Forex.com Broker Review

Is Forex.com safe?

In operation since 2001, Forex.com is a subsidiary of the GAIN Capital Holdings, an NYSE-listed provider of online trading services founded in 1999. GAIN Capital has total assets of over 1.2 billion USD and has owned the rival brokerage firm City Index since 2014.

GAIN Capital’s subsidiaries are regulated by 8 national and regional authorities depending on their geographic location:

• US: GAIN Capital are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the National Futures Association (NFA)
• Canada: GAIN Capital is regulated by the Investment Industry Regulatory Organisation
• UK: GAIN Capital UK is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
• Australia: GAIN Capital Australia is regulated by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC)
• Singapore: GAIN Capital Singapore is regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)
• Japan: GAIN Capital Japan is regulated by Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA)
• Cayman Islands: GAIN Global Markets is regulated by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA)

Forex.com clients in Tanzania will be trading with GAIN Global Markets, regulated in the Cayman Islands. While CIMA is not the best regarded regulator in the world, it does allow Forex.com to offer higher levels of leverage and deposit bonuses to new clients.

Forex.com ensures that client funds are held with top-tier banks and segregated from the assets of the brokerage. In addition, robust bank review and monitoring guidelines are set by the Risk Committee of GAIN Capital to ensure fund security.

With the additional financial reporting required from GAIN Capital’s listing on the NYSE, and oversight from some of the toughest regulatory authorities in the world (NFA, FCA, MAS and ASIC), we are confident that Forex.com is a safe broker to trade with.

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Forex.com Trading Conditions

In 2011, Forex.com was the first broker to introduce an Execution Scorecard and today remains the only US-based broker to disclose execution quality. The most recent data shows that Forex.com’s average execution speed is 0.04 seconds and 99.79% of trades are executed in under 1 second. This is exceptionally fast in the Forex industry and is a real benefit to scalpers and algorithmic traders.

Forex.com offers three account types: A Standard Account with no commission and a wider spread, a Commission Account which charges a commission per lot traded but has much tighter spreads and a Direct Market Access Account. Both the Standard Account and the Commission Account are available as demo accounts, but demo accounts will expire after 30 days and you will be required to open a live account.

Alongside Forex, Forex.com also offers trading on indices, shares, commodities, precious metals, cryptocurrencies, and oil. Cryptocurrencies available to trade are Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ripple and Ethereum.

Maximum leverage differs according to trading platform, market, asset class and position size. Smaller trades on major pairs will generally be offered 200:1 leverage, but leverage can be increased by contacting Forex.com customer support.

Account Types

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Standard Account: The Standard Account has a minimum deposit of 100 USD, variable spreads (as low as 0.8 pips on the EUR/USD but more typically around 1.3 pips) and no commission. This account is available on the Forex.com platform, MT4 and MT5 and gives you trading access to over 80 currency pairs, 4 crypto pairs, and hundreds of equity, index, and commodity CFDs.

Commission Account: The Commission Account also has a minimum deposit of 100 USD and variable spreads, but also charges a commission of 5 USD per lot traded. Spreads on the EUR/USD can be as low as 0.2 pips with this account. Like the Standard Account, the Commission Account is available on the Forex.com platform, MT4 and MT5.

Direct Market Access Account: The DMA Account is specifically for high volume traders and requires an account balance of 25,000 USD. This account is commission-based only, with no mark-up on the spread. As the name suggests, this is a market execution account and uses STP execution methods with no broker intervention. This account is only available on the Forex.com trading platform and only allows trading on 58 currency pairs.

Spreads and Commission

Forex.com spreads are competitive across the board. Average spreads close to 1 pip on the EUR/USD are standard for the industry and a commission of 5 USD per lot on the Commission Account is cheaper than many of Forex.com’s competitors.

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Broker

Trading Conditions

Base Currencies

EURUSD (Standard)

Trading Cost (Standard)

EURUSD (Best)

GBPUSD (Best)

USDJPY (Best)

Commission

FOREX.com

5/ 5

USD, EUR, CAD, JPY, CHF, AUD, GBP

0.70 pips

USD 7

0.70 pips

1.10 pips

1.40 pips

USD 0

CM Trading

4/ 5

EUR, USD

1.50 pips

USD 15

1.70 pips

2.60 pips

1.70 pips

USD 0

IQ Option

3/ 5

EUR, GBP, USD

0.80 pips

USD 8

0.80 pips

1.30 pips

0.90 pips

USD 0

Deposit and Withdrawal

Unusually for a large broker, Forex.com only accepts deposits and withdrawals via credit/debit card or bank transfers. Like most brokers, Forex.com operates a “return to source policy” meaning that withdrawals can only be returned to the original funding source.

