HONEST REVIEW OF FOREX PLATFORMS IN NIGERIA 2014
Forex(Foreign Exchange) to some is not a business model to dabble into. I would not blame people with such notion because most have portrayed it to be a Get-rich-quick system. This thread essentially is equipped with cogent information on Forex trading either as a Beginner, starter or professional. I must say to a very large extent, success in Forex is greatly dependent on your risk appetite and logically how you can manouvre your risks to bring you positives.
To begin forex trading just like any other business, you need to arm yourself with the necessary skills and technical know-how. It is pertinent to inform you that the Gurus started off one day with the right attitude and today they know the nitty-gritty of the whole Forex market. A journey of one thousand miles starts with a single step. Avail yourself the opportunity to be mentored. Make use of fora individuals with track record and “proof of performance” and resources etc.
In analyzing each of the trading platforms I took into consideration the following factors:
1. Finance Factor: This include the minimum opening balance, the convenience of opening and account funding and withdrawing. For those of use that were the “early birds” in Forex platforms like Marketiva, FXSol, InterBank FX etc requires the user to have a domiciliary account to fund or withdraw from our account. Thanks to the era of e-currency though a bit volatile (e-gold and liberty reserve users will understand my claim). Now some of the platforms allow direct bank deposit, ATM card funding, e-wallet, e-transact. What is the essence of making money after you might have flexed your trading prowess and being denied access to your funds?

2. Platform Operability: We will consider the ease at which a user can perform basic operation with his account. Some platforms are too “technical”. As a trader time is of essence because your are entering the market based on some indicators or alerts you have received . Imagine wanting to do basic operations like set profit or set loss and its taking you a hell of time to do that? What about exiting a trade? Other important points will be dealt with using each platform as a case study.

3. Reliability: For those that were swindled during the Wonderbanks ‘Ponzi Scheme’ putting your hard-earned money into a system that has not stood a test of time can be very dicey. We were all deceived to believing that Wonderbanks are actually involved in Investing into real and viable sectors of the economy like Oil and Gas, Real Estate, Agriculture and FOREX! Just as we have numerous platforms or brokers promising what they can barely achieve. We will take efforts to review how long each of the platforms have existed and people’s experiences. Other important security issues like SSL encryption to protect you from hacking.


4. Support and Customer Service: Let us be frank here most major corporations have lost tons of customers due to poor attitude of customer care agents or their HR unit. It is human to be at a tight corner and need an urgent bailout! One thing I so much respect foreign establishments for is their budget for HR unit. Some organizations have lost it due to the non-chalant attitude of their agents. How fast each of the platforms respond to our yarning in times of trouble is one of the key factors we are going to use to review them.

DISCLAIMER
I have no relationship with any of the brokers whatsoever! This write up is solely to equip people with the knowledge of Forex trading and how they can choose platforms based o the highlighted points and their discretion more importantly. This thread is opened to positive criticism as far as the review is concerned and people’s experience will go a long way in helping us take decisions.


I wish everybody success in Trading.

Meanwhile as part of my contribution towards making us trade profitably I have FOUR FREE EBOOKS which have been the instrument propelling me in the world of Trading.
1. Forex Market explained
2. Moving ahead with Forex
3. Forex Secrets
4. Avoiding Trouble with Forex
5. Forex Foundry
Send an email to : forexgold2@gmail.com with the subject FREE FOREX BOOKS. I will attach them to your email in no time. Meanwhile drop your reviews of the ebooks.


TRADING PLATFORMS

1. ALPARI
Alpari is a well-known forex broker headquartered on Wall Street with offices located across the globe, from London to Shanghai to Dubai.
Since forex trading is complicated and risky, Alpari offers a risk-free practice demo account. Demo accounts stay open for 30 days with the option to extend.
This foreign exchange broker supports four different types of payment: wire transfer, check, credit card and PayPal. All tax arrangements are up to the trader. The broker does not withhold any taxes from your gains
If you can afford the Pro account, this is the best forex broker because Alpari will provide you with direct access to the Electronic Communications Network, and it charges low commissions.

2. DUKASCOPY
Dukascopy, as Swiss banks are known for, is efficient, fair and supports client privacy. This forex broker is headquartered in Geneva and has representative offices in Honk Kong, Ukraine and Latvia, with offices soon opening in Malaysia and Russia.
A wire transfer is the quickest method of payment with Dukascopy. Nevertheless, you can also deposit funds by credit card (maximum $10,000 USD), bank guarantee (minimum $100,000 USD) or debit card (Maestro, Visa, Electron). It should be noted that conversion fees do apply if the base currency is other than CHF, EUR, USD or GBP. Dukascopy also supports Swiss custodian banking services with six banks, including Barclays, Merrill Lynch and Liechtensteinische. The minimum deposit size for this option is $250,000 USD.
If you are interested in automated trading or in building trading strategies based on Java applications, you'll want to use the JForex platform. JForex users rave about the platform because it provides a tool that lets you program your own forex trading platform by piecing together prefabricated application blocks. If you want to use MetaTrader from your PC, Dukascopy doesn't support it directly. However, there is a third-party application that will connect you from MetaTrader to the Swiss Forex Marketplace.
Though Dukascopy can support market dabblers, it is most suitable for experienced, high-volume traders. Better discounts, platforms and services are available to clients with account balances over $100,000 USD. For those who can easily manage volume trading, Dukascopy provides excellent client services and opportunities for active traders, hedge funds, banks and professional traders

