Going offshore to escape the CFTC

Broker Discussion Forex Brokers
4375

It really does not make any difference. If you see that so called “RED List” has brokers on it, that were added to red list a couple of years ago and are still operating normally. I personally wouldn’t read much into it

If the bank that you are sending money to if based in a major country and its a tier 1 bank then you really dont need much to worry about. If the broker is asking you to send money in Syria (for example) to a bank like AZBZCZ Bank then there is a problem.

Typically, based on my experience, it will be an inbetween situation, where either you are sending money to a tier-2 bank in a EU country or to a Tier-1 Bank in “Safe Haven” Islands or some sort of a combination of it.

Its really a catch 22 situation, if you think about it. We need an offshore broker BUT an Onshore bank (preferably a tier 1 bank). Which is almost a rare thing and if it is, it wont last for very long for all the obvious reasons. In a way we want an offshore broker to act and operate like a regulated broker but still be able to circumvent the rules of leverage and give us the cost advantage (read spread) that can make Oanda’s of the world wonder.

Think about this:

Even Lehman went broke, worse was MAN Financial, MF Global. Tier-1 onshore brokers with global presence, rated AAA (atleast during the good times) and went bankrupt because their management decided to do things that were not within the authorised activity.

To make things worse, technically speaking even your Fixed Deposits (or CD’s) are risky and subject you to the credit risk of the issuing institution. And think about treasuries, they get called soverign risk.

As per CAPM (capital asset pricing model), US treasuries are considered risk free and all the calculations for risk premia are based on it. US defaulted on its obligations in Aug- 2010 (my dates might be a little off) because of the debt ceiling, so even soverign risk isnt “Risk free”. Some call this black swan event, some call it tail risk while others just call it Risk.

Sorry for all my the emotions flowing over Risk and subject of risk. I think we are traders and our goal is to take risk so we can beat inflation in the long run and can make some money on our portfolio.

Technically, diversification is the key. Weather you are investing or choosing a broker or putting your money in the bank. Dont stick with Just one Broker. Diversify. These days you can easily get EA’s that will copy your trades realtime on multiple MT4 account, so whatever you trade on one broker will automatically get copied on another broker, so there is really not much disadvantage in diversifying. I would not keep all my money at one broker. However, I will still STICK with Clint’s A list because it has over 6 years of research into it and more than a few thousand comments contributing to the crux of the analysis.

On a lighter note, happy trading :slight_smile:

4376

Thanks guys part of my concern was just trying to get info on them and running across people saying they got robbed and shot/ stabbed and everything else.
part of you starts to get sketched out but at the same time you try not to paint with a wide brush when it comes to bad feedback.

its either that or fall prey to the EVIL horde and their 1:50 leverage rules and 4 pip spreads haha

gotta stay in the fight like my guy clint says would say!

guess i gotta learn to be comfortable with the unregulated’s

4377

I’ve been trading with Tradersway for the past couple of years and haven’t had any issues with them at all. Deposits and withdrawals have all been seemless and top notch support.

I’ve also had an account with FXChoice for Ngas, Oil and Gold, which I dropped due to poor support and to many oddities on their feeds.

I switched to Finpro and so far very impressed with heir support and feeds. Margin requirements for commodities are awesome and spreads are tight.

4378

Thanks for researching whywescalp!

Thanks Clint for adding bitcoins to the broker list. :35:

4379

i got this infor from forexpeacearmy about finpro Finpro Trading | Forex Brokers Reviews | Forex Peace Army

4380

Hello All,

I am Michael from United States and have been looking on this thread for long. I really appreciate all the efforts Clint and everybody is putting up to enlighten people. I want to open up a corporate account with a few 100 thousands. My friend who is a fund manager will be managing the funds on my behalf. Basically his strategy works only with a good leverage like 200x and he will be employing a lot of EAs triggering large number of trades. So I am looking for a broker offering corporate account with good leverage and phenomenal execution speed and maybe I will be getting an API too for that but that’s not much of a priority for now. There are many good brokers listed in A list of brokers by Clint but I am bit confused who to choose as I will be opening a corporate account with a big fund size. I can see active conversation going on about good offshore brokers but my very first question is that is it really that simple to open up a corporate account as well just like you can open up an individual account with any offshore broker meeting all your trading requirements. As you need to comply with more formalities in case of corporate account. It will be really helpful if someone can guide me over this and help me choosing the best broker.

