Use of the word “solicit” in this context always means exactly that, AFAIK.
They use it to differentiate from “does not accept”. “Does not solicit” means “does accept.”
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Thanks. Will follow the discussion here to see if anyone has used these brokers and whether they recommend them.
No I do not
That’s exactly right, they don’t do any of those things.
On my own, I discovered them and opened an account.
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Typically, most offshore brokers that accept US residents, do so with the requirement that such clients deposit and withdraw using cryptocurrency. So you may want to have this verified prior to opening an account. And be sure to update us here if you find an offshore broker that allows wire transfers for US clients.
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It’s good to see three new participants in this thread. Welcome — MarkinTn, SirKharles, and caffelatte.
And it’s good to see some renewed enthusiasm for finding and vetting new offshore brokers who are interested in doing business with us.
For the benefit of any newcomers who are discovering this thread for the first time, I think it would be a good idea to briefly describe our methodology. Let’s talk specifically about the kind of brokers we are looking for. And then let’s discuss how we go about finding and vetting them.
We are looking for offshore forex brokers who match the following profile:
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A broker who offers, to a worldwide retail clientele, an attractive menu of forex products, services, and trading platforms.
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A broker who not only tolerates — but, welcomes — U.S. clients. This broker realizes that business dealings with U.S persons (American citizens and non-citizen residents) attracts the attention and hostility of U.S. regulators; and this broker knows how to become insulated from hostile U.S. government interference. (See Note 1, below).
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A broker who operates a legally established business, domiciled in a jurisdiction which does not prohibit offering retail forex brokerage services to U.S. persons. (See Note 2, below).
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A broker who is well-capitalized, and firmly established in the forex brokerage business, who can be presumed to be in this business for the long haul.
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A broker whose reputation indicates honest, efficient dealings with clients in two critical functions: in the execution of client orders, and in the handling of client funds.
How we go about finding the brokers we are looking for
A broker who meets criterion #1 and criterion #2, above, qualifies to be included on our List. Finding such a broker is a task that any experienced trader can perform online, by searching the website of any offshore broker that comes to his/her attention. Brokers are discussed in many forums and in other online venues. Finding potential candidates to investigate is not difficult.
If you are interested in participating in this research, you should familiarize yourself with the details we have included in the listings for brokers in Group 1 — things such as: the type of broker (market-maker, ECN, etc.), whether the broker is regulated, the instruments offered by the broker (forex, stocks, metals, cryptos, etc.), and so forth. When you have found a candidate for our List, bring us some of this information, to support your recommendation. If most of the current participants on this thread agree with your appraisal, then your broker candidate will be added to our List.
A broker who meets all of the criteria (1 through 5) outlined above not only deserves to be on our List, but also deserves the Trusted Broker designation. That requires much more vetting than just getting onto the List, and this vetting always takes time, and requires input from multiple thread participants.
Criterion #3, above, is a tricky one. It’s generally easy to determine where an offshore broker is domiciled. But, determining the legal structure of that domicile location is more difficult. We have seen more than one situation in which a country seemed safe and welcoming for brokers dealing with U.S. clients, but subsequently started to restrict those dealings, when something in the country’s legal framework changed. As in the recent case of EagleFX, domiciled in Dominica, we suspect U.S. government pressure is behind these restrictions. But, we almost never learn the details. Brokers who are threatened or intimidated into severing their ties with the U.S. market are seldom forthcoming with explanations about what actually created the situation.
Criterion #4 requires some detective work in order to estimate broker capitalization, and this is often just not possible. Accordingly, the presumption of a broker’s permanent presence in the forex industry is a subjective judgement.
Criterion #5 depends on the actual live trading experience of members of this thread. This criterion is the one we use, more than any other, to decide the Trusted Broker designation.
Notes:
Note 1: Foreign brokers interested in onboarding U.S. clients face some formidable threats from U.S. regulators — and, in many cases, from regulators in their own countries, because those regulators have entered into agreements with the U.S. to act as proxies for U.S. regulators and to enforce U.S. regulations regarding U.S. persons.
The CFTC (especially when it was headed by Gary Gensler) has tried every trick in the book to erect a regulatory “fence” around the U.S., to prevent Americans from having any business relationships with offshore brokers. The CFTC’s threats and intimidation have driven most offshore brokers to abandon the U.S. market completely, and those brokers will tell us flatly that they do not accept U.S. clients. Unless and until that situation changes, those brokers are not candidates for our List.
The CFTC has specifically targeted offshore brokers known to be hosting U.S. clients, and many of those friendly brokers have been prosecuted, often on trumped-up charges. For example, the CFTC acquired the legal authority to prohibit foreign brokers from advertising to, or otherwise soliciting, U.S. persons (citizens and non-citizen residents). Then the CFTC took the position that foreign brokers who have websites that can be accessed in the U.S. are, in effect, soliciting U.S. persons.
