Going offshore to escape the CFTC

I always had an opinion that TurnkeyFX and FinPro UK is somehow related. I guess there might be a weak link in there (because I also see on companyhouse that owners are different in these companies, just an overlap of directors). But regardless. I think FinPro is a good broker. and so is TurnkeyForex (which seems to be totally unrelated to turnkeyfx or FinPro). But its interesting how TurnkeyFX has evolved as a technology provider. I will try get in touch with them and will see what they have to say about it.

But as always, Thanks Clint for such detailed analysis :slight_smile: , Much appreciate it.

On an unrelated note. Should we start looking at some crypto brokers to add to our list. It seems that Crypto brokers can easily take offshore / US clients and also that they can offer an additional set of scope for “new kind” of forex.

We know evolve.markets come in this category. I will research more. But for it to be relevant to this thread. The broker must accept US clients.

I have also seen that AVA Trade and GCI Trading both offer crypto trading BUT they DO NOT take US clients, so we should not discuss them in here.

@Clint : What do you think. Obviously this thread is your baby and we should not spam it with unrealated information. Should we be discussing crypto brokers in this thread ? Will you be willing to add them to your list of brokers ?

Thanks everyone for such valuable insights !

any forex broker that operate in the european union must be register with one of the recognize regulators, since turnkeyfx is a technology provider finpro is using them to hold clients money witch by pass having to register with a regulator.

Breaking: Google bans crypto and ICO ads, requires certification for Forex and CFD ads

In a new Google Adwords Advertising Policy blog post titled Financial Services: New restricted financial products policy (see full text below), online giant Google let the world know what had been speculated on for a while – that it was going to ban ads for cryptocurrencies, as part of its plan to ‘clean up’ digital advertising.

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Excellent news, but not great for this site.
Which brings me to ponder this. If ads are banned from all but certified bodies, what about ads on forums? Does this throw the onus onto forum owners to ensure ads they permit on their sites are also certified? If not, could a trader, who follows a link from a forum to an uncertified broker and subsequently gets scammed, take legal action against the forum owners for permitting such ads?

Interesting. I wish all the broker in switzerland will follow suit :relaxed:

If political instability is a problem in Macedonia, we can lay a major part of the blame for that on Obama, on U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia Jess Baily, and on George Soros.

In the March issue of the Judicial Watch magazine The Verdict, there is a scathing indictment of recent corruption and mismanagement of taxpayer money at USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development), including the disturbing information that Obama and Baily, in cahoots with Soros, actively carried out a program to destabilize the government of Macedonia.

Sounds reminiscent of Obama’s meddling in the Israeli elections, doesn’t it.

I have a print copy of The Verdict magazine, but I haven’t been able to access it online. So, I will type the last paragraph of the article into this post, as follows:

“USAID has committed other attrocities with public funds, and Judicial Watch has launched investigations to uncover details. In 2017, Judicial Watch obtained records showing that USAID spent millions of taxpayer dollars to destabilize the democratically elected, center-right government in Macedonia by colluding with leftwing billionaire philanthropist George Soros. The scheme was masterminded by Barack Obama’s U.S. ambassador to Macedonia, Jess L. Baily, who worked behind the scenes with Soros’ Open Society Foundation to funnel large sums of American dollars for the cause, constituting an interference of the U.S. ambassador in domestic political affairs in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Judicial Watch’s ongoing probe has, so far, revealed that USAID earmarked at least $9.5 million to intervene in the Balkan nation’s governmental affairs, which deviates from its mission of providing humanitarian assistance.”The Verdict, Corruption Chronicles, page 12.


Jess Baily is still U.S. Ambassodor to Macedonia. President Trump should kick his butt to the curb.


George Soros could make this world a better place – just by leaving it.

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ANY RELIEF FOR U.S. PERSONS USING OFFSHORE BROKERS ?

Does anyone see the recent work on rolling back Dodd Frank,
as having any meaningful impact on our Offshore Broker situation
for U.S. persons ?

I continue to work with FinProTrading.com and TurnkeyForex.com
but would like to see alternatives coming available…

hyperscalper

FINPROTRADING AND TURNKEYFOREX COMMISSION

Just to say these two brokers, who appear to share the same
market services provider TurnkeyFX.com , offer what appear to
be unbeatable commissions. However, you must verify the
commissions your account is being charged, and explicitly
request that you receive their lowest (publicly disclosed)
commission rates.

