculate manually. Starting from the BTC/USD, the spread is around 200 pips which are way above any average industry benchmark. A similar spread percentage follows other cryptocurrencies. Forex spreads are also a bit weird, EUR/USD is at 7 pips, but GBP/USD is just 0.4 pips. Where USD/JPY is 4 pips where a more exotic USD/CNY is 3 pips. We are not sure if this is in purpose to keep the spreads high for more popular pairs or just the issue with eMarkeststrade liquidity providers.

Minimum Deposit

The minimum deposit is confirmed bu the support to be at $250. The information on the Account types seems to be just marketing, including the fees that do not apply in practice. Therefore, the first tier package called Bronze Chain requiring a $2500 minimum deposit is not the actual minimum you need to start trading with eMarketsTrade.

Deposit Methods & Costs

After registration and getting access to the trading room clients will be presented with deposit options. We can confirm that only Credit/Debit Cards are available through the Vogue Pay service processor or using the Vogue Pay wallet itself. This payment service processor is from Nigeria with solid ratings. There are no fees charged by the eMarketsTrade for deposits. The maximum deposit transaction amount is $10.000.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

The initial deposit will be funded to the Credit/Debit Card used. Any profits will be funded using a bank transfer. The minimum withdrawal to a credit card is $25 and for bank transfer is $100. In other words, if your balance is lower than $25 you will not be able to withdraw. Also, if you have a profit below $100 mark, eMarketsTrade will not allow bank transfer withdrawal. There are no fees for withdrawals charged by the broker, despite the features stated in the Account Types section.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Once all the client documents are verified, eMarketsTrade will process the withdrawals as soon as possible, although the exact time frame is not stated within the Withdrawal of funds Policy document. Usually, it should not take more than 7 days for bank transfer but the support staff cannot confirm this.

Bonuses & Promotions

The bonus is featured everywhere on the eMarketTrade web site. Ther is also a Bonus document stating all the conditions. The bonus amount seems flexible and you can probably make a deal with the broker. As with many bonus types, a certain amount of trading volume is required for the bonus to be released. In the case of eMarketsTrade, it is 40 times the bonus and deposit amount. Bonuses are not reversible, so you cannot ask to cancel it. The conditions are too complex in case a trader does not reach the required turnover, what we have concluded that a trader should be able to withdraw their initial deposit in case of realized profits, but in case of a loss, it could mean many consequences that are not described. We are not able to confirm negative balance protection from this broker.

Educational & Trading Tools

The Academy section provides material that looks like is taken from other sources (MTE-Media) as the Metatrader platform which is not supported by eMarketsTrade is also described. The ebooks collection will be fully available once a trade has registered, no deposit is necessary. The quality is average but a lot of trading content is covered.
The analysis section is divided into Technical and market summaries. Videos could not start no matter how hard we tried. The technical is fresh but mostly basic without any deep and accurate analysis. Market summaries are almost useless as they come down to arrow showing up or down as a suggestion for each of the listed assets.

The Economic Calendar is available and it is basic without any filters or features. The description for each event is good though. The Market News section is fresh and updated daily. Most of the news id focused on cryptocurrencies and is very short and does not give any insight although good to make traders interested and find out more on the internet.

Customer Service

The representatives are not working full time, 9-5 pm and Fridays until 1 pm. The broker is available by phone, chat, and email. The quality of service you will get is not good, the support staff will answer your questions sporadically, and ignore if you are not a potential client. Comparing to the industry standard the support service is below average.

Demo Account

At first look, there is no demo available. eMarketsTrade does not want traders to practice on their platform as they may notice the inconsistencies with the price movement. Anyone interested to see the platform without investing can do it by skipping the deposit step and log in with the email and password. The support will not tell you this is possible but guide you to make a minimum deposit. We are unsure if they are willing to fund that demo account.

Countries Accepted

The United States of America and Israel residents are not accepted. Also, some other countries that eMarketsTrade deems unacceptable.

Conclusion

This unregulated broker has some user reviews on broker benchmarking sites and all are very negative. Many have reported manipulation of various kinds, money extortion, conditional withdrawals, hyping and trading on their own will, using TeamViewer and other similar remote control applications to access client’s sensitive data such as bank statements, and many more red flags. As for trading, the biggest strength of eMarketsTrade is in the cryptocurrencies, although the spreads alone will divert anyone who understands the basics of trading.

This broker has a well-designed web site that shows the regulation and education as their prime attraction points. ITRADER boasts about the availability of multiple platforms, a great range of assets, and quick withdrawals. Reading what the company has to offer, it does not go far from the usual, overused phrases most traders just skip. Be warned, from the start, until you make a profile, you will be redirected. ITRADER has alternative domains such as global.itrader.com that is used to redirect once you type in your residence. If you are not in the European Union, you will stay at www.global.itrader.com and be open to fraud risk.

This is one type of manipulation method and a cover-up under offshore companies and regulations. Domain – global.itrader.com is completely different in terms of regulation, the company, location, name, etc. Taking this serious issue into consideration, we will review the regulated ITRADER.com platform under CySEC licensed company, Hoch Capital LTD (no 198/13, www.itrader.com). The mentioned domain is owned by a cover, Bayline Global World LTD company, in Belize. Note that once a client logs out, the main www.global.itrader.com domain will return. Additional information about this issue is in the Conclusion.

Account Types

ITRADER offers 3 account types. Silver Gold and Platinum. They differ by the spread, leverage, swap discounts, and some additional services. Silver account has the widest spreads and clients will not receive a dedicated Account manager, videos, webinars, news alerts, and a VPS service. The minimum deposit value is not mentioned for any of the account types, more info on this in the Minimum deposit section. Gold type account has the assigned Account Manager, videos/webinars available, and a 25% swap reduction.

The most prestigious Platinum type account has the best spreads, higher possible leverage, news alert, a VPS service, and 50% reduced swaps. The overall offer has some bundled services that could be useful like the VPS. The quality of the videos and webinars is ok and probably is not better with the assigned Account Manager. Islamic Account is available and traders that want to apply have to contact the iTRADER management through the client portal.

Platforms

ITRADER is focused on the Metatrader 4 platform only. It is available as a web, mobile, and desktop versions. Interestingly, Google Play has an iTRADER app that is not like the standard MT4. This app has a 3.4 rating but only good reviews can be seen as the bad ones were deleted. It is not offered for download anywhere on the site, the regular MT4 Mobile by MetaQuotes is.

To download the platform, traders need to log into the iTRADER’s client portal and find them under the platforms section. Once they have requested an account, they can log in with the credentials provided.

 

The desktop MT4 is regular, by default, updated, uncustomized with the one-click trading buttons visible. The server response is good and it does not take long to log in. On average the order executions took 500ms, which is below standard for an ECN broker in our opinion and leaves a lot of room for a time type slippage. Most ECN brokers should have at least 200ms execution time.

Leverage

The leverage levels presented on the web site are for professional clients. ITRADER is also under the MiFID II directive and European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). As such the default leverage is set to 1:30 upon registration for all account types. To apply for greater leverage like 1:50, 1:200, etc, traders have to submit a request and pass certain requirements. We have noticed some contradictory information when comparing the web site information, Terms and Conditions, and the Contract Specifications document. Namely, the website just mentions the leverage for professional traders, not for retail. Probably because It was not attractive enough. Even that is not in-line with the downloadable legal documents.

To eliminate any confusion, we will give out the official levels from the Contracts document. For retail traders, Forex leverage is 1:30 for major pairs, 1:20 for others. Metals and Indicies have 1:20, Commodities 1:10, equities 1:5 and Crypto 1:2.

Trade Sizes

For retail clients, minimum trade sizes are set to 0.01 lots. For professional traders, this level is increased to 0.1 lots. From the platform, we have detected other levels. The minimal volume was 0.1 lots with the increment steps in 0.01. Only the cryptocurrencies had a minimum of 0.01 lots. A single decimal makes a lot of difference. This is a serious issue with anyone who is following strict money management where any 0.1 lot order would be too risky. We can openly claim that this practice is another way of forcing clients to trade and probably lose their funds, especially taking into consideration all the inconsistent information from the official iTRADER sources.

Trading Costs

ITRADER claims to be an ECN broker, and unlikely to other ECN brokers, does not charge commissions. Now, the commissions are mentioned in the legal documents but we have not encountered them for trading. The spreads are not that tight so iTRADER probably makes up for the lack of them.

Swaps are under normal levels and there are some positive values. For example, the EUR/USD has a -8.3 long position swap and 2.7 points positive on long positions. For Gold, it is -10.2 on both sides and for BTC/USD -78.75 points per coin! ITRADER has a lot of cryptos to offer, but traders need to pay attention not to leave positions overnight for too long as it is -1% daily interest.

The above values come from the MT4 platform feed, but the swap list on the iTRADER’s web site is completely different. Not that the swaps are all negative, but also extremely high. Any investor willing to trade with iTRADER should be well informed about current swaps directly from the iTRADER support.

Assets

ITRADER provides all usual asset categories except EFTs. Overall a wider range than average in the industry. Starting with Forex, a total of 53 pairs is offered. Noted exotics are USD/RUB, USD/INR (Indian Rupee), USD/PLN, EUR/HUF, and Scandinavian currencies. Israeli Shekel against the USD is listed but trading is only for 3 hours.
From metals, Gold and Silver are on the list on spot. Palladium, Platinum, and Copper are CFD Futures. A full range in this category.

Commodities offer is great. As CFD Futures there are Corn, Cocoa, Coffee and more. A rare find is also Orange Juice. Oil types are not excluded, with the addition of Natural Gas and Gasoline.

From shares, traders will find all they need, just not the most demanding ones. Shares from major companies all around the world, from different stock exchanges can be found.
A total of 25 indices are offered. Apart from the majors, rare ones like the Tel Aviv and Saudi indices can be found.

ITRADER Crypto list is interesting. All the majors and some minors can be found like the Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, Ethereum, Litecoin Zcash, Dash, Zcash, and ETH classic. What is interesting is that mentioned coins can be found denominated also in EUR, USD, and GBP.

ITRADER’s asset range is good, not leaving out any trader category. Certainly, this is one of the iTRADER’s strong points.

Spreads

Depending on the Account type the variable spreads are scaled to the deposit levels. Silver Account has 2.2 pips for the EUR/USD, Gold 1.3 pips and the final Platinum Account has 0.7 pips spread. The information for the XAU/USD states it is 0.59, 0.48 and 0.37 pips which are incorrect. It can only be 59, 48, 37 pips, but we are unsure if this is just a mistake or in purpose for marketing. For BTC/USD the starting spread is 50 pips which is larger than average. Generally speaking, iTRADER does not shine in the spreads category but not bad either.

