Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
I know the vast majority of people here are futures and spot forex traders but it's worth putting the question out there. Who among us trades CFDs with a metatrader based broker? Anyone have experience trading the indexes this way? I am currently trading with a group of locals here in Vietnam and they do not have the means to trade futures contracts outright so CFDs seems like a decent alternative. 1/5th the size and risk. The major problem is reliability of the marketmaker. LFMAX seems like a really great idea on paper but they do not allow Vietnamese accounts so I am left with a sea of false review sites all paid for by affiliates who promote theirs while bashing the others using proxy ips and rent a writers from india.
Any positive experiences from actual traders would be most appreciated.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Besides LMAX which has a transparent model with its own exchange, GFT is the best CFD broker I'm aware of.
They are a very reliable market maker and I can state than their mojo "Integrity above all" is true since they refunded me 4 times "failures" in less than a half day each time, never arguing at all and sometimes I got more money than I was asking for! I cannot state the same for futures brokers with whom I had horror stories to deal with in 5 years span (ActivTrades/Rosenthal - InteractiveBrokers)...
Actually we are 6 or 7 friends all coming from the futures world, very satisfied with GFT-UK (they have several branches in the world but my testimonial is for the UK one although it should be the same)
They offer MT4 but also DealBoook360 which to me is a superior platform and our preferred choice for CFD. Spread Betting - Forex Trading - [AUTOLINK]CFD[/AUTOLINK] Trading - GFT
Their range of instruments is quite extensive. You've got spot forex and CFD (currencies, indexes, commodities, bonds, interest rates, lots of stocks, etc) which you can trade on the same account.
Leverage is 400:1 to 100:1 depending on your account size although in practice you can arrange this.
Margin is most of the time 1% (or 0,5% depending on instrument) of notional value. You are cut reaching 25% of this margin (which means you can be VERY agressive which can be counter-productive or productive like hell depending on your trading level. I've detailed what this allows to do on the LMAX thread).
External wires cost 5 GBP or 15 GBP if you require it the same day. You are refunded first on the deposit mean you used the most, that is to say either your bank account or credit card (sometimes they split the withdrawl between bot if you used both ....in practice, you can accomodate this)
Their customer support is friendly and chat service is available 24/24 7/7 although during weekends you'll reach most often the US forex ? branch and not every service will be open (like accounting)
Spreads are low, no commissions (included in the fixed spread).
24 hour night trading enabled even on closed markets (then pries will follow ETH globex futures) ...useful to carry overnight positions yet still set a stoploss.
You can put in place much more sophisticated tactics than with futures due to the small sizing increments (which you can set for spot forex by sizing your 1 lot to 1k, 10k, 100k, 1M, etc - not for CFDs, it is 1 point = $1 or 1EUR all the time) and how it's easy to scall in and out or just put in place VERY detailed money management procedures. Such things you won't be able to do with a futures account less than $2M
That's it on the top of my head. It's a shame the US forbid this as CFDs are actually really great alternative products with their own advantages if carried with the right broker. If it was not the case, I believe it would be even more popular and serious trading platforms like Ninja or MC would consider it at a faster pace ... actually they are just starting, just check MC with LMAX and one of the most innovative forex environnement ever released
The following 2 users say Thank You to SARdynamite for this post:
I just checked with GFT, besides having some very creepy email phishing policies when you chat with their representatives they do not allow vietnamese accounts with their uk branch. Their asian branch is extremely limited in markets traded.
Other than LMAX and GFT have you come across anyone decent for index spread betting?
Thanks
The following user says Thank You to peglegtrading for this post:
When launching a chat they ask for your email and name indeed just to process your questions in a more efficient way (client, not client, etc)
You can try WHS SelfInvest which will offer the same conditions than GFT (almost)
They are Luxembourg based and carry DealBook360 (not sure about MT4 though)
GFT has 29% left of profitable traders every quarter year, just after Oanda which is first. So it must not be that bad. Both are dealing desks. Just because you use an ECN does not mean you don't deal through trading desks. Actually you deal directly with the bigger ones with no room for negotiation..
It's more a matter of being fair and integrity. For instance, FXCM as an ECN lacked some as shown by the justice fines it received. With Dukascopy, if you don't set properly the slippage settings, it can also become nasty. To each his own educated choice. Cheers