Cheers!
Michael :slight_smile:

4381

You might have a large enough deposit to work out a special deal. When all my accounts were being closed, I would ask each brokerage what I could do to continue trading with them. The answer was to set up an account totaling millions.
If your account size is large enough, brokers might be inclined to do all the accounting and fill out all the paperwork required of them to do business with a US citizen.
With an account int the hundreds of thousands, you [I]might[/I] be able to set up an account in the EU, for example. I’m an individual trader with less funds than this, so have not researched any further into it. Good luck!

4382

IMO If you have that much to invest then you’re better off going straight to currency futures, with either AMPFutures or Stage5trading

4383

For the “Pro” accounts MT4 ECN at FXChoice, meaning
that commission is not included within the variable spread, here
is a quick analysis of their pricing for the Forex pairs.

This data is about 2pm EDT in the U.S. so markets are
quiet, and one would expect wider spreads. The pricing
is very good.

As for execution times, I’ll post something on that later, but
I have observed fairly quick execution so far.

hyperscalper


symbol min , avg , max spread pips
AUDCAD, 1.2 , 1.5 , 1.8 ##
AUDCHF, 1.5 , 1.7 , 1.9 ##
AUDJPY, 1.5 , 1.7 , 1.9 ##
AUDNZD, 1.3 , 1.6 , 1.8 ##
AUDUSD, 0.9 , 1.1 , 1.3 #
CADCHF, 1.4 , 1.6 , 1.8 ##
CADJPY, 1.6 , 1.7 , 1.8 ##
CHFJPY, 1.1 , 1.4 , 1.6 #
EURAUD, 1.8 , 2.1 , 2.4 ##
EURCAD, 0.8 , 1.2 , 1.6 #
EURCHF, 0.7 , 1.0 , 1.2 #
EURGBP, 0.6 , 0.8 , 1.0 #
EURJPY, 0.8 , 0.9 , 1.0 #
EURNZD, 1.7 , 2.2 , 2.6 ##
EURUSD, 0.5 , 0.5 , 0.7 #
GBPAUD, 1.2 , 2.0 , 2.6 ##
GBPCAD, 1.8 , 2.3 , 3.0 ##
GBPCHF, 1.1 , 1.5 , 1.9 #
GBPJPY, 1.3 , 1.6 , 1.8 ##
GBPNZD, 1.7 , 2.8 , 3.6 ###
GBPUSD, 0.6 , 0.9 , 1.0 #
NZDCAD, 3.1 , 3.4 , 3.8 ###
NZDCHF, 3.7 , 3.8 , 3.9 ####
NZDJPY, 3.2 , 3.3 , 3.5 ###
NZDUSD, 1.7 , 1.8 , 2.0 ##
USDCAD, 0.8 , 1.1 , 1.3 #
USDCHF, 0.6 , 0.8 , 1.0 #
USDJPY, 0.6 , 0.8 , 1.0 #
4384

Tradersway.com website is down. Anyone know if this is temporary server issue or if this broker is closed? I have been unable to contact anyone from this company.

4385

DISCLAIMER: There have been those who suggest BitCoin could
be part of a solution to restrictions. I ran across a discusson
here:
https://www.forexfactory.com/printthread.php?t=625871
…in which there were references to this BabyPips thread,
but also a mention by “psperos” of Evolve Markets - Trade Forex, CFDs, Commodities, Indices and Crypto with Bitcoin
where funding is entirely in BIT (aka BitCoin). So I set up
an account (unfunded) and switched it from the “Classic” to
the “Pro” status as suggested.

I hooked up our software, layered on NJ4X.com to MT4, and measured
the incoming Live Forex feed, so here it is. Please keep in mind that I know
nothing about this broker, but you can see for yourself that
the pricing is quite impressive. Again, this is a “slow” time,
about 4pm EDT on a Thursday.

