FXCM Review

FXCM (Forex Capital Markets) was founded in 1999 in the U.S.A. and was an early pioneer of internet-based trading. FXCM was listed among the fastest growing companies by Inc. 500 List of America’s Fastest Growing Companies three years in a row. The FXCM Group has headquarters in New York, with offices around the globe in places such as the U.K., France, Italy, and Australia. It is regulated and licensed in each of them. FXCM is also a publicly traded company on the Nasdaq Exchange, the major U.S. exchange listing the equity of large technology-based companies.

FXCM was in the news a great deal during the years of 2015 and 2016 following an extremely sharp movement in the value of the Swiss Franc, primarily against the Euro. The consequence of that crisis was a sudden loss of $225 million suffered by FXCM, requiring a major restructuring of the firm’s capital, and this was primarily met by the drawing of a loan of $300 million from Leucadia National Corporation. The firm also sold off many of its less core business activities, notably including a major website. There was eventually a major change made to the firm’s senior management, with an employee of Leucadia being appointed as chairman of the FXCM board. Leucadia continues to hold a major chunk of FXCM’s equity.

FXCM Trading Accounts

FXCM provides several account types designed for experienced traders as well as for those who are new to the FOREX market. The standard 5K account is ideal for experienced traders wishing to leverage the full advantages of FX trading. Traders can also open an Active Trader account with $25,000 to receive elite services.  Also, opening a mini account requires an initial deposit of $50 and offers leverages of up to 1:200* for all traders who are outside of the United States, and 50:1 leverage for US-based traders.

FXCM also offers two training accounts, which are available for 30 days. The standard demo has $50,000 demo money and the mini demo has $2,000. 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 Trading Forex 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 low variable spreads. Typical Standard Account spreads for FXCM traders are 0.5 pips for EUR/USD and 1.3 pips for GBP/USD, with similarly competitive spreads for other major currency pairs

Trading Platforms and Features

In addition to its proprietary platform, FXCM uses the popular MT4 trading platform. 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 for clients of FXCM UK. In late 2016 FXCM also added a DOM indicator, allowing “no dealing desk” clients to see up to five levels of liquidity and depth for 17 of the most traded currency pairs.  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.

Algorithmic and high-frequency traders also have access to FXCM’s API technology solutions suite – FIX, Java, ForexConnect and Indicore – to connect their trading software directly to FXCM’s price and order servers.

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. The brokerage also offers free mobile Forex trading via apps for most smartphones and its new iPad and Android tablet application.

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. 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, FXCM offers educational courses and premium resources to help traders familiarize themselves with the markets.

Forex traders who are looking for a bit of extra support can also take advantage of the web-based Mirror Trader which runs flawlessly with FXCM, allowing traders to automatically copy others in the hopes of increasing their profits.

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. We believe that these all make FXCM an excellent choice for Forex traders at all levels, no matter where they reside.