ETX Capital review

The ETX Binary platform is for binary options traders obviously. The MT4 platform is for forex, but not exclusively, as there are other instruments included such as commodities, precious metals, Brent crude oil, gas, US and German stock exchange companies and the major stock exchange indexes (UK FTSE 100, NASDAQ 100, DAX 30, S&P 500 etc.). I was unclear about the difference between the MT4 and the ETX Trader platform, so I asked customer support. They told me that they offer the additional options to trade bonds and obligations in this platform in their ETX Trader platform. The ETX TraderPro platform is just like the ETX Trader but designed for traders with larger accounts. Their MT4 platform is easy to use with one-click trading and trailing stops – it can be downloaded on mobile devices as well.

I didn´t see any promotions or trading competitions during the time that I traded with them, but they have a nice bonus scheme. When I applied for the MT4 account, they offered me a 30% bonus if I deposited more than $1000 and the customer support advised that depositing more than $10,000 would result in an upgrade to ‘premium’ for free with a 50% bonus. I´ve read some reviews about ETX Capital where people complained about not being able to withdraw the bonus funds. Some people think that they can withdraw these bonuses so they get furious when they are told otherwise, but you can´t really withdraw a broker´s bonus. You can trade it and use it as a cushion during difficult times when more liquidity is needed on high volatility trading conditions, but don’t be mistaken, bonuses are not free money from Santa Claus.

Trade on the go

The MT4 software provider has removed the instant execution option for some time now so ETX Capital offer only market execution on their MT4 platform. Market execution has its advantages, for example: trade is processed almost instantly and you don´t get re-quoted. But you do get slippage from time to time which is not good if you scalp or trade during volatile times (… avoid unless you are a pro). During normal times the slippage varies from 0 to 2-3 pips. I haven´t executed trades with this broker during volatile times, but as with all other brokers who use market execution, the slippage might increase to 20-30 pips.  They don´t offer managed accounts but I asked them about EAs and automatic trading, and the customer support confirmed that everything was allowed from following signals and automatic trading to scalping and hedging at any time (big  advantage).

The minimum amount for the ETX MT4 and ETX Trader accounts is 100 USD, 100 Euros or 100 GBP. The minimum trading size is 0.01 lots or 1 micro lot. In real terms that´s 1,000 USD, Euros or GBP, which is convenient for new traders with small accounts. It also makes it cheaper to give this broker a try, before you go all in with a large account. They have 44 pairs on their MT4 platform and the currencies are listed in alphabetic order, starting with the AUD pairs, then the CAD pairs and so on, making it easy to find them. They offer a lot of exotic currencies which I find very interesting and can be very important to traders who specialize in tier 2 and 3 countries, but inexperienced traders might get lured into trading them and these currencies are very volatile so beginners, stick to the majors!

ETX Capital offers a range of educational methods and tools. They hold free seminars and courses to their clients in different major cities of the world as expected from a large broker at this scale, check their site for more details about the closest one to you.  Apart from that, their clients can follow them on most of the social media websites where they can watch video commentaries about the market and the morning brief, which is a daily snapshot of the relevant market news for the day. There´s also a section on their platform where I regularly received real-time economic news, so that was sort of helpful and time-saving.

Unusual occurrences

After I downloaded the MT4 platform and logged into my live account, I couldn´t find the EUR/USD and GBP/USD, two highly traded pairs. After contacting customer support they told me to right click at the symbols table and select “show all”. I had to do that many times after removing the program and downloading it all over again until these two pairs finally showed up in the symbols section.

Automated trading via EAs

Additional notes: DPR email formats are not accepted when you contact the customer support through their site. For some reason I couldn’t submit a contact us request with my .co.uk email and had to use anther email with a .com ending.  I am not sure if it was a temporary issue, a local problem on my computer or a system error they need to be fixed. ETX – better check this.

Rating

• Customer service – 3.7
• Spreads – 3.5
• Broker security – 4.5
• Regulation – 4
• Execution – 3.8
• Account opening process – 3.5
• Bonuses – 4.2

After more than a month of trading with ETX Capital, we have reached a conclusion on this broker. They operate under the regulation of a very serious financial authority, have a competitive bonus scheme and offer many other financial instruments apart from forex. Their general customer support service could be better, but once you are a customer the service is top notch. The account opening procedures are not very clear and it is a lengthy process. So our overall score for this broker is 4.1 stars out of a maximum of 5, which is at the high end since we expect most brokers to rank anywhere between  3 to 4 .