Minimum Deposit

ITRADER obscures this information and also states different amounts from different sources. Starting with the account types table, potential investors do not see this. To find this info using the iTRADER website, go to the FAQ section where the minimum deposit is stated at 250 EUR/USD/GBP. The same amount is mentioned in the Contract Specifications document located last in the footer. Yet, when we logged into the client portal, we found that the minimum deposit was $500 for any method, be it Credit Card, Bank Wire, or wallets. The maximum was $5.000 to $30.000 depending on the method.
Interestingly, there is also the “Alternative Deposit” method. Here the minimum deposit is $1000 whatever the method you select. In our book, providing traders inconclusive information about deposits is a serious issue.

Deposit Methods & Costs

ITRADER does not charge anything for deposits. The bank or e-wallet transaction fees are not covered by this broker. Investors can use Wire transfers, Credit Cards and e-wallets like Skrill, SEPA, Trustly, Klarna, Rapid transfer – all under Skrill. From the “Alternative Deposit” methods you will have Credit Card and other methods that go via another processor. This way of deposits is usually available if the broker has issues with credit card denials.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

Apart from the fees not charged by the iTRADER, traders need to know that this broker will charge a withdrawal fee of EUR 50 if there is “insignificant (only one single position placed on the trading account)” volume, or in case the client wishes to withdraw less than $100. Apart from this fee, iTRADER will not cover the costs of transactions by third parties.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

ITRADER will process the request from the client’s area in one business day. The funds should be reflected in the trader’s account in 5-7 business days.

Bonuses & Promotions

If you are registered with the regulated iTRADER in the EU, there are no special bonuses or promotions except the mentioned Swap discount that is for Gold and Platinum Account types.

Educational & Trading Tools

ITRADER is using the MTE media material and education scheme. This company provides good, easy to follow, basic education for beginners. In our opinion, the information is geared towards sales and not always deep enough. Most, if not all of the material is could be found on some popular learning web sites for free. The internet is overwhelmed with these practices that certainly are not the best traders can find. Still, iTRADER has covered the Educational section better than most brokers in the industry, with videos, articles, e-books, and more.

Customer Service

This broker has a phone, chat, and email communication channel. Also, social network pages are managed and updated with attractive trading hypes and content for amateur traders. The iTRADER Facebook message response rate is within a day. The chat service from the website is a bit time-constrained and is not 24/7, more like from 9 am until 9 pm, Monday-to Friday.

Demo Account

Speaking of the demo account, know that first-time visitors will be under the www.global.itrader.com domain where the demo is offered clearly. In essence, this is a live account registration process where visitors will be questioned and assessed to the document ID upload and, finally, deposit. Anyone inexperienced with the process (trick) will not know that the client portal account is created once the email is submitted.

The 6 step process can be closed midway and users will be automatically logged in to the iTRADER site. Of course, as mentioned, only if you are from the EU, you will be redirected to the CySEC regulated www.itrader.com after this. This unethical and manipulative practice is not sanctioned by CySEC. Although, Hoch Capital Ltd, owner of the iTRADER platform, was fined. More on this issue in the Conclusion.

Countries Accepted

ITRADER does not accept customers within the United States, Australia, and Belize. Although, the exact and correct information about this is obscured. We have found that Israel is also not on the list when applying for registration. This also suggests that iTRADER is found by Israeli capital.

Conclusion

This broker has a few major issues even though it gives traders good value at first glance. Firstly, the issues about www.global.itrader.com, shady off-shore “Bayline Global World” company and the manipulative registration process already described above. “Bayline Global World Ltd” is not typed as letters but put as a picture. This website is also designed with the user-select function that prohibits visitors to select the name of the company with the mouse. And many more practices that point to fraud. Finally, on the 27th of March 2019, Hoch Capital Ltd was fined 200.000€ by CySEC for compliance breaches about the information released to clients and investment practices. The official document about this can be found on the CySec website.

ISIK FX is an MT4 broker that does not appear to be all that well known, despite operating since 2013. They are regulated by the Capital Markets Board (Turkey).

Account Types

The website does not give specific advantages to their live accounts but instead link you right to the registration page to sign up. This is not particularly helpful, so we had to scout the website to find the benefits to the accounts, without the help of any FAQ page. ISIK FX offers only one 4 accounts Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Standard, all of which are compatible with MT4 with fixed spreads.

Platforms

As mentioned, ISIK FX offers the trusted MetaTrader 4 platform. You may use Web Trader, Desktop or the Mobile version.

Leverage

It is very odd that the website does not tell us the leverage available to use however quick online research on CMB Turkey (Capital Markets Board regulation body) tells us that the maximum leverage offered is 1:10. This is not very favorable and can make maximizing profits quite difficult for some traders, especially those that trade smaller capital.

Trade Sizes

Trade sizes (minimum/maximum requirements) are not mentioned so this is not something we can comment on at this time.

Trading Costs

It is not mentioned what, or even whether commissions are charged via ISIK FX. The same case is with Swap fees. However, bear this in mind as at least one is likely to be applicable.

Assets

With ISIK FX you can trade over 50 Currency Pairs, Commodities, Indices, and Stocks. The link to the full list on the website is in fact broken so you would need to download the demo to see the full available list of instruments.

Spreads

It is frustrating that the link on the website to the spreads is not working, so we cannot comment on how competitive their spreads are at this time. The only information available is that their spreads are fixed, and not floating. This seems to be applicable to all 4 account types.

Minimum Deposit

Assumably, the minimum deposit would vary according to the 4 account types, however information regarding advantages to each account is not even displayed on the website, so, unfortunately, we cannot comment on this at this time.

Deposit Methods & Costs

The broker website is really not easy to navigate and pinpoint information, and also a lot of it is not translatable from Turkish. Even after some thorough perusing, we were unable to find specifically the deposit methods available.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

We experienced the same issue with withdrawal methods as we did with trying to locate the deposit methods on the website. Unfortunately, this is not something we can comment on at this time.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

We were unable to find the withdrawal methods thus it was impossible to find the withdrawal timescales. It would be prudent to check with client support on a preferable deposit/withdrawal method that you are familiar with, to see if it is available before you go ahead and register an account with them.

Bonuses & Promotions

There is no mention of deposit bonus schemes listed on ISIK FX website.

Educational & Trading Tools

ISIK FX does offer some educational tools to assist you in developing yourself as a trader. There is ample free reading material and some videos but unfortunately, the videos seem to have an error, and cannot be accessed. No matter, there is plenty of free trading education material online, if you know where to look.

Customer Service

ISIK FX can be contacted on a 24/6 basis, via telephone, email or live chat. There is also a facility whereby you can request a call back at a time that is convenient for you.

Demo Account

ISIK FX offers a demo account to trade via so you can see if their live trading conditions would be suitable for you and meet your expectations as a trader.

Countries Accepted

There is absolutely no wording in relation to which residents are allowed to trade with this broker, and which are not. The only way to tell really is to sign up and since you will need to declare your proof of residency, it is only then you will be accepted or declined.

Conclusion

This broker barely provides any of the most basic and standard information you should know before even considering a broker, let alone opening an account. Without knowledge of what you would be involving yourself into, we feel it is best to conduct thorough research and fully consider whether this sort of broker is worth your while and risk.

FXTM is an award-winning online forex and CFD broker with a client base that has grown to more than one million since its establishment back in 2011. This broker is a well-known and trustworthy option, due to their regulation by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA). The company is located in Cyprus. Since this broker offers six different account types, there is a lot of information one would need to review before deciding whether to open an account. We will say that this broker offers several competitive advantages, but you’ll want to keep reading to find out more.

Account Types

This broker offers six different account types, with the options being the Standard, Cent, Shares, ECN, ECN Zero, and FXTM Pro accounts. The Cent account is essentially a version of the Standard account with a lower deposit requirement, similar spreads, and smaller trade sizes. All of the accounts differ significantly when it comes to the deposit minimums, spreads, minimum and maximum trade sizes, number of products available for trading, platforms supported, and more. All accounts offer competitive trading costs, including spreads. There is so much to take into consideration, so we hope you’ll continue reading to ensure that you choose the best account type for your own personal trading style. Below, you can view a quick overview of each account type.

Standard Account:

-Minimum Deposit: $100
-Leverage: up to 1:1000
-Spreads: from 1.3 pips
-Commission: None

Cent Account:

-Minimum Deposit: $10
-Leverage: up to 1:1000 (FX), 1:500 (Spot Metals)
-Spreads: from 1.5 pips
-Commission: None

Shares Account:

-Minimum Deposit: $100
-Leverage: 1:10 fixed
-Spreads: from 0.01 pips
-Commission: None

ECN Account:

-Minimum Deposit: $200
-Leverage: up to 1:1000
-Spreads: from 0.1
-Commission: $2 per lot

ECN Zero Account:

-Minimum Deposit: $500
-Leverage: up to 1:1000
-Spreads: from 0.01 pips
-Commission: None

FXTM Pro Account:

-Minimum Deposit: $25,000
-Leverage: up to 1:200
-Spreads: from 0 pips
-Commission: None

Keep in mind that you’ll need to submit a few documents for personal verification with this broker. On their website, the company states that accounts are often approved within the same day. Make sure that you upload your personal ID and address document as early as possible to ensure that support has everything they need to review your account quickly.

Platform

Unlike many of their competitors, FXTM actually offers both the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 trading platforms. Typically, we only see one option or the other, with MT4 being offered most commonly. Therefore, if you’re a clear fan of the MT5 platform, you should be happy to see this option. If you’re trying to decide which platform to use, you should know that both are available on desktop, web, or mobile, and links can be accessed from the broker’s website. MT5 is the newer version of the platform, but many still prefer to use the classic MT4 platform. However, MT5 does offer more timeframes, pending order types, technical indicators, and more. Note that only the Standard, ECN, ECN Pro, and FXTM Pro accounts may opt to choose between the two platforms, while the Cent and Shares accounts will be trading with MT4.

Leverage

FXTM offers floating leverage options from 1:1 up to 1000:1. Their outstanding leverage cap provides traders with the ability to trade with 1000 times their buying power and to trade a larger volume while only making smaller deposits. We must point out that trading with high leverages, especially with one as high as what this broker offers, can be risky. It is best left to more experienced traders that prefer a high-risk high-reward experience.

With that in mind, it is still a great advantage to have the option to select leverage this high and any beginner could start with a more realistic leverage and possibly work their way up in the future. Note that this option is available on the Standard, Cent, ECN, and ECN Zero accounts. The Cent account only allows for a leverage of up to 1:500 on spot metals. The Shares account offers a leverage that is fixed at 1:10, while the maximum leverage on the FXTM Pro account is set at 1:200. Still, options are higher than the industry average for all account types, aside from the Shares account.

