If you are trading with eToro, the OpenBook feature is a great way to learn and build a team of traders using their copy trader feature.  If not, other forex social networks can give you many of the same benefits without having to switch brokers.

Features

The focus of OpenBook is to try to help you find other successful traders to learn from and copy, so it foregoes the traditional dashboard that shows you aggregate trades over the community in exchange for a news feed showing the open and closing trades along with profit or loss by everyone in the community. This is one of the key ways that you can find traders who are doing well.

The other way to identify good traders is the top performer sidebar.  The sidebar shows you the most successful traders over the last one, three, and six month span. If you’re just getting started, this is the go to place to check.

Once you’ve used OpenBook to identify a top trader, you can go to their trading profile to see various different stats about them, including recent stats, their trading behavior, risk levels, and an investment breakdown.  If everything is to your liking, you can move on to the next step, the CopyTrader feature.

CopyTrader is free, and fits seamless into your eToro account.  It lets you use real or virtual money to try out your trading strategy and build a team of people that you would like to manage your money.  The best feature is you can allocate what amount you would like to have the traders you’re following invest and then the platform will automatically invest that amount proportionally depending on the trades of the trader you’re following.  Your money will have the exact same risk level as your new team member.

Platform Ease of Use

The OpenBook platform is web based, clean, easy to use, and integrates seamlessly with your eToro account.  Any issues can be resolved by the same award winning eToro customer support.

Pros and Cons

OpenBook is one of the least buggy, best performing forex social networks out there today.  Best of all, the price is free, unlike other networks which will take a percentage of the profits you make from following traders or add a few pips onto each trade.

Unfortunately, you can’t use any forex trading brokers other than eToro with the account, which rules out anyone who doesn’t want to use their web-based platform to trade.

Rates of Return

The rates of return that you can get with OpenBook will vary depending on which traders you decide to follow.  Always put a large amount of research into the traders and diversify your portfolio by finding several top traders to use on your team, instead of using only one person.

eToro’s OpenBook platform is a great addition to their online forex offerings.  It’s easy to use, clean, and can help people who want to see what other traders are doing or simply want to find a team of traders to manage their money for them. Unfortunately, since it is only compatible with eToro’s platform, if you aren’t planning on using them to trade, you should look at other social platforms, which might be more expensive but will give you a lot more for your money.

Click Here to Go to eToro.com and See OpenBook for Yourself

Features

Tradeo is first and foremost is a social platform. It gives you an interface very similar to Facebook, where you have a public wall that you and your friends can post to as well as private messaging and online chats. All of your trades can be posted to your wall within a few minutes of you making them and you can read and comment on other trader’s positions. There is also support for custom groups, so no matter what your experience or trading style is, you can find a group that can help you grow as a trader.

Tradeo also offers up to date market information and an in-depth analysis of your own and your friend’s accounts. They offer charts and quotes on over 50,000 market instruments, with line and candlestick charts and will soon be adding support for indicators as well. The news aggregation feature is powerful as well, and lets you configure exactly what you want to read and what sources you want to get your information from. And like most other social forex broker interfaces, Tradeo lets you see the current market sentiment on an easy to scan page that aggregates all open trades over all the traders Tradeo has. There is also integration with Facebook and Twitter so you can post your trades automatically in real time to these accounts as well.

One of the features that is unique to Tradeo is the economic calendar. While you can find economic calendars at nearly every forex broker, Tradeo lets you filter the events by importance and also allows you to discuss them and their implications with other traders in real time.

Platform Ease of Use

The Tradeo interface itself is very intuitive, clean, and easy to use. However, it isn’t a broker so you can’t trade or sell directly through their platform.

Pros and Cons

It’s hard to beat the social features of Tradeo. They are more developed and slicker than almost every other one of the interfaces covered in our social currency broker reviews. Hundreds of different brokers are supported and trades are updated every two to four minutes. And best of all, the service is absolutely free.

However, many brokers provide the same information to account holders that Tradeo gives out to its traders; you just can’t discuss the implications of that news in real time. Tradeo also doesn’t offer the same powerful analytical tools that other social brokers do and lacks the ability to directly trade from its platform. This also means that you won’t be able to automatically follow traders like you can on other social platforms.

