reviews – Traders' Zone

XM, also called Trading Point, is an international broker for online forex and commodity trading. It provides traders with an extensive selection of features for trading forex, precious metals, stock indices, and energies, in a bid to ensure trading flexibility.

In this review, we will assess XM as a forex broker in terms of trading systems, accounts and pricing, spreads and commission, underlying assets, reliability and efficiency, and customer support.

Trading Systems

The clients of XM can access as many as 8 advanced trading platforms directly from one account, allowing clients to speed up trading operations and have more flexibility in trading, anywhere and anytime.

The two primary types of trading platforms are Web Trader and Meta Trader 4. Web Trader is a perfect choice for those who have a limited hard disk space or who want to access their account through a smartphone. It gives clients access to real-time market information through the website, without the hassle of downloading and installing any software.

Meta Trader 4, on the other hand, combines both manual and automatic trading options, making it one of the most popular systems today. On top of the clear prices and movements, this user-friendly platform enables traders to increases their performance.

Accounts and Pricing

With this platform, you can have multiple trading accounts with flexible conditions. You can have unlimited and free demo accounts. You can access 8 trading platforms from one account.

With this broker, you can already start trading with just $5 on multiple trading accounts. You will also be offered with fractional pip pricing so that you can trade with tighter spread and benefit from the most accurate quoting possible. The broker also offers a huge 888:1 leverage, which is one of the highest in the forex industry.

Moreover, you will have access to its Bonus Program and regular promotions. Today, the primary incentive for the customers is the 50 percent deposit bonus up to $500 and 20 percent up to $5,000.

One disadvantage of this platform is the lack of difference in terms of benefits between the different types of trading account. Also, not having any funding option for Paypal would also be an issue for some traders.

Spreads and Commission

This broker does not charge any commission. Instead, the company’s profit is dependent of the spreads of the trades themselves. Aside from imposing no hidden charges, all the gains and losses are quite real.

Underlying Assets

This platform enables numerous trading instruments, including currencies, gold and silver, oil, CFDs, commodities, indices, and stocks. However, it does not support any EFT trading.

Reliability and Efficiency

For traders who wish to execute real-time trades, XM is deemed as one of the most reliable platforms in the market. Aside from strictly imposing a no re-quotes policy, all figures stand upon the execution of a position. Indeed, 99.35% of all their trades are completed in less than a second.

There are few lag times between the observed prices and their actual market equivalents. However, if you computer has a good processing power and is connected to a strong internet connection, this issue will be of lesser deal.

Customer Support

XM offers outstanding client engagement and support, providing live chat, email and telephone options for all customers at all account levels. One interesting feature that it provides is its multi-lingual customer support portal, which supports more than 20 different languages. Also, the platform provides free interactive webinars for its clients every week, resolving almost all issues that the clients are facing. And with the help of the extensive resources that XM provides in its website, clients won’t have issues left unresolved.

You can open a free demo account and test—drive to see if this broker is right for you. Take advantage of the resources and highly enticing welcome bonus that they offer to start up your trading journey.

Whether you are a beginner or an expert trader, XM has a room for you. This platform’s commitment to quality service revolves around the core principles of business transparency, unified business principles, and outstanding customer communications. All these values are reflected in its services.

Questrade is a competitive financial service provider with an online stock trading platform for its Canadian-based investors. The broker specializes in ease of use and low trades. It has been in business since 1999.

Here is a quick review of Questrade in different aspects:

Pricing

Questrade offers very competitive prices and you won’t have to worry about hidden charges. The platform offers $4.95 trading fees for trades with 495 shares or less – maximum $9.95 fees for trades with more shares. They do not charge the usual $29 commission that other online brokerages charge. In addition to that, you can also trade ETFs for free.

It can hold USD in RRSP, Open, RESP and RRIF accounts. Indeed, Questrade is the only brokerage in Canada that accepts USD in registered accounts. Funding your account is pretty straightforward and intuitive. You simply need to set up a “bill payment” from your online banking account, which will take between 1-3 days. And transferring securities and cash in-kind is also smooth.

You also don’t have to worry about any account fees. And the minimum account balance required to open an account is only $1000, with only $250 needed to keep an account open.

Platform

It’s also a good trading platform. It’s very simple and easy to comprehend. As a matter of fact, Questrade allots time to update and upgrade its trading platform in order to improve its service to its clients. Now, investors can already use the web, desktop and mobile for trading.

However, while the platform pleases most traders, there are investors who are critical of the platform. This is because the broker’s target audience is composed of the traders and not investors. Some investors claim that the free webtrading platform is difficult to navigate and a bit “wonky” at times.

Also, having an account with Questrade means that you have to remember three passwords: one each for MyQuestrade, WebTrader and Penson Financial.

Service

With this broker, you can easily set up accounts and do trades, move money and other functions. You can access both the U.S. and Canadian stock markets without any hassle.

Another advantage is it offers a Live Chat medium that is available for extended help hours. With this option, you can immediately get responses on your queries without having to wait for extended hours or minutes before you can get a customer representative to attend to your need. Aside from commendable responsiveness, most of the issues that customers raise are immediately settled.

However, despite its overwhelming benefits, there are also disadvantages to the service. For instance, the broker does not offer EFT transfer for USD funds. As a matter of fact, in order to move USD funds, you have to write a cheque that takes as long as 20 days to clear.

Overall, Questrade is a very good option for an online brokerage. Its low commission rates are an ultimate enticer. And it also does not charge exorbitant fees. Take a second look at Questrade and check the reviews of its competitors. With that, you can assess the best discount broker that could serve your needs.