Are Your Funds Safe? NFA to Shut down small forex fcms

[hayden]

so does this possible shutdown only applies to NFA regulated brokers ??

[forex savior]

Originally Posted by hayden

so does this possible shutdown only applies to NFA regulated brokers ??

yes only nfa firms

[kenrph]

Does anyone have a comments on I trade fx's decreasing capitalization over the last 4 months based on the ctfc's website. in January it was over 33 millions and now it is just over 16 million, a 50% reduction?



Thanks,
Ken

[Forex Troglodyte]

How come no report on Cavemanforex Challenge week 2 and week 3?

[luchozonian]

Originally Posted by forex savior

Last year Finex was investigated by the SFBC in Switzerland, however, they were not closed for fraud as was indicated in a post titled “The Dead Pool Graveyard.” It appears that Finex was bought out by Varengold FX thus bringing the investigation to a close. Details of the merger can be found here:

http://download.varengold.com/vareng...s_customer.pdf

The Savior regrets the error.

Hi there,
I'm just getting started with forex. Can you tell me if a company called finanzas forex out of panama is a scam? My buddy just invested 60kus. I'm trying to do some research before I do anything with them. thanks in advance

[forex savior]

Originally Posted by Forex Troglodyte

How come no report on Cavemanforex Challenge week 2 and week 3?

sorry troggy, i'm falling behind

[forex savior]

Originally Posted by luchozonian

Hi there,
I'm just getting started with forex. Can you tell me if a company called finanzas forex out of panama is a scam? My buddy just invested 60kus. I'm trying to do some research before I do anything with them. thanks in advance

never heard of this firm. in panama? you can do better my friend.

[forex savior]

No Mas! No Mas! Like a bloody and battered Roberto Duran the folks over at Rosenthal Collins are giving up on MT4. This weekend they dropped a bombshell on their clients:
Tradewview not part of RCG?! as of today

Dear Valued Client,

From day one, Tradeview has worked to offer clients optimum trading solutions, by offering the familiar Metatrader 4 platform with sophisticated enhancements to the software. Our dedication has been to provide the latest trading technology by offering clients an unprecedented link to the biggest liquidity pools in the world. In doing so, we cultivated a new kind of FCM - one with a focus on innovation, and a relentless devotion to the best technology.

By creating our systems with this focus, we gained the ability to make fast changes in the most robust 24 hour market in the world. Every Tradeview client can rest assured that they will have access to the best possible solutions as soon as they become available.

We founded our partnership with Ikon GM based on our need for aggressive technical restructuring. Supporting 24 hour-a-day trading requires intensive support, and most FCMs are forced to outsource their technology needs. By joining Ikon GM, we are able to eliminate 3rd party solutions by utilizing their in-house technology company which specializes in network trading, and utilizing the latest market innovations. For our clients, this means we have direct control over our platform, and the ability to develop and test more advanced solutions in response to ongoing demand.

In addition to maintaining the best trading solutions, Ikon GM has a distinguished regulatory history. Since the firm?s original inception in 1999, Ikon Global Markets has maintained an exceptional record, which is an ethical priority we share.

By combining forces, Tradeview will continue to improve upon the promise we make to our clients: Providing optimum support, execution, and trading solutions that are unrivaled in the industry. If you have any further questions, feel free to contact us at our RCG office or our new office at Ikon Global Markets.

RCG Office: 212-437-1870
Ikon Office: 212-482-8275

Regards,

The Tradeview Team

Anyone who spends time on the bulletin boards has gotten to know Tradeview Forex as they have spent gobs of money advertising their wares. Yet it appears they were never able to get MT4 to work proficiently and as such are simply walking away for the whole failed experiment. One Tradeview customer on the forex factory thread referenced above states:

Well, considering what it has been like trading with Tradeview's MT4 platform all last week, a change for the better was needed. There have been numerous outtages to put up with and not to mention requotes during normal market conditions, invalid price messages, and not to mention when you enter an order the order does not go through and instead an "order accepted" message pops up and with no confirmed order. The message would sit there forever so one would have to cancel it and try again, but then one would get trade text is busy message. To circumvent around that you would have to close down the platform and re-open it and try all over again. That would cost you seconds and many pips. One night I could not close any orders and had to phone them in to close. The IT department has had their hands full rebooting the server and trying to fix the problems.

Tradeview says there were numerous problems related to hard coding from their 3rd party vendor for the STP technology. Problems that they could not get support for to fix.

While Tradeview should be commended for knowing when to call it quits I must take issue with this notion that Ikon has a "distinguished regulatory history."

Last fall Ikon merged with Royal Forex Trading, which had a poor regulatory record and was sanctioned by the NFA right before they gave up their FCM license due to the fact they did not have the necessary capital to stay in business.

Second, both of Ikon's principals were former principals of Coes FX. Right after they left Coes FX became the subject of numerous regulatory actions by both the NFA and CFTC resulting in a quarter million dollar fraud settlement and the closure of the firm.
CFTC Settles Foreign Currency Fraud Action Against COES FX Clearing, Inc.

Third, sources have informed me that many of the clients that Ikon will be receiving from Tradeview were formerly the clients of One World Capital. One World was the poster child for undercapitalization and blew up last year just as the $5 million capital requirement was kicking in.

In short, Ikon seems to stick its fingers in an awful lot of cookie jars and it they aren't careful they may get their pudgy little digits stuck in one soon.

Finally, they are $10 million below the $20 million capital requirement set to kick in next spring.

So to those MT4 traders out there who chose Tradeview Forex because they were well capitalized I say buyer beware. Ikon is not Rosenthal Collins. It may be time for you to shop around again...

