2Bull Forex Blog

FXCM Group is one of the largest, fastest growing FOREX companies, and has been awarded as such by Inc. 500 List of America’s Fastest Growing Companies three years in a row (2004-2006). The group has offices around the world including U.S.A, UK, Hong Kong and Japan, and is regulated and licensed in each of them as an established Future Commissions dealer or financial dealer.

FXCM is proud to advertise their operational and financial data, stating they have over 90,000 live accounts trading on their platform, that their average monthly trading volume is close to $200 billion, and have recently announced that they own over $120 Million in capital.

FXCM provides several account types designed for experienced traders as well as for those who are new to the FOREX market. The standard 100K account is ideal for experienced traders wishing to leverage the full advantages of FX trading. Opening a standard account requires an initial deposit of $2,000, and offers leverages of up to 1:100.

The Mini Account is designed for those who are still new to online currency trading. It requires an initial deposit of $300, and the leverages offered are up to 1:200. Mini accounts can be opened not just in US Dollars, but also in Euros, Pounds, Japanese Yen and Australian Dollars.

FXCM also offers a training account, which is available for 30 days and loaded with $50,000 demo money. Platforms for all account types are identical, however a separate username and password needs to be used for each type of account.

The advantage of dealing online is having the possibility to deal with no Dealing Desk. With this option, traders basically trade on rates provided directly by the banks, which enables FXCM to offer spreads as low as 1-2 pips. FXCM also offers the possibility to trade via a Dealing Desk, which provides traders protection against spread uncertainty. In these cases the spreads offered are typically 3-5 pips on the major currency pairs.

The registration process for real money accounts, both mini and standard, are long, and require, in addition to personal details, your financial details and employment information. If you are not a US citizen, approval of your account requires receiving copy of a photo ID and a valid utility bill to your name to prove your stated address.
Once you have an account number, depositing funds is an easy process. The payment methods available are Credit Cards, Debit Cards, Paper Checks and Wire Transfers. US residents may also submit electronic checks.

FX Trading Station (FXTS), FXCM’s trading platform needs to be downloaded to your desktop. The environment is user friendly and intuitive to use, and can be customized according to the users preferences. The products offered are day trading, stop loss & take profit, as well as trailing stop / limit orders and entry orders. A hedging feature is available in No Dealing Desk accounts. The “At Best” feature, short for At Best Price, enables being filled at the best rate streamed to FXCM at that moment from all global banks and financial institutions they work with. This feature, as opposed to the standard “At Market Range”, prevents situations in which the price you intended to make the order at has expired.

Charting tools and analysis data are available either from a website, external to the trading platform, or can be added on to the platform by plug-ins, which need to be downloaded as well.

FXCM now offers a toolbar to be downloaded to your browser, which provides instant access to FOREX market news and currency rates, and enables setting alerts for when the market reaches desired rates.

FXCM provides 24/7 customer support, including during the weekends when the market is closed. A Multi-lingual staff speaking over 20 languages is available at all times, via International toll frees calls, chat and e-mail. VIP support is offered to Gold accounts trading with over $25,000.

There are a few tools available to you if you are just getting to know the market and FX Trading station. Manuals for using FX Trading Station are available in several formats, as well as walk through videos that provide an overview of the platform’s main features. A support representative will introduce you to the system either via chat or over the phone. To get to know the FOREX market, free webinars are offered on a daily basis, trading tips are provided on their mini-site www.DailyFX.com, and an online “Power Course” (8 sessions of 45 minutes each) is offered for $19.99.

FXCM is a large and strong company, with a large world-wide user base, high liquidity and large financial assets. This enables them to offer attractive rates, innovative tools and features, and high standards of customer support. These all make FXCM a safe choice of a FOREX trading platform.

Dukascopy is an enhanced trading platform, a unique FOREX brokerage service with full access to the Swiss Foreign Exchange Marketplace. They are regulated and controlled through the ARIF and the FFA (Federal Finance Administration) for financial intermediaries. This means tighter control with a particular focus on preventing money laundering. Customers are required to supply documentation for proof of identity and the source of their funds to ensure that all dealings are legitimate and legal.

