Reviews

FXCM Review 2023 - The Good and the Bad

By Stefano Treviso, Updated on: Apr 07 2023.

FXCM in a Nutshell

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FXCM in 60 seconds

• Broad platform offering (FXCM’s Trading Station, MetaTrader 4, TradingView, ZuluTrade and Capitalise A.I)
• Algorithmic trading at its finest with several APIs and countless resources such as standalone software or script add-ons for several of their offered platforms
• Competitive spreads on currency pairs with no commissions

FXCM is a global brokerage headquartered in the U.K that specialises in both retail and institutional trading with a comprehensive API offering. 

**The below information is provided based on FXCM EU LTD. For other FXCM entities, please go to the corresponding FXCM website for more information.

TheTradingBible.com is acting in a capacity of marketing affiliate for FXCM EU LTD.

FXCM Full Review

Here’s what we’ll talk about during our review: 

• Is FXCM Safe?
• FXCM Minimum Deposit and Withdrawal
• FXCM Trading Fees
• FXCM Available Assets
• FXCM Trading Platforms
• FXCM Mobile Trading Platform - Trading Station
• FXCM Web Trading Platform  - Trading Station
• FXCM Research and Analysis Tools
• FXCM Educational Tools
• Verdict

Is FXCM Safe?

Currently FXCM group is a well regulated broker that holds a total of 4 financial licences from which 2 belong to top-tier regulators. Let’s go over each one of them:

• ASIC (Australia)
• FCA (United Kingdom)
• CySec (Cyprus)
• FSCA (South Africa)

Despite having been involved in some controversies in the past, currently FXCM is operating with much stricter compliance and oversight from financial regulators.

FXCM Minimum Deposit and Withdrawal

FXCM has a minimum deposit requirement of $50 and charges no deposit fees. Here are their payment methods:

• Visa
• Mastercard
• Bank Transfers
• Neteller
• Skrill

It is always best to check on the deposit page which payment methods are allowed in your location.

When it comes to withdrawals, FXCM does not charge fees on the majority of payment methods with the exception being bank transfers where fees can range from $10 all the way up to $40.

Base Currencies

FXCM supports the following base currencies:

• Euro (EUR)
• Great British Pound (GBP)
• United States Dollar (USD)
• Swiss Franc (CHF)

FXCM Trading Fees

FXCM charges spreads, withdrawal fees, inactivity fees and overnight fees. Let’s take a look in more detail.

Spreads

According to FXCM’s November 2022 Slippage Statistics Report in its website, over 84% of their customers’ executed orders receive either zero or positive slippage (meaning the same price you requested or even a better one). Here’s how their spreads compare to similar brokers:

While their spreads are never a zero offer, they are competitive for being a commission-free brokerage.

Commissions & Fees

FXCM does not charge any commissions, here’s how they compare to similar brokers:

While it is true that they are commission free, they do charge the standard overnight fees for leveraged positions and an inactivity fee of 50 units of the account’s base currency after a full year of inactivity.

FXCM Available Assets

FXCM’s main area of specialisation are currencies, here’s how their asset offering compares to similar brokers:

When it comes to assets offered, FXCM is definitely outnumbered by the majority of brokers. Being a brokerage specialised in currencies, their offering should at least be significantly higher on forex pairs.

FXCM Trading Platforms

FXCM’s platform offering is amongst the best ones out there, here are their choices (we’ll explain the less known ones in case you haven’t heard them before):

• Trading Station (their own proprietary platform available on desktop for Windows devices, on web browsers and for IOS or android mobile devices)
• TradingView
• MetaTrader 4
• ZuluTrade (A copy trading social platform)
• Capitalise AI (A visual algorithmic trading app to make users perform actions in a simple way)

When it comes to platforms, FXCM is definitely well served when compared to any other competitor out there.

FXCM Mobile Trading Platform - Trading Station

FXCM’s proprietary mobile trading platform (Trading Station) is definitely a great platform for all user levels. Let’s go over a few of their areas:

Mobile Home 

At the home area the first thing you’ll notice is that your account financials are clearly presented at the top of the screen.

The next important thing is that users can store their favourite symbols right at the home’s watchlist. Sadly, it is a single watchlist and there is no possibility to create different ones and the limit for the watchlist is 20 different assets.

Discover Section

When clicking on the bottom menu’s first option, you’ll land on the discover section. While it is true that their asset count is very low, their discover section makes it extremely easy and pleasant to find what you’re looking for.

The first two options will allow you to find what they call “Hot” and “Popular” assets. We do appreciate having such categories but it would be great to understand what is the difference between both.

The subsection of “Explore Markets” is where the juice of the discover section can be squeezed. Through these card-styled options you’ll be able to quickly find each asset based on its category or country (in the case of shares).

Asset View

When clicking on an individual asset’s name, you’ll land on the asset view page. The design is quite simple and there is no overload of information.

The most loved feature in this area is how the buy / sell prices are displayed at the top of the page with the spread right in the middle. Additionally, their charting tools are extremely fast, smooth and responsive.

Order Placement

When clicking either on the top panel with the buy and sell prices or any of the buy, sell, entry or OCO buttons, you’ll land on the order placement panel.

