So far I’ve narrowed down to two brokers. HotForex seems to have much better support than Tickmill. My account at Tickmill will be regulated by FSA Seychelles. I’m not too sure about regulatory of HotForex. When I ask them, they reply with just this ’ HF Markets (SV) Ltd is incorporated in St. Vincent & the Grenadines as an International Business Company with the registration number 22747 IBC 2015’. HotForex claims to be 100% STP. TIckmill claims to be NDD.
Anyways, which one do you guys think is a better broker?
Thanks for your reply!
I checked out those posts. Tickmill does kind of fulfil all those requirements. The only problem I see is regulatory issue. Tickmill is regulated by both FCA UK and FSA Seychelles. Based on my country, Tickmill UK was not an option for me and I had to create an account on the Tickmill Seychelles. I don’t know if that enables them to screw me over if they want to since my account is not under UK FCA.
Seychelles regulation is a complete joke. Even worse than Cyprus, and that’s saying something.
These two brokerages, Tickmill and HotForex are two of the ones that promote themselves by getting to people post about them in favourable contexts in forums (including here) by paying people a small amount per post with their name in them.
It may sound like “no big deal” but actually it tells you exactly what you need to know about why you should avoid them. It speaks of the kind of customer they’re trying to attract (total noobs who know nothing and have no experience) because those are the ones their own business model depends on turning into victims. Avoid, avoid, avoid!!
Yes, HotForex regulation is a question mark for me too. Tickmill seems okay to me. Their support is borderline acceptable (based on my limited experience) but what concerns me is that I am regulated under FSA Seychelles and can’t create an account that is regulated under FCA UK, which worries me a bit as I would feel a lot safer if I was regulated under FCA UK. Do you think its possible for them to screw me over just because my particular account is not under FCA UK?
I looked into XM too. I don’t remember why I didn’t go with them. They do have everything I need. I’ll check it out again.
I couldn’t find on XM’s website if they are market maker or what. So I contacted their support and asked them. This is their reply: Market Maker: XM is classified as a ‘market maker’ because we operate a dealing desk whose primary function is to process telephone orders. All client positions however, are covered through multiple liquidity providers and we do not benefit from client losses in any way. Our execution is highly optimised, with 99.35% of all orders being executed in less than 1 second, coupled with a strict no requotes and no rejections policy.
From my limited knowledge on FX, I have learned that I should stay away from market makers even when they say they don’t benefit from client’s losses. What are your thoughts?
Unless you have enough capital to open an account at a true direct access broker (e.g. Interactive Brokers), you can’t avoid using a market maker. ($10,000 minimum, depending on which country you live in.)
Just use a well regulated one with an honest reputation, that has segregation of client funds, and don’t be fooled by terminology like “ECN” and “NDD”.
I actually do have an account with Interactive Brokers. But I only use it for stock trades. I haven’t looked much into FX trading on their. I have only done very limited FX trades there when I converted deposit currency into USD. That’s all. But their platform is quite pathetic. And isn’t suitable for me for daily trading. Like I can do on MT4 platform.
I think you are right. During my online research, I have learned that we can’t always trust brokers when they say they are ECN or NDD etc. What are your thoughts about XM.com? They are multi-regulated.
Well yeah Tickmill and Hotforex claim they are ECN and this can be easily verified. Just capture the moment when there is a spike or high volatility and compare how price feed diverges between brokers. On ECN you should find much better performance because brokers with ECN technology use aggregated liquidity, bigger than one provider that offers STP.
As per my experience both Tickmill and Hotforex and ECN brokers.
Never touch Tickmill. They did stoploss hunting, I tried with them and see the result clearly on Myfxbook which is different as heaven and hell, between Live and Demo.
Tickmill is a cheap thief, if my family asked me I would say AVOID!
Hmmm, could you please describe your issue in detail? It could be volatility which creates impression of stop loss hunting, frankly it was hard for me to accept this bias, but yes, it’s very common among traders.
I think I disagree with you on your claim of Tickmill hunting stop loss. I was having the same experience with hotforex accusing them of the same but I discover am the cause of my problem. The hunting stop loss is cause by the big banks and not your broker. If you want to overcome the hunting stop loss, when placing your trade, make sure you stop loss is wide enough and you would discover that the hunting would be over.
Why? I trade with both and they both demonstrate excellent trading conditions during extremely competitive time (like immediate after news volatility). I think you have to trade more and gain more experience to change your opinion.
The reason is Hotforex they don’t have regulations and they shows up the number is other brokers.
Hotforex stole some one regulations number to pretend that is.
I dont trade the broker like that. If one day they run away, you money also leave you along.
I hate that stop loss hunting thing, more like fraud in my opinion I hated it when a broker did that to me before I left. Now I use Forexchief account. more than 12 months now, and no such thing. If they try that I’ll take a walk as well.