Trade Sizes

The minimum allowed trade size is 0.01, or one micro lot, on all account types. Meanwhile, the maximum trade size differs much more significantly, based on which account you’ve chosen. The Cent account was designed to support a smaller trading volume, so the maximum trade size is set at just 1 lot on this account type. The maximum trade size is 10 lots on the Shares account and 30 lots on the Standard account type. From there, options climb much higher, with a 100-lot size on the ECN and ECN Zero account, and an impressive 250 lots being offered for the FXTM Pro account. Like the maximum trade sizes, the accounts also come with a varying margin call and stop-loss levels. Those levels can be viewed below.

Margin Call/Stop Out Levels:

-ECN, ECN Zero, FXTM Pro: 80%/50%
-Standard Account: 40%/20%
-Cent Account: 60%/40%
-Shares Account: 40%/20%

Trading Costs

Brokers typically make a profit through spreads, commission charges, and swap fees. Fortunately, FXTM does not charge commission fees on the majority of their account types, which can provide a financial advantage to choosing them as a broker. The only exception would be the ECN account, which charges a commission fee of $2 per lot, although this is made up for by the much lower than average spreads. Speaking of spreads, we will mention that the majority of the accounts with this broker offer lower than average options. More on that later.

There are also swap free versions of all of the account types available on the MT4 platform, although this isn’t offered on the MT5 platform. Overall, trading with a bigger broker like this one can really provide an advantage when it comes to trading fees, since the broker is able to almost completely wipe out commission fees, offer lower than average spreads, and provide swap-free options.

Assets

FX, cryptocurrencies, precious metals, oil, indices, and stocks make up this broker’s impressive asset portfolio. However, one should note that the number and variety of assets available actually depend on the chosen account type. Also, there are more options available within the MT4 platform. The Standard account is the only account that offers cryptocurrencies and seems to offer the largest variety, with 50 majors, minors, and exotics, 5 spot metals, 14 spot CFDs, and 4 cryptocurrencies being available within the MT4 platform.

The ECN and ECN Zero accounts come in second place when it comes to the number of offered products, with 48 majors, minors, and exotics, 3 spot metals, and 14 spot CFDs being available. Note that the only options for the Standard, ECN, and ECN Zero account on MT5 would be 33 majors, minors, and exotics and 2 spot metals. The Pro account offers 43 majors, minors, and exotics and 2 spot metals within MT4, but offers 33 majors, minors, and exotics, 2 spot metals, and 10 stock trading options within MT5. The Cent account has fewer options, with 25 majors and minors and 2 spot metals available. Finally, you’ll find more than 180 plus shares available on the specialized Shares account.

Spreads

FXTM mentions on their website that spreads on EUR/USD start as low as 0.01. Spreads on this asset are typically the lowest you’ll find, which is likely why the broker chose to use this particular pair in their example. Note that the FXTM Pro account actually offers spreads from 0 pips, so you won’t be able to find a lower option elsewhere. Spreads start from the 0.01 pip example on the Shares, ECN, and ECN Zero accounts, while spreads are from 1.3 pips on the Standard account and from 1.5 pips on the Cent account. This means that all of the account types, aside from the Cent account, are offering less than the average 1.5 pips offered by their competition.

Another plus is the fact that the spreads are competitive on all of their account types, so you won’t be missing out on the savings if you opt for one of the account types with a lower deposit minimum. Another thing to take into consideration would be the fact that these lower than average spreads are offered in addition to zero commission fees on the majority of account types. Usually, a lack of commission fees would mean that spreads would be higher than average.

Minimum Deposit

The minimum deposit requirements with this broker range from just $10 to $500 for all of their account types, except for the FXTM Pro account. If you open a Cent account, you’ll only be required to deposit $10, while there is a $100 requirement for the Standard Account and Shares account. The ECN account requires a deposit of $200. None of the amounts so far are intimidating, so these could be great options for anyone that is apprehensive about making a deposit. Moving up, the ECN Zero account type requires a larger deposit of $500.

Overall, the largest deposit amount may be a little high for some traders, but it is nice to see more realistic deposit amounts for most of the account types with this broker. Elsewhere, you’ll often need to make deposits in the thousands and upwards to open an account that mimics this broker’s cheaper ECN Zero account. The most expensive account would be the FXTM Pro account, which requires a minimum deposit of $25,000. Obviously, this account type is meant for professional traders that have the means to make that type of deposit.

Deposit Methods & Costs

FXTM offers an amazing variety of deposit options, including Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, Bank Wire Transfer, FasaPay, South East Asia Online Banking, Dusupay, TC Payment, Latin American Solutions via Skrill, Online Banking Malaysia, Online Banking Indonesia, Nganluong, GlobePay, Online Banking Vietnam, Online Banking Thailand, and China Online Banking(P). E-wallet options include Neteller, Skrill, VLoad, Crypto (BTC, ETH, LTC, Dash), TC Pay Wallet, Alfa-Click, WebMoney, DixiPay, Cash U, Yandex.Money, QIWI, PerfectMoney, Bitcoin, and Konnexone.

There are also a variety of local transfer options, including Malaysian Local Transfer, Nigerian Local Bank Wire Transfer, Indonesian Local Transfer, Algerian Local Transfers, Kenyan Local Transfers, Local Transfer for India and Pakistan, Ghanan Local Transfers, Local Exchange House, Afghani Local Transfer, Laos Local Transfers, Egypt Local Transfer, Bangladeshi Local Transfer, Iraqi Local Transfer, Palestinian Local Transfer, Tanzanian Local Transfers(BRK), and Syria Local Agent(KD). All of the e-wallets and card options, excluding Crypto and Konnexone, are available instantly.

Almost all of the other deposit methods are available within 24 hours, aside from Latin American Solutions via Skrill, which can take 1-2 business days, and bank wire, which can take 3-5 business days. FXTM does not charge any commission fees on deposit methods, but some banks may charge fees from their side.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

All of the deposit methods are also available for withdrawal. These methods charge varying fees, although many of them are commission-free. Commission Free options include all of the local transfer options, TC Payment, Latin American Solutions via Skrill, Syrian Local Agent (KD), Local Exchange House, GlobePay, Online Banking Thailand, China Online Banking, China UnionPay, Neteller, Skrill, VLoad, and TC Pay Wallet. Below, you can view the fees for each withdrawal method.

• Visa/MasterCard/Maestro: 2EUR/3USD/2GBP
• Bank Wire Transfer: 30 EUR
• FasaPay, PerfectMoney, DixiPay: 0.5% (DixiPay max is $5 USD)
• Dusupay: $1 USD
• Crypto: 1%
• Nganluong: 1.1% + 0.05 USD
• South East Asia Online Banking: 1.4%
• 1.5% Fees: QIWI, Yandex.Money
• 2% Fees: Online Banking Malaysia, Online Banking Indonesia, Online Banking Vietnam, WebMoney, and Konnexone

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

The vast majority of withdrawals are available within 24 hours, including cards and Bank Wire Transfer. Exceptions would be Latin American Solutions via Skrill, which has a 3-4 business day withdrawal period, China Online Banking(P0), which can take up to 48 hours, and all of the Crypto options, which can take 24 to 48 hours.

Bonuses & Promotions

To start, FXTM is offering a 30% welcome bonus, which runs until November 30th, 2019. Time is running out, but hopefully, there’s just enough time left for you to claim the bonus. This broker also offers loyalty rewards that payout in cash, so long as one trades for six months. There are five different rebate levels and one’s level would depend on the amount that they have deposited. You can view the rebate levels and terms by clicking on ‘Forex Trading Promotions’ under the ‘FXTM Promotions and Contests’ section of the website.

It also seems as though this broker offers contests on demo and live accounts periodically, so be sure to check if there are any ongoing contests at the time of sign-up. Finally, FXTM is offering up to $10,000 to those that refer friends and family to the broker. You and the referred person will earn $50 each once conditions are met. Below, you can review the terms and conditions for the Welcome Bonus and Refer a Friend program.

30% Welcome Bonus (Standard or ECN Zero accounts only)
-Must deposit at least $100/ Maximum amount bonus can reach is $300
-Number of lots traded must equal the benefit amount times 2
-Cannot make a withdrawal of part of the deposit that granted the bonus or bonus will be removed
-Can be withdrawn within 30 days of meeting minimum lot requirement

Refer a Friend
-Both participants must make the minimum deposit amount for the account type
-Must trade at least 5 standard lots before the bonus will be credited

Educational & Trading Tools

FXTM offers several helpful educational tools, many of which are much more interactive than what you’ll typically find with other standard brokers. In fact, this broker offers enough to completely teach beginners everything they’ll need to know through their webinars, online courses, and other resources. Be sure to subscribe to the broker’s YouTube video to ensure that you don’t miss out on any of their educational videos. The website also has a section devoted to Market Analysis, so remember to visit it to find even more helpful tools. Below, we’ve listed all of the educational opportunities and tools offered by this broker.

-Seminars and webinars with experts
-Online trading courses
-Download eBooks and market outlooks
-Infographics that explain how to manage time and money effectively
–Forex Glossary
-Periodic Table
-Economic Calendar
–Forex News Timeline
-Quarterly Market Outlook
-Market Analysis Videos

Demo Account

Many forex brokers have been offering demo accounts lately, but this broker’s demo accounts stand out from most of the crowd. This is due to the fact that FXTM offers advanced demo accounts that mirror each of the real accounts they offer. This provides one with the ability to test out the features of each of these account types before making an actual commitment. For example, one could test out the demo version of the ECN Zero account before making the decision of whether they would want to make the $500 minimum deposit on its real account counterpart. It’s free to open a demo through this broker, so anyone that could use some practice, or who would like to test out the available account types should take advantage of the opportunity.

Customer Service

Support is offered in more than 30 languages and is available 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. The support team at FXTM won awards in both 2016 and 2017 for providing top customer service, so one should have high expectations when it comes to receiving quality customer service with this broker. Getting in touch with an agent is available through three convenient methods – phone, email, or LiveChat. This broker is also active on several social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and more. You can follow them by scrolling to the bottom of the website and clicking on the chosen social media platform. Below, you’ll find all of the contact information. Note that there are several different phone and email options, based on your location, so be sure to choose the right one.

