October 25, 2020

#389: Important Questions to ask a Forex Broker

10 minutes

Important Questions to ask a Forex Broker

Podcast:

#389: Important Questions to ask a Forex Broker

In this video:

00:22 – Joined by Ben Clay at Blueberry Markets

01:05 – How safe are your funds?

02:13 – Order types and hedging

03:30 – Can EU traders work with Blueberry?

03:56 – Can we get our money back if the broker goes bankrupt?

05:18 – What happens when you get sudden fluctuations in the market?

07:06 – Can some trades missed being filled?

08:19 – What makes Blueberry Markets different?

10:08 – Email me if you’d like to ask Blueberry Markets another question

Andrew Mitchem:

Today, we’re going to be answering your questions and the number one question that you want to ask a Forex broker. Let’s get into it right now.

Andrew Mitchem:

Hey, traders, it’s Andrew Mitchem here at the Forex Trading Coach with video and podcast number 389.

Joined by Ben Clay at Blueberry Markets

Now, something a little bit different today. We’re joined by Ben Clay at Blueberry Markets over in Australia. Hi there, Ben.

Ben:

Good day, Andrew. How are you?

Andrew Mitchem:

I’m fantastic and hope you are well too.

Ben:

Thanks, mate.

Andrew Mitchem:

Good. We’ve got something different. And last week, I asked a lot of questions to people and said, look, I want to know from you what’s your most important thing that if you could ask a Forex broker directly and we had a lot of questions come through. What I’ve done, Ben, I’ve just listed the main important topics. And if we can, I’d like to ask you those questions and just get your feedback on that so we can help people when deciding who to look for for a Forex broker.

Ben:

Absolutely. Absolutely, mate.

How safe are your funds?

Andrew Mitchem:

We’ll start with this one is from a guy called Percy over in the United Arab Emirates. And Percy said, and this is a very common question. How safe is my money if the broker goes bankrupt, even if they’re regulated?

Ben:

Very good question, Percy. It’s one that I get asked very often as well, and is a question that you should be asking your broker, in my opinion. When it comes to any financial institution, there’s risks no matter where you hold your funds. Even if it’s in with the bank, there’s always risks holding funds at any financial institution.

Ben:

However, in Australia, we’re regulated by ASIC, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which enforced the Australian Client Money Laws. This is something that’s been in place over the last 10 years or so, I believe, and very strict and diligent. Basically, it states that client’s funds are segregated and kept separate from our daily operating funds, can’t pay for staff wages, company losses, anything along those lines. But having said that, again, I cannot say the funds are 100% safe, but we are overly compliance here at Blueberry and follow these laws very closely to ensure that client funds are as safe as they possibly can be.

Order types and hedging

Andrew Mitchem:

Perfect. Thank you, Ben. Second question from Antonio over in Barcelona in Spain. Do you allow pending audit trading with expert advisors, robots? And do you also allow hedging?

Ben:

Oh, okay. We allow any expert advisors. That’s no issues at all and they can place pending orders. We have the four basic types of buy limit, sell limit, buy stop, sell stop, and we do allow hedging. I actually would like to touch on that a little bit because hedging is something I think there’s a little bit of misconception around where clients can hedge a trade and it’s used as protection.

Ben:

Whereas, I think a common misconception is a good thing to know is if you go 10 lots short, 10 lots long on the Euro, you still have double that exposure in the marketplace, whether your margin requirement is zero. It’s definitely something to keep in mind is that if spreads it to wide and outs, you are long and short on either side. 10 lots long, 10 lots short, every pip that it moves is going to be $100 either side, then your equity will start to drop. If that goes below zero, you’re going to be stopped out either way. Hedging is fine, but again, it’s just something that I like to warn my clients about is it’s not a way to protect your accounts. It can be used as a trading method, but don’t use it as a way to protect your accounts.

Andrew Mitchem:

Perfect. Thank you, Ben. And I hope that helps for you Antonio.

Can EU traders work with Blueberry?

Andrew Mitchem:

Over to the UK, Trevor. Trevor says, “Are EU citizens legally restricted in any way from trading through Blueberry Market?”

Ben:

Look, not at the moment. ASIC is always updating their policies and so on, but at the moment we have clients from all around the world. That is subject to change and we will always keep our clients up to edit of any changes, but at the moment, no issues.

Andrew Mitchem:

Perfect. Cool. That’s good.

Can we get our money back if the broker goes bankrupt?

Andrew Mitchem:

Another question. This is quite similar, Ben, to the first one that we had. And the question is, in case of company bankruptcy, or even direct fraud, can investors expect any return on their balance according to the ASIC rules?

Andrew Mitchem:

Now, for me personally, that’s quite an important question for me because I’m still waiting number of years on quite a substantial amount of money myself that I lost with Halifax a few years ago. I think this is a really important question for safety of people’s funds.

