Oh, that seems to be a good one. I can’t recall if they had that on their FAQ section before. Has this been recently added? 
Hey, SLS
Thanks for that update. It’s good to have SmartTrade back among the Good Guys.
I wonder why they keep flip-flopping on the issue of U.S. clients?
Initially, they were in Group 1 of our List (the Good Guys). Then, they reversed their policy — see here and here.
Now, they’ve reversed again. I hope the change is permanent this time.
I’ll update the List in a day or two, removing all the old red ink, and adding SmartTradeFX to Group 1 (again).
Edit — update has been done.
Thank You Clint for this thread, I have been following all the posts for a while and while researching the brokers, I recently found that ForexBrokerInc.com, who is on the list already for brokers that is accepting US customers, and is offering a 100% welcome bonus to all new depositors til August 2nd. Thank you all for sharing.
Signed into BP for the first time in months and months just to check this thread. Thanks for keeping up with it Clint and for the contributions of everybody else.
Welcome to this thread. I’m glad that you find it to be useful.
It’s good to hear from you, Tim. I hope that all is well with you and your family.
Hello, guys
I’d like to ask your opinion on a new broker — Forex Nation — and specifically on whether we should include this broker (and others of the same type) in our List of Offshore Brokers. Here are the details:
About two weeks ago, a representative of Forex Nation posted for the first time on this forum. Here’s a link to their thread.
Forex Nation is different from the other brokers we have vetted on this thread, in two ways:
B[/B] they are domiciled offshore (in Australia), but they are registered with the CFTC and the NFA (here in the U.S.), and they are fully CFTC/NFA compliant regarding leverage restrictions, the FIFO requirement, and the prohibition against hedging; and
B[/B] they are a not-for-profit business — donating all profits to charity.
You might like Forex Nation for their charitable work; however, that aspect of their business model has no bearing on whether they belong on our List. Their CFTC/NFA compliance, on the other hand, is something we should talk about.
Three years ago, when we launched this thread, and started looking for “offshore” brokers, we sort of defined “offshore” as “outside U.S. territory, and beyond the reach of U.S. regulators”. Forex Nation clearly is not beyond the reach of U.S. regulators, and is not a place where we can “escape the CFTC”.
So, should we consider Forex Nation for our List, or not?
Apparently, AxiTrader (with whom Forex Nation is affilitated) is now in the same posture vis-a-vis the CFTC and NFA, as is Forex Nation. You may recall that AxiTrader (Australia) was originally in Group 1 of our List. Then they stopped doing business with U.S. residents, and we moved them to Group 2. Now, they once again welcome U.S. residents in CFTC/NFA compliant accounts through a subsidiary called AxiTraderUSA.
So, whatever decision we make regarding Forex Nation will logically apply to AxiTraderUSA, as well.
Please post your comments on this issue. I will not take any action to add Forex Nation or AxiTraderUSA to our List, unless a majority of the participants on this thread are in favor of doing so. I await your feedback.
Clint et al.
The reason that we all came to this thread and stayed was to fix a problem, that problem was 1, US tyranny 2, the ability to continue to use the trading systems that we choose. Advocating brokers that compromise these goals (of a sort) would only tend to confuse the issue. There is nothing wrong with US brokers, IBFX would be my broker of choice if I wasn’t forced to go off shore back in 2009.
For those that may not know the whole story, it briefly goes like this. In April of 2008, I started one of our new mathematical programs on an IBFX mini account to see how well it would do. It was designed to not lose trades using a simple matrix or grid but modified, (don’t confuse the old style grid systems with the GoldenGrid system, not the same).
If you remember 2008, it was nothing but volatility, a similar program today makes just over 12% annually but in 2008 we made over 300% and didn’t lose a trade except for one for 8 cents during a power outage. That evidently got someone’s attention and by the fall of 2008 we began to hear about FIFO. I called the NFA as I had a lot to lose by this new restriction. They apologized but she also said that the new restrictions would help a lot more traders than it would hurt, this was at the so called information gathering stage before they were to make up their minds. This is when I learned about the hedging restriction, the other component of RoboMiner, as the program was called back then.
I was all proud of our accomplishments, over 3000 trades with no losses, I never imagined anything like this could ever happen. Serious depression took over when I realized that I had evidently spooked some banker that had the ear of Barney Frank of the Dodd/Frank bill and all my work had hit the US government wall. Ever since then, when we talk about government sanctioned brokers, I take the view that we should have as little to do with investing in the US as possible. I suggest an off shore IBC as an international identity but I am concerned enough about the other actions of the government that I am physically moving my family offshore.
So you can see from my experience that I am somewhat biased but honestly, I’m hoping that others will also pick up that bias and do what ever little that they can to hinder the tyranny in what ever way they can. OK, I’m off my soap box now.
But if these restrictions have in anyway hurt anyone, besides me, I am profoundly sorry, and I am sorry that I didn’t see it coming.
See you offshore.
Bob
Hey Clint, I would agree with forex assistant and not include any broker who is within the reach of US regulatory stupidity. They have no place being in the offshore thread.