The direct access to the Swiss Foreign Exchange Marketplace means a right of entry to perhaps the biggest pool of interbank FOREX liquidity obtainable anywhere for banks, institutions, hedge funds or professional traders. Retail clients are not serviced through Dukascopy, which is one flaw. Nonetheless, Dukascopy is perhaps the most efficient FOREX broker around, thanks to the combined liquidity of centralized marketplaces and a number of banking-partners, making it the biggest marketplace in the world. There are sometimes daily network volumes that exceed $80 billion USD. Dukascopy uses real-time interbank rates with spreads like 0.5 – 1 pip on Majors, some of the best spreads available in the market. The spread will sometimes get as high as 4 pips on non-major pairs like GBP/USD.

The trading platform is safe, thanks in part to the strictness of the Swiss Foreign Exchange Marketplace. Trading can be done securely online through one click trade to an unlimited number of accounts. You can also trade over the telephone. There is trade desk support available 24 hours a day, six days a week.

The marketplace model keeps Dukascopy free of the exposure risk or a conflict of interest with clients. These are things that you may be subject to through alternative trading structures. This is because the marketplace provides the market spreads rather than creating the spreads itself. Please note however that a commission is taken for access to the marketplace. The standard commission is $20 USD per one million USD traded. Managed accounts will be charged an additional $20 USD per one millions USD traded. The commission is partially reimbursed depending on the monthly volume of the trader. All trades are executed within the network of FX participants and the trading is anonymous.

You can begin by visiting the Dukascopy website. The site is accessible in eight different languages. You may want to begin by reading through the terms of trading through Dukascopy. Setting up a Demo account is extremely easy. It’s just a matter of setting yourself up with a login and password. When you get into live trading there is second level security available through the use of visual encryption secure code. From there, you can choose to run either Java or Web-based software platforms. Friendly customer service (although there is sometimes slight language barriers) is available over the telephone, online chat or through Skype connection that is available directly through the platform.

The demo program does tend to stop from time to time for updates. The demo is good through a one-week period and serves as an excellent introduction to the program’s features. There is a very insightful PDF tutorial around the program in the Help menu.

The program gives users the ability to act and react quickly depending on the market situation. The setup of the windows will allow you to easily monitor the market, examine current exposures, manage positions and view the progress of their equity, leverage and performance. The windows can be resized and moved around based on your needs. The bid and ask prices, volumes and market depth are all updated real-time.

The company positions itself as a large broker and there is a minimum $50,000 account requirement that may unfortunately shut many people out from the experience.

If this account requirement is no issue to you – you are ready for a live account so you can begin trading! It’s a matter of completing the registration process. If you are familiar with other Swiss FOREX brokerage services then you should know that the process is slightly more complicated than just signing up online. You are required to download the paperwork, complete the necessary information, and mail the documents to Switzerland. It is suggested that you email scanned copies or fax first to ensure that everything is sound before mailing your hardcopy.

If you are opening up a private account, you will need to include a certified copy of your passport or any utility bill showing your residential address. For a corporate account it is recommended that you include whatever corporate documents you have available. You will be contacted if anything additional is needed. A standard bank order is needed for deposit to an account or withdrawal from an account. These are all standard procedures for any FOREX brokerage based in Switzerland.

And from there you are ready to trade with low spreads, slippage control, real time tick charts and reliable customer service when needed.

Crown FOREX S.A. (CFSA) is a FOREX trading platform based in Switzerland. The firm offers many different features and solutions, but is probably best suited to advanced and experienced traders. While it does not provide much education to budding or inexperienced traders, CFSA does include provisions to limit risks, and a demo account for training purposes. CFSA strongly recommends that potential customers develop experience with the demo account before beginning live trading.

CFSA allows trading on 13 currency pairs and some precious metals. The pairs are defined as seven majors and six crosses – the majors being EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AUD/USD, USD/JPY, USD/CHF, USD/CAD, and NZD/USD. Note that these are not the “major” pairs as defined by some other brokers; notably, other broker offers additional pairs, with one component being CHF, as majors. However, all major pairs have one pip spreads on the CFSA platform.

