There’s a lot of fx brokers in Australia, a few are white label fx brokers and others are core forex brokers. The two newest fx brokers to hit the forex scene in Australia are IC Markets and Vantage fx as I am always keen on trying new forex brokers I thought that I would test both these companies to see what all the fuss was about.
Before I share my results with you I decided that I would let you know that both forex brokers use the Metatrader 4 platform and have quite tights spreads, however IC Markets is a true ECN forex broker and Vantage FX is a market maker broker. Being a market maker broker is not an issue so long as the broker doesn’t play games with the prices when you begin earning money, however regrettably this is a huge problem with most market maker forex brokers.
After trading using the Vantage Fx live platform for two months I found that their prices were not bad and remained somewhat tight during news announcements. One thing that did upset me was that when I tried to deal any amount bigger than 2 standard lots their execution speed would fall considerably, it was as if my deal was being sent to a dealing desk to be manually filled. When dealing in sizes of less than one standard lot I did not have any issues whatsoever although I am certain that if I started to make money my execution speeds would have been delayed no matter what.The Vantage fx platform is Metatrader 4 so this is a really a big advantage for the company because I can make use of my expert advisers without any problems. Their server appears to be quite dependable and didn’t disconnect me all the time which was one of the big issues that I have had with some of the other Metatrader 4 brokers in Australia in the past.
I discovered the service at Vantage fx to be very average, they were able to help me with most things, however they do depend on their customers being familiar with Metatrader 4 and do not help a lot with the initial trading platform setup, this could be an issue for new traders who are not familiar with the Metatrader 4 platform. I attempted to get in touch with them after-hours on several occasions and seemed to get through to the same drowsy and irritable chap every time, he wasn’t really helpful whatsoever. After hours support is certainly not this brokers expertise.
IC Markets also use the Metatrader 4 platform which is of course a huge plus for them also, one of the attractive aspects of this forex broker is that they’re a true ECN forex broker which is unlike nearly all other Australian brokers. After 2 months trialling this forex broker, on every occasion I traded I continued to be amazed at the spreads they were showing me. I had always heard that ECN brokers were able to show better spreads than their market marker colleagues, however I didn’t realize that the spread differences could be that considerable, I was often able to trade on Zero spreads on IC Markets Metatrader.
I had read a few forum posts saying that the execution speeds of a few ECN forex brokers can be slower since orders have to be confirmed in the ECN market place before they’re filled. During my 2 months of fx trading with IC Markets I did not observe any latency issues whatsoever, my order execution speed was in fact faster with IC Markets than with Vantage FX.
One of many key advantages of ECN brokers is that large orders can be placed without any delays or rejections. I confirmed that this was possible with IC Markets. I experimented with trades up to 7 standards lots in size with no speed or slippage problems, I would have tried placing bigger trades but I was limited by my account balance.
I spoke to IC Markets a few times just to find out how good their support was and I discovered they were very helpful, they guided me through the Metatrader trading platform and were able to assist with a few trading queries that I had, this was a real shock to me. I tried contacting them after hours expecting their support to worsen however this was not the case the individual I spoke to understood the Metatrader trading platform well.
If I was to recommend one of these brokers to members of my forex trading group there isn’t any doubt that it would be IC Markets, Vantage FX however is still a very good forex provider, however they wouldn’t be great for active fx traders or those using expert advisers. IC Markets is a good all round forex provider their spreads are extremely tight which is terrific for scalpers, there are no trade size restrictions, they provide the Metatrader platform and their service is extremely outstanding and certainly the very best that I have experienced out of all of the Metatrader 4 brokers in Australia. I personally now deal with IC Markets myself.
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