-China: [email protected]
-Malaysia: +60-3-9212 5856/[email protected]
-South Korea: 003-0813-2643/[email protected]
-India: 000800-100-4352/ [email protected]
-Nigeria, Albuja: +234 803 153 4373/[email protected]
-Nigeria, Lagos: +234 1 460 1586, +234 908 735 2313, +234 803 457 3593/[email protected]
-Thailand: +66 60 003 5095/[email protected]
Indonesia: 007 803 321 8183/[email protected]
Address: 35, Lamprou Konstantara, FXTM Tower, Kato Polemidia, 4156, Limassol, Cyprus

Countries Accepted

FXTM does not offer service to clients located in the USA, Mauritius, Japan, Alberta, British Columbia, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Haiti, Suriname, the Democratic Republic of Korea, Puerto Rico, and the Occupied Area of Cyprus. These strict regulations are likely due to the fact that the broker is regulated by more than one authority, which imposes stricter conditions on the locations that they are able to accept.

Conclusion

FXTM is an established and regulated broker that offers six specialized account types. The broker has won multiple awards for customer service, trading conditions, and most recently, in 2019, they were awarded Best Investment Broker. Choosing a more established broker such as this one grants one access to a much larger variety of deposit and withdrawal methods, lower than average trading costs, extremely flexible leverage options, and the ability to choose between the MT4 and MT5 platforms.

This broker also offers low deposit minimums on the majority of their accounts, although the impressive FXTM Pro account requires a deposit of $25,000. This broker’s customer service team is also available instantly on LiveChat and has won a variety of awards for providing top-notch service. Educational opportunities are seemingly endless. There is honestly nothing to dislike about this broker and we would highly recommend signing up for an account with them. Of course, if you’re on the list of restricted countries, which includes the United States, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

TFX Markets is a broker situated in the United Arab Emirates. First impressions given by the website are concerning, as the site can be hard to read and the website runs with a little bit of lag. First impressions can be deceiving though, so we will look a little deeper into the services being offered and see how TFX Markets perform.

Account Types

There are three accounts on offer from TFX Markets, information regarding all features can be a bit scarce, but we will take a look into each account to see what the trading conditions are like for each one.

Standard Account:

This is the entry-level account for TFX Markets, there is not a whole lot of information regarding the trading conditions. There is maximum leverage of 1:500, it states quick withdrawals and payments but no information on what that means and it uses the Veta Trader as a trading platform, the account also comes with fixed spreads, but no information on what that spread is.

Gold Account:

The gold account has the same level of information available, and very little has changed, there is mention of some additional support however the only noticeable difference is that it states super low fixed spreads instead of fixed spreads. All other information remains the same.

VIP Account:

The VIP account is identical to the VIP account in terms of the information provided. There is a small additional section which states that traders will receive market updates, trading ideas, and special VIP promotion offers. There is no additional information given at all.

Islamic Account:

We have included the Islamic account on this list as it is given its own page and account specifications. Islamic accounts are accounts where the overnight swap fees are not charged or received.

Platforms

TFX Markets use a platform called Veta Trader, this is one of the first times we have seen this platform mentioned so we had to have a little look into what it offers. It is available as a desktop download, an app for iOS and Android devices and as a WebTrader within your internet browser. It seems to follow some of the same ideas as MetaTrader does, however it does not have the same database of indicators and expert advisors and does not seem to be as well supported. It has a large number of tradable instruments and has features such as one-click trading and multiple account management.

Leverage

The maximum leverage on all accounts is set at 1:500 which seems to be quickly becoming the industry standard and what a lot of more modern brokers are looking towards.

Trade Sizes

There wasn’t much information regarding this available on the website, we would be assuming that the minimum trade size would be 0.01 also known as a micro lot, however without concrete information we can not say this with certainty. There is also no information present regarding the maximum trade size.

Trading Costs

There is no mention of any commissions being charged, so it appears that all accounts use a spread based structure. There is also no information regarding spreads except for stating that they are fixed spreads or ultra-low fixed spreads.

Assets

When looking at the platform part of the website regarding the use of the Veta Trader, the only mention of assets is that it states that you can trade over 200 instruments, there is no indication of what these are or if all account have access to them.

Spreads

No information regarding this except for the statement of them being fixed spreads or ultra-low fixed spreads. There is no mention of an average or minimum spread and so we are getting a bit concerned about the overall lack of information on the trading environments.

Minimum Deposit

No mention of minimum deposits on the website, the accounts page does not mention them and neither does any of the other pages.

Deposit Methods & Costs

TFX Markets state that they allow the use of bank transfer, Visa / MasterCard, UnionPay, Neteller, Skrill, and PayPal. There is no information regarding the fees on any deposits.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

So, another section with little to no information, we would assume that the same methods for depositing would be available for withdrawing but we can not say this with any certainty.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Without knowing which withdrawal methods are available we, unfortunately, can not comment on the processing time for withdrawals. The only mention is on the accounts page where each account states “Quick withdrawals and payment”.

Bonuses & Promotions

There are mentions of bonus funds on the accounts page and in the terms and conditions, however there is no information in regards to what the bonuses are, only that you need to trade 10,000 times the volume of the net deposits in order to withdraw any of the bonus funds, it is safe to say that 99.9% of people will never achieve this.

Educational & Trading Tools

TFX Markets provide a couple of education or trading tools, there are signals being provided for a number of different currencies including AUDJPY, AUDUSD, and CHFJPY. These help to teach you the trends and get a better understanding of what is going on in the Forex markets. There is also a very brief overview of what different strategies are and what they mean, it is very basic and won’t teach you to trade, but it is there and could be helpful.

Customer Service

TFC Markets provide a few different ways to get in touch with them, there is the online form, which once filled in, the customer service team will reply via email or mobile. There is also a phone number available as well as a physical address and an email address.

We tried to use the phone service, however, the phone did not pick up and cut out, the next time we tried it just cut out and did not ring at all, we are unsure if this was a temporary or permanent fault.

Demo Account

Demo accounts are available on the website, you can get one by simply filling in the application form on the site. Once it is open, you can trade indefinitely, however, if left dormant for too long it will close and another will need to be opened.

Countries Accepted

There is no information present on the TFX Markets website indicating which countries can and cannot trade with them, so we cannot provide much information for this part of the review.

Conclusion

The lack of information available is quite alarming and not something you want to see when looking for which broker to use. Customer services were not able to help us either so there is a huge lack of understanding surrounding what is actually being offered. The terms of service are very bare and provide very little information which can be a major concern for any website, let alone one that you are putting your money into. For these reasons, it is hard for us to recommend using this service.

We hope you like the review, if you did, be sure to check out some other reviews to help find the broker that is right for you.

The Trader’s Domain is a forex brokerage company located in St. Vincent & the Grenadines. The company describes themselves as being built by traders, for traders, with a focus on providing a convenient experience and mentions that their objective is to become a leading brokerage company, but smart traders know that is much easier said than done. Does this broker have what it takes to meet their goal, or will they fall short? Stay with us to find out.

Account Types

This broker offers Standard and ECN account types, although everyone seems to be granted with a Standard account upon registration, so you may need to reach out to support if you’d prefer an ECN account. Also, note that Islamic accounts are available for the ECN account type only. Both account types come with the same minimum deposit requirement and leverage options. Below, you can view the differences in the account types.

Standard Account
-Minimum Deposit: $100
-Leverage: Up to 1:500
-Spreads: From 1 pips
-Commissions: None

ECN Account
-Minimum Deposit: $100
-Leverage: Up to 1:500
-Spreads: From 0.0 pips
-Commissions: $3.50 per 100k traded

Upon opening an account, one will need to provide ID and address verification documents. Accounts are approved once enough documents have been provided to achieve 100 points. Address documents count as 70 points per document, while proof of identity documents count as 70 points per document.

Platform

Those that decide to trade through this broker will have the advantage of choosing between the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms. Many other brokers feature either one platform or the other, with the award-winning MT4 being the most commonly offered option, due to is highly customizable, user-friendly interface, along with a number of pre-installed indicators and tools that are also included. Developers of MT5 kept most of its predecessor’s strong suits and added in more pending order types, analytical objects, and more.

Both platforms are excellent options, so it really comes down to one’s own personal preference when it comes to choosing which to trade through. Accessibility is also no issue on either platform since both can be downloaded on a desktop, Android, and iOS. You can also access the platforms on the WebTrader, which is the browser-based version. The WebTrader would be the best option for Mac users.

Leverage

The Trader’s Domain allows traders to trade with up a volume of up to 500 times their trading capital. This provides an opportunity to maximize profit, regardless of how limited one’s actual capital is. However, one should note that trading with high leverages goes hand in hand with taking higher risks, so one should not simply choose the highest leverage offered. It is advantageous for brokers to offer options that are so much higher than the industry average because it provides lower-level traders with room for growth if they make it big in the forex world.

Trade Sizes

The Trader’s Domain allows a minimum trade size of 0.01 lots, otherwise known as one micro lot. Trading a micro lot allows for smaller positions that what would be allowed with a mini or standard lot. Support informed us that the maximum trade size usually depends on how much your margin can handle. Margin call and stop-loss levels are set at 50%.

Trading Costs

Many brokers charge fees through spreads, commissions, and rollover interest. With this broker, those charges differ based on account type. On the Standard account, spreads are from 1 pip and there are zero commission charges. Meanwhile, the ECN account offers spreads from 0 pips, with a commission fee of $3.50 per 100k traded.

Assets

The Trader’s Domain offers 100 plus tradable instruments, including CFDs, precious metals, and some cryptocurrencies. Sadly, the website does not offer a list of products, nor does it go into any further detail. A Product Disclosure Statement can be obtained on request from their offices and the website suggests that this should be considered before one decides to enter into a transaction with the broker. We would recommend reaching out to support to request the PDS.

Spreads

The ECN account type offers the most attractive spreads, advertised as starting from 0.0 pips. The Standard account advertises spreads as starting from 1 pip. Keep in mind that the industry average would fall somewhere around 1.5 pips, so both are presented as being well below average and are therefore competitive. However, The Trader’s Domain does not list their products on their website with actual spreads, so it is difficult to investigate whether these options are truly as low as advertised.

Minimum Deposit

This broker allows traders to open either of their account types with a deposit of $100. There are really two sides to the coin when it comes to comparing this amount to the minimum required by other brokers. On one side, this amount may be steep, considering that many brokers offer deposit minimums of around $10, or even eliminate the requirement altogether. Offering lower minimums would be more beneficial to beginners or those that are iffy about signing up with this broker. On the other side, this is a bit lower than average, and $100 provides one with the ability to make a number of trades before needing to make another deposit quickly.

