Broker News

Is the European experiment a failure? It's too soon to tell, but I believe that much of the doom and gloom crowd is simply misinformed about what's going on in the European Union. Of course, had I posed this question around three or four years ago, people would have laughed at me for my naiveté. What do you mean? They would have asked – the EU is a great success story and the euro zone is chugging along beautifully.

The European elections in Greece and France have had even the most dedicated technical traders glued to their screens, especially after the surprising victory of Francois Hollande over incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in yesterday's first round of France's presidential race. The second round of French elections is just around the corner on May 6^th, followed by the German regional contests, the Greek parliamentary election and an Irish referendum at the end of the month. At issue in each country is not just what party politics will prove triumphant, but which candidate or party's view for the future will help mold the struggling economies throughout the region. Perhaps equally important is what the voters see for the future of the Eurozone – do they wish to remain cohesive, or to change the system so dramatically that the glorious region of old will be forever changed?

Operating on 570 servers of Forex brokerages, the MetaTrader 4 platform that is published by MetaQuotes is, hands-down, the most popular and widely-used Forex trading platform in the world. And, although the company regularly updates its software in what it hopes are the best interests of its traders, few upgrades are as significant as the release of the MetaTrader 4 platform for Android phones which took place this week. Two months after the release of its iPhone application, MetaQuotes is finally offering the same mobile Fore trading ability to its Android users, allowing traders worldwide to execute trades even while away from their desktops.

Slippage and requotes are among the two most frustrating things that a Forex trader faces, as they cut into a trader's profits, sometimes substantially. Simply put, requotes are circumstances in which a broker cannot place a trade for the requested price, and the broker then confirms with the trader whether he or she wishes to place the trade at a different price. Requotes occur mostly around the time of a big news announcement, or more frequently with brokers who have slower than ideal trade execution times.

Although PAMMs (Percentage Allocation Management Modules) aren't quite as popular as the usage of NFA regulated brokers, money managers are growing in attractiveness, and the NFA has taken note, most recently in the form of new regulations to be imposed on these services. The NFA has expressed concern that money managers and PAMMs are pooling their clients' funds or placing simultaneous trades, both of which are potentially problematic for clients wishing to withdraw their funds, only to find out that the funds are tied up in a group position. Likewise, during a recent investigation the NFA found, according to a letter written by Thomas Sexton, the Senior Vice President and General Counsel of the NFA, that "?if an individual customer is removed from the PAMM module without their open percentage position being offset, then this customer account may not incur a profit or loss for this position and the original regularly offered and tradable lot sized position is simply subsequently reallocated to the remaining sub-accounts thereby immediately increasing the percentage of equity each individual account has in the regularly offered and tradable sized position established based on the Master Account's equity."

The Forex world has been abuzz lately with the advent of mobile trading platforms and social trading opportunities which seem to be cropping up regularly in the hopes of tempting traders who are looking for a unique trading experience. But with all of the new offerings available, it's hard to believe that there could be so much difference between the options, that each social trading platform is truly exceptional. Still, the top Forex brokers are raising impressive funds to support their social trading projects, indicating that social Forex trading may in fact be the wave of the future. eToro, one of the top social trading outfits, has just raised $15 million, while Currensee has raised $2 million. We're excited to see what these veteran social platforms will be offering in the future – but until then, we're shifting our focus onto 2 new offerings that may be of interest.

There's no question that mobile Forex trading is growing in popularity daily, and FXCM is the next Forex broker to expand its mobile trading options by offering a new application specifically for iPad and Android tablets.

youtradeFX, an internationally-based Forex broker has just received regulation by the FSA, the UK's premier regulatory body. The regulation confirms that youtradeFX is able to hold and control their clients' money, thus adding additional security and comfort for traders looking for a solid Forex brokerage. It should be noted that the FSA provides brokers with both authorization and EEA authorization. An FSA authorized broker has the ability to carry out trades on behalf of its UK-based clients, while EEA authorized brokers are actually regulated in their own country, but are able to provide services for UK-based clients, despite a lack of regulation in the UK itself. youtradeFX, under the company name Youtrade Capital Markets Limited, is authorized in the UK.