Conclusion

Tradeo is a great place to connect with other traders, but it lacks the powerful analytical tools and the ability to trade right through the platform. While this is good for learning and growing as a trader, it isn’t as useful if you want to put the information to use right away. If the lack of these features is a problem, you should check out one of the other forex social networks covered in our reviews.

How Does Collective2 Work?

Collective2 takes you from trading system identification to auto trading in five simple steps.

1. Find the Right Trading System

Collective2 offers a System Finder which allows you to filter down to the best forex trading systems for you by using a simple point and click interface. You can filter out trading systems based on the instruments they trade in, the trade frequency of the systems and the payment requirement of the systems.

Trading systems on Collective2 can trade in various instruments like forex, stocks, futures and options. You can either look for systems that trade in any of these instruments or just in the instrument of your choice.

You can also filter out the best forex systems based on the trading frequency you prefer. The trading systems on Collective2 are classified as long term trading systems, short term trading systems and swing trading systems.

Collective2 also provides another way, known as The Grid, to filter out trading systems based on various parameters. The grid allows you to set parameters like the age of the trading system, number of trades, average duration of the trades, profit factor, annual compounded return, performance in the last 30 or 60 days, trading instrument, maximum drawdown or the profit or loss per unit.

The Grid has an intuitive interface and can help you narrow down to the best forex systems of your preference within a matter of minutes. So if you are interested only in trading systems that are over 150 days old, have a maximum drawdown of less than 20% and have an annual compounded return of over 25%, all you have to do is enter these figures and voila, you’ll have the list of trading systems that satisfy this criteria.

2. Evaluate the Trading System

Once you have identified the trading system you are interested in, you can click on it to check out the details. You can zoom into the charts to examine details graphically or you can check the monthly performance of the trading system ever since it has been active.

You can perform due diligence on the historical records and check each trade if you need to. Once you are done with your evaluation, you can read what other people using the system have to say about it. As important as your evaluation is, the forex trading systems reviewed by real users will give you additional insight into the actual performance of the system.

A lot of the detail pages of the trading systems have data and performance records of real money accounts which the system creators are trading on. These aren’t hypothetical trades or trades with a demo account but real trades executed by the traders’ brokers.

3. Subscribe to the Trading System

Once you are sure that you like a particular trading system and want to trade according to it, you can subscribe to the system. This subscription will cost a small monthly fee which lets you set your trading account to trade as per the trading system you have selected.

The fee varies across trading systems and will depend on the system creator. In some cases, you might be able to try out a trading system for a limited time on a free trial without spending any money. As with the pricing, the prerogative to offer a free trial lies with the system creator.

4. Switch AutoTrade On

Collectove2 offers compatibility with the largest number of automated trading forex brokers. After you have subscribed to a particular trading system, you can switch AutoTrading on in your account. You can then set the limits to the trade sizes that you are comfortable with.

It is usually a good idea to start with small trades and increase the trade size gradually as your confidence in the trading system grows. Once you have completed these settings, you will see new trades being placed in your trading account as and when the trading system recommends a trade.

5. Sit Back & Watch

Once everything is set up and your account has started trading automatically according to the trading system you selected, you can either sit back, watch the trades passively or you can intervene in case you feel the need to.

Automated trading with Collective2 lets you stay in control of your account at all times. This means that you have access to real time profit and loss reports along with trade statuses. Depending on the market conditions, if you feel the need to close a trade for any reason, you have the ability to do that.

Who Creates the Systems & How Are They Compensated?

The trading systems offered on Collective2 have been developed by traders and system developers and can be either automated or manual. Collective2 offers system developers a lot of flexibility and options to share their systems with other people and be compensated for that.

The system developers can choose to charge subscribers a monthly, quarterly or annual fee for using their system. Optionally, system developers can charge on a “pay per trade” or a “pay per profitable period” basis. Collective2 also offers the ability to generate discount coupons and special offers along with the ability to broadcast private emails to subscribers.

An additional benefit that Collective2 provides is that system developers don’t have to share any information about their system with the subscribers. In case the developers are using an automated trading system, they don’t have to share any expert advisor. This goes a long way in preventing piracy and protecting the intellectual property of the system developer.