• Deposits via credit/debit card and bank transfer are not charged a fee and will be processed immediately for card deposits and within 1-2 business days for bank transfers. Forex.com will convert all funds in USD upon receipt.
• Withdrawals are not charged any fees by Forex.com and are processed within 24 hours for card withdrawals and 48 hours for bank transfer withdrawals. The minimum withdrawal amount is 100 USD.

Be aware that while Forex.com will not charge a fee for bank transfer deposits or withdrawals, your bank may do so.

Forex.com for Beginners

Beginner traders will find Forex.com a welcoming environment, with comprehensive and well-structured education and frequent and detailed market analysis from the experienced in-house research team. The major downside for beginners is the limited demo account, which will expire after 30 days on all platforms.

Education Material

The education section at Forex.com has obviously been designed by an experienced team of Forex educators. It is intended to slowly build confidence and helps beginners learn how to trade forex with a wealth of educational tools and online resources.

The first thing new traders will find is a Trade Type Quiz, which will help beginners identify what trading strategies will best suit their personality. From here you can link off to three different sections of educational material: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. You can also check out individual themes, such as technical analysis and risk management.

Each section is clear, concise, and carefully tailored to the experience level of the trader. All the educational resources are free to all visitors of Forex.com’s site.

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Broker

Beginner Course

Advanced Course

Well Structured Education

Education Quality

Webinars

FOREX.com

Yes

Yes

Yes

High

Yes

CM Trading

No

No

No

Medium

Yes

IQ Option

No

No

No

Medium

No

Analysis Material

Forex.com has one of the best market research and analysis sections we have seen. Posts by the in-house research team and detailed and cover all aspects of the financial markets. Full of trading opportunities and insightful analysis, it is no surprise that the Forex.com twitter feed has 170k followers.

Posts can be filtered by author, market, theme or trending topics and the site is updated multiple times a day.

Also in the analytical section, you can find a good economic calendar and a very helpful pivot point calculator, very useful for on the fly technical analysis.

Customer Support

Like most brokers, customer support is available 24/5 via phone, email, and chat. You can also interact with the Forex.com teams via Facebook and Twitter.

Forex.com Trading Platforms

Forex.com offers three platforms to choose from, its own Forex.com platform, MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5.

Forex.com Platform: The most powerful version of the Forex.com platforms is the downloadable desktop client which offers professional analytics tools, over 100 predefined indicators, 15 time frames and trading directly on charts. This version of the platform is better suited to more experienced traders. The Forex.com platform is also available in your browser, with slightly decreased functionality, sacrificing customisability for simplicity.

MetaTrader 4: The MT4 trading platform is the most widely used Forex trading platform and can also be used to trade other instruments like commodities, cryptocurrency, stock index, and stock CFDs. Though it is now showing its age, MT4 is still very popular for its auto trading features that enables algorithmic trading and strategy backtesting with expert advisors (trading robots).

Unlike most standard MetaTrader 4 platforms you will find at other brokers, Forex.com’s MT4 comes with fully integrated Reuters news, Forex.com’s research and analysis, AutoChartist and Trading Central.

MetaTrader 5: The MT5 trading platform is being adopted by more Forex brokers all the time, it has a more modern interface, allows for an unlimited number of charts to be used, shows Depth of Market and has a built-in Economic Calendar. It also has a larger number of pending order types than MT4 and features an embedded chat system. In addition, the MQL5 scripting language is more efficient than its precursor and MT5 has more advanced charting tools than MT4.

For traders with a minimum 5000 USD balance, the Forex.com also supplies free MT5 VPS hosting, allowing for a more complete automated trading strategy.

All three platforms are also available on mobile for both iOS and Android devices, though there will be a corresponding loss of functionality.

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Broker

Platform Choice

Copy Trading

Platforms

FOREX.com

4.5/ 5

Yes

MT4

MT5

FOREX.com Web Trader

CM Trading

4/ 5

Yes

MT4

WebTrader

IQ Option

4/ 5

No

IQ option

Evaluation Method

We value transparency and openness in the way we review the partners. To bring transparency to the forefront, we have published our review process that includes a detailed breakdown of the Forex.com offering. Central to that process is the evaluation of the reliability of the broker, the platform offering of the broker and the trading conditions offered to clients, which are summarised in this review. Each one of these is graded, and an overall score is calculated and assigned to the broker.

Risk Statement

Trading Forex is risky, and each broker is required to detail how risky the trading of Forex CFDs is to clients. Forex.com would like you to know that:  Foreign exchange and other leveraged trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved, seeking independent advice if necessary.

Overview

Forex.com benefits from being part of the publicly-listed GAIN Capital Group and is able to offer excellent education and market research alongside competitive trading conditions. Though there is nothing too exciting on offer here, the wide range of platforms and tradeable assets makes Forex.com a tempting option for traders looking for a serious market maker broker. While beginners will love the education and analysis available, they will be disappointed by the limited demo account.