Markets.com is a FSA, Bafin, CONSOB, CNMV and AFM authorized Forex broker which is regulated within the European Union from the CySEC. Safecap Investmets, which is the holding company of markets.com, is headquartered in Nicosia, Cyprus since 2009 when it was granted license by the Cyprus Security and Exchange Commission to operate online trading services. Besides having ownership of maybe the most prestigious domain name after forex.com, markets.com offers a class A trading service which justify its class A domain name.
As a Forex broker markets.com can be classified in the mid high segment in terms of offerings as although relatively new it offers an overall balanced service with offerings in currency trading, CFD trading, commodities trading including gold, silver and oil in addition to stock trading which is limited to trading hours in difference to currencies and commodities. Stock offerings at markets.com can be traded during the trading hours of each respective instrument based on jurisdiction of the exchange market in which each stock is listed with.
Markets.com is offered in 14 languages including English, Arabic, French, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Turkish, Dutch, German, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Romanian and Polish.
Accounts start with a minimum of $100 as first deposit and leverage offerings range between 1:1 to 200:1 on Forex and CFD’s, 100:1 on Gold, Silver and Oil and 20:1 on stock trading. Platform offerings range from the downloadable popular MT4, to the downloadable Market Trader and move on to the Web Based offerings which include the (No Download Required) Market Web Trader and the Market Java Trader; traders on the go can have the option to integrate any of the mobile trading applications offered which are compatible with the iphone series, Blackberry phones and all mobile devices which are enabled with WAP, Wifi or 3G capabilites.
Unfortunately markets.com does not accept US clients at this point in time; if you have permanent residence in the USA pick a broker which can cater to your region from the list of brokers listed under our USA forex brokers section.
- Markets.com is regulated by the following Comissions and Associations
- FSA Financial Services Authority UK
- CySec – Cyprus
- Bafin Germany
- CNMV Spain
- AFM Netherlands
- FI Sweden
In addition you should check on the website of the regulator for any complains against the broker as some regulators (i.e. the FSA) post all cases online.
Markets.com Metatrader
The primary attraction point at markets.com is the MT4 which has defined itself as the leading and most widespread forex trading platform with unlimited capabilities and unlimited compatibilities to EA’s and charting packages. The MT4 at markets.com is offered for both demo and real trading accounts and has no restrictions in terms of Expert Advisors as long as their use is not abused in terms of price latency.
Selecting to trade with the markets.com MT4 will enable you as a trader to benefit from world class charting tools and indicators which will help make your trading experience easier, faster and of course more accurate. Using the Metatrader will allow you to trade directly from charts and will additionally will allow you to access account history from a very flexible and user friendly environment.
Market Web Trader
The Market Webtrader is powered by leverate which has a strong reputation in offering class A web based trading solutions which will therefore allow you to access the trading platform from any worldwide location even when you don’t have your laptop with you as there is no need to download any software to the computer used. Although web based trading platforms are known to lack features compared to the MT4 the Market Web Trader is overall vey functional and cannot really be criticized to lack major features. As a trader you may access all the platforms with one account so in the case you travel or you engage in trading from multiple locations we would recommend you use the MT4 when trading from your standard location while at the same time using the Web Trader on demo version in order to get acquainted with its functionality if you are planning to execute trades while on the go in order for you to be able to couple trading from your desktop with remote trading.
Markets.com Demo
Markets.com demo accounts are offered through the Metatrader 4 in USD, EUR and GBP and come with a $100,000 virtual balance which can be used with no obligations to get acquainted with the actual platform and its functionalities.
However please note that when using the demo environment of the markets.com MT4 you will be trading on server prices which in reality means no delays and no re quoting of prices which is something you should be aware of when switching to a real environment at the particular broker as there a No Re-quote Policy is not applicable which means during hours of high volatility it will be rather difficult for you to achieve execution on the price you select due to the major changes of prices during those hours and the human factor which is present at these cases.
If you are not aware of what a re-quoting policy represents you should understand that when your broker does not adopt a no re-quotes policy that means your orders are passed through a human dealer which passes on each and every trade you execute each time you do so; what this means is that at times of high volatility prices tend to be very sensitive for short terms of time due to the many pressures put on the markets from breaking news or announcements.
This means that the time interval between the time you click on the place order button and the time you get the approval message is enough for the price to change up or down therefore resulting to a re-quote of the price from the human dealer which can cost you your profit or can cost you to not achieve the price you wish to buy or sell at due to that lag which is what you are taking advantage of to occur a profit.
Markets.com Accounts
Besides the Markets.com Free Demo Account which is explained thoroughly above markets.com offers 3 types of real money trading accounts which cater to traders with different portfolios to invest. The 3 types of accounts offer the investor different services which basically are based on news and signal delivery. The markets.com accounts range between Mini, Standard and VIP.
Mini accounts start with a first deposit of $100 and they provide access to all the markets.com trading platforms but do not offer access to the news service free of charge, in difference to Standard Accounts and VIP accounts which differ in amount of first deposit but do offer unlimited access to the Markets.com Live News Service. Standard accounts can be opened with a first deposit ranging between $2,500 and $19,999 while VIP accounts are offered to investors with deposits over $20,000 which are offered the VIP Package which includes unlimited access to his dealer and the unlimited access to the news service in addition to the free FX signals which are delivered via SMS to the account holders cellular phone.
Markets.com Spreads
Markets.com offers the investor the opportunity to select between floating and fixed spreads which can be considered an advantage as it offers the option to traders that trade at times of low volatility to select a fixed spread and therefore avoid the large widening of price due to low activity of the market while at the same time offers the advantage to traders that usually trade at times when sessions overlap and volatility is high to benefit from floating spreads.
Markets.com Leverage
Markets.com offers leverage which ranges between 1:1 to 200:1 on forex and CFD’s, 100:1 on Gold, Silver and Oil and 20:1 on stock trading.
Bonuses
Forex Bonuses at markets.com range between 10%-25% for Mini and Standard Accounts and can be claimed by all new account holders. VIP account holders can discuss the bonus amount directly with their account manager as there is no standardized procedure due to the bespoke nature of the particular account.
Markets.com Managed accounts
No Managed Account Offerings Currently offered.
Markets.com Mobile Trading Accounts
Mobile Trading is offered for iphone, Blackberry and smart phones supporting WAP and 3G.
Banking
At markets.com investors can fund their account through all major credit cards including Visa, Mastercard, Maestro and Delta and additionally through Liberty Reserve, Fast Bank Transfer and WebMoney. Withdrawals are processed manually and vary accordingly to amount. Please note that funding options vary from country to country.
Markets.com Review
Markets.com is a relatively new brand in comparison with other more popular forex trading companies like Oanda and Forex.com but in addition to its very, very powerful domain name which allows it to brand itself with ease it offers a range of fair offerings which cannot really be concluded as innovative but can be considered to be above industry average standards.
Its multi licensing offers safety to traders from all regions of the world excluding the USA which is unfortunately a region blocked at this forex broker due to reasons which have not yet been revealed. We would say that it is a recommended broker although we cannot say we are impressed with the offerings as they are standardized.
What we would like to stress is that its re-quote policy can be a serious disadvantage for the trader especially in cases when the trader is engaging in news trading as it is very much likely that the desired price will never be locked therefore not allowing the trader to benefit from times when the market is behaving in his favour.
Additionally account type offerings at markets.com are rather capitalistic which more or less discriminate between large volume and small volume traders which are offered different offerings.