Pros and Cons of Collective2

Pros 

1. Research Tools To Evaluate Trading Systems

Collective2 offers a lot of tools to let you compare multiple trading systems and filter them to identify the best one for you.

2. Transparent Trading 

You can check the history of trades for any particular system. This includes systems which use a demo trading account and systems which use real trading accounts.

3. Simple To Set Up

It doesn’t take more than a few minutes to set the system up and start auto trading.

4. Past Customers’ Insights

You can interact with past subscribers for any trading system to check their experience and gain additional insights.

5. Simple to Subscribe and Unsubscribe

It is easy to subscribe to any system you like and unsubscribe from any system you don’t like. You won’t have to jump through hoops to get this done.

6. Systems Available For Multiple Instruments

You can find trading systems on Collective2 that trade many instruments including forex, stocks, futures and options.

7. Protects Intellectual Property & Prevents Piracy

Collective2 helps system developers share their system with other people and receive compensation for it without having to worry about piracy or theft of intellectual property.

Cons

1. Not Compatible With All Brokers

While Collective2 is compatible with a lot of brokers, it still isn’t compatible with all of them. This means that if you don’t hold a trading account with one of the compatible brokers, you might have to open a new one.

2. Limited Choice Of Stock Exchanges Outside The US

Outside the US, Collective2 support four stock exchanges including the London Stock Exchange, the Australian Stock Exchange, the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Deutsche Börse. It is currently not possible to trade on other international stock exchanges outside the US.

Click Here to Visit Collective2.com

How Does it Work & How to Set it Up

The moment you sign up for a VPS hosting account, the hosting provider you are with provides you with the IP address of the virtual server which is assigned to you. All you have to do is create a link to your VPS on your desktop with the IP address that was assigned to you.

The majority of VPS hosting servers come with the necessary MT4/MT5 trading platforms pre installed. Therefore, as a forex trader the only thing you will need to do is to install or upload onto the system your forex expert advisors.

Even for those traders who use a different platform other than MT4, they can simply upload and install the trading platform they use onto their VPS servers. Once traders have installed and executed their expert advisors, they can log off the VPS and the machine will work at doing its job.

Why People use Forex VPS Hosting & How it Can Help

There are several reasons as to why more and more people are starting to use a Forex broker VPS:

• While not being for everyone, Forex VPS Hosting is a necessity for those traders who trade heavily on the forex markets
• There is no need to rely on your internet connection or even on your computer or laptop
• The ability to work from home, and in fact anywhere in the world is provided thanks to the ability to access your server from the global platform
• Forex VPS hosting is dedicated to performing any forex related tasks in a very efficient manner
• Traders will have the ability to run up to four different trading platforms simultaneously
• All EA files will always be installed in the correct folders which can avoid costly errors.
• As every trader can access the root of the server, the ability to download various applications which can enhance the trading experience becomes available
• A dedicated server means that traders will be able to review pages before they go live on the internet

Free Forex VPS Services

Forex Club

The leading online brokerage company, Forex Club, recently announced the launch of tradecloud. This is a new global service which gives traders access to their services, trading advisors, trading terminals and analytics via their computer or smartphone.

The service offered guarantees a minimum uptime and availability of 99.6%. Even in the event of the Internet failing or a power surge, a transaction or trading position will remain open, providing client service continuity.

Key Features:

• 24/7 online access from any web browser
• Fully mobile compliant
• High speed of operations
• Lack of hardware requirements for client
• Secure EA distribution
• High level of data protection
• Social network connectivity
• Geo-location latency balancing

Forex.com

Forex.com VPS hosting is free, but only for customers who have a minimum of $5000 in their account. Continued eligibility is based on the total assets and trading activity in a trader’s account. For continued access to the VPS hosting, a trader must also execute at least 10 round trip mini lots per month as well as maintaining a minimum of $5000 in an account

Key Features

• Access your account from any OS with a web browser
• Pre installed MetaTrader software on the VPS solution
• Run EAs on a dedicated Unix server, for maximum uptime
• Easily upload and mage your EAs with a fast and secure account manager

GCMfx.com

While a trader needs $5,000 in their account to qualify for VPS hosting, at Forex.com, only $500 is needed at Gallant Capital Markets. However, continued eligibility is based on the total assets and trading activity in the account. For continued access, a trader must execute at least 1 standard lot round per month as well as maintaining a minimum of $500 in their account.

