Reviewer Quality Score
based on 17 reviews
lingsbord
Don't Do It
for GCI Financial
8/23/2009
- Pros:
- None
- Cons:
- None
- Bottom Line:
- No, I would not recommend this to a friend
- Quote:
- The 11 worst days I ever had with a retail broker. First, they are a dealing desk and absolutely do everything in their power to help you lose money. They profit, from your loss, so the more you lose the more they make and THAT'S why they are the worst in the business when it comes to slippage, rejections and re-quotes. Try to enter a trade and they give you a few seconds to accept a far worse price. If you accept it, they immediately offset the trade into the market at a better price and you've guaranteed them a profit wherever your trade goes. If you don't accept their re-quote they'll give you another, and another, until they get bored and let you trade, only to repeat the process if you try to manually close later.
They use the ACT/ICTS Platform which is good, but the back-office functionality makes it far too easy for these guys to pull their stunts, and they've been doing it for YEARS.
Guys - there are pages of brokers in this review list, almost all are better than GCI. If you're considering opening with GCI, DON'T DO IT!! You have been warned...
Alpari
for Alpari Forex
8/23/2009
- Pros:
- None
- Cons:
- None
- Bottom Line:
- Yes, I would recommend this to a friend
- Quote:
- To be accurate, I'm with Alpari UK, not the US side. To date I have had no major problems. The MetaTrader4 platform is good, the EUR/USD spread is usually 1.7 wide, sometimes a little more, and in general I don't suffer too many rejections or re-quotes. Sometimes I get the "invalid prices" message when the market's moving, but that's OK I can live with that. I don't have too much to say about them that's negative. They do maintain a dealing desk, which I really don't like, but so far, 7 months in, I'm the one causing them pain if they're trading against me :-)
One thing of course, Alpari UK still permits hedge trading and doesn't run the FIFO Rule.
Overall, if they'd close the dealing desk and go STP this would be an excellent broker in my view.
CMS Forex
for CMS Forex
8/23/2009
- Pros:
- None
- Cons:
- None
- Bottom Line:
- No, I would not recommend this to a friend
- Quote:
- I don't know what went wrong with CMS. In the early days they were great, and were probably the first to offer trading off the chart (?). During my first time around with them I liked the platform (looked as if I'd drawn it, but functionality was great!), loved the trailing stops, and absolutely loved the way they never EVER missed a stop or a limit order.
Last year I traded for a guy who had opened with CMS. The VT Trader Platform still holds up well, but this time I was having far too many rejections and re-quotes to the extent that it became impossible to trade there.
If you can't get trades on, and then can't close them out, you can't trade - so in the end you DON'T trade, and move elsewhere. A real pity about these guys, they used to be great, now I wouldn't give them the time of day.
CMC Markets
for CMC Markets
8/23/2009
- Pros:
- None
- Cons:
- None
- Bottom Line:
- No, I would not recommend this to a friend
- Quote:
- CMC is a broker that I mainly used for FX spread betting, but I have run a spot account there too. In general it was a positive enough experience and I found the facilities conducive to good, effective trading. I assume these guys have a dealing desk because sometimes there would be too many rejections and re-quotes for a serious trader to contend with. What I don't understand about brokers with dealing desks is why they try to trip up successful traders who are making money. Why don't they identify the good traders and let their orders go through directly, and only trade against those who are losing regularly? That way good traders are recommending the service while the broker can carry on the slightly distasteful business of rejoicing in the losses of the rest of their book. CMC could have been great, but they need a different approach.
FXCM Review
for FXCM
8/23/2009
- Pros:
- None
- Cons:
- None
- Bottom Line:
- No, I would not recommend this to a friend
- Quote:
- FXCM are the plain vanilla of retail FX. The platform, although a little bland, is functional enough (Deutsche Bank's retail offering DBFX is a white-label of the same one), the company is financially stable, support is OK, but execution is slow and often erratic, with too many rejections for my liking. One thing I would say is this: I like honesty from brokers wherever possible, and FXCM claims to offer a STP service with no dealing desk. This is simply not true, they DO trade against their clients and recently advertised a vacancy for a senior trader in which part of the job description was "to actively trade against clients". That isn't nice.
Overall if you want something that's just "OK", then FXCM will tick that box, but I think you'll get fed up of the rejections when the market's moving.
GFT review
for GFT
8/23/2009
- Pros:
- None
- Cons:
- None
- Bottom Line:
- Yes, I would recommend this to a friend
- Quote:
- It's a couple of years since I've traded with GFT but at the time they were excellent. The platform was great and there were never any concerns about the company, or the safety of capital, but the real reason I liked working with them is they would always guarantee stops and limits in any market conditions. I remember a Non-Farm-Payrolls release that sent me way into the money, I closed and the market rapidly reversed. For 20 minutes my trade blotter described my order to close the trade as "pending" as the P/L shot further into negative territory, but eventually the trade was honoured, precisely to the pip. That kind of thing gives traders peace of mind.
It's not all flowers and champagne though. GFT always maintained a dealing desk, and again this means it's better for them for the clients to lose money. I prefer STP brokers who just make money from volume via the spread.
Overall, if the FIFO Rules don't screw up your trading strategy, I'd say GFT are probably the best of the retail shops in the US
Ava FX
for Ava FX
8/23/2009
- Pros:
- None
- Cons:
- None
- Bottom Line:
- No, I would not recommend this to a friend
- Quote:
- AVA maintains a dealing desk (like many others to be fair), they're not running STP which already means they WANT their traders to lose money because they're at the other side of the trade. The spreads are not great on the live system, but I guess they're workable for a more positional style of trading. There are a few issues with pricing/slippage/rejections at very volatile times, especially as they deal against clients and need to manage that activity, but the platform's OK (still using ACT/ICTS?), they are well-backed financially and are regulated in Ireland despite being a BVI Company. The debit card for withdrawals is a neat idea too. Overall, some positive features about these guys, and they won't run away with your money, but they WILL trade against you. On a retail basis you could do worse, but firms like these are set up to rake in client losses, where a STP firm simply takes a small slice of volume via the spread.