So, FWIW, here are the initial stats and the spreads can be
quite amazing. I’m not making any further claims, and not
recommending anything either, but it has piqued my interest.

I can only say that, so far, there has been no information
requested as to my nationality, nor residence status. So
I think that means they accept U.S. persons. That’s all I
know so far… Caveat emptor, or whatever…

Naturally, if you do deal in BIT (BitCoin) then you are subject
to exchange fluctuations against your home currency; but
that is, perhaps, another “level” of “trading” that you could
achieve, also playing that exchange rate and timing when you
perform those funding/withdrawal conversions;
but I DIGRESS seriously here… LOL

hyperscalper


symbol min , avg , max spread pips
AUDCAD, 0.8 , 1.0 , 1.3 #
AUDCHF, 0.8 , 1.0 , 1.0 #
AUDJPY, 0.9 , 1.1 , 1.3 #
AUDNZD, 0.7 , 0.9 , 1.3 #
AUDUSD, 0.2 , 0.7 , 1.0 #
CADCHF, 0.6 , 0.9 , 1.0 #
CADJPY, 0.7 , 1.0 , 1.1 #
CHFJPY, 0.9 , 1.1 , 1.3 #
EURAUD, 1.0 , 1.5 , 2.1 #
EURCAD, 1.0 , 1.3 , 1.9 #
EURCHF, 0.4 , 0.7 , 1.0 #
EURGBP, 0.4 , 0.8 , 1.0 #
EURJPY, 0.2 , 0.3 , 0.5 
EURNZD, 1.0 , 1.7 , 2.6 ##
EURUSD, 0.1 , 0.7 , 1.0 #
GBPAUD, 1.0 , 3.6 , 4.0 ####
GBPCAD, 1.0 , 1.8 , 2.4 ##
GBPCHF, 1.0 , 1.6 , 2.4 ##
GBPJPY, 1.0 , 1.4 , 1.7 #
GBPNZD, 1.0 , 3.7 , 4.9 ####
GBPUSD, 0.6 , 0.9 , 1.0 #
NZDCAD, 1.0 , 1.3 , 1.7 #
NZDCHF, 1.0 , 1.2 , 1.5 #
NZDJPY, 0.6 , 1.0 , 1.2 #
NZDUSD, 0.7 , 0.9 , 1.0 #
USDCAD, 0.5 , 0.9 , 1.0 #
USDCHF, 0.1 , 0.7 , 0.2 #
USDJPY, 0.1 , 0.4 , 1.0
4386

If you are using a broker like 1broker that keeps your account in BTC, then the volatility of BTC does not affect your margin. Your BTC might be worth more or less in your home currency, sure, but your margin requirements are in BTC, not USD or EUR or whatever.

(And hello, everyone, first-time poster. Been following this thread for a few months as I dip into Forex. The information here has been invaluable to me as I close in on actually finally entering the market for real. Honestly it seems like finding the right broker has been harder than finding a decent trading strategy!)

4387

Interesting post, HS.

I know very little about Bitcoin, and even less about this broker. But, I’m intrigued.

There’s interesting information on their FAQ page, which can be viewed HERE.

Guys, take a look at this broker – [B]Evolve Markets[/B] (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines)

– and join the discussion, if this interests you.

.

4388

Your information is correct.

I’m glad that this thread has been useful to you.

Welcome to the forum, and welcome to this thread. I look forward to your participation.

.

4389

Simplefx.com has a similar setup with MT4 integration as well.

4390

Bitcoin is an interesting topic and gaining traction at many fronts. I think it will shape up how offshore brokers operate and how you can simply forget the restriction posed upon us by our motherland and its political lobbyists who keep corporate democracy at bay.

Sharing what I know about BitCoins and BitCoin brokers

Why Bitcoins ?

Bitcoins is a decentralized peer to peer money that is honored by various exchanges (bitcoin exchanges) and it can be converted into any currency at any time (even on weekends)

Why is it so hyped and so important ?