Key Features

• Accessible through any web browser
• Accessible through any web-mobile enabled cell phone advice
• Geo Latency
• Maximum uptime ensured through use of Linux servers
•  Simple EA upload

One important thing to be aware of when choosing a forex broker virtual hosting plan is the need to reduce latency. Or to put it another way a trader needs to minimize the distance from the VPS to his Forex broker.

Let’s use this example to get a better understanding of why this is so important – say that a trader is trading with signals which means that a time delay will exist while waiting for the signal to arrive at the broker for execution. Servers that are located far away from the forex broker’s server can suffer a delay in seeing the ask or bid price that is available.

It is also important to find other people’s experiences with certain brokers by researching, reading and comparing the large collection of forex broker reviews available on the Internet.

While MyFXbook doesn’t have all the features that other social forex platforms like Currensee do, the free price tag makes it worth a look.

Purpose

MyFXbook first and foremost allows you to import your data from your forex brokers to analyze your trading habit and history. By analyzing your past trades, MyFXbook can allow you to see what you are doing wrong and what you are doing right with your trading, letting you squeeze precious pips out of every trade. Importing your data also lets you validate your returns, an important feature if you are trying to become a money manager or sell your trading system.

MyFXbook also contains an in-depth dashboard that keeps you up to date with all the important information in the markets and lets you look at the results and strategies of other traders that have decided to share their strategies.

The site also offers a very helpful real-time chart of the spreads offered by the leading forex brokers so traders can easily pinpoint which online brokers are offering the most advantageous trading conditions.

Pros and Cons

MyFXbook is absolutely free to use and can let you look at your trading in a new light using their advanced analytical tools. This lets you examine your results quicker, giving you more time to trade. The information provided on the main dashboard is also more in-depth and robust than what many forex brokers offer. This will let you get caught up on the latest market news before you start trading in record time.

It can also connect to your Twitter account and the social features are invaluable for the solitary forex trader. It also works with a great deal of foreign exchange brokers, so you can find one that you will match your trading style.

Unfortunately, the platform itself isn’t as powerful as other sites that offer similar services, like Currensee.com. Currensee offers you a better drill down strategy and also bans demo trading accounts, which can skew results with people throwing play money around. If you are currently using a demo account the right way however, MyFXbook can help you fine tune your strategies.

Platform

No installation is required for the MyFXbook platform. It is a very simple, easy to use web interface that connects directly to your trading account. All that is required is to import your trading data and you will be ready to start.

Conclusion

MyFXbook can help you earn better returns with foreign exchange brokers because of the improved analytics and the ability to learn from other traders. It is also good for verifying the returns of signals or trading software before you buy them. Since it is a free service, it is worth a look and is much better than nothing.

However, if you are a serious trader you may want to check out other services such as Currensee, which offers better analytics and charting, but also come with a price.

Multi Account Manager (MAM)

Multi Account Manager is a software tool which can be integrated as a plugin with any trading platform like Metatrader. MAM allows the money manager to replicate a particular trade across multiple managed forex accounts with a single click. It doesn’t matter whether the trades are being carried out manually or by an expert advisor (EA). Any action taken on the master account will be replicated across all the designated client accounts. Further, a multi account manager allows money managers to automatically receive a share of the clients’ profits depending on the agreement with the clients.

While the trade (buy or sell) is uniformly applied across client accounts, there are different ways in which the quantity or the lot size can be decided for each account. LAMM and PAMM are two common methods of deciding the lot size which the clients’ accounts trade.

Lot Allocation Management Module (LAMM)

In a Lot Allocation Management Module trading system, the customers’ accounts trade the same lot size as the money manager’s account regardless of the size of the clients’ accounts. This can be fine when the sizes of the clients’ accounts are identical to the size of the money manager’s account. However, when the clients’ managed forex accounts are significantly larger or smaller than the money manager’s account, this can be a big problem. For instance, if a client’s account is much smaller than the manager’s account, its risk is higher due to the higher leverage. On the other hand, if a client’s account is much larger than the trader’s account, the profit percentage will be lesser than the trader.

