ATFX Review

Review

ATFX, founded in 2014 by a parent company with a background in the institutional brokerage industry, is a Forex / CFD broker headquartered and regulated in Cyprus under CySEC. They state that they operate an ECN (electronic communications network) model, using STP (straight through processing) technology, without any dealing desk interference. A wide range of assets for trading are offered, in over 42 Forex currency pairs, 9 major stock indices, and a few major commodities (gold, silver, and crude oil).

Accounts

There are two main account types to choose from with ATFX: a Standard account, or an Edge account. The Standard account requires a minimum deposit of $200, offering a minimum spread on the benchmark EUR/USD currency pair of 1.2 pips. The Edge account requires a minimum deposit of $5,000, offering a minimum spread on the benchmark EUR/USD currency pair of 0.4 pips plus a commission of $6 per lot round trip, which is equivalent to a total spread of 1 pip on 1 lot traded.

Maximum leverage offered is 400 to 1, equal to a minimum margin requirement of 2.5%. The minimum trade size for Forex is 1 microlot (0.01 full lots). Happily, ATFX offer negative balance protection, which is a plus, and they allow both scalping and hedging, unlike many other brokers.

There is no real choice of trading platform, as ATFX offer only the MetaTrader 4 trading platform, although this platform is the most popular and widely used trading platform within the global Forex / CFD brokerage industry. The platform may be used as software or as a web-based platform through a web browser, and as an application on smartphones and tablets.

A demo account is available, as is typical with nearly all spot Forex and CFD brokers.

Features

The most notable features of ATFX worth emphasizing is that they offer decent liquidity, competitive spreads, and few restrictions on trading, on a reasonably wide range of markets. Scalping is allowed, and automated trading is possible, as already noted.

ATFX prides themselves on keeping things simple, so you won’t find many of the bells and whistles that are often touted within the industry. Instead, they emphasize their goals modestly as offering competitive pricing, and in synchronizing the live prices of their instruments with normal prices of the equivalents throughout global capital markets. The transparency comes primarily in the no dealing desk, straight through processing prices that are offered for trading. We are not certain how rigorous the no dealing desk approach is in practice, but the regime of spreads / commissions is certainly competitive, at least at the minimums.

Education

ATFX has no educational offering. We see nothing wrong with this, as a massive range of high-quality trading education can be found for free on the internet, so there is little value in putting together a half-baked educational offering as too many brokers do, just for the façade of having an ‘education center’. It is also worth questioning whether most brokers, generating a majority of their income from their client’s losing trades, are in a strong position to be “educating” their clients.

On the other hand, all clients of ATFX are granted free and unlimited access to Trading Central, a service offering market research, pattern recognition and financial commentary. The omni-channel solutions provide 24-hour global multi-asset coverage, and offer technical, fundamental and value analysis.

Bonuses and Promotions

There are no bonuses and promotions on offer at the time of writing, as new bonuses are prohibited by ATFX’s regulator, which is CySEC.

Deposits/Withdrawals

Depositing funds into a ATFX account is an easy and secure process. Funding can be done using credit cards, debit cards, or wire transfer, as well as electronic payment methods such as Skrill and Neteller. Withdrawals can be made using the same available mechanisms.

ATFX does not impose any minimum requirements on deposits or withdrawals, but the payment channels themselves may do so.

Customer Support

Customer support is based in Cyprus, offering 24-hour support while markets are open from Monday morning in Australia to Friday evening in New York.

Conclusion

ATFX has a well-rounded and professional offering for traders looking to trade using spot and CFD instruments through a reasonably wide range of assets, particularly Forex currency pairs and global equity indices, but notably also major commodities such as gold and crude oil. Fans of no-nonsense trading looking for a confident and no-frills broker may find their offer especially interesting, and quite possibly attractive enough to open an account.

Most importantly of all, the spreads and commissions offered seem to be truly competitive.

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Features

In terms of features, the stand-out strengths of this broker’s offerings are:

• Competitive spreads / commissions / fees.
• The possibility to trade with the most popular trading platform in the industry, MetaTrader4.
• A wide range of instruments available for trading: all the major and minor Forex currency pairs, as well as several exotics; also, a good range of global equity indices, plus several major commodities.
• Regulated by a major industry center (Cyprus, by CySEC).
• Scalping, hedging, and automated trading are allowed.

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Platforms

MetaTrader4

The MetaTrader 4 is an independent trading platform, developed for trading FX, commodities and other products and is one of the most advanced and easy platforms to use. It remains the gold standard of trading platforms.

In addition to the wide range of markets available to trade, the MT4 platform provides traders with a multilingual interface, instant execution, built in help guides for MT4 and MetaQuotes Language 4, a complete technical analysis package including a wide range of in-built indicators and charting tools, various custom indicators and time periods and more.

Automated trading is also offered through the MetaTrader 4 platform where traders can create and test their automated trading strategies by using the MetaEditor, Strategy Tester and Compiler tools within the MT4 platform.

With this automated trading system clients may create Expert Advisors, software programs enabling traders to constantly monitor the markets. Custom Indicators help traders to predict future price movements by analyzing past and current price information. And the Scripts feature gives traders the opportunity to set up an automatic repetition of specific operations such as closing all positions with a single keystroke.

The platform is available as both downloadable and installable software, or as a web-based service.

MetaTrader Mobile

The MetaTrader 4 and platform apps can be used on iPhones, iPads, Multi-Terminal, and all Android devices. 

 

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User Reviews

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