As for special commission levels, someone elsewhere on the
forum has stated his volume levels permit him to receive
even lower commission levels… But you’d have to spin the
dial a lot most likely in order to be able to negotiate even lower
commish. I’m hoping to do that a bit later this year…

One more thing, I’d like to emphasize that having accounts
with both of these brokers, may allow you some redundancy
and choice… As I’ve said before, the performance is certainly
the highest of the brokers we U.S. persons are able to use…

I know this sounds ridiculous, but I am able to make profitable
trades targeting a 2.8 PIP profit level, using some semi-automated
methods, etc. These low commissions mean that near-target
scalping is viable at these brokers, even if we would all prefer to
take much further targets in our trades.

hyperscalper

[EDIT] I thought I would just show a couple of scalp trades:
Ticket Open Time Type Size Item Price S / L T / P Close Time Price Commission Taxes Swap GrossProfit(before commission)
2292nnn 2018.03.20 17:25:07 buy 0.10 gbpjpy_ 149.031 0.000 0.000 2018.03.20 17:25:29 149.054 -0.28 0.00 0.00 2.16
2292nnn 2018.03.20 16:54:26 buy 0.10 gbpjpy_ 148.902 0.000 0.000 2018.03.20 17:02:10 148.947 -0.28 0.00 0.00 4.23

I’m not sure how well this will show up in the text (column-wise). This is the MetaTrader 4 format, so to get Net Profit, just add (negative) commission to the Gross Profit for the scalp… Denominated in dollars, with trade size 0.1 Lots Live test trades.

IG Group is re-entering US market.

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I just don’t buy that story. Brokers traded against clients before ECN’s
rationalized all of that.

Liquidity Providers take the opposite side of the Retail population 100%
of the time, and they win 100% of the time.

But how does that disadvantage the trader ? Unless the trader is scalping
for very small targets…

Effectively, Market Makers (in the modern sense of Liquidity Providers)
say to the ENTIRE RETAIL MARKET. Come what may, I will defeat all of you
in the short term for small scalps. But I cannot defeat those of you who
hold positions longer term, of which 50% will be winners, and 50% will
be losers. That’s how it works.

Retail short term traders are not given enough upside for Longs to profit,
and not given enough downside for Shorts to profit; for the average trader.

Those of us who do small scalps, with enough specialization and precision,
can be winners; but that is very difficult, both automation and data intensive.

Anybody else dare to chime in on this one?

hyperscalper


I think what @MarcinFX was trying to say is that most retail brokers claiming ECN are not really ECN. In theory, an honest “hybrid” (simultaneous a/b book) is supposed to give you STP execution conditions without any artificial interference that will bust your account.

But it is a question of trust. Who do you trust to actually send your orders to the “real” market? Who can give you fix trade receipts and such when you have a problem or want to check execution. Can customize your price feed and regularly monitors LPs for misbehavior.

I would think by now the retail community would mature beyond 0.1-0.2 pip spread differences being the deciding factor in choosing a broker.


Hello @HyperScalper , I totally disagree with Marcin infact I disagree with a lot of things that he has been saying over last few threads. For example the so called V20 engine that trades under 1 MS because its technically Not possible, unless Oanda has found a way to send orders at a speed faster than light and have the communication messages processed at a speed even faster than that :open_mouth:

He is claiming that brokers can NOT survuve unless they take the opposite side of the trades, so essentially that means ALL the surviving brokers take opposite side of the trades (which would mean a cummulative opposite trades of over $4 trillion per day across all the broker community combined !!! ). Lets assume that IT IS TRUE for a minute , So where is the volume on all these dark pools and exchanges coming from ??? if that is not coming from traders, is it coming from outer space ? (sorry to be so extreme, but how else do we understand or critically reason extreme assertion ? ).

I can go on an on about how each one of marcin’s statements did not make any sense from any angle, but IM NOT WILLING TO SHARE MY PRIVATE MYFXBOOK PERFORMANCE with him to gain his respect.

@whywescalp Similar response. Retail forex brokers 99% of them who claim to have “ECN” liquidity are either bucketshop OR running a hybrid A/B book. Not to say that hybrid is a bad thing. But running a pure A-book model is difficult to do unless you have high volume clients. As long as the broker executes all orders without any interference, then theoretically there is no difference. It’s a matter of trust…In order to trade with a market maker, you must have clear execution rules, order cancellation policies, etc. But it is too tempting to simply renege on a deal when it is unfavorable to the broker.