Percent Allocation Management Module (PAMM)

Percent Allocation Management Module fixes this problem in LAMM by distributing the profits (and losses) across all the client accounts in the same proportion as their account size irrespective of the lot size of the trade. For example, let’s assume that the manager’s account size is $5,000 and he has two clients, Client A with an account of $2, 000 and Client B with an account of $3,000. Now the total trading amount is $10,000 with the manager’s contribution at 50%, Client A’s contribution at 20% and Client B’s contribution at 30%. Any profit or loss from the trades will now be distributed across these three accounts in these proportions. So a profit of $1,000 will give the manager $500 while Client A will get $200 and Client B will get $300.

Benefits of MAM and PAMM

MAM in general and PAMM in particular, can make the job of the money manager extremely simple. These systems can also provide clients with real time access to all the trades that the manager is executing, letting them keep track of their investment. Multi Account Managers provide a middle ground between the extreme options of depositing your money with money managers or providing the money managers with an unlimited power of attorney over your trading account.

Best PAMM Forex Brokers

There are a lot of PAMM forex brokers in the market and reading most of the forex broker reviews will give you a good idea about their clients’ experiences. However, there are a few forex brokers who provide PAMM functionality who stand above the rest in terms of performance and customer satisfaction. These brokers include:

1. Forex4You

Forex4You allows you to open a PAMM account either as an investor or as a trader. Traders can use the system to set various parameters to determine investor eligibility. These parameters could include minimum and maximum size of accounts, commission rate and profit levels to calculate the commission.

Forex4You has started offer PAMM cent accounts which allow traders and investors to trade with the minimum possible amount at a time. Investors can also qualify for a bonus of up to 50% of their investment via the recently launched bonus program for PAMM investment accounts. Once this bonus is earned out, it will immediately be transferred to the investors’ accounts and can either be invested or withdrawn.

2. Trading Point

Trading Point has started offering PAMM accounts for traders and investors since the second half of 2011. Trading point offers PAMM which allows the investors’ accounts to participate in the trading activity of a particular trader and share the profits in proportion to their contribution to the total trading fund.

3. InstaForex

InstaForex allows traders and investors to use a PAMM account to trade any amount, right from a single dollar to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Investors are allowed to monitor the accounts of many traders, view their history and then decide the trader they would like to invest with. InstaForex allows investors to open different accounts in order to invest with multiple traders and hedge their risks.

InstaForex also implements a Funds protection policy which allows the money manager to only withdraw funds which aren’t involved in any current deals. Opening a PAMM account requires a very simple process to be followed by both, existing and new customers of InstaForex.

Foreign exchange broker Forex4You reports that it operates 489,489 live trading accounts with 271,296 open orders as of April 19th. The Forex4You claim states that of the 21,817 trading accounts that closed at least one order last week, 72.45 % were profitable. Of those accounts, the account with the highest profitability was one entitled KARLIN that boasts a 483% profitability rate in 23 days with a starting capital of $2,650.

These numbers stand in contrast to the numbers released by the major US forex brokers for Q1 of 2012 that showed that the broker with the highest amount of profitable fx trading accounts was GFT with 40.6%. This does not take into consideration other brokers such as Interactive Brokers, which offers accounts where investing is carried out on additional financial instruments, that reported a 51% profitability for its clients’ trading accounts for Q1 2012. Additional information about the report on US forex broker accounts profitability can be found here.

Forex4You has offices in London, Mumbai, and the British Virgin Islands. The company offers forex trading via the MetaTrader 4 and 5 platforms in additional to mobile and tablet apps. The broker offers its services in a number of different languages including Chinese, Thai, German, Russian, Arabic and many more.

For more information about Forex4You click here to read our full Forex4You review.

Forex Club is one of the oldest forex brokers on the market. The company was founded in 1997 and has a very strong presence in various Easters European countries and South America. FxClub is an innovator in the business having introduced a revolutionary new trading platform called Rumus.