All of the cross pairs (EUR/CHF, EUR/AUD, EUR/GBP, EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY, GBP/CHF) have much higher spreads ranging from 5 to 10 pips. This makes CFSA a less desirable trading platform for trades in those cross pairs.

The overall CFSA site is complex and is definitely intended for the more advanced trader. Clients shouldn’t expect much basic education. In addition, the language used is confusing and indicates that the CFSA site may have been written by someone who was less than perfectly fluent in English.

The home page focuses on economic news, with headlines on the upper right for currency news and economic news. A user can click on any headline to see the specific news story.

To open an account, download the customer trading agreement and fill it out; then send it to CFSA in Switzerland with a notarized copy of a valid ID (typically a passport or government-issued ID). Once the CFSA staff approves the agreement, you can forward funds to your account and get started. The minimum amount to open an account is $300 USD.

While waiting for approval of the live account, it makes sense to begin working with the demo account. To open a demo account, download the trading station terminal software from the CFSA web site. When you do this, the site says you will be asked to provide account information such as name and address via a setup page. However, I was not asked to do this.

In addition, the site has a location to download a user guide; the user guide, however, is not available from that location (a note says the guide is being updated). Instead, the user guide appears as the help file to the trading station software. There is also a link through the help file to the on-line MQL4 terminal community, which includes many users of and developers of MQL4. This is a great educational resource.

CFSA executes all trades on-line and will not execute a trade by phone except in emergency conditions – these are not defined on the site.

The minimum transaction size is 1 lot, or 10,000 units of the base currency.

You execute trades directly through the trading terminal software installed on your site. The trading terminal is quite powerful and offers a wide variety of information and tools. These include many charts and indicators, including some that will be confusing for many FOREX traders (but can be easily researched on-line through other sites). Through the online platform, you can execute trades directly from real-time streaming bid/ask quotes. Live prices are continuously updated.

To execute a deal, click the New Order button on the trading station and follow simple instructions.

Executing a deal via the Internet is a simple, two-step process. Simply enter the number of lots and then click on the bid (buy) or offer (sell) for the currency pair you wish to trade – your deal is automatically executed. The dealing software automatically calculates the initial margin requirement based upon the notional amount of the deal, and if sufficient funds are available in your account, will accept the transaction. Deals are confirmed online, normally within one second, and the system instantaneously updates both your open position and calculates your current floating profit and loss.

You can perform any of the following types of orders:

• Market Order
An order based on a current market price.
• Pending Order
A commitment to buy or sell at a pre-determined price in the future. There are different kinds of pending orders: buy limits, in which the current price is higher than the price offered; buy stops, in which the current price is lower (but the trader expects that the price will not only rise to the price offered, but will keep rising); sell limits, where the current price is lower than the price offered; and sell stops, where the current price is higher, but the trader expects that the price will drop to the price offered and keep dropping.
• Stop Loss Order
An order to automatically close a trade if the security price moves in the wrong direction. Stop loss orders close if the price reaches a certain level set by the trader.
• Take Profit Order
An order to automatically close a trade if the security price moves in the right (profitable) direction. This is the opposite of a Stop Loss order in that both are automatic closings, but the Take Profit occurs when the trader has earned sufficient profit.
The CFSA trading platform is available in many languages, and the web site is in Arabic and English.

MIG Investments is a fully regulated online Swiss broker providing you with real-time access to the Foreign Exchange and Bullion markets. Their goal is to provide the best service on the market and they believe that their MT4 based MIG Trading Station will make them the number one online broker of FOREX traders in the world.

Their platform is available in 21 languages. It is fairly easy to grasp and use, there is a solid help guide, and you can download the program and setup a Free Demo Account that presents you with an opportunity to familiarize yourself with the trading platform and experience real market conditions. The demo server runs a bit slow and your demo account will expire within 30 days so it’s important to save your trade history to your computer since all data is lost on expiration.

