Residence, Regulation, and Company Management Structure

FXCM is an american company. It is registered in FCM and regulated by CFTC. It is also a member of NFA. It's head office is situated in New York. The company is also registered and has offices in Canada, Hong Kong, UK, Japan. It is registered in the national regulative organs of these countries.

The exact addresses of offices, telephones, e-mails are stated.

No managers of the company are mentioned.

Company's Market Position

The company guarantees fixed spreads, no slipping at execution of warrants and execution of warrants at the «rapid» market. FXCM names itself FOREX dealer.

No partners (liquidity suppliers) are mentioned.

The company offers a complete set of client accounts: individual, incorporated, corporate, guided, partner.
There are standard (minimum deposit $2000, lots on 100K) and mini (deposit from $300 or 300 or €300 or AUD300, lots on 10K) accounts.

The company also offers it's special service - Fixed Rate Options.

Types of Services Offered

The company trades 22 currency pairs – 7 majors and their cross-courses.

Marginal requirement are $1000 for a lot on standard, $50 for a lot on mini accounts. The minimum margin is set in 50% from required on standard, 100% from required on mini accounts. Clients have an opportunity to change marginal requirements.

Margin providing not less than 2% from the volume of the opened positions is needed for the use of standard mechanism of SWAP. If the opened positions do not have a guarantee providing 2%, paying for a transfer the next day is copied off from account, regardless of direction position.

Quotation is made by stream method, but at the volumes of transactions more than $50 mln. the query of dealer is required by phone.

Assured spreads are placed in a summary table. However, if a client chooses the option of "No Dealing Desk", guarantee of unchanging spreads and absence of slipping is not given.

It is possible to open account online from the site or to send completed forms by fax or e-mail. Clients can use bank orders, credit cards and cotter pins for depositing money on accounts. If a client withdraws money from an account a charge of $25 within the limits of the USA or $40 at transactions in other countries is taken.

Traders Support

The site has a section called «Education». It offers paid online courses and free educational «webinars» (interactive online seminars). Opening demo-accounts is possible.

Fundamental support of traders is presented rather variously on the site. There are daily analytical reviews, detailed calendar for 2 months forward, charts of basic economic indicators of the USA, different types of currency rates charts (both free and paid), analytical articles and a forum. In the «Trading Ideas» section Technical analyzer is offered and there are researches in the «Guest trading ideas» section. There are also articles and recommendations of different firms and specialists, not connected with FXCM and fundamental analytics.

Interactive support of clients is carried out by free telephone lines, available in many countries, and by e-mail.
The site is translated into 9 languages, but not completely.

The Trading Platform

The trading platform is FX Trading Station and it requires installation. It offers basic informative and trading services, except for graphic analysis. There is also a special appendix of FX News Software for a transmission streaming market news in the trading platform, technical levels, and FX commentary.

Site Design and Ease of Navigation Comments

The site contains an enormous volume of information, so the problems of structuring are obvious. There are a lot of cross references between branches. The site is also overload with self-advertisment. Navigation turns out to be quite problematic.

Advantages

• Location in the USA, membership in NFA, availability of CFTC.
• There are offices in other countries, which have registration in their regulative organs.
• Free multilingual telephone lines is in almost 40 countries.
• High-quality fundamental and analytical support.
• Detailed information about services the company offers.

Disadvantages

• Obscurity of the company's structure – no managers or liquidity suppliers are mentioned on the site.
• No bilateral agreement between clients and company is required on the site.
• Requirement of 2% marginal providing for the use of standard mechanism of SWAP.
• Too complecated structure of the site, incomplete translation into foreign languages.