Going offshore to escape the CFTC

It is not cowardliness! It is certain loss & coupled with huge legal fees. The problem is with NFA & CFTC and not with foreign brokers not fighting back. Why fight back when there is 99.99% of loss? CFTC might gang up with SEC & just freeze your assets & then sue! Typical ploy! Then force you to just settle. With a hefty fee! CFTC is the problem. It is a damn worthless bully!

As for FinFX, they are not regulated in Finland. And that is the saving grace that allows them to take US clients.

I was seriously considering opening an account with them until today when I noticed they changed their server time from GMT +2 to GMT. Bad move from them I think, I trade mostly on daily charts and that doesn’t work for me.

There is always a chance of loss, I doubt very seriously it is that high. As far as money being the issue, I guess that is more important then ones freedom. Because if we allow this Government to run over us as they are, we are loosing our freedoms.

If we all just live for our own selves we will die, but if we live for the good of our Constitution we live as a free people. Some of those who gave us our Constitution were very rich men and they gave it all up for that document, ending up living in the wilderness, for our freedoms.

So if money or our comfort zone is more important then to fight, in a hand to hand fight, that is cowardliness.

Yes, this is now war. Each and everyone one of us needs to begin a relentless campaign of flooding Congressional lawmakers’ email and postal mailboxes, both Senators’ and House Representatives’ with a steady stream of messages “spelling out” how grotesquely ludicrous and mind numbingly illogical the immoral activities of the Dodd-Frank people are. What a supremely obscene thing it is to do, to prevent harmless small time traders from using high leverage, while at the same time allowing rich traders to use that high leverage. This is just terrible, terrible, terrible. Thoroughly unacceptable.

This whole act is to try and keep as much gain/profit inside the US as possible. And, so that Uncle Sam knows exactly what you are doing with your money; to of course take his ‘rightful’ share, of course.

An easy way around this is for people to form an Offshore Company. A small invest which can be very well worth the investment. That’s what I did.

There also appears to be numerous Forex Traders Associations/Groups throughout the country to get their involvement. This link I found was to a group based in Houston, but has links to other groups:

Forex Traders Association

Curious: Say I get all upset over US hounds making this power play(nothing new) and I rush my monies overseas, out of their miserly reach. When/if the door to international financial freedom is finally closed, can I access my funds at that point, or will I have to physically leave the US with all the necessary proof of identity and ownership and vacate my US citizenship?

It occurred to me this morning that all of the US government, conservative and liberal, seem to love what’s coming out of the White House. They are witnessing and are learning that our constitutional rights need not be observed. Power is theirs for the taking and no entitlement society has the moral will to stop it. Be advised, there’s nowhere to hide.

First, a warm thank you to Clint for having the courage and smarts to start this thread. I was humming right along with my HotForex account until last June when I got the infamous - you gotta go letter. Since I was trading mainly oil, i was screwed… I went back to oanda and have been treading water trying to trade these choppy forex markets. For me, it is much easier to identify nice trends and ride them with commodities. Anyway, I digress…

This past week I opened two accounts. One with Forex Brokers, Inc. and one with Profiforex. Both registrations were quick and easy and neither requested any supporting documentation.

I deposited 25 bucks in the Forex Broker account and noticed they gave me a 100% bonus to trade with. So I started with $50 and 500:1 leverage. Although I was told I had 500 leverage an indicator on my terminal says its 200… not sure which is correct. Made a few small trades - no real issues. Spread on EURUSD was 1.6 - 1.8 and spread on EURJPY was 2.1 - 3.0.

I did not trade any of the commodities as I could not figure out the leverage requirements or the value of each tick/pip. I did the online chat and they were clueless - said support team would email me, which they did in under 5 minutes. However they email me a 3 page list of algebraic calculations I would need to compute??? I called the NY number provided and asked the mannerly gent to just tell me what the margin requirements are and he proceeded to walk me through doing the calculations by hand. I finally gave up and emailed a screenshot of the nice list from HotForex. I will wait to see what response I get when markets reopen.

I will be asking ProfiForex - the same question. I might deposit $1 in and see how it is trading the cents account.

I will update the forum on any developments - both normal and unusual with both accounts.

Thanks again to Clint and all of the constructive participants.

Good Trading to you all.

This broker probably doesn’t meet the criteria for Clint’s “A list”, but wanted to share mostly because they have the most peculiar interpretation of US regulations that I’ve seen yet. It’s a binary options broker based out of Cyprus, EZtrader.

Binary Options Trading by EZTrader.com

Here is the statement they post concerning US residents:

So they proudly welcome USA residents to trade their stock and index products, but don’t even think about using their site for their currency and commodity products including the demo.

Thought this was kind of funny.

Yes indeed. Such a strange way to make people aware of their existance…

I need help, Please
Tried to find very useful review about paxforex, but could not achieve. I don’t know why, but even “search” didn’t help me. Hope moderator of such useful thread might help me.
On the first page of current thread just find the link to paxforex website. There is no link to the necessary page with the review.
Please help

RE: ProfiForex.com

Was going to make a deposit and ran across this little gem

Please note, that minimum withdrawal amount is $1 and withdrawal fee is $35 (bank commission).

$35 to withdraw money seems a little steep to me… has anyone successfully withdrawn money from this outfit? If so could you please share your experiences.

Cheers!

To add about ProfiForex.com, I tried a small deposit to test them out and the credit card companies (tried 2 different ones) will not allow a $5 charge to go through. How do you get money into your account???