Deposit Methods & Costs

This company accepts deposits through Bank Wire and a number of e-wallets. E-wallet options include more popular options like Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, LiteCoin, and Dash, alongside some lesser-known options like Monero, Neo, Ripple, and Cardano. It’s odd to see so many e-wallet options available without the option to deposit via Visa/MasterCard. Also, note that a deposit fee of 2.5% is charged on all deposits. Aside from Bank Wire, all deposits are processed within 24 hours. Bank Wire can take 2-3 business days to be credited to the account. This broker does not accept third party deposits, so ensure that you are always funding from a method under your own name to avoid the hassle.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

The website doesn’t offer any information on withdrawals, so we reached out to support to find out more. We learned that all of the available deposit methods are also available for withdrawal. The broker charges a 2.5% withdrawal fee, one that matches their deposit fee. This fee may seem steep at first glance, but this means that if you made a deposit and a withdrawal of $100, the broker would take a total of $5 by the time funds were deposited and withdrawn. Of course, if you made a larger deposit, the fees would add up to a larger amount. Upon requesting a withdrawal, you’ll find that the website does the math for you and displays what the commission cost will be once fees are applied. Withdrawals to accounts that have never had any open trades will be subject to a 15% processing fee.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

All withdrawals are processed within 24-48 business hours. It would be nice to see some instant options; however, these options are still realistic. One would simply need to put in the request a day or two in advance of the time when funds would be needed. Of course, you may want to request a withdrawal earlier in the week in order to avoid the delay caused by the weekend. Remember that all compliance documents must be uploaded and approved before a withdrawal request can be processed.

Bonuses & Promotions

At this time, there are no bonus opportunities being offered by this company. While we love seeing bonus options available, this is just one of those extra things that aren’t necessary. If you do continue looking for a broker that offers a bonus, be sure to read the terms and conditions. If a bonus seems too good to be true, it probably is. Remember that you should never choose a broker based on this category, but it can be a nice addition to a list of positive qualities if you do find a qualified broker that offers an attainable bonus opportunity.

Educational & Trading Tools

Aside from the ability to trade with a demo account, The Trader’s Domain is barren when it comes to educational opportunities. However, the company does offer an economic calendar and multiple calculators. Overall, these trading tools are helpful, but we can’t help but feel that this broker could be doing more to educate their client base. If you’re a beginner, we would suggest researching elsewhere and then opening a demo account through the broker when you’re ready. Below, we’ve listed all of the available calculators.

-Pip Calculator
-Margin Calculator
-Fibonacci Calculator
-Pivot Calculator
-Profit Calculator
–Lot Size Calculator

Demo Account

The Trader’s Domain does offer demo accounts to any traders that would like the advantage of opening one. If you haven’t heard of demo accounts before, you should know that many forex brokers offer these practice accounts in order to give their clients a chance to test out the market using virtual currency. Opening a demo account is free and one could maintain both a demo and a real account at the same time.

Customer Service

24/7 customer support is provided in multiple languages via LiveChat, email, or phone. We were able to get in touch with an agent via LiveChat instantly and our support agent was willing to answer all of our questions clearly. We didn’t get the usual run-around or refusal to answer certain questions that we’ve received in the past with other brokers. On another note, this broker admits to a 24 to 48 wait time in order to receive a response via email, so you may want to use one of the other contact methods if you have an important inquiry.

-Phone: 18334004242
-Email: [email protected]
-Address: Suite 305, Griffith Corporate Centre, P.O. Box 1510, Beachmont, Kingstown, St. Vincent & the Grenadines

Countries Accepted

The Trader’s Domain does not accept applications from residents of the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Israel, and the Republic of Iran. However, we were able to bypass the restriction by opening an account from one of our US-based offices by selecting the ‘US Minor Outlying Islands’ as our country of residence. When chatting with an agent, we were never asked about our location and we had no issue accessing our account through the back office.

Conclusion

The Traer’s Domain is a forex and CFD broker that offers the ability to trade with high leverages on two account types. Traders can choose between the Standard and ECN account types, both of which offer competitive spreads and commission charges with a minimum deposit of $100. This broker also offers both the MT4 and MT5 platforms and multilingual, 24/7 instant support. The downside to choosing this broker would be the lack of variety and unavoidable deposit and withdrawal fees when it comes to the funding of one’s account.

Educational options and bonuses are also absent, but these are simply extra options that don’t affect the main experience. In some places, the website can be vague, but support is always available to answer any questions one may have. In our opinion, this broker is offering competitive enough trading costs to potentially meet their goal of becoming a leading broker, but they’ll need to offer better funding conditions and add more opportunities on their website in order to make it all the way to the top.

Golden FX is based in Saint Vincent & the Grenadines and offers not only offer their services via the MT5 trading platform but also offers FX tools and free educational material which can all be found on their website. The website itself has a very modern and simplistic theme, making navigation easy, and especially attractive to beginner traders.

Account Types

Golden FX offer 4 account types: Standard, Silver, Gold and Platinum. All accounts can be held in EUR or USD, but trading conditions of course vary. The Standard account must have a deposit of $$250 – $999, the Silver $1,000 – $24,999, the Gold $25,000 – $99,999 while the largest account, Platinum, must have over $100,000.

Some details are vague from the website information provided, such as spreads being ‘standard’ on the Standard and Silver accounts, while the Gold account has 1.9 pip spreads and the Platinum has 1.5 pip spreads. All accounts have access to the same markets, educational material, and Islamic account equivalent. Leverage is also favorable across the board, which we will expand on shortly.

Platforms

Golden FX offers the MT5 trading platform, which is not everyone’s cup of tea, but MetaTrader is, of course, the most trusted platform, so many clients will be happy to use MT5.

Leverage

Leverage allowances depend on the account type you opt for. The Standard account offers a maximum leverage of 1:100, the Silver account allows maximum 1:200, the Gold 1:400 and the Platinum is not stated but suggests it can be very high according to the client’s request.

Trade Sizes

The minimum trade size is 0.1 lots for all accounts.

Trading Costs

The FAQ page states that all 4 accounts do not charge any trade commissions or additional fees.

Assets

Golden FX must be commended for its provision of variety when it comes to tradable instruments; clients are at luxury to trade the following: Forex, Stocks, Commodities, Indices, and Cryptocurrencies. This really is quite the banquet for the clients to choose from.

Spreads

Golden FX offer both fixed and variable spreads, which assumably are available specifically on particular trading instruments, and could vary from account type, but this is not specifically stated. It is not possible to find live spreads or the fixed spreads, or even a full list of instruments available without opening an account to do so, which is a clever way to quickly entice clients into signing up for a live account before having a full understanding of trade conditions offered.

Minimum Deposit

As mentioned earlier, minimum deposits start at $250, which is not low or average to competitors by any means. It seems that for each account type, you must maintain a balance in your account, as stated below:

• Standard: $250 – $999
• Silver: $1,000 – $24,999
• Gold: $25,000 – $99,999
• Platinum: $100,000 or more

Deposit Methods & Costs

Golden FX does not charge clients for deposits and the following methods of funding are available: Local bank transfer, debit/credit card, and cryptocurrency.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

Withdrawals must be completed via the same method you used to make the initial deposit of funds you wish to withdraw. No broker charges are mentioned in respect of withdrawals but of course, your banking provider, or e-wallet could carry fees, so be sure to check that before you process withdrawal requests.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Withdrawals can take up to 7 business days but to reach you can depend on your banking provider. Compared to alternative brokers, 7 business days for a withdrawal to simply be processed is incredibly lengthy and not many traders will appreciate this wait time.

Bonuses & Promotions

Each account type is eligible to be granted a deposit bonus of up to 100% of the original amount. Bear in mind the deposit requirements are rather high compared to many brokers, and this amount can essentially be doubled. Although this gives the appearance of having double the capital in your account, bear in mind that withdrawing a bonus is near on impossible unless strict trading requirements are met, which are set out to be almost impossible for a reason.

Educational & Trading Tools

Golden FX offer free educational material on their website, for those who wish to read up about trading to enrich their knowledge. A Glossary is also available to refresh knowledge on trading terminology you will encounter as a trader.

Customer Service

There is only an option to contact Golden FX via email (ticket) or via telephone. The hours of customer support operation are not stated so it is unknown when you will receive a response.

Demo Account

Golden FX does not offer any demo account version of any of the 4 account types offered. This makes is very difficult for potential clients to really know if these accounts are suitable for them or not.

Countries Accepted

The website footer makes a clear statement that all traders are welcome other than If you are a citizen and/or resident of Japan, USA, Russia, Ukraine or Canada, then you will not be granted permission to trade with Golden FX.

Conclusion

On the surface, this broker has many positive attributes. In terms of deposit methods, leverage allowance and variety of assets to trade, this broker are highly appealing. However, the minimum deposit requirements and the deposit bonuses to put a slightly sour taste in one’s mouth, especially given the absence of a demo to fully try out the broker’s services before depositing real money into a live account, and a substantial amount too.

Trader’s Home is a foreign exchange broker located in Saint Vincent & the Grenadines. Although they’ve only been around since 2018, this broker is already becoming more well-known and has established a large customer base right out of the gate. The company boasts about providing low-cost trading in multiple asset classes, including currencies, commodities, energies, global shares, and cryptocurrencies. However, good traders know that you can’t judge a book by its cover, so stay with us to find out if the trading costs are as competitive as this broker makes them out to be.

Account Types

Trader’s Home offers six unique account types that were created with traders of different skill sets in mind. The options are the Student, Starter, Premium, Advanced, Pro, and VIP account types. While it is nice to see so many options, the higher minimum deposit amounts may limit one’s choices to one or two options. All accounts share the majority of the same specifics, including leverage, spreads, minimum trading sizes, and more.

There only seem to be a few small differences, with minimum deposit requirements being the main one, although the Student and Starter accounts are aimed towards beginners, while the other account types are meant for more experienced traders. Note that the VIP account is more mysterious than the other account types since the broker mentions one should contact their account manager for details. Islamic accounts are offered on the Starter, Premium, and Pro accounts. Once your documents have been submitted, account verification typically takes less than 24 hours.

Student Account
-Minimum Deposit: $250
-Leverage: up to 1:400

Starter Account
-Minimum Deposit: $2,500
-Leverage: up to 1:400

Premium Account
-Minimum Deposit: $10,000
-Leverage: up to 1:400

Advanced Account
-Minimum Deposit: $25,000
-Leverage: up to 1:400

Pro Account
-Minimum Deposit: $50,000
-Leverage: up to 1:400

VIP Account
-Minimum Deposit: $100,000
-Leverage: up to 1:400

Platform

Trader’s Home exclusively features MetaTrader 5, the successor to the world’s most popular trading platform, MetaTrader 4. MT5 comes with many more additional timeframes, pending order types, order execution types, market depth, an economic calendar, graphical objects, and more. The variety of features and the upgrade in the number of services offered should be enough to make the larger part of Traders Home’s clients feel content, although some may miss the user-interface offered by the classic version. Another plus to trading MT5 would be the accessibility offered by the platform, which is available on Android, Apple, browser, or download for PC. This means one can trade on the go with a phone or tablet, on their PC, and on their Mac with ease.