And 1ms trading is possible, but only via 100% automation and co-location. Your VPS needs to be in the same datacenter as the broker. But the above avg retail trader (automated) should be able to deal with up to 20-200ms queue times. Exchanges do microsecond execution.


btw, I briefly looked into TurnKey Fx and FinPro Trading. Glad I’m not restricted to these offshore disasters. I would look into removing my deposit as fast as possible. You are much safer with Oanda or Gain Capital in one of the major jurisdictions (US, UK, Au, Singapore); at least they would likely actually segregate your money. You’d get your deposit as needed.

Lets do a simple math.

Lets say a bucket shop broker who has about 100 active clients where in every client is trading approx 10 lots per day (20 lots buy + sell). To me that sounds like a small shope who is on the verge of not being able to survive.

Now lets say this bucket shop is trying to compete with larger brokers and gives a very low commission just like our top brokers. Lets assume commission is $2 per lot ($4 round trip)

SO, with just these 100 small traders, trading over 20 trading days in a month the broker will make

Average Number of Lots Per day * 2 * Number of clients * Number of days in a month

SO your maths will be

10 * 2 * 2 * 100 * 20 ===> $ 80,000 per month

So effectively a very small bucket shop will make approx $80,000 USD per month with just 100 active clients paying $2 per lot per side trading just 10 lots per day

Assuming the bucket shop becomes technically good and starts to charge a premium commission of $5 per lot instead of $2. Everything else remaining the same, the theoretical profit of this bucket shop is now $200,000 per month.

Well, to me that sounds like a lot of money to keep running a bucket shop.

Now, assuming that this broker only wants to make money from his clients losses.

Average balance required to trade 10 lots per day will be (very very conservatively) $5000.

So if all the clients loose money the broker will make $500,000. But if he runs a A book he will make $200,000 per month.

I see it as a no-brainer, why smaller bucket shops will not follow a pure A book as that will be a longer term winning proposition. Unless we are talking about shady and crooked brokers who kill their clients will slippages and order rejections techniques.

My suggestion, instead of following consiparacy theories. We should rather focus on quality brokers who have a track record of execution, speed and withdrawals.

There is no gurantee that your “Regulated” broker will not go bankrupt. Think Lehman, Man Financial, MF GLobal etc etc etc etc etc… What did the investors get back from them ? So… why do we pay a premium to deal with them ?

Yes it is true that invetors get lower leverage, higher spreads, higher commissions rates, lower (or NO) client support because essentially daddy CFTC wants us to deal with monopolistic economy where their lobby is happier than their citizens.

Any reason to intentionally bring up the US Person affiliation when the applicant is opening the acct?

SHIFT DEBIT CARD LINKED TO COINBASE BTC WALLET

OK, this is not advertising, but just an observation that if you are using
Crypto to transfer funds, and you hold BTC at Coinbase you just pulled from one
of your trading accounts, then there is a Shift Debit Card which
can be linked via Partnership with Coinbase, which will Debit from
your Coinbase BTC wallet at any point of purchase at the "spot"
price for USD against BTC… If you can figure out how to do it,
then it ping pongs betweeen Coinbase and Shift to set up the
debit card. Just FYI, I set one up myself, but “Caveat Emptor” LOL

After setup fees for the card $10 I think, and issuance of
the actual PLASTIC card, they charge no fees for most transactions.
I think you may even be able to use it without the physical PLASTIC via Shift’s
API, not sure, but look that up for yourself though…
https://www.shiftpayments.com/ shows a sample API request…
fairly “futuristic” I’d say …

hyperscalper

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MY POST ON DEBIT CARD CONNECTION TO BTC

has apparently been “hidden” as “off-topic”. It’s possible
for it to be fairly judged as “off-topic” but the intent
was to address the convenience of using Cryptos
as a “funds transfer mechanism” which is one of
the primary impediments to U.S. persons, when
working with offshore brokers.

Restrictions imposed by CFTC and related government
agencies on “funds tranfer” to/from Offshore brokers,
is the main reason I would post a Crypto related
topic in this forum. It is a way to more "smoothly’
transfer funds, outside of the traditional funds
transfer mechanisms.

I don’t mind if moderators want to hide it, but the purpose
is to provide information on “smoother” methods of
transferring funds between U.S. persons’ dollar
denominated activities, and their Offshore brokerage
accounts, which is the main focus of this forum thread.

There are certainly other crypto related posts in this thread,
and I continue to assume these are to increase awareness
that Cryptos are an efficient funds transfer mechanism
for U.S. persons having difficulty or inconvenience transferring
funds to/from their legitimate offshore brokerage accounts…

The increasing availability of crypto transfer mechanisms is an
effective way to mitigate regulatory over-reach which we
as U.S. persons experience in funds transfer… In my view…

Could be a “feeble justification” but that’s why I posted
the info…

hyperscalper

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HyperScalper,

Like you, I was surprised that your post was flagged. It was completely “on topic” in this thread. Money-transfers can be problematic in dealing with offshore brokers, and the use of cryptocurrencies to facilitate those transfers is a subject we have discussed at length in this thread, and will continue to discuss.

