Friday, April 24, 2020

ETX Capital review | trading platforms review, Pros, Cons

If you are looking for a well-established and trusted online brokerage form, ETX Capital could possibly be one of the better choices out there. It has been in business since 1965 and is British base of course it offers all of those extra protections. Read our ETX Capital review to evaluate the pros and cons of this broker and choose if it is suitable for your needs. This article is dedicated to reviewing one of the best regulated brokers and to give you a clearer idea of what to expect in case you decide to open an account with them.

ETX Capital Review

ETX Capital is a British based brokerage firm in London that offers Forex, metals, CFD markets, in order to give retail traders the world. They are highly regulated being British and fall under the auspices of the Financial Conduct Authority. Safety and protection of funds is crucial, and falls under the FSCS, or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme in Britain that protects customers of to 50,000 GBP. This of course allows for traders to feel comfortable.Trading accounts

ETX Capital offers individual accounts only, and of course demo accounts. Because of this, it’s relatively straightforward as all traders have the ability to take advantage of all assets that the broker offers. This is further split by whether you wish to use MetaTrader 4 or their proprietary platform.

The company

ETX Capital is a British based company, offering a non-dealing desk approach to the markets. They are heavily regulated by British authorities and several others around the world. With that in mind, keeping your money here is a safe proposition, especially considering that they have been around since 1965 making them one of the oldest brokerages that we have reviewed.

ETX Capital Trading conditions

Initial deposit

As mentioned previously, ETX Capital doesn’t offer an account for anything less than a $5000 deposit. This is a somewhat high bar to cross, and not all of you will be able to take advantage of this firm. However, if you have more than enough trading capital, this will give you an opportunity to trade with one of the most highly regulated firms in London.

Spreads and conditions

ETX Capital offers tight spreads, in a variable spread environment. The average spread for the EUR/USD is 0.6 pips, while the average spread for gold is 0.09 pips. CFDs such as the Dow Jones 30 average 1 pips. With that type of tight spreads being offered, you can see that fighting profit won’t be overly difficult.

Leverage

ETX Capital offers tight spreads and conditions, with 1:30 leverage. The leverage is a bit lower than some other brokerage firms, but it is much more professional as most of the time when you are offering several hundred times leverage, you are simply trying to get retail traders to blow up their accounts quicker. This gives you more protection, which is the biggest advantage to trading at ETX Capital.

Trading platforms

ETX Capital offers MetaTrader 4, the most widely used platform in the world. This allows the ability to add automated trading strategy and of course thousands upon thousands of indicators that are freely available online. Beyond that, they also have the ETX TraderPro platform, which has access to thousands of assets, and of course a full suite of professional and customizable bells and whistles. They also have a mobile app that mimics TraderPro, albeit in a much more basic way.

Payment methods

ETX Capital offers both deposit and withdrawal options including bank wire, credit card/debit, Union Pay, Neteller, SoFort, and Skrill. This allows traders to be able to access their money and fund their accounts rather easily, as most of you will have plenty of access to these options.

Extras

ETX Capital has a very strong extras section on their website, as there is plenty of educational webinars, videos on specific types of assets that they offer, platform videos, risk management education, and of course all about margin. In fact, this is probably one of the strongest suits, the fact that they offer so much in the way of extras for traders to learn from.

The post ETX Capital review | trading platforms review, Pros, Cons appeared first on The Diary of a Trader.

Monday, April 6, 2020

Best algorithmic trading strategies (Now you are safe)

Algorithmic trading strategies are making a large foray into the retail sector now, as they take a lot of the emotion out of trading. After years of experience, I can tell you certainly that the psychology of trading is probably the Achilles’ heel for almost everyone. While it seems quite straightforward to look at a chart and decide to make a trade or get out, the reality is that when you are watching your profit and loss statement go up and down erratically, things get much more difficult. This is why demo trading is only so good, and the reality is that trading with real money is 10 times as hard.

Enter the computer

Most professional shops now use a variety of discretionary, systematic, and most certainly algorithmic trading strategies. In fact, if you ever look for a trading job at one of the larger firms, one of the first things that are quite often mentioned is that you should have some type of programming experience. Quite often you will see Python mentioned, but there are other languages that traders will use. This is because what most traders do now is back test a strategy, and then plug that strategy into a program that execute orders over the longer-term. This takes a lot of the guesswork out of trading, and if there is a positive expectancy with the system, over time it stands to reason that the trader should make money.

Markets change

One thing that you should pay attention to though is that markets do change. With that in mind you should recognize that being an algorithmic trader isn’t a “one and done” proposition. Quite frankly, you will back test quite a bit and constantly look for new strategies. It is most commonly used to trade short-term charts, and therefore can be fooled by extreme amounts of volatility.

Systems can be bought

Trading systems can be bought, but keep in mind that most of the professional shops out there are using programs that they spend millions of dollars on using Ivy League PhD’s to write them. Because of this, you should be very cautious about buying a system for $99. That doesn’t mean it can’t work, but the reality is that you will need to back tested and not just plug it in and start trading real money. All things being equal though, if a system performs in a specific market condition, that is exactly what you should be using it for. Unfortunately, far too many people will use one system to trade every market in every time frame. Make sure you read the directions for its specific use.

The post Best algorithmic trading strategies (Now you are safe) appeared first on The Diary of a Trader.