What broker to trust? IC Markets, FXOpen.com, or Armada?

Hello traders,

I am looking to open a new account with about $1K USD for day trading/scalping. Who should I trust with that money?

This is my 3 broker shortlist due to low spreads. IC Markets, FXOpen.com (NOT FXOpen UK, or FXOpen AU), and Armada Markets.

IC markets seems the most trust-able due to regulation, follow by Armada Markets.

I am confused about FXOpen.com since they have several branches. They seem to have no regulation, only registered in NZ.

Please share your experiences.

Thanks.

You better also ask for execution times (speed) on live trades and in different market conditions.
For example, I am currently not satisfied with one of the brokers regarding execution speed (I use market orders, I trade E/U).
I get ~450ms for open and ~400ms for close, on average, excluded network latency from my machine to broker's server, normal market conditions (broker advertises 300ms on average *wink*).
That's way too much imo. Should be <50ms.

I have removed FXOpen.com from my list as they are an unregulated broker operating off some island in the Caribbean.

I've added exness.com to my list instead.

1) ICMarkets.com

2) Armada Markets

3) Exness.com

Acording to your profile you are trading from US. None of the brokers listed by you is accepting US clients.

I am a dual citizen with residence in both countries.

Thanks for taking the time to look in to my profile, but not my question.

The IC Markets MT4 lags, jitters, and freezes at times, especially during news. I wonder about their servers. They say they are working on it.

Why don't you consider FXOpen.com.au ?

We operate from Sydney, Australia and we are regulated by and are fully compliant with ASIC. We also have one of the best ECN services in the world. Give us a try?

I signed up with you for a live account, but turns out my live account was with some unregulated branch operating off some island in the Caribbean.

You have several ugly(low quality, with broken links) websites that look exactly the same.

How can I trust a company that has all these websites who say they are all different, but part of the same group, like the holy trinity? You're all the same, but then again, not?

I just want to close that account and get rid of that account.

However you do have a stable mt4 server and some low spreads.

You need to get your act together and get a better looking website that works.

Oh, I forgot all the horror stories that are everywhere. But what branch are those reviews from? The father, the son, or the holy spirit?

just some thoughts about the execution time cuz I saw rockit's response.

I think rockit brought out a very good point: execution speed.

If the execution is slow, even the spread "looks" good, you cannot really access to it (possible slippages issues due to the slow speed.)
Those spread shown on MyFxBook are all more likely to be this case.

However, the execution speed issue might not only be on the broker side.
The options you mentioned (FXO, Armada and IC) are using their own aggregator to pass clients to multiple ECNs pool (such as lmax, CNX, Integral), then those ECNs pool further match orders. Orders are likely ending to be executed at the very up-stream LPs (banks or institutions provide liquidity to those ECNs pool).

In this whole process, even if the broker do nothing to the order, the overall execution time can still be long.
There are several issue involved, and I wont go too deep here.

But I would like to mention one important thing: Last-look.
Some up-stream LPs have last-look practice, which means they can hold your orders for up to few hundreds ms before fill it or reject it.
This is more likely the case that an order takes hundreds ms to execute.
This is not related to broker, aggregators or even ECNs.
So even if you blame brokers, they cannot help about this.
This issue is on the very up-stream side.
(You may be lucky that sometimes your order is matched with other trader who doesnt have the last-look privilege in the ECN pool, then it can be filled fast, but you cannot tell this before ordering.)

Besides, rockit mentions 50 ms.
I think this is a more reasonable number, but not to the limits yet (personally I think it should be <5 ms in a very dedicated environment).

--

Another important factor is, if you wants to trade on MT4, it will be unavoidably slow(er than some people using API or FIX).
For the order build (version), it has more than 100 ms default latency.
So your overall latency will be infrastructure + travelling + last look + MT4 latency.
The situation is better in a newer build (after 600), but still have something like 30-50 ms.

--

Here are also some my personal experience.
1)
IC markets told me the average execution time on their MT4 is 150 ms, cTrader is 145ms.
But I think this is meaningless (please consider last-look.)
So if you hear the same thing, please just take it as reference, not too serious.

2)
FXO has .au and .uk branches, and both are regulated.
I dont do any commericals here, but I think you can find many reviews about them, since they are getting popular now.

*oh, but it is true that they might send your money out of its regulated country, and this is certainly a concern for some people.
(.au might not keep your money within AU,and .uk might not keep your money within UK as well.)

--

I hope above helps
Wjack

add exness???
a terrible experience...

essentially,
i don`t trust metatrader.
i`m using ctrader.

May I ask what is the reason you dont trust metatrader?

There once were rumors saying some brokers can do some tricks on server, and then against traders.
It might be difficult to get evidences, but if it is possible,
it can happen both on meratrader and cTrader, so in this case I am not sure why cTrader should be favored?

Just in terms of functionality,
cTrader has some advantages compared to MT4, such as market depth and async send.
It had no onSchedule function when I was using it. (I was told they will implement it soon, but not sure its situation now.)

Another downside of cTrader is that it is not used by majority of brokers.
But I think you can still find some reliable cTrader brokers.

Cheers, Wjack

I have a live account with FXOpen.com.au.
No problems so far.
I like their spreads.
I don't care about their web site.
I wish they offer cTrader.

How long have you been with them? Any successful withdrawals?

I just open an ECN account with fxopen.com.au 1 day ago.

Pro:

1. Low spread, low commission
2. Regulate by ASIC

​Con:

1. Bad website
2. One guy in this forum had a bad experience(can't withdraw profit) with fxopen.com(not AU, but they're under the same group) 7 years ago

I have tried the demo for a couple of days, no problem at all.
I will give it a try anyway. The low trading cost is pretty good for scalping.

Care to give more detail on this?

Not a good idea to say this without giving out more details. Without it, people won't be able to objectively compare it with other brokers.

I've decided to try out ICMarkets.com with my small live account Let's hope all goes well.

I'm watching fpmarkets.com too.

For a future larger account, I am considering CitiFXPro, ATC Brokers, Interactive Brokers, and Dukascopy.