The platform constantly updates real-time prices with real-time charts and you have the ability to use the most popular indicators. There is a daily account statement and a real-time summary of client orders, your account equity and floating profit and losses. Headlines are pulled from the Dow Jones Newswires and plugged directly into the system. You can use the Expert Advisor to program your own trading strategies on the demo account. The Expert Advisor feature is also available for real accounts upon written request. The same applies for the Trailing Stop feature.

Some users may be bothered by the fact that the sign up process and access to certain features aren’t very Internet friendly. Opening up an account requires downloading account forms online, filling out and signing the documents, providing a notified copy of your passport for individual accounts and a copy of a utility bill for proof of residence, and then mailing the packet to Switzerland. The passport could be substituted by any official document with your photo and signature for those of you who aren’t international travelers!

Faxed or scanned/e-mailed copies are not acceptable! Your documents must be mailed to Switzerland. This is due to MIG’s Swiss regulation. Swiss authorities have anti money laundering laws that prevent money laundering. MIG Investments are also not permitted to accept credit card payments or third party transfers – all funds must be wired from an account carrying your name. Measures like this are done for your security and to maintain the integrity and standing of Swiss financial institutions.

Once the application is received the set-up time varies. Standard individual accounts can typically be set-up within two days while professional and institutional accounts can take up to one week. A minimum deposit of $2,000 U.S. is needed to open up the Standard Account. A Professional Account can be opened with $100,000 U.S.

Despite the simplicity of the system, the free indicators, etc. there are still some issues that need to be mentioned. One specific problem area for MIG Investments is the number of requotes. Users have complained about having to requote the price several times. MIG blames this on clients attempting to take advantage of a wrong price quote in the Market Watch. Skeptical users believe that if the price is on your side – you get requoted. Between the requote after requote, the delays and disconnects, it becomes difficult to get an honest price when the market is moving and there is some question as to what open position price you are getting, the old or new.

Customer service are quick to respond to calls and emails with multilingual reps to help you regardless of the language barriers.

Overall, this is a state of the art MT4 based broker with many features like tight spreads, a smooth withdrawal process and friendly customer service. If you begin experiencing problems with requotes, delays or disconnects, contact the customer service team and see if it can be worked through.

InterbankFX provides:
A Sophisticated Charting Program;
Real-Time News;
Phone, Online and Email Customer Support For Customers;
Extensive Educational Resources.

Opening an account with InterbankFX is easy and requires scanning two forms of ID to upload. Once you upload the information, along with your application, you receive an email with further instructions on how to fund your account. The minimum margin deposit for funding new accounts is $2,500 for Standard Accounts and $250 for Mini Accounts. However before you commit any money, you can access a free trial program to try the site and all its features with $10,000 to $100,000 virtual.

InterbankFX services include:
Two trading platforms, a downloadable client and a platform for wireless mobile devices;
The ability to trade 12 major currency pairs;
Spreads of 2-5 pips;
Customizable, easy to use, charting tools;
User-friendly environment;
News & Commentary.

The site offers support in 17 languages, and includes several video tutorials to help you use the trading platform. Emails are answered within 48 hours, and live help is available 24 hours a day. In addition, the site includes a user forum through which traders can exchange tips and advice. However, the links on the user forum that are supposed to direct readers to their account and other sites do not work.
Interbankfx offers an abundance of training materials including short videos, webinars four days a week, and the IBFXU FOREX education site, which includes audio and video lessons, guest writers, quizzes, and more.

InterbankFX offers one of the only platforms in the world that has automated trading capabilities, called Expert Advisors. An Expert Advisor is an automated trading system (ATS) written in the MetaQuotes Language II (MQL II) and linked to a particular chart. That Expert Advisor notifies you of trading opportunities and executes trades on your trading account, sending them through to the trading server. Expert Advisors will also let you test your strategies on historical data, and will plot entry/exit points on the chart. You can also write your own Expert Advisor, and if you need help, you can visit the Expert Advisor Help Section.

The experience of getting to know the broker through the web site does not provide enough data to be able to actually chose this broker or understand what you are getting into signing up and opening an account with them. This site seems incomplete and not nearly as comprehensive as some others. However, should a user choose to open an account with InterbankFX he will enjoy a user-friendly FOREX trading environment, and receive timely and effective customer support.