Category: Brokers

According to the notice from insolvency specialist Ferrier Hodgson, Halifax Investment Services in Australia entered administration on November 23. The partners of the Ferrier Hodson were appointed administrators of the Australian brokerage.

Halifax Investment Services Pty Limited provides investment management services in Australia. It offers various financial products in a range of asset classes, including stocks, options, futures, foreign exchange, and contracts for difference; and trade finance and currency exchange services. Halifax Investment Services Pty Limited is based in Sydney, Australia and regulated by Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
As for now, the website of the Halifax Investment Services is closed for "maintenance". Clients of the online brokerage state that their investments have been frozen right after the company went into administration.
According to the statement posted on the Ferrier Hodgson website, the partners Morgan Kelly, Stewart McCallum and Phil Quinlan were appointed voluntary administrators by the Halifax Investment Services board of directors. This action had to be taken as the Company is unlikely to be able to meet its financial commitments. Administration seems to be the first step in business recovery and its protection from being broken up.
Also, the statement says that the newly assigned administrators are assessing the best course of action and focusing on the best outcome for investors as investors are the primary concern at the time. They are conducting an urgent investigation into the business operations and promise to keep all the stakeholders, creditors, investors and employees updated on any developments. 

You can read our review on this broker here. 

Retail FX broker and bank Dukascopy, based in Geneva, Switzerland, has announced about the opening of its Representative Office in Dubai - Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). The Swiss brokerage has added one more location to its global network. The bank already has representative offices in Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Moscow, Kiev and Tokyo.

Dukascopy Bank SA (https://www.dukascopy.com), the innovative Swiss online bank and marketplace offers online trading and banking services, and Electronic Communication Network spot forex liquidity available to individuals, banks, hedge funds and other financial institutions and investors. It is a provider of a direct access to the Swiss Foreign Exchange Marketplace.

This Swiss bank with headquarters in Geneva has received a license from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) to be able to open its office in Dubai. The representative office is located in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). The Dubai office team will assist clients from Dubai and the Middle East in their dealings with the Geneva Headquarters.

The DIFC is popular enough among the globally operating financial institutions and has its own regulator, law framework and global financial exchange. It has a promising plans of establishing a bigger presence in the Middle Eastern region.

With the more severe situation on European market, brokerage companies are searching for option outside of the region and looking for an opportunity to expand the services and target new customers. The Middle East market is giving this opportunity, although the process of establishing there is quite complex. Having a physical location there is a big step towards a brand's success in the region.

Leading Forex broker FXTM has just announced that it has appointed Tan Chung Han (Han Tan) as a new Market Analyst of the FXTM Market Research team, with a focus on Southeast Asia (SEA).

As a new member of the FXTM Market Research team, Han will act as the voice and face for the FXTM brand within the Southeast Asia (SEA) region, providing regular market commentary on both local and international market news, and educational insights for all broker’s clients.

Welcoming Han to the company, Nicholas Defteras, Chief Executive Officer of FXTM, said:

“We are very pleased to welcome Han as the latest member of the FXTM family. Our company continues to grow at a rapid pace, as our brand expands its global footprint. The credible experience and profile of Han fulfils many core values of the FXTM brand and we look forward to the contribution of Han towards providing a client-centric approach with high-level market analysis and overall investment in client education. We have planned over 200 educational events globally this year, and Han will help execute some of our ambitious and ever-evolving educational offerings. We wish Han every success in his new role”.

The FXTM or Forex Time company launched in 2011 with its headquarters in Cyprus (Limassol) has been named as one of the world’s fastest growing brokers. The broker establishes its core on reliable trading conditions and detailed education and brings trading across the world with its accessible trading around the globe, regardless of the trader’s knowledge. You can check our full FXTM review here.

Fractional Share trading is now provided by one of the biggest global brokers - Interactive Brokers, in return removing some obstacles towards portfolio diversification on US securities and allowing to trade with smaller capitals.  

One of the most amazing features while trading fractional shares is that you may divide your investment amount and intersperse portfolio by putting smaller balances to stocks, which were unaffordable before for many investors due to high prices. Therefore, by bringing better possibilities to magnify returns, IBKR now offers a great possibility to enter into US securities by the amount you decide to place.

Discover more about Interactive Brokers Fractional Trading by the link.

Practically, you may purchase any amount of stock through the IBKR platform either $100 or $10,000 while placing an order in dollar amount, which is making your calculation of the position easier and of course less costly.

Fractional Trading from now on available on all Interactive Brokers platforms and accessible for new clients or existing ones using IBKR Lite or IBKR Pro accounts. Moreover, IBKR clients getting an opportunity to attractive costs and lower commissions through the mobile application IBKR Mobile App accessible for Android or iOS devices along with the latest improvements

Interactive broker is one of the largest global electronic broker and financial groups that serves over 650,000 clients worldwide, operating through over 125 exchanges in numerous countries and is globally known for its corporate and operational practices accompanied by high-end trading technology enabling vast trading opportunities on numerous instruments. What is more, IBKR by its true global coverage and huge volumes they operate recently not only provides wide access to numerous instruments but also eliminates trading costs by lower commissions and now by the possibility of fractional trade.

You may read full Interactive Brokers Review by the link and get to know about their offering in a detail, as well you may check other Regulated brokers for your consideration.