FxClub gives its users the option to choose a variety of trading platforms. These platforms were specially selected in order to satisfy both beginners and experienced traders. The platforms selected for beginners contain less complicated charts, easy to understand navigation and commission structures. The more advanced platforms offer complex charts and various extra features that allow expert traders to develop advanced strategies. Read the forex platforms review below for more info.

StartFX 2 Review

StartFX 2 is the simplest forex broker platforms available at FxClub due to the fact that it offers only a limited number of charts and contains several features that will benefit beginners in the forex business. The platform offers 4 stages to beginners, each stage unlocking new tools after the previous stage and its tools have been mastered.

Using the StartFX 2 platform is very easy. The navigational menus are easy to understand and straight to the point. They might be somewhat simplistic, but it’s exactly because of this why it’s so easy for a beginner of handle.

The StartFX 2 forex platform only provides 8 indicators and 2 graphics tools. These, however will be more than enough to teach a newcomer all about forex trading and statistics evaluation. Most conventional traders offer indicators and tools up to 30+ something that would be extremely difficult for a newcomer to accustom with.

StartFX 2, like most other modern platforms does provide instant execution of trades and real-time quotes. Some of its drawbacks when it comes to features is that it’s not available in browser and mobile variants and that traders using StartFX 2 must trade through a dealing desk and it does not offer complex order types like trailing stops as an option.

StartFX 2 also uses the fixed price quotation method, meaning that you should never worry about spreads, slippage and requotes, because these will not be present at all. Instead the platform uses a transparent commission structure and will even repay all commissions in case of unprofitable trades.

(NOTE: The StartFX 2 platform is only offered to Non-US traders. US traders are offered the ExpressFX, a comparable platform, instead)

MetaTrader 4 Review

MetaTader 4 is one of the most popular forex trading platforms on the market. It’s recommended to medium-skilled and advanced traders alike due to the large selection of features and extensive list of charts and statistical tools.

The MetaTrader 4 platform is a mainstream forex broker platform that is easy to use and navigate. It’s somewhat more complex than the StartFX platform due to the larger number of features. The graphs in this platform are structured in a way that gives traders the best possible overview and trading experience.

The platform provides an extensive list of 30 indicators and 32 charting tools. These tools will satisfy the vast majority of traders and were designed in order to offer a clear overview that decreases the time required to analyze data.

The MetaTrader 4 provides instant execution of order and real-time quotes and well as advanced features such as automated trading, hedging, and various trading strategy optimizing and testing tools; however it does not support one-click trading.. Some of these features are not available in other platforms.

MetaTrader does not use the fixed price quotation method, meaning that requotes and slippage and cannot be avoided. One of the big advantages of the platform lies in the fact that it’s available in mobile version for Windows Phone device users.

ActTrader Review

The ActTrader is very similar to the MetaTrader platform. It also offers an extensive arsenal of charting tools, but its main advantage over ActTrader lies in the fact that it’s available in various mobile platforms and even in a browser version.

The navigational structure of the ActTrader platform is very advanced and modern. Using the platform is very easy even in the case of beginners; therefore, despite the large amount of features available, the ActTrader platform is also recommended for newcomers.

The ActTrader platform provides 32 indicators and 14 charting tools which is less than in the case of the MetaTrader platform. But the reason for this is that most other charts available elsewhere are not required in the case of the ActTrader platform, because all the relevant info is integrated in the available charts. ActTrader also integrates with ActForex’s FXapps store where traders can purchase third party forex trading apps to integrate strategies and expert advisors into their trading routine.

ActTrader executes trades instantly as well as offers real-time quotes. It does support advanced trade execution features such as trailing stops, hedging, OCO trades and strategy optimization tools. The biggest advantage of ActTrader is that it offers the lowest spreads from any of the ForexClub platforms: From 0.6 pips for EUR/USD & USD/JPY; 0.8 for USD/CHF; and 1.8 for GBP/USD & USD/CAD. The fact that it offers an iPhone/Android app, an iPad app as well as a browser version also makes it an attractive option.

Rumus Platform Review

Rumus is the most advanced trading platform available at FxClub. This platform contains the largest number of features and charts and is also available on various mobile devices and web browsers. For these reasons, Rumus is recommended mostly to advanced and expert traders.