Leverage

Where most brokers offer leverage options up to 1:100, Trader’s Home offers more flexible leverage options up to 1:400. This means that one would be able to trade with 400 times the amount of funds in their account if they choose to open an account with this broker. This can provide a significant advantage when it comes down to making a profit. However, we should note that it wouldn’t be wise to select leverage this high if you are less than experienced. We suggest testing out different leverage options on a demo account if you fit into this category.

Trade Sizes

The minimum trade size is listed at 0.01 lot, otherwise known as one micro lot. This is listed on all account types, except for the VIP account, which states that one should speak with their account manager for details. The website is less forthcoming with details about the maximum trade sites that are allowed for each account types and no information is listed about stop-loss levels. This broker’s website can be frustrating at times due to the lack of some important details, so feel free to reach out to support if you need more information.

Trading Costs

Fees include, but are not limited to, revenue share, commissions, rebates, overnight interest, and spreads for third parties. Furthermore, the client agrees that he/she is solely responsible for any tax that may be incurred. Commission fees will be waived when trading cryptocurrencies, but are applicable on all other asset types. Overnight interest can be avoided if one does not leave positions open overnight. Alternatively, swap-free Islamic accounts are available for those of the Muslim faith on the Starter, Premium, and Pro account types.

Assets

Trader’s home offers multi-asset classes including more than 90 currency pairs, stocks, derivatives, commodities, spot metals, indices, and even cryptocurrencies. Traders will have access to more than 1000 shares in the biggest companies in the world and will have the advantage of being charged zero commission fees when trading cryptocurrencies. Note that crypto options include the ever-popular Bitcoin, LiteCoin, Ethereum, and more. The impressive product portfolio offered by this broker provides one with an excellent selection and variety that cannot always be found elsewhere.

Spreads

This broker’s website is not too descriptive about their spreads; therefore, we did our best to come up with a clear idea of what spreads one should expect. First, we will note that it seems that spreads are based on the type of asset being traded, rather than the account type one is trading from. For example, spreads start from just 0.3 pips on currency pairs, which is significantly lower than the 1.5 pip industry average. It seems as though this is the option on all account types, although the site is not completely clear. When it comes to precious metals, spreads start from 0.4 pips on Spot Gold and from 3 pips on Spot Silver. On Crude Oil, spreads start from 6 pips. The website does not provide specific information about the spreads on indices, cryptocurrencies, or spot shares. We should also mention that the Pro Account lists fixed spreads as an advantage, so this suggests that spreads are floating on the other account types.

Minimum Deposit

Deposit minimums with this broker range from $250 up to $100,000. The Student account is the most affordable, with a $250 deposit requirement. This amount tends to be the industry average, although it isn’t rare to find brokers offering at least one deposit option around $100 or less. Moving up, you’ll need to make a much more significant deposit of $2,500 to open the Starter account. The minimum is $10,000 for the Premium account, $25,000 on the Advanced account, $50,000 for the Pro Account, and $100,000 on the VIP account. The deposit requirements with this broker can be high and may limit one to choosing the Student or Starter account types. It is common to see one or two account types with high deposits elsewhere, but a $2,500 requirement for a Starter account is steep.

Deposit Methods & Costs

This broker supports deposits through bank, card, and e-wallets. The options are Bank Transfer, Skrill, Visa, MasterCard, Neteller, and Western Union. Deposits are processed quickly, within one business day of the funding time. There may not be a lot of options to choose from, but it is nice to see a little variety available. Many clients are satisfied with Visa/MasterCard and Bank Transfer options, although some prefer to deposit through lesser-known e-wallets. On the bright side, this broker is offering a couple of e-wallet options, so most should be able to find a suitable deposit method.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

Withdrawals are systematically processed through the same method that was used to deposit, so you’ll want to keep that in mind when choosing a deposit method. Fortunately, the company does not charge any fees on withdrawals, but the website suggests that their clients may be charged fees from third-party payment processors. For bank wire, you can expect these fees to be around $25 or higher, but this is unavoidable, regardless of which broker you choose.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Withdrawal requests are processed back to the method used to deposit within one to five business days. While one or two business days is a reasonable amount of time to wait with an established broker, three days or more for a withdrawal to Visa/MasterCard or to an e-wallet seems to be a long waiting period. Hopefully, the broker would manage to process your withdrawal within one of the quicker time frames, however, based on how many clients are being serviced at the time, you would need to be prepared for the longer waiting period just in case.

Bonuses & Promotions

At the time this article was written, Trader’s Home did not have any ongoing bonus opportunities. It’s disappointing that there isn’t at least a simple welcome bonus available, but extra opportunities such as these are not always offered. Remember that you should never choose a broker based solely on special bonuses, although it is a nice extra option if terms and conditions are realistic. Note that this broker does have a section related to bonuses and promotions on their legal terms document, so it is very possible that they may provide these options from time to time. Be sure to check for any updates before signing up.

Educational & Trading Tools

Under the Insights section of the website, you’ll find an Economic Calendar, a Bitcoin calculator, and a ‘Trading Signals’ option. The latter section offers recent updates that explain how different assets have been trading in the market, along with helpful charts that support each entry. However, this is as far as the educational opportunities with this broker go. It’s always nice to see brokers take the time to provide learning materials, although this doesn’t actually affect the trading experience they offer. If you’re a beginner, you’ll need to search the web for the educational material you’ll need.

Demo Account

Sadly, Trader’s Home does not seem to be offering demo accounts at this time. Many forex brokers offer these free practice accounts to clients because of the number of advantages they offer – the ability to get a feel for the trading platform, to test out different strategies, compare account types, educational opportunities for beginners, and more. Therefore, it is a little disappointing that this isn’t offered here, even though it won’t affect your experience trading on a real account. If you were really hoping to trade from a demo, you could test out one on another broker’s website, while trading from a real account with this broker. However, the experience won’t be exactly the same, since other brokers demos would reflect their own conditions, rather than those offered here.

Customer Service

Support is available 24 hours a day, five days a week and can be accessed through LiveChat, phone, email, or the contact form on their website. The lengthy support hours are convenient, although it would be nice to see this broker offering weekend support since this is often when many decide to sign-up and would, therefore, have questions. This broker is also active on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, so be sure to follow them if you decide to sign-up for an account. Below, you can find all of their listed contact information.

Email: [email protected] & [email protected]
Phone: +18774031459
Address: Suite 305, 5 Richmond Hill Road, Beachmont, Kingstown, Saint Vincent & The Grenadines

Countries Accepted

We were disappointed to find that the United States was excluded from the list of acceptable countries with this broker, especially considering their location in Saint Vincent & the Grenadines, which is typically more accepting of clients in the US. Fortunately, US residents can get around this roadblock by selecting the US Minor Outlying Islands as their country of residence. There do not appear to be any other restrictions, but you can always check the account registration page to ensure that your county is available.

Conclusion

Trader’s Home is an established broker that offers high-leverage trading on a wide variety of asset classes. Choosing this broker would also mean that one would have the advantage of paying zero fees when depositing or withdrawing funds, access to the MetaTrader 5 trading platform, and the ability to open an account from the United States. However, this broker does have high deposit requirements that may not be affordable enough for some of their potential clients.

Another downside would be the fact that the website can be vague at times and does not explain spreads clearly enough. Educational opportunities can be limited and bonuses are not available, although those could be considered extra perks that wouldn’t affect the main experience. On another positive note, the customer service team is available 24 hours a day through several convenient contact methods. With all things considered, this could be an excellent potential broker.

Polo Invest is a forex based investment and broker firm that was founded in 2014 and is based out of Hong Kong. Offering a number of different accounts and benefits, we take a little look in more detail and see if it is worth taking the plunge with Polo Invest.

Account Types

There are three different account types (not including demo) on offer with Polo Invest, these are the silver, gold and platinum accounts, let’s take a little look in more detail to see what each account offers:

Silver Account:

This is the entry-level account at Polo Invest, however for an entry-level account, having $10,000 as the minimum deposit can price out a lot of potential clients. It has fixed leverage at 1:100 and spreads from around 1.6 pips. The minimum trade size is 0.01 lots (micro lot) and there is a maximum of 10 lots open at any one time and a maximum of 50 open trades.

Gold Account:

The gold account has a minimum deposit of $50,000 which is high, very high. The leverage can be set anywhere between 1:1 and 1:100 and the spread remains at around 1.6 pips. The minimum trade size remains at 0.01 however you are now able to have 50 lots open at one time and also 100 open trades.

Platinum Account:

The premium account from Polo Invest comes with a premium price, you need a minimum deposit of $100,000 to open this account. This gives you the standard 1.6 average spread, a choice of leverage between 1:1 and 1:100, 0.01 lots as the minimum trade size, no limits to the maximum trade size, how many trades can be open and total open lots. For an account requiring $100,000, you would expect a few more benefits.

Platforms

There is only one platform on offer with Polo Invest and that is MetaTrader 4 (MT4). MT4 is one of the world’s leading trading platforms with many retail traders using it as their go-to platform. It offers huge amounts of flexibility, compatibility with hundreds and thousands for indicators and expert advisors to help improve your analysis and trading.

It would have been nice to have more choice, however with MetaTrader 4 you can not go too far wrong, MT4 is available with Polo Invest as a desktop download, apps for both iOS and Android devices and as a WebTrader to use on your internet browser.

Leverage

There is fixed leverage of 1:100 if you go for the silver account, if you use any other account then you have the option to choose anywhere between 1:1 and 1:100. Retail traders these days are looking for more and more leverage, usually opting for between 1:200 and 1:500, so Polo Invest may put some potential clients off with their lower leverage, having said that, 1:100 is relatively safe and profitable leverage to use.

Trade Sizes

All three accounts at Polo Invest offer a minimum trade size of 0.01 lots (micro lot). There isn’t a maximum trade size for individual trades, instead, there are a maximum number of open lots on each account which in turn will limit the individual maximum trade size. With the silver account, the maximum open trade volume is 10 lots, with gold it is 50 lots and with the platinum account, it is unlimited.

Trading Costs

There are no additional commissions charged for each trade with Polo Invest, instead, they opt for ana additional spread. Spreads start at an average of around 1.6 pips, however, these fluctuate due to market conditions and also some currency pairs naturally have a higher spread. So use 1.6 as a minimum, but expect slightly higher. A 1.6 spread with no other commissions is a relatively good deal, with some other brokers going much higher, however, due to fluctuations, we have seen spreads starting at 2 pips or more at certain times of the day.

