FXCM Review

Are you interested in a live account? We suggest that you open it using our form on the right of this page. We will pay you back a part of the spread you pay on every trade you make if you open your account through us. This means that you will receive up to 0.5 pip (or 5$) back on every trade you make!

FXCM is one of the largest Forex brokers in the market. FXCM holds a firm capital of more than $ 100,000,000 and is regulated in the US, UK, Australia, Dubai and Hong Kong. FXCM has over 150,000 live accounts on platforms offered. FXCM has clients in almost 200 countries and executes millions of trades each month. As of June 2009, there is more than $600 million in customer funds trading on platforms offered by FXCM. These figures confirm our opening statement that FXCM is one of the largest Forex brokers out there but how about the service, trading platform, spreads, trustworthiness, execution of orders etc.? This FXCM review will discuss all these things and tell you if FXCM is the broker that suits your needs.

Review of FXCM's account types

As many other brokers, FXCM offers standard accounts (lot sizes of 100k) and mini accounts (lot sizes of 10k).

Minimum deposit per account type

The minimum deposit is different for each account type. Here is an overview:

Account type	Minimum deposit
Mini	$ 300
Standard	$ 2000

Minimum deposits are thus not that high for both account types. The main reason for this is that FXCM targets the retail market which demands of course limited initial deposit requirements.

Spreads at FXCM

FXCM offers competitive spreads that sometimes get even below 1 pip for major currency pairs. Spreads are variable which means that they vary with the volatility of the market. When the market becomes more volatile, the spreads widen. This is very common, any broker that offers variable spreads needs to widen them under conditions of increased volatility because volatility implies higher uncertainty. The variable spreads allow you to get a very competitive rate on any order under any condition. Just like GAIN Capital, FXCM offers fractional pip pricing. This means that prices in tenths of a pip are available so that you can benefit from small price advantages that would not have existed without fractional pip pricing.

FXCM's trading platform

FXCM is armed with a high quality platform called FX Trading Station. The platform comes as a downloadable client which is easily installed. What we specifically like about this platform is the fact that all the information required for trading Forex fits on one screen and is well-arranged. All common basic features are included but there are also some attractive more advanced features.

For example, the platform is fully customizable. This allows you to change the look and fool in a way that suits you best. While this may appear as just a nice extra but nothing important, please consider the importance of your quickness while trading Forex: the more convenient your trading environment is, the quicker you will be able to press the right buttons and thus the more quicker your response to market movements is. Another nice feature that is related to quickness is one click execution. You can configure FX Trading Station so that orders are executed upon a single mouse click. This feature is especially useful for traders that use high speed trading strategies like scalping.

Trade your FXCM account with Meta Trader 4

Nowadays, FXCM clients can also choose to use the popular Meta Trader 4 platform to trade their account. Meta Trader 4 can also be used in combination with other brokers so traders that work with different brokers can benefit by using the same platform to trade all their accounts. Moreover, Meta Trader 4 comes with great analytical tools and the ability to use third party trading robots or even create your own trading robots.

Good order execution

FXCM works without a dealing desk which means that this broker doesn't take the opposite position of your trades but rather fills your orders directly from the best price available from the banks that FXCM works with. This no dealing desk execution is a major advantage because the possible conflict of interest between you and the broker vanishes. The reason for this is that a no dealing desk broker has nothing to gain from your losses while dealing desk brokers do.

Furthermore, this broker works with nine of the largest price providing banks in the market so that there is price competition which requires the banks to come up with competitive bids that lead to low spreads. In our opinion, FXCM's execution is fast, honest and reliable, especially because no dealing desk is used.

So what's up then with the criticism on FXCM's execution in some other reviews?

Since FXCM is one of the largest brokers, many traders have tried their platform over the years. As a result from this many individual traders have written a FXCM review and published it on the internet. While these reviews cover a variety of aspects, the vast majority of them do address the execution of orders. FXCM has been criticized by some for not executing orders as fast as possible and has even been accused of trading against its own clients. We feel that these stories are not appropriate because FXCM is in our opinion an honest broker. Many of the people that criticize FXCM for providing bad execution are inexperienced traders that don't understand the dynamics of the market.

Actually, the only time that execution can be slow at FXCM is during news events (i.e. just before or just after an important financial announcement). One should, however, not blame the broker for the reduced execution speeds during such events because it is a natural thing that will occur at any broker. The reason for this is that the market becomes extremely volatile around major announcements and a huge number of orders is placed in a very short period of time since a lot of traders out there like to trade on news. This results in possible slippage since your orders cannot always be filled as you planned under conditions of extreme volatility. As said, this can hardly be called a FXCM problem and it is more a general market issue. We would like to stress the fact there are much more strategies available then news trading so a good option could be to avoid news trading altogether (also because it is very risky).

FXCM demo account

Before opening a live account at FXCM, we advise traders to try the free extensive practice account first. Test your strategies and skills with $ 50,000 practice money. The free practice version of FXCM expires after 30 days. The practice account includes real-time statistics and 24/7 customer service, actually, it is just the same as a live account with the only difference that the money is not real. After testing FXCM's Forex trading software for 30 days, you can decide if you want to join the group of more than 100,000 traders who took the step of opening a live account at FXCM. You can open a demo account directly from this review page (on the upper right).

FXCM review conclusion

We feel that FXCM is one of the best brokers in the market right now. By offering a large number of options, FXCM can fulfill the needs of any trader. Spreads are very competitive and the trading platform is of top quality. Execution is good and the no dealing desk model assures you that this broker does not trade against you. FXCM is a solid broker and a good choice for any trader.

Are you interested in a live account? We suggest that you open it using our form on the right of this page. We will pay you back a part of the spread you pay on every trade you make if you open your account through us. This means that you will receive up to 0.5 pip (or 5$) back on every trade you make!