Do people really buy into these deposit bonuses?

Do people really buy into these deposit bonuses? do you actually get the money after you have been trading over a period of time?

All the advice I’ve seen is not to take any bonuses as they can lock you in making you have to trade to get the bonuses and sometimes even your own money out.Best off just having a,“Clean” account with no fancy add-ons IMHO especially if just starting out.

yeah i agree - nothing comes for free - thanks for your reply

these bonuses usually are to entice traders. it’s not a bonus if you have to trade 1 million lots to get it. some brokers do that. better stay away from such sweet promises. maybe they’ll give you the bonus but in most cases they will manipulate your trades, you’ll lose in the end 99% of the time.

Lol… Another thread, just do the research your self, most cases u deposit and get a certain % of bonus usually a credit, and it’s gone once you withdraw or until your account blows up ,

[QUOTE=“Libertysilver;685283”]Lol… Another thread, just do the research your self, most cases u deposit and get a certain % of bonus usually a credit, and it’s gone once you withdraw or until your account blows up ,[/QUOTE]
There’s way more shady things to worry about with your broker rather than bonuses it’s just a way to attract, new people, read the terms and conditions before trying out

+1 on that! I personally stay away from bonuses in most cases with the sole exception is when I make a deposit to test a new strategy which I do with small amount of cash and then I may take the bonus, but the objective in such case is different. I would never take a bonus in my real trading account as I do not like the T&C’s offered plus nothing is free.

Well they have worked for me, I scalp trade and got a Core Spreads bonus of £1000 within the first 2 months and it took me 2 days to earn a £1000 bonus with Interactive Investor, they paid it to me the very next week. I have withdrawn both so fully legit. I will say this, you can negotiate with the brokers to get better release terms on the bonus if you work at it. The mad thing re the Interactive Investor bonus is that they actually made less on the spreads of the total of each of my trades than the bonus they paid me, I have since traded more so they have probably now covered the bonus they paid me but it was an act of good will on their part to do that for a new customer. I even called them and brought it up with them as it didn’t make sense to me, the girl I spoke to laughed and said yes it is how they operate and she could see my point!
I will say these bonuses benefit scalp traders making hundreds of trades a week or traders opening very large positions, if you don’t fall into either category then I wouldn’t bother and just stick to a broker who works for you in the long term.

I don’t take any bonuses. Can’t trade the volume they require - seems a recipe for disaster afterall is it not one of the prudent traders rules. Thou shalt not overtrade.

Broker bonuses are a very clever ploy that ultimately encourage novice traders to blow their accounts up quicker. For example if you open an account with $2000 and you get for arguments sake a $1000 bonus then you are more likely to trade the account as if it is a $3000 account and open bigger positions than if you had a $2000 balance.

[QUOTE=“Shinshiro;686088”]I reckon a no deposit bonus is an excellent option for new traders with limited funds or for those who’d perhaps like to test a new stategy or EA in a live trading environment or simply, to start live trading with zero risk. I have shamelessly sampled a good fistful of no deposit bonusses and XM (XM.COM) | Forex Broker offering Forex, CFD’s, and Futures I can tell you comes highly recommended. Besides the 30USD no deposit bonus you also receive a 20% bonus on all deposits (up to 5K). Plus you accrue unlimited trading credits the more you trade - credits you can convert into trading cash at any time. Register via the above link and you’ll even qualify for rebates on lots traded - you really cant ask for more! :stuck_out_tongue: (Fine line, Babypips?:30:)[/QUOTE]

It’s funny because xm is my broker has been for years great service only this is they have abit expensive spreads other than that there excellent broker IMO

Brokers that offer a no deposit bonus usually have a very high first timer withdraw fee which is even more that the bonus itself. So nothing is comming your of a broker pocket.

I cannot agree with you more - great service, responsive and from my experience totally transparent. And yes their spreads are a little on the steep side but given my trading style (if you can call it that) the transaction cost is of less importance than say to a scalper. Also I’m of the view -being the cynic that I am - that most brokers shaft their clients one way or another and if they’re offering super low spreads one has to wonder where they are making their money…

Not with XM (XM.COM) | Forex Broker offering Forex, CFD’s, and Futures
Try it before you knock it :wink:

But the real question is - Can you withdraw the money you have deposited with a company that offers this whenever you want? Can you withdraw the bonus money or [B]account balance that has been earned using those bonuses whenever you want[/B]? What are the T&C’s in relation to the bonuses?

