AvaFX Review

If you are looking for an offshore forex broker, I would recommend giving AvaFX a chance. AvaFX is a recent entrant into the forex arena, but has built a solid reputation among traders. Over the past few weeks, I found out first hand why that's the case. Although the company is not regulated by any government body, it is audited by Ernst & Young, which adds a layer of legitimacy to it. It is also owned and operated by a large instituion - Clal Finance Ltd., with over $17 billion under management. This is also where the liquidity comes from.

To be quite honest, I could find no serious flaws with any aspect of AvaFX. Maybe it's because of the nightmare I had with the last broker I reviewed, but I don't think so. Everything I tried seemed to work well - even extremely fast trading is accepted, which is fairly unusual for a market maker, particularly one that fixes their spreads. There were some execution problems as a result of the fixed spreads during fast market moves, but this is to be expected.

The fact that Islamic friendly no-swap accounts are available at no extra charge, and to the general public (no need to "prove" your religion) is a bonus to those seeking this type of account. There is also a wide range of instruments at your disposal, from a few exotic spot currency pairs to quite a few commonly traded CFDs. A wide variety of deposit and withdrawal methods are available, and no administrative fees apply to any transactions (although there is a $500 minimum wire transfer withdrawal limit). All transaction methods are listed in "Quick Facts" below.

Depending on your trading preferences, you can choose between 3 platforms:

1. Ava Trader - a downloadable trading platform, which is the most stable;
2. AvaJava - a Java platform which runs in your browser and is Mac compatible;
3. AvaMobile - an i-Mode or WAP application that can run on any internet capable mobile phone;

PROS:
Stable, functional, versatile platform;
Fixed Spreads;
Loads of tradable instruments, including many common CFDs;
Swap-free "Islamic" accounts avalable with no extra charges;
Offshore location;
Financially stable ownership;
Excellent customer support;
Large bonus for first deposits (up to $1,200 in free cash);

CONS:
Unregulated broker;
Mediocre liquidity and execution;
In business only since 2006;

Quick Facts:
Offices in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and Cyprus;
Deposits/withdrawals by Diners Club, MasterCard, Visa, Moneybookers, NETeller, PayPal, WebMoney and Wire Transfer - all with no fees;
Maximum Leverage 200:1;
Minimum trade size 5,000 units (0.5 mini lot);
Fixed spreads, EUR/USD spread 3 pips (0.0003);
AvaFX customer support available in Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish;

If you would like to open an account at AvaFX, please click here. Thanks for stopping by!

ForexGen Review | ForexGen SCAM WARNING!

OK so I tried to find myself another decent swap-free broker and I came across a "company" called ForexGen. This is the reason I haven't been posting a lot lately - this scam has completely taken up my time.

From day one I could tell there was something fishy about this broker - from stolen copy on their website, to an agreement that makes very little sense etc... They are based in Norway, which I thought was a pretty safe bet, since the Scandinavian countries are known for their tough stance on crime. I thought wrong. Luckily my hunches stayed in the back of my head and I kept my account very small. This is what happened:

I opened an account and deposited some money. They took $10 out as a "deposit fee" (who does that?). OK, fine. Then I started trading. Opened a position on EUR/USD and set my exit orders as per my trading strategy, just like a good little trader ought to. The next day, the market came close to hitting my stop loss, but didn't. About 48 hours after that, my take profit target was hit, and I was a happy trader. But wait - my position didn't close. I checked my orders and they were all right. I checked the current price and it was more than 20 pips beyond my take profit order. OK, I said to myself, why not take the extra 20 pips this broker just handed to me, and close the position manually right now. No such luck. Their MT4 platform kept returning "Off quotes" and similar messages when I tried to close the position.

Then I had a brilliant idea. I figured there was something wrong with their order execution system, so I tried to "hedge" my position by opening an equal and opposite trade, in order to lock in my profits and become market neutral. Execution was terrible, but the market kept moving in my direction so when I finally got my hedge in (about 15 minutes and another 20 pips later) I breathed a sigh of relief. I could now let the broker figure out what went wrong, and everything would be just fine.

WRONG. When I tried to log in the next morning, my account had been shut down. Now I started getting a really bad feeling about this whole situation. I tried contacting the broker with no success - their customer support staff are useless. I requested withdrawals, pleaded, cried and threatened, to no avail.

To make a long story short, I ended up receiving my original deposit back several weeks after the events described above had taken place, and even that only after reporting the company to local authorities. My profits had disappeared. The authorities had already been informed of this operation and were "investigating" it when I had contacted them. Yet somehow, this operation is still in existence today.

I hereby WARN anyone considering opening an account with ForexGen - I urge you to reconsider. This is not just a badly run business - it is a deliberate scam, and the authorities in Norway are simply too inept or too corrupt to deal with it in any meaningful way.