FXCM Review

FXCM Ratings at a Glance

If you want to trade Forex, you need a good broker. But finding a good Forex broker can be difficult because there are so many to choose from. That's why Benzinga put together this review for FXCM. If you want to find information on Forex brokers, read along to determine if FXCM is the right Forex broker for you.

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Disclosure: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 74% to 76% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work, and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. The products and services available to you at FOREX.com will depend on your location and on which of its regulated entities holds your account.

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FXCM provides access to trading in over 250 different assets that include forex currency pairs; CFDs on major company stock shares, major world stock indices, gold, silver, oil, natural gas, and copper commodities and the most popular cryptocurrencies. Leverage ratios and margin requirements vary depending on the tradable asset, and you can open a live account with as little as $50. A list of assets you can trade through FXCM includes: 

• Forex: FXCM supports spot forex trading in 39 major and nonmajor currency pairs with a maximum leverage ratio of 30:1 for the majors and 20:1 for nonmajor pairs. If you’re new to forex trading, FXCM provides a forex training course and a currency market primer to assist in your education.  
• Shares: Share trading can be done at FXCM via CFDs on top international stocks from the U.S., U.K., Australian, European and Hong Kong stock markets. Size increments for positions start at 1/10 of a share, and you can begin trading with a very low margin requirement of only 5%. Available shares include Tesla Motors Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA), GameStop (NYSE: GME), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Alphabet Class C (NASDAQ: GOOG). 
• Indices: You can trade CFDs on major world stock indices like the Dow Jones 30, the S&P 500, the Nasdaq 100, the French CAC 40, the German DAX 30, the Spanish IBEX 35 and the Japanese Nikkei 225. You can also trade the VIX volatility index. 
• Commodities: Available CFDs on commodities include spot silver, gold and copper, U.S. WTI Light Sweet Crude futures, UK Brent Oil futures and Natural Gas futures. Margin requirements vary depending on the type of commodity and contract. 
• Cryptocurrencies: Cryptocurrency CFDs on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, CryptoMajor, EOS and Stellar Lumens quoted versus the U.S. dollar can be traded through FXCM. You can also trade fractional amounts of cryptocurrency, with a minimum of 1% for Bitcoin and 10% for Bitcoin Cash or Ethereum. For Litecoin, EOS and Stellar Lumens, the contract size is equivalent to the underlying crypto price. For example, if Litecoin is trading at $180, then 1 contract of Litecoin would be $180. 
• Trading Baskets: FXCM allows clients to trade baskets on certain assets. The Dow Jones FXCM Dollar Index is composed of the equivalent of $10,000 in 4 different currencies: the Australian dollar, the Japanese yen, the EU euro and the British pound sterling. The “Yen index” or JPYBasket represents ¥200,000 each of Australian, Canadian and U.S. dollars, the EU euro and the British pound. The Emerging Markets Index basket or EMBasket consists of the equivalent of $2,500 in Chinese renminbi, Turkish lira, Mexican peso and South African rand. 

FXCM provides customer service via toll-free numbers around the world in 42 countries in North and South America, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. The broker’s multilingual phone service and the live chat feature on its website are available 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. 

FXCM also provides a useful FAQ page and can be reached via email, WhatsApp and social media. If you want to follow and contact FXCM through social media, the broker maintains a presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. You can also subscribe to its RSS feed.  

The broker has 2 support email addresses that give you access to general or account-specific inquiries. You can even contact the FXCM trading desk and place orders directly if you have a problem such as no Internet access or a failure to connect to an FXCM server. 

FXCM is a zero commission broker that offers very competitive dealing spreads on CFDs and forex currency pairs. If you trade a notional amount of over $10 million per month, you qualify for a rebate for the trades you placed that is credited directly to your trading account the following month. 

Rebate payments are made according to a 5-tier framework. The 1st tier ranges from $10 to $25 million traded per month and pays $5 per million, while the 5th tier pays $25 per million if you traded a minimum notional amount of $300 million per month.  

Dealing spreads on some instruments may vary considerably, depending on the contract and time of day or circumstances, although effective dealing spreads published on FXCM’s website are extremely tight. For example, if the spread for EUR/USD was 0.00002 - 0.00004 or 2/10 to 4/10 of a pip. FXCM’s tight spreads played a large part in being awarded the Best Zero Commission Broker by ADVFN in March 2021.  

Slippage, or the unexpected difference in an exchange rate specified in a stop order or market order, can be either negative or positive. When the trader loses money, slippage is negative, whereas when positive, the trader receives a fill at a better rate than the prevailing market. FXCM’s slippage was reported as +87% positive or zero in its July 2021 Slippage Statistics. 

iPhone screenshots of the FXCM Trading Station mobile app. Source: Mac App Store. 

The broker’s proprietary Trading Station platform is available for iPhone and Android mobile devices. The app features a simple, intuitive interface for entering orders and receiving confirmations, as well as powerful trading tools and charts with access to research. FXCM also supports the popular MetaTrader4 trading platform, so you can download the MT4 mobile app that is also available for iPhone and Android.  

Trading through an FXCM account has many benefits. If you want to start practicing without making a deposit, you can open up a free demo account. This lets you assess the broker’s research and educational resources and practice trading. 

You can choose among the FXCM Trading Station, MetaTrader 4, NinjaTrader, ZuluTrade, Capitalise AI and TradingView trading platforms. You can also use a social trading platform to copy the transactions of other traders in your own account in real-time. 

Novice traders can take advantage of FXCM’s extensive educational and research resources, as well as its video library that covers a wealth of trading topics. For more advanced traders, FXCM provides application programming interface (API) trading with 4 free APIs connected to the FXCM server that includes REST API, FIX API, Java API and a ForexConnect API. You can get more information on the broker’s algorithmic trading facilities by clicking here.   

Also, institutional investors, retail brokers, emerging market banks and hedge funds can take advantage of FXCM Pro. This high-end broking service gives institutional clients excellent pricing and access to the forex and CFD markets. 

FXCM offers a decent selection of tradable assets, excellent pricing and high-quality customer service that few other online brokers can match. FXCM also provides a decent selection of top-quality trading platforms its clients can operate through. Beginning traders can also access various options to help them learn and enhance their trading skills. 

The broker’s intuitive and easy-to-navigate website provides all the information you’ll need to open an account and begin trading in several markets. You can also open a demo account to test the broker’s services and platforms before committing any funds.   

FXCM does provide as many tradable assets as some other major forex and CFD brokers. Still, this leading online broker ranks highly among its competitors due to its impressive number of platform choices, quality research, helpful educational resources and tight dealing spreads. 

Best For

• Automated Forex Trading

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FXCM no longer accepts U.S. clients because it had to pay $7 million in 2017 and give up its registration with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for failing to disclose a deal with a market maker to its clients. The broker then sold its substantial number of U.S.-based accounts to Gain Capital that operates FOREX.com, so U.S.-based traders might consider using that broker instead. 

Overall, FXCM fits the needs of traders at all levels of expertise. The online broker even provides wholesale trade execution and liquidity solutions for retail forex brokers, smaller hedge funds and emerging markets banks through its FXCM Pro service. 

New traders can benefit from FXCM’s extensive video library, helpful educational resources and support for copy trading, while more advanced traders can take advantage of the broker’s algorithmic trading and API options. Also, MetaTrader 4 users can automate their trading using “expert advisor” or EA software they can program themselves or obtain from third parties.  

FXCM’s competitive dealing spreads will help keep your trading costs down, and active traders can receive monthly rebates that further reduce their trading costs. Basically, the only major deficit found for this leading broker is that they don’t accept U.S. clients anymore.  

FXCM Tutorial

In addition to a YouTube channel and a complete library of trading videos, you can get a better idea of FXCM’s offerings from a tutorial video situated on its website. 

Frequently Asked Questions