On the last days of October 28-29, the FBS Team took honor to be an official sponsor of the Egypt Investment Expo 2019, which is one of the influential expos of the region featured by the financial enthusiast.

Together with its usual Expo program of Egypt Investment Expo, which is an annual event that focuses on the introduction of best financial industry opportunities to investors from Egypt and the Middle East in general, known as the MENA region and its swap-free trading. The part of the program is to select “Top 50 in Financial Markets” awards and to reward the best brokers or their offerings for the highest performance and achievements, as well to prize the participants and recognize the best of the best.

Award ceremony rewarded FBS broker even in two categories, you may read more about an event at the FBS website.

• Best Copy Trade Program
• Best Forex Broker in the Middle East

FBS Copy Trade was launched only a year ago and already achieved great results, as well as traders recognition that support the idea of social trading allowing investors with no previous experience to join trading in the best possible way.

Together with its advanced trading tools and fully intuitive design FBS truly developed great App allowing to choose from massive Traders network to either follow or enhance trading strategy.

While FBS itself is an international broker, a multi-asset financial and copy trading provider that offers it’s unique and comprehensive trading opportunities to global traders while FBS is fully licensed by Cyprus CySEC, ensuring its transparency and safety. What is more, it is not the first award received by FBS, they been recognized timely by numerous prestigious awards for cutting-edge technology they provide to the Forex Market.

You may read full FBS Review by the link and get to know about their general offering in a detail, as well you may check other CySEC regulated brokers for your consideration.

Global Business Outlook published and awarded Orbex as Best Forex Broker 2019 in its annual GBO Awards nomination that was celebrated for a significant achievements and effort to be recognized.

Global Business Outlook is a renowned UK publication that covers market trends, global businesses and recognizes excellence in companies all over the world that deliver exceptional service and managed ultimate challenges to hold strong. Discover more about Global Business Outlook by the link.

Therefore, the abovementioned nomination for the GBO 2019 edition distinguishes Orbex as a Best Forex Broker in a world scale, throughout a variety of sectors company offers its proposals including finance, banking, trading technology, etc.

This exciting nomination found Orbex for its unique initiatives, the broker took this year that enhanced overall trading conditions and opportunities for investors of different size or level. Accomplishments and dedications as a part of overall Orbex growth delivering high standards of service and received award acclaimed its true side of the strives Orbex has made.

In addition to that, Orbex recently celebrated its 9 year anniversary as European Regulated Forex Broker and launch FSC Mauritius license with new account types for global offering with utmost trading conditions and greater exposure to the markets.

In fact, Orbex is a popular provider of online trading services and is a Cyprus established financial firm that successfully serves clients from Europe and worldwide as well, thanks to its offshore branch in Mauritius. Even though solely offshore firms are not the best idea for trading investment, together with European authorization Orbex makes its offering a clear and trustable one with comprehensive information to learn, develop and invest. You may read full Orbex Review by the link and get to know about their offering in a detail.

It is the beginning of the third quarter of the year, which means it’s time for the quarterly reports with the unprofitability percentage from the forex brokers. Most of the brokers have already updated their risk warnings stating the loss percentage, although some of them are yet to add their values on the websites. 

The provided percentage shows the number of all losing accounts divided by the number of all accounts during the second quarter of 2021. However, the percentage values do not tell us anything about the size of losses and profits.

We have studied and compared the data of 22 companies. Mode of the percentage data range has decreasedsomewhat from 78.80% to 75.30% (BDSwiss). The lowest percentage jumped from 66% to 64% (Saxo Bank). The lowest percentage of losers is 50% (GoMarkets), while the maximum dropped from 79% to 77% (Forex.com).

Most of the brokers that updated their numbers did not show significant changes — most of them being just a few percent. The biggest change was with Plus500 — its percentage of losing traders dropped from 76.40% to 72%, but it is still not big of a change, only 4%.

The list of 22 brokers and unprofitability of their retail traders (sorted in an ascending order):

We want to remind that the data still remain distorted by brokers reporting a range instead of a single number and by brokers with not enough EU traders to produce a meaningful and believable percentage value. Many brokers prefer to operate both EU and offshore companies, registering more traders under the to the latter.

Only a week ago we have been informed that HotForex has acquired a license to operate in the UAE and now the broker has revealed that it has got the esteemed Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) license.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is a financial regulatory body in the United Kingdom, but operates independently of the UK Government, and is financed by charging fees to members of the financial services industry. The FCA regulates financial firms providing services to consumers and maintains the integrity of the financial markets in the United Kingdom.

HotForex is a brand name of the HF Markets (Europe) Ltd. that is authorised and regulated by the CySEC, BaFin Germany, CONSOB Italy, CNMV Spain, FSA Denmark, and more. The name of the HotForex subsidiary in the UK is now HF Markets (UK) Ltd. We have checked the regulator's register and it shows that HF Markets (UK) Limited, a British subsidiary of the HF Markets Group, as authorised under firm reference number 801701. It also states that "The Financial Ombudsman Service may be able to consider a dispute with this firm. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) may be able to compensate customers if this firm fails." According to the website, the status effective date was from the 14th of November 2018. You can read our full HotForex review here.
It is a very important move for the HF Markets brokerage group, known by the trading names HF Markets and HotForex. An FCA license means recognition of legitimacy in the UK financial markets and also provides clients with a further guarantee that they'll be receiving a fair and safe service.