Due to the multitude of features and charts, the navigation of the Rumus platform is very advanced and complex. For this reason some beginner traders might have a difficulty using it at first. Traders who already tried out most other platforms such as ActTrader and MetaTrader 4 should be able to use the Rumus platform without much difficulty.

Rumus offers a total number of 77 indicators and 17 charting tools. This makes it the platform with the most tools and graphs at FxClub. The charts are very advanced offering an extensive source of information for advanced traders.

Rumus combines all the tools available at all the other platforms. It contains the beginner features of the StartFX 2 platform but it also contains all the advanced features and tools of the two other platforms. The biggest drawback to the Rumus platform is that traders must trade through a dealing desk, trailing stops are not supported and neither is automated trading.

Rumus is available for web browsers and for smartphone forex apps as well.

Conclusions and Recommendations

All the forex broker platforms available at Forex Club have a clear purpose. The StartFX 2 lacks most of the advanced tools, but is the best possible training tool for most beginners. Newcomers should definitely use this tool at first and only after mastering it is it recommended to try out some of the other platforms available.

ActTrader and MetaTrader 4 both offer advanced tools, automated trading capabilities and an easy to navigate structure. Based on the features available and the offered spreads, ActTrader might somewhat be a better choice between these two.

The Rumus platform is extremely advanced with a huge selection of features and indicators, yet it does not offer trailing stops or non dealing desk trade execution.

Something else that should be mentioned is that ForexClub offers its trader access to AutoChartist and TradeCentral two services that provide trading signals and investment advice for traders who open accounts of $500 and $1500 or more respectively. These two services can greatly help with one’s trading by offering very specific trade recommendations. FxClub also offers trading accounts on Tradency’s MirrorTrader trade copying platform.

Open a free demo account at ForexClub

The most important product released by the company is the ActTrader. This product continues to be the major offering of the company, but during the years many other products and services were launched that are aimed at many of the aspects of the trading business.

ActForex and its products revolutionized the industry by allowing private companies that intended to offer trading services to expand their operations. Previously only banks and major international companies were able to offer trading services, but ActForex majorly contributed to the rise of online trading.

One of the major advantages of using the forex broker platforms of this company is independence. Using the services of ActForex will enable brokers to concentrate on the most important aspects of their companies such as business management and goals. All the technical details will be taken care of by ActForex itself.

ActForex Products

Since 2000, ActForex developed many different products aimed at various markets and companies. The most prominent product developed by the company is the ActTrader that is currently being used by a very large number of forex brokers, most of them famous names on the market.

Besides the ActTrader, ActForex supplies various other products such as mobile apps for iPhone and Android, iPad and other forex broker software platforms. Check below to see the most popular ActForex products.

ActTrader

The ActTrader forex broker platform offers a complete solution for forex brokers by providing them forex software with a large number of features and easy to use navigation. The overview of the ActTrader platform is very intuitive and easy to understand.

The ActTrader platform is one of the few forex broker interfaces on the market that can be fully customized by the trader. This means that all the charts, menus and graphs available can be resized and repositioned according to the user’s preference.

Making trades using the ActTrader interface is very easy. This can be done by selecting the desired currency pair after which the trader will have to press either the “Buy” or “Sell” button. This process becomes several times easier if the trader customizes the interface in such a way that it shows all the available trading options and various statistic graphs in the same window.

ActForex also boasts FXapps, which is its own app store where traders buy and integrate various forex trading applications developed by third parties made specifically for the ActTrader platform.

Some of the biggest names in the forex trading industry use the ActTrader platform. Some of these companies are FX Club, AvaFX, ForexYard and others.

ActWebTrader

The ActWebTrader is one of the newest products of ActForex that allows forex traders to trade using their browsers. The ActWebTrader platform contains all the features available in the regular ActTrader platform, with the only major difference being the fact that this platform doesn’t have to be downloaded.

The fact it doesn’t have to be downloaded means that it can be accessed virtually from any computer with internet access. This is a huge advantage to those who often travel a lot or use multiple computers and they don’t wish to install a third-party application on all of them.

