FXCM have taken over IBFX
I received 2 emails today…
“IBFX, Inc. (IBFX) has made a business decision to no longer to service individual MT4 online platform accounts and has recently agreed to transfer your current IBFX “MT4” account to Forex Capital Markets, LLC (FXCM), a Registered Foreign Exchange Dealer (RFED) with the National Futures Association (NFA ID 0308179). As a result, IBFX and FXCM have made arrangements to transfer your account to FXCM on September 19, 2014.”
and..
“IBFX Australia Pty Ltd. (IBFX) recently agreed to transfer your current IBFX “MT4” account to FXCM Australia Ltd. (FXCM). The transfer is scheduled to take place beginning the weekend of September 19, 2014. FXCM holds an Australian Financial Service (“AFS”) license issued by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASFL No. 309763).”
So my 2 IBFX accounts will become FXCM accounts as of 19th of September.
FXCM aren’t exactly my favourite broker.
I’ve had bad experiences with them in the past, mostly bad execution (terrible fills, stops and take profit’s not being executed, account balances changing etc), and numerous admin issues. They’ve also been fined numerous times by US and UK regulators.
So I’ll definitely be watching these 2 accounts closely.
FXCM have also taken over FXDD, but only the US division. My FXDD account is FXDD Malta, so it’s remained FXDD.
Which broker do you recommend for safety, reliability and EA friendly?
Hi Ling,
Difficult question.
For safety, probably Oanda, because they are US regulated and have a huge amount of capital according to their quartrly CTFC financial lodgements. Oanda is considerably bigger than FXCM. IMO US regulation is better than UK and Australian regulation, because the US regulators are more pro-active i.e. they closely track broker’s financials during the year and publish that data on their website.
Execution. They seem pretty similar at the moment, although I haven’t got any data for FXCM yet. Activtrades seems to be getting more trades than the others over the past month or 2. Not sure why.
Here’s a link to the CTFC financial data for the brokers:
http://www.cftc.gov/MarketReports/FinancialDataforFCMs/index.htm
http://www.cftc.gov/ucm/groups/public/@financialdataforfcms/documents/file/fcmdata0714.pdf
Adjusted Net Capital for July 2014
Interesting to see how poorly capitalised the MT4 brokers are compared to the big retail brokers like IB and TD Ameritrade.