There are many reasons for it, but for the sake of this post I will hit on the few most important of them

  1. Because its a decentralized money and not controlled or regulated by any regulator, its is not under the purview of AML (anti money laundering policies and “Enforced KYC” policies) and hence regulators can not stop anyone from sending bitcoins to anyone else in the world. It is (atlast till now) partially anonymous. Which means that you don’t break any law when you send Bitcoins across the borders because you technically didn’t send Money but a digital asset. Just like you send an email across the borders without breaking any rules. Since its not Money and not under the authority of Central Banks, CFTC can not put their nose in when you use them for forex trading.

  2. Because it’s instant and does not have any cost. Technically Im able to send bitcoins (or USD equivalent Bitcoins) worth 1 Million USD or 1 USD by paying 22 cents ONLY.

  3. You can use your bitcoins to shop directly on Amazon.com overstock.com (and many more), its just as good a money. Or you can convert them into your respective local currency at the click of a button provided you have an account at a bitcoin exchange or with any website that acts as a bitcoin converter. I have listed a few of the websites that you can use to convert your local currency into bitcoins and vice versa.

NOW MOST IMPORTANT

Bitcoin is a latest currency and still in its infant stages. That means its value can go down to Zero or can go to the moon. There is no guarantee about its future value, infact it moves up and down by 20% in matter of days. So it is NOT advisable to keep your savings or your brokerage accounts in Bitcoins.

A major consideration when thinking about BitCoin Brokers: You should NOT take risk on Bitcoins with your broker. Your broker should be able to convert Bitcoins into your native currency and your account should be denominated in your local currency. For example, if you are a US trader and you send 10 Bitcoins to your broker worth 15,000 USD, your brokerage account should show 15,000 USD and NOT 10 BTC

The reason I say so is because Bitcoins can move wildly in one direction or another. If your brokerage account is denominated in BTC, then your margin utilization will fluctuate, even if your positions are not moving.

Lets take a hypothetical scenario. Say you have 10,000 USD in your account and your account is denominated in BTC. If your positions move 1% in your favor BUT the bitcoins depreciated by 10% (like I said, it can move 10% up and down easily) you will be losing money on your account and not making money. It has a compounding risk effect on your portfolio.

So either you not time your trade based on Bitcoins’s value + value of the currency that you are trading or you simply subject your portfolio to the wills of the God or that of Bitcoin value.

CRUX :

  1. So you should ONLY use bitcoins to Fund your trading account BUT should not keep your account balance in BTC.

  2. Your broker should be able to give your deposit in your local currency based on how many bitcoins you send them

  3. When withdrawing, your broker should give you the option of receiving Bitcoins or fiat money in your bank account if you have made the deposit in bitcoins.

  4. Most importantly if you are still not comfortable or versatile about the new Bitcoin economy. Get comfortable. It is totally worth it.

I’m not here to promote any specific bitcoin exchange or any specific bitcoin broker but I have reasonable experience in dealing with bitcoins and I see the advantage of doing so

To help those who are new to bitcoins, based on the info I have so far:

Here are the exchanges (regulated ones) that will open your account and let you buy and sell bitcoins for your local currency and let you freely move your bitcoins to any bitcoin address

  1. coinbase.com
  2. coinmama.com
  3. localbitcoins.com
  4. bitstamp.net
  5. paxful.com

here are the brokers that accept bitcoins and will give you account in your local currency (the preferred way)

  1. finprotrading.com
  2. fxglory.com
  3. tradersway.com
  4. fxchoice.com
  5. adamantfinance.com
  6. lqdfx.com

Here are the brokers that accept bitcoins but will give you account denominated in BTC (the Not so preferred way)

  1. whaleclub.com
  2. pigtree.com
  3. evolve.markets

To make things more sensible [read easy], Start to think about Bitcoins as your email. Its an address (like an email address or a bank account number to hold your monetary value). And sending money from one bitcoin address to another is similar to sending an email or doing a wire-transfer just without the need of a bank.