Spreads are also charged for holding trades overnight, these are not outlined on the site but can be viewed from within MetaTrader 4 itself.

Assets

With Polo Invest you have access to a number of different instruments and assets, you have the standard Forex, you also have Shares, Metals, Commodities, and Indices. There is no information however as to how many of which assets are available, there are of course some examples but they are not exhaustive lists so unfortunately, we can not give precise figures.

Spreads

Spreads on all three accounts start at around 1.6 pips, however when we have examined the spreads they have always been slightly higher at a minimum of 2 pips. While this isn’t anything crazy, due to the required capital in Polo Invest accounts, it would have been nice to see slightly lower spreads across the board.

Minimum Deposit

The minimum deposit with Polo Invest is a whopping $10,000, so it is clear that Polo Invest is going for the bigger fish rather than people new to trading.

Deposit Methods & Costs

There are a huge number of deposit methods on offer, far too many for us to list here, however, we can highlight a few of them including Bank Transfer, Visa / Mastercard debit and credit, Skrill, UnionPay, PayPal, Neteller, Perfect Money and many more. If there are any fees added to deposit we can not tell, as there is no mention of any fees, but also no mention that there aren’t any.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

The same withdrawal methods are available as the ones for depositing, so there are plenty of choices. Similarly to deposits, there are no mentions of any fees, so we can not comment on that aspect of the withdrawal process.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

There are no specific details mentioned on the site in regards to processing time, however going through the terms and conditions (we had to search for them too), it appears that withdrawal requests are processed within 48 hours. So depending on what method you used, your funds will be with you between 2 – 7 business days. This can be a long time to wait and the majority of modern brokers are now aiming for 24 hours processing as a maximum, it would be nice to see Polo Invest follow suit.

Bonuses & Promotions

There are bonuses available, however, when going to the bonus information page it gives an “Oops! This page can’t be found” error. When comparing the accounts, it appears that there are deposit bonuses available, however, the details of these are not prevalent and we could not find the exact details of these bonuses.

Educational & Trading Tools

Polo Invest has a very basic education program based on an introduction to the basics of Forex, it isn’t going to help you trade or become an expert, but it is something to refer to when starting out, however considering the minimum deposit, most people trading with Polo Invest should already know the basics. There is also a glossary available should you not understand any terms that are being used.

Customer Service

Should you wish to get in contact with Polo Invest, then you can do via their support page which offers a number of different ways to get in touch. They have the standard online form to fill out, a phone number, an email address, and a postal address.

We tested out the phone line, however we did not manage to get through to anyone, it was early on a Monday morning so that may be why however we would expect someone to be there considering they are touting 24 hours a day from Monday to Friday support, possibly just not that early (8:30 am) on a Monday.

Demo Account

Demo accounts are available with Polo Invest, they come with unlimited usage, real market conditions, access to the MT4 platform and WebTrader and have up to $20,000 as an opening balance. The accounts remain active forever according to the terms and are easy to set up, simply select a demo account when creating a new account. If you close your demo account, you are able to open up as many others as you like.

Countries Accepted

There is no information present on countries that are accepted or not, so we can not confidently answer this part of the review.

Conclusion

Polo Invest seems competent, however, they are excluding a huge number of potential clients with their $10,000 minimum deposit, with such high capital being invested, we would have expected to see slightly improved trading conditions, sticking with a 1.6 pip spread is high for that capital investment. Customer services didn’t pick up which isn’t a concern, no matter how early it was in the morning.

There is a huge range of deposit and withdrawal methods available so anyone should be able to find one that works for them, however, the processing time for withdrawals is longer than we would be expecting from a modern broker. At this time, we would recommend looking elsewhere for a broker with a lower minimum deposit and slightly better trading conditions.

We hope you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out some of the other reviews to help find the broker that is right for you.

Capital Markets Group (CMG) is a global forex and CFD broker registered by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and located in Saint Vincent & the Grenadines. The company claims that they work relentlessly to provide their clients with competitive pricing, fast order execution, and reliable trading infrastructure. CMG also mentions that they are constantly updating their services to stay ahead of the competition and even goes as far as to claim that they are the best around. Of course, brokers typically advertise their positive qualities and try to put a positive spin on any drawbacks. We wanted to know if this broker has the right to boast, so we delved beneath the surface to find out whether they are the worthy competitor they claim to be.

Account Types

Those signing up for an account through CMG will be automatically signed up for their MT4 account, which seems to be the only option available; therefore, there is no need to compare conditions on multiple account types with this broker. From a quick glance, we discovered that the cost to open an account is $250, leverage options are above average, and spreads tend to be very competitive, although they are variable. There is a lot more to take into consideration, so stay with us to find out more detailed information on each of these categories. You can view a quick overview below.

CMG Account

-Minimum Deposit: $250
-Leverage: Up to 1:400/Up to 1:500
-Spreads: Variable from 0.2 pips
-Commissions: Not specified
-Minimum/Maximum Trade Sizes: 0.01 lot/Depends on Instrument

This broker requires compliance documents before an account can be approved for trading. For proof of ID, passports, Driver’s License, or a non-Driver’s ID are all accepted. Several documents are accepted as proof of residence, and all of the acceptable documentation can be viewed on the website under ‘Support’ > ‘Legal Documents’.

Platform

CMG supports the most commonly offered trading platform available in today’s forex world, MetaTrader 4. Most traders have probably heard of MT4 already, but if you haven’t, you should know that the platform offers a rich user-friendly interface, advanced technical analysis tools, Trading Signals, Expert Advisors, and is compatible with a variety of devices. MT4 is preferred among the vast majority of traders and is available for download on desktop, mobile, tablet, and through the web browser.

Leverage

This broker offers leverages that are very flexible and above average, although they certainly aren’t the highest options we’ve ever seen. However, we did find the website to be contradicting when listing the leverage cap. On their homepage, the broker advertises leverage options of up to 1:400. Under the forex category, the website lists a higher option, of up to 1:500 on forex pairs. We would expect the homepage to advertise the very best leverage available, so it is a little confusing as to why the higher option is displayed elsewhere. Since both options are very similar, we were not entirely alarmed by the discrepancy. Whether the highest leverage cap is 1:400, or 1:500 on forex options and 1:400 on all other tradable instruments, it should be enough for traders of all different skill levels.

Trade Sizes

All instruments offer a minimum trade size of 0.01 lots, otherwise known as one micro lot. Maximum trade sizes vary, based on the type of instrument that is being traded. This is not specified on currency pairs. For oil, the maximum trade size is 10 lots. On Gold and Silver, the maximum trade size is 50.00 lots. The maximum trade size on indexes ranges between 2 lots and 20 lots and can be viewed by navigating to ‘Products’ on the website’s directory and then selecting ‘CFDs’. There are no limits to the size or number of positions that a trader may hold and available margin in the account is the only constraint on the size of a position. Initial margin and total margin requirements will fluctuate with the value of the Underlying Instrument on which the contract is based.

Trading Costs

Depending on the type of account you hold, commission fees may be applied. We know that there is only one primary account type, so we can assume that CMG is hinting that there may be lowered, or zero commission charges for their wholesale clients. In order to be considered a wholesale client, one would need a balance of $500,000, so the majority of traders will have to pay the applicable commission charges. Note that there are zero commission charges when trading commodities. Rollover interest is also applicable when positions are held overnight. Rollover time is around the New York closing time (17:00 EST). Rollover costs can either add a significant extra cost, or profit, to your trade, so keep these charges into consideration.

Assets

CMG offers trading on Forex, CFDs, precious metals, and oils. The website’s homepage mentions that 80 plus instruments are available, but we did some further research to find out more. The website does not list all of the available forex options, but we do know that some of the most commonly traded currency pairs are available, including the EUR/USD, for example. Precious metal options include Gold and Silver. Oil options include WTI Crude Oil and Brent Crude oil. Overall, there are eleven popular indexes available. Considering that we can only add fifteen options so far, it is safe to assume that the bulk of tradable products with this broker would fall within the category currency pairs, with about 65 options being available.

Spreads

Spreads with this broker are variable, meaning that they fluctuate along with the trends in the market. Spreads start as low as 0.2 pips, much lower than the industry average of 1.5 pips. However, these spreads may rise and fall, due to fluctuation. To view live spreads on all of the tradable assets, we recommend opening a demo account.

Minimum Deposit

CMG requires a $250 minimum deposit upon opening an account. This amount may seem steep to less-experienced traders, although it could technically be considered average. Still, many other brokers do offer much lower minimums and some have completely done away with them altogether. The minimum with this broker is realistic, even if it is a bit intimidating to some, although lower options are out there. Fortunately, it would not take an impossibly long time for one to save up the funds if they are not immediately available.

Deposit Methods & Costs

Deposits are accepted from the following payment methods: Bank Wire Transfer, Credit Card, Neteller, Skrill (Moneybookers), Konnectivity, China UnionPay, and B2B Transfer. Note that there is a $1,000 limit on Credit Card deposits and a $3,000 limit on deposits made through China UnionPay and Skrill. CMG does not charge transfer fees; however, fees may be charged by your provider. Deposits are credited instantly for the majority of methods. However, it can take 1-2 days for Bank Wire Transfer and B2B Transfer to be posted. It can take up to one day for Konnectivity to post. The broker cannot accept third-party deposits, but joint bank accounts are accepted, so long as the name of the account holder is listed on the document.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

All of the available deposit methods can be used for withdrawal. Credit Card withdrawal can only be made for the amount used to make the deposit and extra profits must be withdrawn through a different method. Any transfer fees charged by CMG’s banking institution will be passed on to the client, however, the website does not explain how high those fees would be.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Withdrawal forms received before 21:00 GMT (5:00 pm) will be processed the same business day. Any forms received after this time will be processed the same business day. Withdrawals made by Bank Wire Transfer usually take 3-5 working days to reach the client’s account. Sam-day processing is quicker than what we’re used to seeing, but note that the website does mention that any unforeseen circumstances may cause withdrawal times to be longer.

Bonuses & Promotions

At the time this article was written, there were no special opportunities or promotions available with this company. Finding these types of options is common, but finding bonus opportunities with realistic terms and conditions is rarer than one may realize. With that said, it would certainly add something extra to what this broker is offering, but we would never choose a broker based on this category alone. Since the company states that they are constantly adapting to keep up with the competition, one should definitely check back to see if anything is added in the future.