The interface of the ActWebTrader is almost identic with the ActTrader interface. The only difference is that traders will not be able to customize the platform and move individual windows to different places. This is obviously because the ActWebTrader is a browser-based platform. To compensate this, ActWebTrader has several improvements such as a more detailed navigational menu advances design.

Like the regular ActTrader platform, the ActWebTrader is also used by many major forex brokers on the market. Some of these include names like ForexClub, CurrenEx, AvaFX, FXall and others.

ActVAT: Visual Algorithmic Trading 

For many years already traders were used to automated trading that executes all kinds of operations for them. The ActVAT platform, however completely revolutionized the industry by allowing traders without any programing skills whatsoever to be able to trade through the help of sophisticated trading algorithms.

The ActVAT trading platform allows traders to create automated trading strategies based on charts, historic developments, trend lines, current rates, previously adjusted price levels and much more. All this is possible by using the simple to understand and easy to navigate ActVAT platform.

ActPhone, ActPad and ActDroid

The ActPhone, ActPad and ActDroid software platforms were designed for the iPhone, iPad and Android-based devices. They all contain the features and functionality of the ActTrader and ActWebTrader platforms, making it easy for traders to trade anytime and anywhere.

The navigation of the three platforms is almost identic, but they somewhat differ from the navigation of the regular ActTrader platform. Despite this, they are very intuitive and easy to use. They provide detailed charts and market analysis tools and allow traders to rapidly place orders with a simple touch of the screen.

Conclusions

Many prominent online forex brokers have decided to use the platforms developed by ActForex. Just recently, news emerged that major forex broker FCStone decided to integrate the ActForex platform into its system. This allows the company to provide its users with one of the most efficient forex platforms on the market.

ActForex provides one of the most comprehensive forex broker trading platform portfolios on the market. Their products were specially designed to address a large customer base and allow traders to trade from multiple devices and platforms, such as computers, browsers, tablets and smartphones.

Open a $100,000 Demo Account with ActTrader at AvaFX

Purpose

Currensee is a forex social network that lets you find friends and build your own forex trading team of experts. Once your team is in place, the Currensee platform will automatically follow their trades, allowing you to put your money on autopilot.

You can sort through a wide selection of different expert traders to follow and sort them according to their winning trade percentage, profit/loss, and even their individual trading styles to build a forex trading system that you like.

Platform

Currensee’s platform is clean and easy to use right from the start. It is also completely customizable and widgetized. This lets you put the information that you need to most right at your fingertips. The platform contains windows where you can search experts by tactics, fields, and other parameters, a community window where you and other active traders can have discussions, and also boxes that detail how profitable you, your team, and the Currensee community as a whole are.

Pros and Cons

Currensee’s unique trading system will certainly be a boon to many traders, especially new traders or traders that don’t have a lot of spare time to analyze the charts and graphs that are needed to trade forex. Being able to watch and follow other’s trading habits allows you to learn quicker and devote less overall time to trading than going at it alone.

However, there are a few major downsides to using Currensee. First, every deposit is subject to a two percent yearly maintenance fee, dedicated at an annualized rate monthly. On top of this fee, there is also a twenty percent success fee levied on all profits generated in your account. These profits go back to the experts on your team, and over a long term can be a significant expense.

The platform itself is also slightly slower than using one of the dedicated brokers listed in our forex broker reviews because all of the trades must be processed through Currensee before being executed. So no matter what you will always have slippage when compared to the experts on your team. Spreads are also generally wider on Currensee than they are on most other competitive forex brokers.

Finally, even though you are following traders that have been successful in the past, past success is no guarantee of future performance. There is still a significant chance you can lose money even when following a winning trader, especially if they used risky tactics to bump up their numbers.

Average Return Rates

Currensee clearly posts the average return rates for all expert traders, you, your team, and the community as a whole in the trading platform. As of April, 2012, they reported an average 23.9% return on investment over the previous 6 months, a figure which is outlined in this Currensee press release.

Conclusion

Currensee is an excellent tool for beginning forex traders and traders that are especially stressed for time; however other traders may only want to make use of the social part of the platform. The fees involved in trading, along with slower execution times means that the ease of trading comes with a significant cost other traders might not be willing to stomach.