I have added whatever little experience I have so far and I will keep adding my thoughts to it. I believe it is relevant to this thread because (i believe) it makes our life way better in avoiding CFTC and banking nuisances if we use bitcoins. I hope this helps :slight_smile:

4391

Hi,

So I acquired some BTC via Coinbase and
funded a Live account with Evolve Markets
with close to $50 as a test. So far, things
are smooth and they definitely do not appear
to discriminate against nor to specifically
identify U.S. persons.

One nice thing, in addition to pricing, is that
the MT4 platform’s time is actually GMT !!!
Makes it easier, as so many MT4 platforms
have GMT+X as their charting times…

Just some more Bid/Ask spread data taken
during a “quiet” Friday morning at noon EDT…

More next week. Yes, also I am aware of SimpleFX
but do not know their pricing; it would be hard
to beat the Evolve pricing…

hyperscalper


symbol min , avg , max spread pips
AUDCAD, 0.7 , 1.1 , 1.3 #
AUDCHF, 0.7 , 0.9 , 1.0 #
AUDJPY, 0.8 , 1.1 , 1.3 #
AUDNZD, 0.9 , 1.2 , 1.4 #
AUDUSD, 0.2 , 0.5 , 0.6 
CADCHF, 0.5 , 0.8 , 1.0 #
CADJPY, 0.6 , 0.8 , 1.0 #
CHFJPY, 0.8 , 1.0 , 1.2 #
EURAUD, 1.5 , 1.8 , 2.1 ##
EURCAD, 0.7 , 1.3 , 1.7 #
EURCHF, 0.5 , 0.6 , 0.8 #
EURGBP, 0.1 , 0.3 , 0.5 
EURJPY, 0.1 , 0.4 , 0.6 
EURNZD, 1.2 , 1.7 , 2.0 ##
EURUSD, 0.1 , 0.1 , 0.1 
GBPAUD, 2.6 , 3.6 , 4.0 ####
GBPCAD, 1.0 , 1.7 , 2.1 ##
GBPCHF, 1.6 , 2.3 , 2.5 ##
GBPJPY, 1.0 , 1.4 , 1.6 #
GBPNZD, 2.5 , 3.5 , 3.9 ####
GBPUSD, 0.4 , 0.7 , 0.9 #
NZDCAD, 0.8 , 1.1 , 1.4 #
NZDCHF, 0.9 , 1.2 , 1.4 #
NZDJPY, 0.6 , 0.9 , 1.1 #
NZDUSD, 0.6 , 0.8 , 0.9 #
USDCAD, 0.4 , 0.7 , 0.9 #
USDCHF, 0.2 , 0.3 , 0.4 
USDJPY, 0.1 , 0.2 , 0.4
4392

SimpleFx and Evolve seem to be pretty close on FX but the the spreads on crypto are way less on simplefx; about half on BTCUSD.

4393

Pretty interesting conversation going on here regarding the bitcoin. I’ve traded FXChoice’s BTC denominated account and also 1Broker. Simplefx and Evolve also have BTC denominated accounts

One thing to consider regarding these types of accounts is that (in the USA) bitcoin is treated as a commodity not currency. Pretty sure this means that in addition to trading P&L we also have to track the basis of the bitcoin earned.

For example we could have a loss on a particular trade, but a separate capital gain on the bitcoin sold/lost in the trade.

Not that big of deal, but probably need some tax software to track this.

4395

I just open an account with tradersway, and i gotta say even though the spread is low and maybe low commission too, the rollover fee is outrageously high (i am comparing them with tradewisefx and dukascopy), traderway rollover gbpaud long -17.16, short 3.08, gbpnzd long -33.93, short 6.93 and for traderwisefx rollover gpbaud is long -9.36 short 4.77, gbpnzd long -11.48 short 6.50, and offcourse dukascopy is a little smaller than traderwisefx. gbpnzd is 3 times larger, this is definitely not for long term trader.

I am definitely not promoting any brokers, in fact i am currently trading with tradewisefx, so far their system is really good, but i haven’t made any withdrawal yet, did anybody here know about tradewisefx? good or bad experience?

Thanks