Jumping on the pip reduction bandwagon is now Forex.com.
Here is the breakdown of what is now being offered compared to what was offered before:
Currency Old New
EUR/USD 5 3
EUR/GBP 5 3
USD/JPY 5 4
EUR/JPY 5 4
AUD/USD 5 4
At first I was hesitant on testing Gain Capital’s FOREX.com. I had tested it many months ago and I did not like it. However, thanks to the recommendation of a friend I decided to see what the attraction was, and when I saw it I nearly fell off my chair: trailing stops!
If you are not familiar with trailing stops, or have been disheartened by other trailing stop brokers then you’ve finally found the right place. We’ll talk more about it in the next section.
We saw no difference between the demo and live accounts.
TRAILING STOPS! FOREX.com have set a high standard with this feature in our opinion. Let’s look at it in further detail: the trailing stop can only be entered as a separate order, unfortunately you
cannot attach it to an entry stop or limit order (which slightly dampens the mood). Once you are in an order you can enter your trailing stop limit in pips to trail the market the distance you have set with the closest distance you can go being 10 pips.
Along with FOREX.com’s trailing stop feature they have some other order types such as:
They also claim that they can guarantee stop and limit orders (although I don’t know whether this will soon change).
The charting package provided by FOREX.com is reasonable.
Just recently we’ve discovered that Gain Capital have a facility whereby you can download 5 years of tick data on the 6 major currencies! Not only that, you can also download a FREE DDE application whereby you can obtain live quotes!!! To receive the data all you need do is ask them - it’s that easy (as the website has not been indexed by Google - you will not find it by searching - we will not disclose the web address here as the data may be available only to Gain clients).
There is still a lot left to be desired with FOREX.com with one of the main concerns being that you cannot attach stop loss orders to OCO orders. Meaning that if you were to place a strangle on the market you could not attach a stop loss order until AFTER it is executed. Not really a good idea as OCO orders are great to place during volatile periods so you need that stop loss order in case things reverse against you - FAST.
FOREX.com has a web based platform which is not our preferred choice of platform with only 14 currency pairs available: EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, USD/CHF, USD/CAD, AUD/USD, EUR/JPY, EUR/GBP, EUR/CHF, GBP/JPY, AUD/JPY, CHF/JPY, EUR/AUD, GBP/CHF.
The news section mainly comprises of brokers opinions and articles from such institutions. Just give us the live news headlines - how simple can it be?
You can only open an account in USD. This is fine for US customers, but can be a little annoying for our international partners who have a currency that is appreciating against the USD - which has been most of them throughout the last couple of years. Of course this can work the other way too. I think it would be great if a brokerage firm could offer the ability to have multiple currency denominated accounts so that the customer can have their capital appreciate over the long-term by transferring funds into the currency that will appreciate the best in the long-term. The client receives the income from their trading activities, plus the appreciation of their capital.
In summary then…
FOREX.com PROS:
FOREX.com CONS:
The trailing stop feature is the only thing holding up FOREX.com’s rating. If they did not have this feature I would reduce it down to 2.5/10, which just goes to show that if you have a PROPER trailing stop feature you can earn extra points in our rating system!
If you would like to add your review on Forex.com just click the link labelled “Leave a Comment” below