The CFTC has received a lot of blow-back on the website issue. But, they continue to treat any foreign broker whose website can be accessed in the U.S. as a potential target.
This is the mine-field that offshore brokers must navigate, if they want to tap into the lucrative U.S. market.
A frequently used tactic for keeping the CFTC at bay is for an offshore broker to categorically deny, in writing on their website, that they accept U.S. clents. Whether they acually host U.S. clients then becomes a difficult matter for the CFTC to determine. This ruse has worked for some brokers in the past. However, the categorical denial that U.S. persons are hosted is a major turn-off to prospective U.S. clients looking for a friendly offshore broker with whom to trade. So, a softer sort of denial has evolved, as follows.
The CFTC’s legal authority is aimed at the solicitation of U.S. citizens, or any other persons within the borders of the U.S. So, savvy offshore brokers have adopted the tactic of categorically denying that they solicit U.S. persons, or that their websites are directed at a U.S. audience. Their actual policy toward prospectve U.S. clients is revealed only in personal conversations with customer service representatives. U.S. traders interested in opening accounts with these brokers, upon contacting them directly, generally get reliable information regarding the actual policy toward U.S. clients. And when the policy is to welcome U.S. clients, customer service representatives typically are very welcoming. These are the offshore brokers we want to find and vet.
Note 2: In most cases, legally domiciled does not mean physically located. It’s very common to find offshore forex brokers, with offices in financial centers like London, whose legal domicile is half-a-world away — in the middle east, in the Caribbean region, or in the Asia/Pacific region. This arrangement is analogous to a western mining company in the U.S. being incorporated in the state of Delaware.
Offshore domicile gives legal cover to these brokers, who — if they were domiciled in the U.K., for example — would be targeted and shut down by the cooperative efforts of British and American regulators. This sort of cooperation is set forth in nasty little agreements between governments, known as Memorada of Understanding. These are the agreements that turn certain foreign regulators into proxies for U.S. regulators.
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From ProsperityFX this morning, “MetaQuotes has confirmed its commitment to supporting MT4 for a maximum of six more months. This means that a significant migration to MT5 is imminent, and MT4 will soon see its final days.”
I am going to migrate all my remaining MT4 accounts.
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Metatrader been saying support for MT4 is coming to an end for the past 3-4 years. However even as of last week they pushed out an update.
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what if indicators that are essential to those who trade them are in MT4 but not available in MT5, what should they do?
If I had MQL4 indicators and I had the source code, I would port them to another language now and start testing them in parallel to make sure they work the same way.
Also this from the same email, “acquiring a Main Label License for MT4 is no longer possible”.
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MetaTrader isn’t known for their savvy business decisions. They could’ve made MT4 more robust all along instead of pushing MT5.
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True. MT4 has been “soon to be retired” for over a decade. Still, I wouldn’t bet that MT4 is staying around this time.
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A lot of brokers will be very unhappy about that? (Especially the unregulated, offshore scamster ones using the brokers’ “MT4 dealer plug-in” to steal from all their customers?)
History has proven that the biggest fraudsters using mt4 as their platform or any platform are regulated brokers based in highly regulated countries.
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-More profitable to release new versions that require a new license, I suppose. Like everything else, why sell something that can last forever when you can make it cheap and sell it over and over again…
-As mentioned before when discussing this, I am not entirely sure that brokers would need to cease offering it unless there are some liability concerns that I am not aware of. Maybe someone that knows more about that can comment.
Metatrader also makes money off sales in the marketplace. MT5 has less then half of the offerings of MT4. Forcing adoption hasn’t been able to move the needle that much.
I remember when they were marketing MT5 as a robust Futures trading platform. It’s ok, but robust it is not.
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Do you happen to know how the licensing works, in terms of whether or not it is given as a leased license with recurring fees or a permanent license with a one-off fee? I am trying to understand why (if) a discontinuation of updates means that brokers will no longer be able to offer it.
I just find it hard to believe that brokers would not be able to keep offering it. It seems that it would create a big mess of things.
I agree with you; MT5 should have been better. I also can speak from experience that the offerings for MT5 are nothing compared to MT4. I have had to write my own stuff for MT5, which sucks, because I am not a programmer.
I’ve been amazed for as long as I can remember that anyone who could use CTrader (I know that not everyone can use CT) or Tradingview would possibly voluntarily choose to use Metatrader instead.
It’s just never made any sense to me at all - and probably never will.
There was an article published some years back that published some of the stats from MetaTrader. Licensing fees and money made from marketplace, etc. I’ll see if I can find it…
There’s a good portion of that marketplace that is nothing but snake oil algo’s. Arbitrage, positive swap’s, etc. Devs that disappear after making false promises. The article had mentioned MetaTrader wanted to change that perception with the release of MT5.
Not certain if that was ever achieved.
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-The biggest reasons are lack of availability and because people tend to get comfortable with what works and do not usually seek to change things if they do not have to, so most traders are either not aware of the benefits, or, they do not care.
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