3. E-TORO
eToro is nothing like the stodgy brokerage firms you may be familiar with. The company provides what it calls a social trading platform that connects you with millions of other currency traders. Using this social trading platform, you can copy other traders, search for trading gurus, follow other traders and post comments. OpenBook is a cross between Facebook and Twitter, but for foreign exchange traders. It presents a live feed with buy/sell activity as well as a list of the top performers and their gain percentages. OpenBook is a great tool for helping new traders monitor the market and learn from others.
If you are looking for more interaction with other currency traders and are interested in studying how other people invest, then eToro with OpenBook may be for you. It provides a good testing ground for beginners and can offer accounts to you no matter where you are located because it is regulated in numerous countries. However, if you are an experienced trader who likes to exploit tiny spreads, eToro, with its two pip minimum, may not be what you are looking for.
The trading platforms provided by eToro include OpenBook, WebTrader, Copy.Me, an Android-based trading platform and Mobile Trader. OpenBook is the social networking portion of eToro, which you can use to copy trades and interact with other traders. WebTrader synchronizes with OpenBook and provides charting tools and analysis. Copy.Me allows traders to copy the orders placed by other traders. The mobile versions produce live feeds, access to your portfolio, copy tools and more.
eToro provides customer support via telephone, email and instant chat. Broker offices are located in the Virgin Islands, New York, Cyprus and New South Wales. Telephone support is offered in more than fifteen countries, including the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Russia and Malaysia. For training, eToro provides what it calls a Trading Academy, which includes webinars, videos, trading tips, eCourses and more.
4. UFX
[/b]UFXMarkets is now regulated to accept clients in most locations outside of the United States. It is regulated by the MiFID and CySEC. It provides a wide range of account types, access to more than 45 currency pairs and mobile trading apps. The company also provides free, one-on-one coaching to Platinum members.
The trading platforms UFXMarkets provides include MetaTrader and ParagonEx. Gold or Platinum trading accounts can use ParagonEx to directly place trades from the trading signals presented from the trading platform. Traders also have the option to download the Trade UFX mobile trading app and trade on the go using an iPhone or Android device. To provide secure trading, UFXMarkets uses an advanced SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) by VeriSign to authenticate users and protect data transfers. Firewall protection is at the server level as well as the application level.

5. [b]FXCM
FXCM Company is one of the leading online Forex brokers. Company’s clients are residents of more than 150 countries.
International representation offices and branches of FXCM Company are located in all major financial centers of the world and it allows its clients to get high quality and efficient service.
FXCM is under the control of regulatory bodies which have authority worldwide. Thus, activity of regional office FXCM in London (Holding LLC) is regulated by the Financial Service Authority (FSA) in the UK.
On-line since: 1999
Country of origin: USA
Regulation: Registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and is a member of the National Futures Association (NFA). Also regulated by the official regulators in UK, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia and France.
Payment options: On-line checks, bank wire, paper checks and credit cards
Minimum account size: $2,000
Minimum lot size: 1 lot
Leverage: 1:100 and 1:200
Spreads: 2-3 pips on EUR/USD

6. INSTAFOREX
InstaForex is ECN-Broker, provided qualitative trading services on Forex market. Cooperation with the biggest market makers and huge Brokers-contractors complete with broad client base provide InstaForex with high liquidity and opportunity to provide really fast on-line service to its clients.
InstaForex Group is recognized as the best broker in Asia 2009 following the results of World Finance Award, the respectable reward in the world of financial markets, held by the World Finance magazine annually. One more established European magazine CNBC Business Magazine acknowledged InstaForex Group as the most dynamically developing Forex-broker in 2009. InstaForex Group was also recognized as the best Forex-broker according to the results of ShowFxWorld and ShowFxAsia exhibitions, which were held in Moscow and Kuala-Lumpur in 2009.
On-line since: 2008
Country of origin: Russia
Regulation: Regulated by Russian FFMS.
Payment options: Moneybookers, wire transfer, credit cards, Liberty Reserve, WebMoney, e-Bullion, e-gold and RuPay
Minimum account size: $1
Minimum lot size: 0.01
Leverage: from 1:1 to 1:1000
Spreads: 3 pips on EUR/USD

7. TELETRADE
TeleTRADE D.J. Company was founded in 1994. TeleTRADE D.J. has more than 120 representative offices in Russia and CIS, countries of Western and Eastern Europe, China and Turkey.
TeleTRADE D.J. Company provides the wide range of consulting services at the world financial markets – international currency exchange market Forex and the American stock markets.
TeleTRADE D.J. Company’s mission consists in arrangement of conditions which will make any person to be able to use his/her capital, both professional and financial, for making maximal profit at the international financial markets.
On-line since: 2001
Country of origin: Russia
Regulation: Unregulated
Payment options: Wire transfer
Minimum account size: $2,000
Minimum lot size: 1 lot
Leverage: 1:100 and 1:200
Spreads: 5 pips on EUR/USD

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