Forex Assistant, Not to worry - our pain is only a sign we need to change what we’re doing. Offshore life is great. Amazing discoveries await you and your family… Having lived the last 11 years in the ‘other Americas’, I’ve found that trading-freedom is just one of many freedoms available to me. The borders of the ‘New World’ seem to have moved!
Clint, My vote goes to continuing to focus the list on offshore brokers.
Thanks for your comments, guys.
While we’re on this subject, do you guys have a problem with [B]Investors Europe (Gibraltar) — [/B] due to their restricting U.S. residents to [U]50:1 leverage in compliance with U.S. regulations[/U]?
As you probably recall, Investors Europe has been included in Group 1 of our List for almost 2 years. Initially, they treated U.S. residents just like any other citizens of the world. But, then (more than a year ago) they put us in a special category, as described in the blurb, below.
Here’s a copy and paste from one of their webpages (I bolded the last sentence for emphasis).
US Clients
A ‘U.S. Person’ is defined as one who is permanently resident inside the USA.
The SEC’s interpretation of U.S. federal securities laws limits Non U.S. Broker-Dealers to working with those permanently resident outside the USA. Non U.S. broker-dealers cannot approach and/ or solicit U.S. resident persons because an Internet Web site is interpreted by the SEC as being the same as a telephone call to a client. Non U.S. broker-dealers maintaining an Internet Web site can thus only accept a U.S. person if he or she has not been solicited either directly or indirectly through accessing their web sites under the ‘unsolicited’ exemption Rule 15a-6. U.S. customers wanting to work with Non U.S. broker-dealers can thus only approach Non U.S. broker-dealers under Rule 15a-6 if they have not been to their web sites and should be prepared to certify this fact in writing to ensure compliance with applicable law. [B]Accepted unsolicited U.S clients may only be offered 50/1 leverage in compliance with U.S regulations.[/B]
Please weigh in on whether we should keep Investors Europe in Group 1.
The business entity Investors Europe is junk and should be demoted to Group 2 since they are unwilling or unable to resist the unfair 50:1 leverage limit demanded by our national half black, abortion loving, homosexuality tolerant leader. The only exception where this broker could be considered decent is if your individual trades involve many millions of dollars. In that case all brokers are forced to drastically cut leverage since the banks cannot safely lend many hundreds of millions, especially billions of dollars on individual, unsecured trades, to my knowledge.
I personally have a problem with any laws that singles out one group of people from another, has something to do with morality I think, but IE has such bad customer service that I dropped them even before they dropped Americans. I actually thought that they had dropped forex all together at one point as we couldn’t even get their mt4, but if they are back up then I would go slow with that bunch.
Clint,
As many others would agree, I do have to say this is one of the most informational and beneficial threads on all of the internet. Just wanted to give you my thanks for your diligence and hard work for the cause. As an update, I was playing around on SHK Direct’s website, and sure enough, it looks like they’re no longer accepting US clients. The very first question on the FAQ page is “Do we accept US clients? - No.” I guess it doesn’t get any more clear than that.
Thanks for a clear and unambiguous answer to my question, compounder.
Thanks, Bob. I’ll take that as a [I]“no, we should not keep Investors Europe in Group 1”.[/I]
Thanks for the bad news, FXPatriot. I’ve confirmed your information, and SHK will be booted out of Group 1.
Welcome to the Babypips forum, and welcome to this thread, by the way!
Excuse me for possible “newbie” question, but is it common for broker to be non-profit? Isn’t it against the premise of such business as brokerage service?
Not common for sure, but I noticed something similar on SmartTradeFX’s Who We Are page…
“Most of our earnings goes to charities to help families in need with their day-to-day living.”
Not exactly non-profit, but still kind of cool.
So far, the consensus on this thread seems to be:
• keep brokers such as Forex Nation off our List, because of their compliance with CFTC regulations
• remove Investors Europe from our List for the same reason
If this consensus does not change in the next few days, I will remove [B]Investors Europe (Gibraltar)[/B] from the List.
At the same time, I will move [B]SHK Direct (Hong Kong)[/B] to Group 2, because they no longer accept U.S. clients.
In the meantime, if anyone else has comments on these proposed changes, please post them now.
Edit — 7/30/13 — the List has been updated with the changes outlined above.
Clint, thanks for raising Forex Nation with your people. If anything changes with our setup and ability to serve US citizens off-shore I’ll furnish you the details.
DuEtMatt, let me clarify the not-for-profit conundrum for you. No it’s not common, in fact extensive searching shows that while some brokers make donations to charities, Forex Nation is the first to be “not-for-profit”, meaning ALL our profits go to charity. By Australian commonwealth law and by the regulation of the ACNC, Australia’s Not-For-Profit and Charities Commission, a not-for-profit company can GENERATE profit as long as they USE it for charitable purposes. In addition, a not-for-profit company cannot provide any financial distribution to the company owners or employees beyond their board-approved salary. Directors of a not-for-profit company cannot be paid any fees at all for their service. We at Forex Nation hope this type of not-for-profit becomes much more common. There’s simply enough to share and we think it’s time to do so.
How about an honourable mention…? 
Great thread. Trade up a storm this week guys. Dan