I entered “PaxForex” in the Babypips “Search” box, and I got 10 pages of results. So, there is a lot to read, if you’re looking for the experiences and opinions of Babypips members.

Discussions about “PaxForex” which have occurred in this thread (“Going offshore…”) are included among the “Search” results.

If the posts appearing on the Babypips “Search” pages do not answer your questions, you will need to do a Google search. Here’s a link — PaxForex reviews - Google Search

As for the brokers listed on pages 1-3 of this thread, links to review sites are not provided for any of them. In each case, there are links only to the broker’s website, and to the broker’s contact info (email or telephone).

Certain “due diligence” information has been included for many of the brokers listed (such as cautions about nationality or regulation), but we have not attempted to provide a comprehensive “review” for any broker in the List. For that, you will need to use the Babypips “Search”, or Google “Search”.

Update: Profiforex.com

I tried a prepaid card and that was rejected. Apparently the payment processor is based in Russia (not 100% certain) and US card companies are hesitant to send money there - no matter how small the amount. I would love to hear from anyone who has successfully funded with this outfit.

I did install their terminal and must say it is quite zippy. The spreads on the indices are outta this world! It would be cheaper to trade with them than to trade the real futures contracts.

If I can get money in there and trade “live” I will update.

UPDATE: Forex Broker Inc

I have been trading with them for 10 days now and have a 60+% gain on the account. I have no issues with execution or anything other than the indicies spreads - they obviously don’t want anybody trading them.

The spread on oil was originally 5 pips and during the later part of the week dropped to 3. Pleasant surprise.

I will try a withdrawal next week and let you know how that process turns out.

Hi guys, I am an absolute noob to this world of Forex and yes, after reading countless articles, tutorials, videos and especially going through “school” here for days I came across this thread, amazing. I have always been a person of research before action, perhaps in an extreme fashion. But now I guess my ultimate question is… what broker should I start with? Should I start with the local U.S. based brokers for starters despite CFTC disease? Or should I jump pretending to be an “experienced” trader to the offshore club? In other words a trusted broker that everybody seems to have good experience with, minimal bs as possible, minimal sacrificial dignity of personal identification and documents as I despise giving away personal info over the internet, and a future that doesn’t seem to be in danger for my security. In other words, the solution a power user, intelligent and logical person would go to, thanks.

In my opinion, you should absolutely start with a U.S. broker.

The process of evaluating brokers and choosing one is called “due diligence”. Due diligence is tricky enough when you’re dealing with brokers in your own country; it’s even trickier (in many cases) when you are trying to evaluate offshore brokers in various foreign countries.

As an “absolute noob”, you already have enough on your plate at this stage, without adding unnecessary complications to your task. Any of the largest U.S. brokers will serve to get you started in this business. And you may find that you are completely satisfied with your U.S. broker, and see no need to look offshore. Offshore is not for everyone.

If, at some time in the future, you decide to take your forex trading offshore, you can continue to maintain accounts with your U.S. broker(s). It’s not an either/or situation. I started out with FXCM over 7 years ago, and have maintained my FXCM accounts throughout that period, despite all my involvement with offshore brokers.

And one final point: The reasons for going offshore really do not yet apply to you, at this early stage in your forex career. Initially, the CFTC’s restrictions on leverage, FIFO, and hedging should not be deal-breakers for you. Those restrictions might annoy you — as manifestations of the Nanny State in action — but the actual impact of those restrictions on your trading during your first year or two will likely be minimal, and will not justify the effort and/or the risk involved in going offshore.

You have a huge learning-curve in front of you. Take first things first. Learn the basics of the forex market, master the platform and charts of a good U.S. broker with whom you are comfortable, and learn how to trade profitably and consistently. Then, later, if you feel some compelling reason to jump ship and move your trading offshore, you’ll be much better qualified to make that decision.

Foretradex, Clint has excellent advice, and what he has said in his last comment may be superior to what I advise.

This is my advice:

Many to most offshore brokers offer gold, Dow Jones, oil trading, and a very few even offer individual stock trading, with much higher leverage, that U.S. brokers are unable to provide thanks to what some people might describe as Obama’s economy strangling Dodd-Frank people and the selfish, monopolistic bullying and Congressional lobbying of U.S. stock brokerages. So, I recommend “diving in” immediately with foreign brokers as well as with domestic brokers to see which ones suit you best, with of course a very small amount of money at first, like 10 to 20 bucks. You can register to open a demo account with Paxforex, for example, getting on their email list, and you will then be regularly updated on their own trading results that uses a strategy (longer term using daily charts, for example) that they explain, which I assume is honest. Compounding their profits before taxes and tithes, which they may not even pay, I estimate Paxforex is earning 30 to 45% on their money every 2 months, which is fantastic for a large amount of money. I could be wrong about that return, though. I do not at this time trade with Paxforex, however. In my opinion, foreign brokers are able to “run circles” around domestic brokers due to competition, which is highly limited and restricted in the special interests dominated, plutocratic U.S., concerning the financial markets.

If you read books by trading wizards that made a lot of money fast, you will find that most of them recommend simply to do your own research to find a good money making strategy. Just by staring at certain currency, oil, gold, and stock 5 minute sharts long enough, you can see money making opportunities. “Monkey see, monkey grab” is a good way to describe a lot of trading. I think currency trading, especially, is 99.99 percent self discipline and self control, and .01% knowledge. I think 200 to 1 leverage Fxchoice is a good offshore broker, and 50 to 1 leverage FXCM is the best U.S. broker, especially if you have 50 million dollars to trade at FXCM (chuckle).