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Editor Rating
- 5/5 – Excellent
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- ICMarkets review
- Website: ICMarkets
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Review Summary:
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As one of the earliest forex brokerage firms, ICMarkets.com brought high volume and value trading to retail clients that previously only accessible to banks and extremely wealthy individuals. While beginners and intermediates will find all they need and more with ICMarkets, experts will be able to take advantage of a barrage of advanced features.
Risk Warning: Trading Forex & CFDs carries a high level of risk to your capital and you should only trade with money you can afford to lose. Trading Derivatives may not be suitable for all investors, so please ensure that you fully understand the risks involved and seek independent advice if necessary.
Table of contents
Forex can no longer be considered a new market. But even to this day the options for advanced forex traders are slim. Some traders are ready to scale their operations and require advanced platforms and dedicated computing resources to fill their needs. This is where ICMarkets.com steps up to the plate.
About ICMarkets.com
As one of the earliest forex brokerage firms, founded in 2007 in Sydney, ICMarkets.com brought high volume and value trading to retail clients that previously only accessible to banks and extremely wealthy individuals. While beginners and intermediates will find all they need and more with ICMarkets, experts will be able to take advantage of a barrage of advanced features.
This firm prides itself on opening up the foreign currency, commodity, metals, and equity markets to many countries by accepting one of the largest amounts of funding currencies compared to competitors. By complying with governance regulations, being transparent, honest, fair, and trustworthy, the reliable services of ICMarkets is a great firm for responsible traders to flourish in their craft. Low spreads, quickly executed trades on cutting edge servers, and better fills allow traders to grow along with this brokerage in a win-win scenario.
Part of what attracted me was the fact that ICMarkets.com holds client funds in segregated banking accounts with several Australian banks. What this means is that margins can always be funded and there will never come an eventuality of the brokerage going out of business and defaulting on their payments. We will receive our rightful earnings. That is a layer of concern that simply doesn’t exist when you choose to work with ICMarkets.
Top Features of ICMarkets
One of the leading strengths of ICMarkets is variety of virtual private server options for advanced traders. Expert traders will have a dependable strategy developed that can be automated through the scripting of procedures and threshold bids and sales. Renting a VPS from ICMarkets allows traders to focus on these aspects only instead of worrying about the maintenance and installation of server hardware and software.
Among these pieces of software are a handful of trading platforms including the classic Metatrader 4, Metatrader 5, and cTrader, in addition to multi-account managers and autotraders. Whether on a PC, Mac, Android computer, phone, or tablet, you’ll have access to your favorite platform at home or throughout your day.
As a trader, it’s important to have options and this is what ICmarkets delivers. By receiving quotes from over 50 banks and liquidity sources for 60 different currency pairs and even 4 metal commodities, your capacity to watch the market and act fast is exponentially expanded in size. Traders on six continents in over 160 different countries are taking advantage of these increased possibilities.
Most brokerages will offer educational material such as market news, economic calendars, forex calculators, and video tutorials. ICMarkets takes this one step further and offers complete guides on the technical and psychological aspects of trading. Reading through the guides such as Technical Analysis, Fundamental Analysis, Risk Management, Trading Psychology, and Trading Plans will provide a solid foundation from which your business can grow and blossom.
If you want to make sure your skills are up to par, you can open up a demo account for free to see if you can successfully build virtual wealth before using real currencies. In this way, you are developed into a competent trader by this firm before being set loose with your own money. Risk is reduce and rewards are amplified with ICMarkets.
ICMarkets Prices
Disregarding the unique cTrader account type for the moment, ICMarkets.com offers two main types of accounts for the regular traders, which are the Standard and True ECN accounts. Both require a slightly higher starting deposit than you might encounter elsewhere. This $200 barrier to entry also allows you access to some benefits such as a 500:1 leverage and micro lot trading.
Pricing related to forex brokerage firms is different than many other types of services. There are no deposit or withdrawal fees and other hidden charges you encounter in stock trading. There are only either commissions or spreads. The Standard account charges a minimum of 1.0 pip per trade, whereas the True ECN account does not feature spreads at all but will charge a commission of $3.50 per $100,000 traded. Day traders, scalpers, and EA’s will all appreciate the one-click trading with no order distance restrictions.
While it is possible to find brokerages with smaller spreads, this is a very respectable number as it is and losing access to the other features offered by ICMarkets may not be worth choosing a different firm. This is one that truly seems to stand behind its code of ethics while offering superior service and support.
Criticism of ICMarkets.com
I’ve not personally experienced this, but as I was researching ICMarkets.com before joining I read the reports from a few people concerning data slippage. Several people complained that they were suffering disconnects, slippages of up to 50 pips on a trade, and even one instance of the cTrader platform being inoperable for a period of time.
As I continued to study this issue, it was revealed that the problem was related to the sheer amount of live-feeds being brought into people’s homes through the software. The slippages and disconnects were related to their own inadequate internet connections versus any fault of ICMarkets. However, it should be known that without a quality internet connection with high bandwidth, you too could encounter this issue.
Customer Support
The normal aspects of customer service that you expect to find are all present with ICMarkets. During business hours, you can speak to a support agent through email or a live chat module on the website and client area. While it is unfortunate that there is no 24 hour support during the week, this is made up by the quicker than average response times offered by giving you direct email access to the respective department that can handle your problem. Thanks to the locations in Sydney and Shanghai, the gap in downtime is much smaller than you’d think.
Many times your question can be answered without having to contact a live person and this is part of what makes IC Markets’ client support area so special. There is a database of commonly asked questions that can provide you with most answers and they support voting so that the best answers rise to the top, saving you time. The frequently asked questions and forex glossary also provide can be a mainstay for beginners as well.
Risk Warning: Trading Forex & CFDs carries a high level of risk to your capital and you should only trade with money you can afford to lose. Trading Derivatives may not be suitable for all investors, so please ensure that you fully understand the risks involved and seek independent advice if necessary.
Conclusion
Serious forex traders will have no problems with the higher minimum deposit rates to gain access to a variety of trading platforms and virtual private servers in order to deploy their automation systems. Depending on your personal preference, you can choose to pay spreads or trade on an ECN account and pay commissions. These options can be had on any number of trading platforms including Metatrader 4 and cTrader with servers in the United States and England. All of these varying possibilities allow you to develop a style to propel you into incredible wealth.
Moving into the big leagues is a stark possibility thanks to a 500:1 maximum leverage, fast execution, and better micro lot trade sizes. ICMarkets.com follows the very stringent Australian Securities and Investment Commission regulations, ensuring that your capital is used appropriately and safely. If you’re a seasoned veteran or a beginner looking for a solid retinue of educational materials to learn as you go, then ICMarkets is the forex firm for you.