[fxtrader7777]

Oh dear...the industry seems to be besieged by all kinds of mergers and changes lately. I'm totally new to forex and looking for a reliable broker but really, it's so difficult to find one! I have been looking at Ikon Royal because they seemed to be receiving good reviews on this site called Forex Peace Army but other than the reviews on that site, there seem to be very little reviews elsewhere on Ikon Royal. Other well capitalized brokers such as Deutsche Bank, FX Solutions, Interbank, etc, seemed to have lots of rants going against them. So frankly, I'm at a loss of who to go to.

Guess I'll just have to keep shopping. Now looking at Alpari US too. Have sent them email enquiries but so far, have not heard from them yet.

Originally Posted by forex savior

No Mas! No Mas! Like a bloody and battered Roberto Duran the folks over at Rosenthal Collins are giving up on MT4. This weekend they dropped a bombshell on their clients:
Tradewview not part of RCG?! as of today



Anyone who spends time on the bulletin boards has gotten to know Tradeview Forex as they have spent gobs of money advertising their wares. Yet it appears they were never able to get MT4 to work proficiently and as such are simply walking away for the whole failed experiment. One Tradeview customer on the forex factory thread referenced above states:



While Tradeview should be commended for knowing when to call it quits I must take issue with this notion that Ikon has a "distinguished regulatory history."

Last fall Ikon merged with Royal Forex Trading, which had a poor regulatory record and was sanctioned by the NFA right before they gave up their FCM license due to the fact they did not have the necessary capital to stay in business.

Second, both of Ikon's principals were former principals of Coes FX. Right after they left Coes FX became the subject of numerous regulatory actions by both the NFA and CFTC resulting in a quarter million dollar fraud settlement and the closure of the firm.
CFTC Settles Foreign Currency Fraud Action Against COES FX Clearing, Inc.

Third, sources have informed me that many of the clients that Ikon will be receiving from Tradeview were formerly the clients of One World Capital. One World was the poster child for undercapitalization and blew up last year just as the $5 million capital requirement was kicking in.

In short, Ikon seems to stick its fingers in an awful lot of cookie jars and it they aren't careful they may get their pudgy little digits stuck in one soon.

Finally, they are $10 million below the $20 million capital requirement set to kick in next spring.

So to those MT4 traders out there who chose Tradeview Forex because they were well capitalized I say buyer beware. Ikon is not Rosenthal Collins. It may be time for you to shop around again...

[forex savior]

Or so this website claims: Easy-Forex

You’ll remember earlier this year the Savior wrote up a story on Easy Forex after an Israeli news broadcaster ran an expose on them: Forex Factory - View Single Post - Proposed NFA Capital Requirement

In that story informants claimed that as introducing agents they only made money if their clients lost money. Well, in this soon to be published book from the gang at easy-forex-warning they claim this is how introducing agents are compensated:

In order to ensure it's wining against their clients, Easy Forex rewards their employees and people working for it outside the company, according to the amount deposited minus the withdrawals of their clients.

To demonstrate this method lets take an example.
1. An Easy-Forex agent convinces a person to open an account at Easy-Forex to trade the account by himself or to authorize an account manager to trade the account for him
2. The customer deposits $100,000
3. The agent is rewarded a certain percentage from this deposition. For the discussion let's assume 10%. That is, the agent is rewarded $10,000.
4. The customer trades the money in the account or someone else does it for him and after a while he withdraws the money. At this stage there are three possibilities:
a. The account is balanced. That is the account holds $100,000 that the customer withdraws. In this case the agent that brought this customer needs to pay Easy-Forex back the $10,000 he received for the deposted amount.
b. The account is drained. That is the customer lost all the money in the account. In this case the agent does not need to pay back Easy-Forex anything. In this case Easy Forex gets the reminder minus the money given to the agent.
c. The account gained relative to the opening time. Say, the account balance is now $200,000 and the customer withdraw all this money. In this case the agent needs to pay Easy-Forex the $10,000 they gave him and another $10,000 out of his own pocket.

What happens in practice is that they don’t charge the agent immediately. The agent's balance at Easy-Forex becomes now –$20,000, and next month he needs to recruit $200,000 before making any money. From any point of view this money comes from this agent pocket.

What Easy-Forex is telling their agent is that they are partners in the company: They tell them you will make money from the customers you bring only if the company will make money from the client, but you (the agent) will lose money from this customer if we, the company, will lose from him.

It’s called the “Net Deposit Method” and I must say this is all new to me. If it is true it is downright sinister. In fact, one agent provides testimony at the website in which he describes how angry an agent would get if their customer actually started making money:
An agent testimony

“I saw people with clients that made money for many months. They use to give him such bad service. Answer unpleasantly… There was a way of life in the company, a way of life… when a client was making profit they use to shout, the son of a *****, move away form here. The guy is making profit, he is destroying my account. He is destroying my salary. Fly from here, go to a different company. They gave him bad service to force him to move to a different company because it was on their expenses. This is a terrible thing. Now, at the end, it didn't matter what happened. I could not…. I, in the last Yom Kippur, and after talking to Rafi, I couldn't. This thing bothered me for a year or so. I don't know how I survived there one year or so.”

All of these testimonials apparently are related to Easy Forex’s Israeli operation. But is this kind of stuff going on in America too? Easy Forex is registered with the NFA and to date they do not have any infractions on file with U.S. regulators. But then again the more and more checking I do on these companies the more apparent it is becoming to me that the NFA has only skimmed the surface of retail forex (the fact that Robert Gray’s fake $50 million bond went unnoticed for months by regulators is still flabbergasting to me.)

In any case Easy Forex deserves particular scrutiny from the trading public over their alleged market making activities. Traders should seriously consider trading only with Dealers that are not in the market making business. The evidence against them is really starting to pile up.