MIG Investments Review

MIG Investments, or MIG fx, is a Swiss forex broker, regulated by ARIF. It offers fair trading conditions in one of the most tightly regulated environments in the world. It should be noted however, that ARIF regulated companies are not required to disclose their company capitalization records, and are not required to segregate client funds from company operating capital. They are one of the few non-US brokers that allow US residents to open accounts though opening up a great option to wealthy American investors.

Besides spot forex, MIG Investments also gives traders access to gold (XAU/USD) and silver (XAG/USD) trading through its Metatrader 4 (MT4) platform. Since Metatrader 5 (MT5) is due out soon, I enquired about when MIG Investments was planning to make the switch, but got no real answer, so we'll just have to wait and see (FYI, I hear Alpari is going to be one of the first MT dealers to make the switch).

Anyway, my trading with MIG Investments has been going quite well. Since there is nothing dodgy about them, I figured I was safe opening a fairly large test account with them ($5,000). If I really wanted to try them out I didn't really have a choice anyway, since minimum account opening is $2,500 for Standard accounts, and it goes up from there to $100,000 for a Professional account and $500,000 for an institutional account.

All trades are cleared through UBS, so liquidity is ample, at least for a $5,000 account holder. Maximum trade sizes are 200 standard lots (20,000,000 units) which is further proof that liquidity shouldn't be a problem even for big accounts. Scalping is discouraged, as is the case with all market makers, but I did close a few profitable trades in very short order and did not receive any warnings and no funds have gone missing from my account, so they are not absolute nazis about it.

All in all, I think MIG Investments offers a very safe and fairly inexpensive (2 pip variable spreads on EUR/USD) entry into the forex market, but capitalization is key. Much like Swiss banks, their brokers also seem to have set the bar pretty high with regards to who they do business with - that $500 micro account you wanted? Sorry, your money is no good here. With a half-mil account, you get better spreads (1 pip on EUR/USD), direct access to their market research team (not sure how worth it that is) and they will even program you EAs for you (I don't see why they choose to take on that responsibility... but they do).

PROS:
Allow American account holders - combined with Swiss secrecy and high standards;
Decent spreads;
Deep liquidity and good execution;
MT4 platform;
Gold and Silver trading;
Swiss regulation (ARIF);
$1.5 rebate per 100,000 RT on Pro accounts;

CONS:
They won't talk to you if you're poor;
Limited number of tradeable instruments;
Accounts not segregated;
No scalping policy;

Quick Facts:
Headquarters in Neuchatel, Switzerland;
Metatrader 4 (MT4) platform;
2 pip variable spreads on EUR/USD (Standard & Pro accounts);
1 pip variable spreads on EUR/USD (Institutional accounts);
Liquidity provided by UBS;
Established in 2003;

To open a 90 day demo account, please visit MIG Investments SA. Thanks for stopping by.

Alpari Review

I would like to note first that the Alpari I'm talking about here is a separate company from Alpari UK and Alpari US, although the strings are pulled by the same Russian puppet masters. Alpari is run by Russians as a Seychelles company until recently (now a New Zealand company). I somehow seem to always find myself faced with a possibly dodgy situation to trade in. Maybe it's just that trading itself has lost its excitement, so I am looking for another thrill... But to be quite honest, I have had a much better experience trading with Alpari than with brokers found in much more "reputable" places. I will talk more about that in my next post, as there is a broker I have gotten myself into quite a dispute with. I have to give them a chance to unbreak my account before spewing vitriol about them, but stay tuned, it's coming.

Anyway, this post is about Alpari, and Alpari is well known among the hardcore retail forex traders as being very fair when dealing with trading disputes or ambiguities. Alpari is also well known among the same group of traders as having the best quality free historical charts data available. As a result, most people doing backtests on their MT4 Expert Advisors use Alpari data, unless they can bankroll some paid data, which is rare in the case of retail traders.

I have had personal experience with Alpari now, and can confirm that most of this reputation comes for a reason. There have been no disputes yet, so I can't report on that right now, but I have had all my orders respected to the pip so far. Combined with low spreads and a wide range of instruments to trade, Alpari is as competitive as any other MT4 broker out there. If you like MT4, then there is no reason not to give Alpari a try. Good reputation, low spreads, tons of instruments to trade, and a well-known, reliable trading platform are what you can expect from this broker.

PROS:
Stellar reputation for resolving disputes in a fair and logical manner;
MT4 platform ease of use and reliability, as well as automated trading heaven;
Lots of tradable instruments (see Quick Facts below);
Low spreads (from 1.8 pips on EUR/USD);
Been around since 1998;

CONS:
Unregulated, capitalization unknown;
MT4 platform lack of features;
Dodgy legal setup;

Quick Facts;
Tradable instruments: 51 spot currency pairs, CFDs on various US stocks, CFDs on index shares, CFDs on futures on stock indexes, CFDs on commodities and precious metals, etc.;
Headquarters in New Zealand and Moscow, Russia;
Target spread on EUR/USD is 1.8 pips (0.00018);
Established 1998;
Metatrader 4 (MT4) platform;

If you would like to open an account at Alpari, please visit their website.