I will refrain from a full rant on the subject of “flagging”, and instead simply re-post (as a quote) what was “temporarily hidden”.

First time posting on here, but longtime FX trader. Just finished reading all the comments about CCM. Are there any updates from y’all?

Here’s the status from my end. I was originally with Tallinex and was pushed into CCM because of the whole US client thing. Been with them ever since without much issue. Now I have both personal and PAMM accounts with them (investor accounts I manage). I realize most the issues investors talked about happened last year. I had investors deposit money (via wire transfer) without issue, and I even withdrew $5k in January '18 without issue. But now I’ve got problems. I requested to withdraw an additional $5k in February and have yet to receive it (almost 2 months at this point!). I contacted them earlier this month and this was the reply (I have another response, but can only post 1 pic since I’m a “new user”):

Also, my contact for managed accounts has stopped communicating. For me this only reached an alarming stage today and I’m considering halting further investing (I have investors set to deposit funds with CCM) until my funds go through and some sense of surety is restored. After reading through here and re-reading CCM’s responses I don’t think I’ll trust them any more for now. I believe I’ll move to another broker like Finpro Trading (since they offer PAMM accounts).

This is all a huge inconvenience for me a disheartening as I don’t want to scare of my new investors.

Would be interested to know others’ recent experiences or update about CCM.

Cheers!

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Hello, FinancialWorld, welcome to this thread.

Two-and-a-half years lurking on this forum, eh? – Well, I’m glad you’ve decided to come out of the shadows :grinning:

Thanks for posting about your situation with CCM. If I understand it correctly, the banking problem you have described is a new problem, separate and distinct from the deposit scandal reported by several of our members five or six months ago. And I find this to be alarming.

The two problems taken together seem to indicate that CCM cannot be trusted to handle customer money.

Like you, I’ve been wondering whether any of our members who were caught up in the deposit scandal have received restitution from CCM. We haven’t heard from those members for a long time. So, if you guys are tuned in, this is my request for information on your current situation,
vis-a-vis CCM.

FW (I’m going to call you that), please keep us updated on your dealings with CCM.

I think that the outcome of this latest CCM fubar will determine whether we keep them on our List.

Thank you Clint! haha yes FW is fine.

Yes, this is a new problem. I’m trying to remain optimistic, but maybe that’s because I haven’t lost all my money yet. I am in contact again with my PAMM account manager and am pressuring the need for answers, quick resolution, and something to restore my faith in CCM.

As it stands right now, the issue appears to have always been the banking intermediary (even for the deposit scandal). Pretty sure they’ve changed intermediaries a couple times over the last few years, but I don’t have record of this. But back to topic, my first priority is to understand what’s going on, see if my withdrawal can be processed (which would partially restore my faith in CCM), and if that isn’t possible right now to get the funds re-issued to my account (because they shouldn’t have left the company). I’ll let you all know what happens, and will keep an eye on the thread to see others’ updates.

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Here’s the most recent response I’ve receive from CCM about my withdrawal – which has been in “Pending Wire Transfer” mode since Feb 22.

[CCM response]

Hello xxxxxx,

The information I sent you in the previous e-mail was received from our accounting department. They will contact you as soon as they have any updates, but it may take more than 24 hours.

There are currently some issues with our bank, because since they have changed their internal policies they are requesting additional information/documentation from us in order to process the withdrawals. It means that the withdrawals are taking now longer then usual, as these additional verifications take time. However the withdrawals are being processed, just not as fast as before. That’s why your withdrawal is still in queue. However, we expect this issue to be resolved soon. And as soon as our billing department has some news/updates from the bank they will let you know.

I remain optimistic, but am concerned on why this has taken so long. Will hopefully have a concrete answer from CCM accounting within the next 24hrs.

CCM TECHNICAL OFFERINGS ARE NOT COMPETITIVE ANYWAY

Last time I evaluated their technicals, i.e. Bid/Ask spread, Commission,
etc. Capital City Markets was clearly uncompetitive anyway…

I would hold TurnkeyForex.com and FinProTrading.com as the
most highly competitive offerings which U.S. traders can access…
Of course I speak only for Forex…

And, of course, Cryptos can be used as funds transfer mechanisms
for those two brokers…

hyperscalper