The amount of potential customisation options is amazing yet we feel that the language used is not the standard traditional trading jargon available everywhere which can definitely seem a little challenging for new users.

Portfolio

When clicking on the bottom menu in the middle option, you’ll land on the portfolio section.

All the standard options in trading portfolios are available on the top (such as open positions, closed positions, orders and summary) but what we appreciated the most was how easy it was to simply click on a position and go straight into the editing area with a chart included of the current asset’s price with a mark on your entry point.

Research (News)

When clicking on the 4th bottom menu option, you’ll land on the research area. We believe that the title “Research” is a bit of an overstretch as it’s simply a proprietary newsfeed with FXCM’s articles along with an economic calendar.

What we can appreciate from this area is that the economic calendar is fast, simple and allows users to set reminders of any event they’d like to be alerted about.

Charting Tools

The charting tools are the same ones used from the asset view. They provide tons of customisation options, indicators, layouts and features for traders to create their own studies. We also found them very fast and responsive when compared to the majority of mobile trading apps.

What we can’t seem to understand is how is it possible that they built such great tools yet they don’t operate on a horizontal screen? The fullscreen option maintains the vertical layout so be reminded, if you rotate your phone, nothing will happen.

FXCM Web Trading Platform - Trading Station

FXCM’s proprietary web trading platform (Trading Station) is a great tool for advanced traders looking for a customisable layouts platform. Let’s go over a few of its areas:

Web Home

When you log in, you’ll land on the platform’s main view. While we choose to call it home, it’s very important to note that the “home” can be whatever you want it to be. You can create layouts with each one of their different blocks and give them the size that you want. For example: a layout for shares trading, a layout for currencies trading including an economic calendar, etc.

On their standard configuration the first thing that you’ll notice is the trading charts and the dealing rates at the right side. Then, the next block will be the portfolio section in a compact full-width format where each tab gets you access to whatever you need.

While testing the platform, we used a 13” Macbook Pro, so our screensize did not allow for the standard layout to be fully visible, meaning that we had to scroll down to gain sight of the other blocks.

The blocks available in the default configuration are:

• Symbol List (where you can search and add assets to your watchlist)
• Trading Central signals
• Economic Calendar
• SSI (Sentiment indicator)
• Market Data Signals (Screenshots with particular signals about each asset)
• News (Access to FXCM’s proprietary newsfeed)

Asset View

If you try to add an instrument, a small panel will appear that shows you the available symbols to the left, and the symbols that you’re “subscribed to'' on the right side. This is simply trading jargon to say that you’re receiving the pricing data of these assets on the right side.

Order Placement

When clicking on Buy or Sell on any asset, the order placement panel will pop up in the middle of your screen.

While it’s not as good-looking as the one in the mobile platform, it does serves the user with the needed functionality, asides from this, we insist that the language should be more of the well-known trading jargon for order placement panels.

Charting Tools

As we mentioned before, there is no dedicated area for the charts, but if you do build a layout that includes just a big chart, then you’ll have created your fullscreen trading area.

FXCM’s charts are great, but nowadays, no broker’s charts are a match for TradingView so in this case, there are not many positive points to describe given that FXCM also provides the TradingView option.

FXCM Research and Analysis Tools

FXCM provides a few interesting research and analysis tools, let’s go over them:

• Market Data Signals (from within their Trading Station platform)
• Market Scanner 
• Economic Calendar
• Volatility Indicators
• FXCM News
• Trading Central Signals
• SSI (Speculative Sentiment Index)

The most interesting one of these tools is the Market Scanner, a tool that provides sell and buy signals based on common indicators such as 200 EMA, 30 EMA, RSI and many more.

The SSI is also an interesting tool but is not clear if the index is referring only to FXCM’s traders or to more data sources.

Another great resource provided by FXCM but mostly dedicated to experienced traders is their exclusive FXCM app store, where users can purchase a variety of indicators, scripts or standalone tools compatible with several platforms.

FXCM Educational Tools

FXCM provides only a few text-based guides as their educational tools for new traders along with their standard demo accounts to practise.

Additionally, FXCM also provides educational videos and webinars.

Verdict

FXCM provides an amazing platform selection with 6 different popular choices being TradingView and Trading Station (their proprietary one) the best ones. Their spreads are quite competitive and their API offering for both retail and institutional traders make them one of the industry leaders for algorithmic trading and liquidity provision for other brokerage firms.

On the negative side, FXCM’s asset offering is below average even as a specialised FX broker, currently they have only 41 currency pairs with a total instrument count below 300 assets.

FXCMs offer is definitely well crafted for the following types of trader:

• New to advanced forex traders that are looking for no commissions, competitive spreads and are satisfied with their currency pairs offered
• Experienced traders looking for a variety of API options to run algorithms (PYTHON, JAVA, FIX FOREXCONNECT)
• Institutional traders looking for liquidity provision (limited to their asset offering) and can combine their needs with their API offering

To save your time, if you’re looking for ETFs, Stock, commodities, Futures, Options or a wide variety of cryptocurrencies, you’ll find FXCM’s offering quite limited.