Ben:

Absolutely. It does go back to the question from Percy. Look, in all honesty, if anything is to happen to us and Blueberry is to go bankrupt, the full amount of funds should still be there. It might take some time to get them back, or it might be 95 cents on the dollar, but as long as the broker is doing the right thing by the clients, then those funds are still there in those segregated accounts. Even though it has been some time, hopefully you should still see a vast majority of those funds, Andrew.

Andrew Mitchem:

And just as a question from myself, Do ASIC go through and how often would they go through your records or your accounts or anything like that? Do they go through things [inaudible 00:04:52]?

Ben:

Yeah, quite closely to my knowledge. I believe once a month, brokers need to report to ASIC on all their client funds and their client dealings. It is quite strict.

Andrew Mitchem:

Yeah. Good. Excellent. Thank you.

What happens when you get sudden fluctuations in the market?

Andrew Mitchem:

Another question here was this relates to something that happened a little while ago, but they said after the sudden Swiss fluctuations, which we’ve seen in the past, what protections are in place and what happens with a stop loss? Is it always honoured? Do you get gaps? How does it work if you have a massive move like that?

Ben:

That’s a really good question. I was working for a different broker at that time. It was a nightmare day for a lot of people. We have stopped our levels at 50% equity over margin. A lot of brokers use 20% so it’s a little bit lower, but ours is at 50%, which gives that little bit extra early stop out, so to speak.

Ben:

Stop losses though, as we get our pricing direct from our liquidity providers and show that price directly, whatever price we are receiving from them is the actual market price. If a stop loss is gapped over, you will be taken out at a worst price during a black Swan event like that. It’s one of the unfortunate things about trading, but the positive thing to look at is it works both ways.

Ben:

With the broker I was working out, we also had clients go into massive positive because their trades were taken out way past their take profits. It’s important to know that it does go both ways, but it’s just something to be mindful of. And if you’re always managing your risk and keeping up to date with the major news announcements, you can try and avoid this as much as possible, but hopefully within an event like the Swiss National Bank, we won’t see another one of them for another 100 years or so.

Andrew Mitchem:

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. I’ve been trading for 17 years and I think that one, maybe two events ever in that time, and of course it only really affects you if you’re on that currency pair at that time as well.

Ben:

Exactly.

Andrew Mitchem:

[crosstalk 00:06:41], New Zealand dollars [crosstalk 00:06:43].

Ben:

Exactly. Yeah. It was very risky for anyone who was trading Swiss pairs during that time when the pair was pegged, very risky, but, hey, each to their own.

Can some trades missed being filled?

Andrew Mitchem:

Yep. Perfect. Thank you. And another question here, this is from a YouTube comment from a guy called Kieran. He said that many complaints from retail freight as a bank brokers about orders not being filled. And he said, is it true that certain FX pairs are more liquid than say CFDs or even Exotic or minor currency pairs? And if so, which assets have more tendency for slippage?

Ben:

Okay, that’s a really good question. An order can only be filled if the underlying market is there to be filled. If there’s no buyers or sellers, then obviously no one can buy or sell at that price that you’re requesting. That’s going to be more extreme during rollover time, obviously 5:00 PM New York, which is midnight on our trading platforms. Spreads are definitely going to wide out. There’s low liquidity at those times. Orders are less likely to be filled or more likely to be subject to slippage over large news announcements is definitely a time to be careful. But as you said, Kieran, the more exotic pairs will have higher slippage and less liquidity at any given time. Your Turkish liras and Mexican pesos and so on, those ones are going to be more subject to slippage, then Euro, USD or pound Aussie, something along those lines.

Andrew Mitchem:

Just natural the amount of volume and liquidity in the market at that time.

Ben:

Exactly. Spot on.

What makes Blueberry Markets different?

Andrew Mitchem:

Perfect. And then finally from me, now I’ve been with Blueberry Markets for many, many years now. You’re my preferred broker on the Forex Trading Coach site. And so really from your point of view, what would you say makes you different from what most other brokers have?

Ben:

Awesome question. Always a question that I love to answer. I think here at Blueberry, we just really try to change the perception in the way that the Forex markets is looked at, at Forex brokers are looked at. We have just tried to focus on customer service and just looking after our clients, when they have a query taking care of it and treating them fairly.

Ben:

At the end of the day, it just comes down to making sure that our clients are heard where they’re 24/7, even on the weekends. If anyone has any issues, to be there for them. It’s something that we noticed there was actually a big gap in the market. That’s all it comes down to.

Ben:

A lot of brokers are very similar these days. We do offer tight spread, fast execution, but most brokers do. And there are a lot of great Australian brokers out there as well that I would recommend. But when it comes down to the customer service, I truly don’t believe anyone in the market in the world is doing it as good as we are.

Andrew Mitchem:

Yep, and look, I 100% agree with that, and that’s the feedback that I constantly get from my clients. It’s just, they call me. They’re on the phone. Someone answers, it’s a real person. It’s the same group of people as well. It’s not a call centre. It’s not a [crosstalk 00:09:31].

Ben:

I really appreciate that feedback, mate. That means the world to us, and that’s really what we strive to do.

Andrew Mitchem:

Yeah, absolutely. