FXGT.com Review 2023

Trust

FXGT.com Regulations

In our reviews, we examine the licenses and regulations of each entity operated by a broker. This allows us to compare their different levels of protection. We rank licenses by various regulatory bodies on a three-tier system, where Tier-1 licensing indicates the highest level of regulation.

This is what I discovered about FXGT.com’s several entities:

• 360 Degrees Markets Ltd is licensed and regulated by the Seychelles Financial Services Authority (FSA) under licensing number SD019. The FSA ranks as a Tier-3 regulator on our system.
• GT IO Markets (Pty) Ltd is licensed and authorized by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) in South Africa under licensing number 48896. We rank the FSCA as a Tier-2 regulator.
• GT Global Markets Ltd is licensed and regulated by the Vanuatu Financial Services Commission (VFSC) under licensing number 700601. The VFSC ranks as a Tier-3 regulator on our system.

We have summarized the most essential aspects of FXGT.com in terms of regulation and safety in the table below:

Why is it Important to Know Where Your Broker’s Subsidiaries are Regulated?

Brokers operate multiple entities because it allows them to serve clients worldwide. But licenses obtained by regulators in different jurisdictions do not always entail the same degree of protection. Some regulators mandate compliance with the strictest financial frameworks, whereas others are less rigid. That is why traders need to familiarize themselves with the safety mechanisms ensured by the entity they want to open an account with beforehand.

Here is what you need to be looking for in a broker in terms of safety mechanisms:

• Segregation of client funds. Keeping client funds in segregated bank accounts from the ones used for the broker’s corporate capital negates the risk of accounting errors. All of FXGT.com’s entities comply with this requirement.
• Negative balance protection. This safety mechanism removes the risk of trading losses exceeding the account balance. In other words, the losses you incur from trading are capped at the amount you have put in your trading account. This is especially important in volatile markets. All of FXGT.com’s entities comply with this requirement.
• Compensation scheme. A compensation scheme protects traders against the broker’s liabilities in the unlikely event that the company becomes insolvent. In the case of 360 Degrees Markets Ltd., there is private indemnity insurance issued by the broker.
• Maximum leverage. Capping the maximum leverage limits the maximum market exposure to retail traders. The higher the leverage, the higher the potential profits and potential losses. Under the Seychelles entity, the maximum leverage permitted is 1:1000, which is high above the industry average.

Is FXGT.com Safe to Trade With?

While researching FXGT.com, I discovered that the broker has issued private indemnity insurance covering its clients by up to EUR 1,000,000. This means that its clients are protected against the broker’s credit risks and liabilities.

FXGT.com also ensures segregated funds and negative balance protection. There is, however, no cap on the maximum leverage permitted, though experienced traders with a keen understanding of risk management can turn this into an advantage.

Stability and Transparency

In our tests for the Trust category, we also cover factors relating to stability and transparency. Here, we focus on how long the broker has been in business, how big the company is, and how transparent it is in terms of readily available information.

With regards to stability, I consider FXGT.com to meet the standards. This is underscored by the fact that the broker has issued private indemnity insurance on its own initiative, without being mandated by any of its regulators.

Regarding FXGT.com’s transparency, I assessed it to be generally very high. Information is clearly presented and easy to find on the website; traders can check information pertaining to the broker’s several licenses with only a few clicks. I also appreciated FXGT.com for being quite straightforward when it comes to fees transparency:

The broker has integrated a live feed on the website, which I consider to be highly useful. Potential clients can use it to check the spreads, commissions, and swaps for each instrument and each of FXGT.com’s different account types fairly quickly.

In summary, my research indicates that FXGT.com can be regarded as having a decent level of trust and stability due to the following factors:

• Ensures most essential safety policies
• Issued private indemnity insurance
• Maintains rigid capital adequacy ratio

Fees

FXGT.com’s Trading Fees

FXGT.com’s Spreads

I tested FXGT.com’s spreads during the most actively traded times – the London open at 8:00 a.m. GMT and just after the U.S. open at 2:45 p.m. GMT. The test was conducted on 30 May 2023.

Broken down by asset class, FXGT.com charges low spreads on FX pairs, low-to-medium on commodities, low-to-high on CFD shares, low on indices, and low on cryptocurrencies. The recorded spread on BTCUSD, in particular, is quite significant because, as I mentioned above, the broker seems to have tailored its services to the needs of crypto traders.

FXGT.com’s Swap Rates

A swap fee is a trader’s cost for holding an open position overnight because of changing interest rates. Swap long refers to the charge deductible or credit receivable for holding a buy position open overnight. In turn, swap short relates to the charges/credits deductible or receivable for holding a selling position open overnight.

The values listed below are for one full contract (100,000 units) of the base currency.

Traders should be mindful of the swaps when picking an instrument to trade. Eyeing the findings from the table above, suppose you consider it equally plausible that the EURUSD will go down and the GBPJPY up in the coming days. Your account will be credited whatever way you wish to go, but clearly, it will be better, all other things equal, to go long the GBPJPY pair.

FXGT.com’s Commissions

FXGT.com charges fixed commissions per traded lot (100,000 units) only on its ECN account. By asset class, there is a $6 round-turn commission charged on all FX pairs, a $5 round-turn commission on metals, and a 0.1% round-turn commission on crypto assets.

Round turn means that the commission is charged for executing a trade. For instance, if you were to trade 1 lot on the EURUSD pair, you would first pay a $3 commission for placing the order and then an additional $3 for closing the trade.

I evaluated FXGT.com’s commissions and found them to generally meet the industry average.

FXGT.com’s Non-Trading Fees

FXGT.com charges an inactivity fee of $10 (or the equivalent in the account currency). This fee is applied monthly on dormant accounts on which no activity (trading/ withdrawals/ deposits) has been registered for a period of 90 calendar days. The fee is applied each month until activity resumes or the account balance drops to zero.

The broker does not charge any handling fees for deposits or withdrawals.

Are FXGT.com’s Fees Competitive?

On balance, FXGT.com’s fees are medium-to-high compared to the broader industry. I assessed its spreads on the ECN account type to be extremely low. However, the corresponding commissions exceed the industry average. Thus, I estimated the account’s pricing model to be suitable for implementing high-volume trading strategies.

Standard+ and ECN Accounts Comparison

To help you better understand the difference between FXGT.com’s Standard+ and ECN accounts in terms of trading costs, I have compiled the table below. It illustrates the spreads and commissions I have recorded on the EURUSD for the two account types. The table shows how much you will have to pay to trade 1 full lot (100,000 units) on the EURUSD if the pip value of the pair is $10.

My test indicates that it will cost you $22 (2.2 pips x $10 pip value) to trade one full-sized lot on the EURUSD on a Standard+ account. The same position will cost you $10 on an ECN account. You will have to pay 0.4 pips x $10 pip value + $6 round-turn commission.

Platforms and Tools

MetaTrader became the first successful retail platform, which pretty much set the benchmark for what should be incorporated into such a platform. It consists of watch lists, a chart screen, a pool of technical indicators and drawing tools, and a strategy tester option.

As a high-frequency trader, I have always looked for precision and efficiency in a platform. And in some ways, MetaTrader delivers on both. Traders can scale price action up and down to gain a sense of the prevailing market sentiment, apply different indicators and objects to examine specific developments in the price action, and with features like one-click trading, they can execute orders fairly quickly and easily.

In addition to MetaTrader, FXGT.com provides multiple tools to enhance the overall trading experience. Those interested in copy trading can take advantage of the MQL5 trading signals. Accordingly, automated trading is available directly from MetaTrader and can be enhanced with FXGT.com’s VPS hosting. I also appreciated the extra value to be had from FXGT.com’s extensive toolkit, affording traders greater freedom when it comes to studying price trends, exercising greater risk management, and more.

FXGT.com’s Desktop MT5 Platform

General Ease of Use

MetaTrader’s layout is pretty straightforward. You have your watchlists, indicators, and other tools on the left side of the window, a charts screen on the right, the strategy tester panel, and account info at the bottom.

There are certain features, such as the one-click trading option and depth of market tool, that enhance the overall performance of the platform. They allow traders to easily examine the current market behavior and enter quickly into trades. However, I consider the lack of an instruments search tool to be the biggest drawback of the platform. You have to scroll through the entire list of available instruments in order to find the asset you are looking for, which I find tedious and unnecessary.

Charts

In my experience, the charts screen is probably the most important component of every platform. It is the window through which traders can observe price action behavior and understand where the market might be headed next. That is why it is vitally important for a chart to be as clear and informative as possible and allow traders to manipulate price action freely by scaling it up and down easily. Additionally, a good chart should be supplemented by a broad range of technical indicators, drawing tools, and other such instruments to enhance technical analysis.

My impression of MT5’s charts is that they are somewhat rigid. You can apply multiple indicators and drawing tools, but this can actually lead to obscuring price action rather than contextualizing it. Still, the platform supports a broad range of diverse features. I have broken them down by class:

• 38 technical indicators. The platform supports trend-based, volume-based indicators and oscillators. Depending on the underlying market sentiment, these can be applied to study different facets of price action behavior. In general, technical indicators are used to gauge where the market is likely to head next.
• 46 drawing tools. Drawing tools, such as Fibonacci retracement levels and Elliott waves, are used to study repeatable price patterns, to determine key support and resistance levels, and potential breakout or breakdown levels.
• 21 timeframes. The one standout feature of MT5 to me is the impressive assortment of 21 timeframes – more than most similar platforms. This collection affords traders a quick glance over currently unfolding trading opportunities in the short and long terms
• 3 chart types. Price action can be represented as a line, bars, or candlesticks.

Orders

I have broken down the available order types on MT5 below:

• Market orders. Market orders are used for immediate entry at the best possible price. If triggered, they guarantee volume filling, though there could be a discrepancy between the requested price and the price where the order actually gets filled.
• Limit orders. Unlike market orders, limit orders guarantee exact price execution. However, a limit order will not be filled if the price action does not reach the pre-determined execution price.
• Stop orders. They are used to support open positions by limiting the maximum loss that can be incurred if the market turns in the opposite direction. A stop-loss order is placed at a fixed price below or above the spot price. If the market does indeed turn and triggers the stop-loss, it will transform into a market order and get filled at the best possible price.

FXGT.com’s Mobile MT5 App

The mobile app affords traders quick and easy access to the market on the go. It is thus indispensable when you have to make swift adjustments to your open positions. I checked the usability of the mobile app version of MT5 by testing how long it would take me to do just that. It took me just a few seconds to log into my account, go to my open orders, and adjust the parameters (move the stop-loss) of a trade.

On the other hand, the app is not suitable for much else. It is even more cumbersome than the platform’s desktop version, and carrying out sophisticated technical analyses on a small-screened device is virtually impossible. This is a problem that is inherent to almost all trading apps.

Tradable Instruments

Traders should remember that the number and type of instruments offered by FXGT.com varies depending on your jurisdiction. What I thought very useful is that some of the available instruments are denominated in different currencies. Hence, traders can avoid paying conversion fees when trading with instruments denominated in their account currency.

What are CFDs?

Contracts for difference (CFDs) are derivatives used to speculate on the price of the underlying without physical delivery. For example, a long position on gold would generate a profit as the price rises or incur a loss as it falls. This is achieved without having to purchase actual bars of gold. One of the biggest advantages of trading CFDs is that traders can get in and out of the market almost instantaneously, thereby catching even minute changes in the price of the derivative.

What Can You Trade With FXGT.com?

Listed below, I have broken down the available instruments by asset class:

• 53 Currency Pairs
  • Majors, Minor, Exotic
• 6 Commodities
  • Metals and Energy
• 27 CFD shares
  • Tech, Retail, Energy
• 12 Indices
  • U.S., EU, Asia
• 33 Cryptocurrencies
  • Major, Minor, Crosses
• 9 Synthetic Cryptocurrencies
  • Commodity, Share, and Indices Crosses
• 14 NFTs and DeFi Tokens
  • Varied

FXGT.com offers a low amount of CFD shares, an average amount of FX pairs and commodities, and a high number of indices and cryptocurrencies. Interesting to note that the 27 CFD shares are only of blue-chip American companies. Traders should take this into consideration, especially within the U.S. trading hours.

Customer Support

Help is available in English, Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese, Turkish, Spanish, and Arabic. For more general queries, you can turn to the broker’s exhaustive FAQ section of the website.

Customer Support Test

When we test a broker’s customer support team, we evaluate the agent’s knowledge of their own website, how long it takes them to respond to questions, and how detailed their answers are.

I contacted FXGT.com on 25 May 2023 at around 13:45 CET via live chat. I had to first provide my name and email address. An agent connected almost immediately to the chat. It took him about 5 minutes to get back to me and answer my question regarding one of their market research features.

Overall, I got a pleasant impression of FXGT.com’s support service and would recommend it for any questions you might have relating to the broker and its offering.

Deposit and Withdrawal

FXGT.com Deposit Methods

FXGT.com Withdrawal Methods

It is important to point out that even though the broker does not have handling fees for deposits or withdrawals, third-party banking charges may apply in some cases. Please refer to the broker’s deposits and withdrawals page for additional information.

Account Types and Terms

Why is Choosing the Right Account Type Important?

Your account should reflect your goals, needs, and ambitions on the market. You should take into consideration several things, such as whether the account type has a minimum deposit requirement, what its spreads and commissions are, what the execution method is, and more. ECN accounts tend to be more favorable in general, and I determined this to be the case with FXGT.com too. But they also tend to have higher deposit requirements, so you should weigh your ambitions against your means.

What Account Types Does FXGT.com Offer?

I collected data about all the account types offered by FXGT.com and arranged it in the table below, making it easy for you to compare:

While the ECN account type has more favorable conditions compared to Standard+, FXGT.com has targeted its Mini account towards newbies. Its contract size is smaller than the other two (at 10,000 units) so that beginners do not have to execute massive orders. While the Mini account also permits commission-free trading, I tested how its spreads stack against the spreads on the other two accounts and found them quite high. Returning to the above example, trading 100,000 units on a Mini account will cost $28.

FXGT.com does not have a minimum deposit requirement, making its accounts quite affordable. Its base currencies include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, USDT, Euro, Dollar, and JPY. Swap-free trading, also known as an Islamic Account, is also available on all account types.

FXGT.com’s Order Execution Model

I checked FXGT.com’s speed, quality, and model of order execution and discovered that the broker implements a market execution model with an average execution speed of 120 milliseconds. Essentially, this guarantees volume filling but not necessarily price filling.

Suppose you wish to go long 100,000 units (1 lot) on the EURUSD at 1.07650. You place your buy order, but there is not enough liquidity in the market at that price level, not enough to fill your order. Hence, no trade is opened. The price then climbs to 1.07700, where there is enough liquidity to fill that volume, and your trade is finally executed. If the value of 1 pip is $10, then you would have missed a chance to generate a $50 profit due to this discrepancy (5 pips).

The clear advantage of this model of execution is that with it, you are guaranteed entry, in that your order request will eventually be filled once there is enough liquidity. However, the corresponding disadvantage is that you are exposed to price discrepancies in the form of negative slippage.

In my experience, market execution is better suited for day trading and position trading strategies where volume is important. But it is less so for intraday trading strategies, such as scalping, where precise order filling is more important.

What is CFD Leverage?

The leverage determines a trader’s overall market exposure. When trading Contracts for Difference (CFDs), positions can be opened for a fraction of their value because of the leverage. Essentially, the broker lends the trader money so that the latter can open bigger-sized positions. The leverage multiplies the profits a trader generates from winning positions but also the losses incurred from failed trades.

FXGT.com Account Opening Process

I have broken down the account opening process with FXGT.com in these easy-to-follow steps:

• Step 1. Click ‘Register Now’ at the top-right corner of the main page.
• Step 2. State your full name, email address, country of residence, and mobile number.
• Step 3. Choose a password.
• Step 4. Check your email and click the confirmational link sent to you.
• Step 5. Log in to your client portal and accept the T&Cs.
• Step 6. Select an account type and base currency.
• Step 7. Choose your preferred leverage, from 1:5 to 1:1000.
• Step 8. Verify your account by uploading proof of address and ID.

Why is a Demo Account Important?

FXGT.com offers demo account which introduces traders to the broker’s services and allows them to tweak their strategies in a risk-free environment. The market is continually evolving and never static, so it is important to hone your skills in a safe environment. You can set up a demo account for yourself alongside your live CFD account.

FXGT.com Supported Countries

FXGT.com does not accept clients from the U.S., EU, Canada, Australia, Syria, North Korea, and Sudan.

Research

Research Tools

I have broken down FXGT.com’s research materials by type below:

• Trader insights. An FXGT.com proprietary infographic tool that informs traders about the underlying market sentiment on a given instrument. I appreciated its straightforward design, as it allows traders to quickly grasp the prevailing market opinions at a glance. The insights contain information about the daily, weekly, and monthly pivot points, changes between highs and lows, etc. I also found the charts to be rather plain, without a lot of information, except for major support and resistance levels.
• Economic calendar. The economic calendar is the most rudimentary research tool and a must-have for forex brokers. It keeps track of upcoming trading events, such as economic releases, policy statements, earnings results, and more. It informs traders about previous releases and current forecasts concerning such events.
• Technical analyses. These materials inform traders of potentially unfolding trading opportunities on various instruments. Price action is examined, and potential breakdowns/breakouts from major support and resistance levels are underscored. I found lacking a complementary fundamental analysis to contextualize these trading setups.
• Volatility forecaster. Probably the most useful of the bunch, the forecaster informs traders what times during the day they are likely to observe volatility spikes for each instrument. This is significant because they can implement various trading strategies accordingly. FXGT.com should be applauded for developing such a tool, which is rather uncommon.

Education

FXGT.com does have 5 educational courses that study a range of important topics. However, the broker has no educational videos, no platform videos (except for MetaTrader 5’s in-built ones), and does not publish regular webinars. There is an extensive glossary, a helpful tool covering the ABCs of trading. But there are no broader articles to delve deeper into the material.

The Bottom Line

Even though FXGT is suitable for a wide range of traders, my overall impression is that the broker is most fitted for crypto traders. You can open a crypto account, choose crypto as its base currency, trade with over 50 CFD and synthetic crypto assets, and even deposit and withdraw in cryptos.

FXGT.com is regulated offshore and complies with the most essential safety requirements. It also can be praised for issuing private indemnity insurance of up to EUR 1,000,000. The broker’s clients can trade on 150+ instruments from different asset classes at a more or less average cost.

FXGT.com supports the widely popular MetaTrader 4&5 platforms and allows the implementation of various trading strategies, from scalping to day trading. The broker has a market execution model, and its average execution speed is 120 milliseconds.

I also appreciated FXGT.com for having a wide selection of diverse account types that are also very accessible, though I think the broker can still work to improve its service in certain ways. It can lower the spreads on its Standard+ account to make them more competitive against the ECN account type. Additionally, its educational and research materials have a rather limited scope.

Beginner traders can benefit from its reliable 24/7 customer support and affordable accounts, as well as from the opportunity to trade on an easy-to-learn platform such as MetaTrader 5 and its predecessor. More experienced traders, in contrast, can take advantage of FXGT.com’s offering of rare instruments, such as a cryptocurrency index and NFTs, and its VPS hosting.

FAQ