Often times in the T&C’s you will find clauses that any bonus received has to be turned over X times (50, 80, 100 times) BEFORE it can be withdrawn. What they don’t say is that any bonus is put at the front of whatever money you deposited meaning that you can not withdraw the money you deposited until you turn over the bonus X amount of times.

Some of the deals seen around have said as an example, $30 bonus when depositing $500. If a conservative 20 times bonus turnover is required that = $600 of actual trades (Not stop loses) really meaning the potential loss risk is a lot more then the $600 if you have trades go against you.

This is all factored into these bonus offers. They don’t offer them with the view they will be on the losing end of the deal. They will try and represent it to potential clients as a nice offer to entice clients to use them but you really need to study the T&C’s of any offer to see who is really going to benefit from the offer. In the above example it ends up forcing the client to take more risk just to be able to unlock the money they deposited in just to withdraw it. In most cases this ends up with the client loosing all the account.

It would be the exception to the rule that some clients profit from these bonus deals.
If a company is offering these types of deals you really need to read all the T&C’s and find out what is in it for them, not you.

Fair points you raise there but I can assure you it is not the case with XM.
"XM offers its clients multiple additional incentives to start trading and keep on trading, starting with a $30 no deposit bonus. In other words, we give you [B]$30 worth of credit[/B] just for opening your first Real Account, allowing you to test our products and services by starting to trade with [U]no investment[/U] and [U]no risk[/U].

[ul]
[li]No deposit required[/li][li][U]Automatically[/U] credited to your account[/li][li][B]All profits[/B] earned can be withdrawn[/li][li]Available to all [B]new clients[/B][/li][li]No hidden terms"[/li][/ul]

Read more @ XM (XM.COM) | Forex Broker offering Forex, CFD’s, and Futures

That certainly seems different from some of the other bonus systems that are floating around.

Just one other question, do they take the other side of clients trades or do they send the trades straight to the open market?

In the past it has seemed the companies who did bonuses where structured as taking the other side of clients positions. If that is the case, they are giving nothing away as the $30 never left the company and the % that would ever withdraw the $30 would be tiny.

Its certainly a nice incentive to test out the platform live but it is still an enticement with no real benefit to the client to get traders to sign up with them and not someone else. They know once you get the sign up most will stay until something really bad pushes them away. Easier to deposit into the opened account then the time to set up a new one with another company. 99.9% of traders will never see any financial benefit from a bonus and in the case of a company trading against the clients position, signing up because of a bonus may really cost the client a lot of money in the long run.

I steer away from companies offering cash bonuses or cash incentives in financial services. It never ends up being free. If a company wants clients then they can offer real savings across the life of your use of the service by tighter spreads and discounting other costs. That is true cash back in your pocket not just a short term illusion to hook a client in.

Yes, they give you the bonus. I personally got bonuses 2 times and I’m on my way to get one more bonus. It works, if you trade for a long time. And it is nice to have the bonus above the profit you made.

galvcore - they have worked for me too. obviously i have my eyes open when i applied for the bonus. normally you need to trade a set number of lots before you can withdraw the funds, and in some cases you cant withdraw the funds at all. terms and conditions (fineprint) of the bonus terms will always specify this. even if the funds are locked, it can be sometimes quite useful to trade with the additional funds - especially if the percentage is quite high. my advice is to just keep your eyes open with the fineprint, but trade-away. why not!

I have used AVA Trade 50% deposit bonus offer when I started to trade, and it really helped me as my equity fell below my initial deposit and I was able to recover using the bonus that was left. If you think the trading volume is too high, I’d rather than looking at it that way, [B]trade the bonus as part of my equity[/B]. If I had a $1000 account I would risk 5% per trade and with a risk to reward of at least 1:2 it would mean making 10% which is round about $100. Now deposit $1000 get a $500 bonus and you have an equity of $1500 make 10% on the trade and you have $150 instead of $100. Also AVA trade only cancel the bonus if you haven’t traded the required volume which is 1 mini lot per $1 so for $500 bonus that would mean 500 mini lots. Over time It can be traded and also they only cancel the bonus if you withdraw more than your equity not if you withdraw your profits.