Educational & Trading Tools

On their homepage, CMG advertises an economic calendar and tools & analysis, but none of these options are accessible from the website. Most likely, the broker is referring to the built-in tools within MT4, rather than what is offered directly via their website. This broker does offer demo accounts, which is one of the best learning tools out there, but one wouldn’t be able to operate one of their demo accounts properly without any prior insight into trading. With that said, the educational resources offered by this broker fall short. This shouldn’t be something that stops a beginner, but it is disappointing that the broker doesn’t offer more directly. We would also like to see a link to the advertised economic calendar, some calculators, and perhaps updated market news on the website.

Demo Account

Free demo accounts can be opened through the broker before one has made the decision to sign-up with this broker, or one can be opened alongside a real account. Opening a demo is an excellent way to test the market and the broker offers a $50,000 balance in virtual currency upon opening one of their accounts. This should be more than enough, however, the broker does offer to add funds to a demo account if one’s balance is depleted, so you could continue trading on the same account, even after blowing through those funds. Demo accounts only expire if one does not trade regularly for 30 days. In order to open a demo account, you can make a request directly on the broker’s homepage, or through the CMG MT4 Client Terminal, by navigating to the menu bar file > Open an Account, select CMG Demo Server, and select New Demo Account.

Customer Service

24/7 customer support is available via phone, email, or through the contact form on their website. Having the ability to contact support on the weekends definitely adds an advantage to choosing this broker, especially considering many traders sign-up on the weekend and therefore have questions. The majority of big brokers fail to cover weekend support, and some even close in the evenings, so CMG is ahead of the competition on that front. However, support falls a little short when it comes to contact methods since the instant contact option LiveChat is not available. This means that the phone would be the quickest way to get in touch with an agent. We’ve listed all contact information for the company below.

-Phone: +61 2 4036 3165
-Email: [email protected]
-Address: Suite 305, Griffith Corporate Centre 1510, Beachmont, Kingstown, St. Vincent & the Grenadines

Countries Accepted

For citizens in certain countries or municipalities, currency trading is not permitted. The list of restricted countries includes: Central African Republic, Congo, Cote D’lvoire, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North), Ecuador, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Libya, Myanmar, Republic of Korea (South), Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, United States of America, United States Virgin Islands, Western Sahara, Yemen, and Zimbabwe. Note that the website will allow one to sign up for an account under the United States, however, it is possible that compliance documents may be denied if you sign-up under that location. However, it is possible that these accounts could be approved based on the fact that this broker is located in Saint Vincent & the Grenadines, which typically has more relaxed regulation laws.

Conclusion

Capital Markets Group offers high-leverage trading on a number of tradable instruments, mostly made up of currency pairs. Accounts can be opened with a minimum deposit of $250, a variety of funding methods are available, and withdrawals are often processed within the same business day, although there are applicable charges when withdrawing. CMG also offers low spreads that start from 0.2 pips, but the website does not go into detail about their exact commission charges, which could be a red flag. Customer support is available 24/7, so there should never be an issue getting in touch with this broker. Taking all of those things into account, we can say that the broker rightfully boasts about their competitive advantages when it comes to spreads, leverage options, and customer support availability.

With that said, this broker is missing some of the extra things, like bonuses, LiveChat, and educational resources. One would likely be satisfied with the majority of options available, but we can’t help to wonder if commission charges are higher than average in order to make up for the better than average spreads. Overall, the website could be more transparent in that category but seems to deliver a clear and transparent explanation of all of the other conditions. At the end of the day, only you, the trader, can take all of this into consideration and decide whether this broker is a candidate worthy of your business.

SwissCapitalFX is a Forex broker based out of St Vincent and the Grenadines, claiming to be a market-leading provider when it comes to Forex and offering unparalleled trading conditions. These are bold claims and we are now going to take a closer look to see what they really offer and if they can live up to these claims.

Account Types

There are four different account types on offer from SwissCapitalFX, these are Silver, Gold, Platinum and Pro, each with their own perks and requirements. Let’s take a deeper look at what they each offer.

Silver Account:

This is the entry-level account at SwissCapital, it has a deposit range of between $0 and $4,999 however the minimum deposit with SwissCapitalFX is $100, the leverage offered on this account is 1:500 which is a very popular level, spreads are from 1.6 pips and there is no additional commission. You can open up to 100 positions and the minimum trade size is 0.01 lots with the maximum being 100 lots.

Gold Account:

The gold account has a slightly higher entry fee of a minimum deposit of $5,000 and a maximum deposit of $19,999. It maintains the 1:500 leverage, however, the spread is now reduced by 30%, there is still no commission being charged for this account. Lot sizes remain the same with 0.01 lots being a minimum and 100 lots being the maximum.

Platinum Account:

The platinum account deposit requirement further increases with a minimum deposit of $20,000 and a maximum of $49,999. Leverage remains at 1:500 and the spreads are further reduced by another 30% and there is still no commission being charged. The maximum number of open trades increases from 100 to 200, however, the trade sizes remain the same as 0.01 lots minimum and 100 lots maximum.

Pro Account:

This is the top tier account and so you need a minimum deposit of at least $50,000 which will price out a lot of retail clients. Leverage again remains at 1:500, however, this account is charged differently, the spread is reduced to a minimum of 0 pips, but the commission will now be charged with each trade (however we are unsure how much). Minimum trade size has been increased to 0.1 lots but the maximum trade size has been increased to unlimited, along with the maximum allowed opened positions.

Also note that all accounts come with the ability to hedge, use of expert advisors, copy trading, crypto trading, dedicated support, and all account types can also come in an Islamic version. All accounts have a base currency of USD, EUR or GBP and use the MetaTrader 4 trading platform.

There are a lot of features on offer and all four accounts seem quite enticing, so we approve of the account types which are on par with the majority of the competition.

Platforms

There is one platform on offer from SwissCapitalFX, and that is MetaTrader 4 (MT4). MetaTrader 4 is currently available as a desktop download or as an app for your Android and iOS devices, this gives a good amount of flexibility to trade both at home and on the move. MT4 is one of the most popular trading platforms due to its flexibility and compatibility with thousands of expert advisors and indicators. You can’t really go wrong with MT4, and a broker focusing solely on it as a trading platform is not such a bad idea. It would, however, have been nice to have a little choice, but we can not complain about MT4.

Leverage

All account with SwissCapitalFX come with a maximum leverage of 1:500, you aren’t stuck using this leverage though, if you want to reduce it you can and there are ranges anywhere between 1:1 and 1:500, this can be changed at any time as long as there are not any open trades.

Trade Sizes

Trade sizes with the silver, gold, and platinum account start with a minimum trade size of 0.01 lots (micro lot) and a maximum of 100 lots, this is more than enough for 99.9% of all retail traders. The VIP account jumps up a bit with a minimum trade size of 0.1 lots and there is no maximum trade size, however, we can not see many people going past the 100 lot size limit of the other accounts anyway.

Trading Costs

SwissCapitalFX uses two different costing methods, the silver, gold and platinum accounts use a spread based system with the silver account having a 1.6 pip spread on average and the gold account reducing this number by 30% and the platinum reducing it by a further 30%.

The VIP account has a 0 pip spread but charges a commission, we had a good rummage around the site for the commission numbers, however, we were unable to locate it so we are unsure on what amount of commission is actually charged.

There are also waps charged for holding trades overnight, these can be viewed both on the site and also from within the MT4 platform. Islamic accounts are also available if you are unable to accept or pay swaps.

Assets

There are a number of different tradable assets with SwissCapitalFX, they are broken down into the following categories:

Forex: Over 60 instruments from major, minor and exotic pairs.
Energy Commodities: Metals, energies and agricultural commodities are available.
Stock Indices: Global indices with no commission or fees.
Equity Shares: Popular shares such as Apple, Tesla, and Amazon.

Spreads

Spreads start at an average of 1.6 for the silver account and are then reduced by 30% for the gold account, then further reduced by 30% for the platinum account. The VIP account states 0 pip spread, however, there will be some spread due to fluctuation, there is a commission charged on trades on this account though.

Minimum Deposit

Even though the silver account states a minimum of $0, there is an overall minimum deposit of $100. If you want the benefits of a higher tier account then you will need to increase this amount to a minimum of $5,000. $100 is a pretty standard minimum within the forex industry.

Deposit Methods & Costs

There are a number of different methods available with SwissCapitalFX, these are Visa / Mastercard deposits, Skrill, Neteller, and bank transfer. Each has a minimum deposit of $100 and there are no added fees to the transactions. All deposit methods are instant except for bank transfer which can take 3 – 5 business days.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

The same methods are available for withdrawal as they were for deposits. If you withdraw via bank card there are no charges, however requesting a bank transfer withdrawal will have a charge of $30 added to the transaction. It has been a while since we have seen a broker adding fees to withdrawals and it so it is a shame to see it here.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

We had to dig deep into the terms and conditions to find any relevant information, the terms state that SwissCapitalFX will process all withdrawal requests within one working day, how long it takes after this will depend on the method and the bank you are receiving the money at. For e-wallets this is usually the same day, for other banks via bank transfer this will usually be between 3 – 5 business days.

Bonuses & Promotions

There are no bonuses or promotion advertised on the site, however when using their search bar, we can see some now expired promotions and bonuses, so it is clear that SwillCapitalFX has been doing bonuses in the past, there just aren’t any available right now. Be sure to check them out regularly to see if any new promotions have popped up.

Educational & Trading Tools

There is only an economic calendar available with SwissCapitalFX and nothing else, the calendar is nice to have but it is not as informative as many other ones available elsewhere on the internet. It would have been nice for there to be more education for their clients.

Customer Service

If you need to get in contact with SwissCapitalFX there are a number of different ways to do it. You can use their live chat which opens up pretty quick and response is acceptable, we got through to someone after around 4 minutes, there was a small delay between each response but nothing we aren’t used to. They also have a number of different phone numbers depending on the department you need as well as an email address and a postal address, so plenty of ways to get in touch.

Demo Account

We could not locate any information in regards to demo accounts, so we are unsure if these are being offered, if they are, they are not easy to find.

Countries Accepted

We could locate information regarding this on the site or within the Terms and Conditions.

Conclusion

SwissCapitalFX has a number of benefits, their accounts offer competitive features and prices and while they only offer one trading platform, it is MetaTrader 4 which is a very solid choice. The fact that there are fees charged on some of the withdrawals is a bit of a disappointment as the majority of modern brokers are no longer charging for withdrawals, that along with no demo accounts makes it harder for us to fully test the service. While SwissCapitalFX is certainly not the worst broker around, we feel that due to the fees, it may be better to look elsewhere.

If you enjoyed this review and wanted to see more, make sure to check out our other reviews to help find the broker that is right for you.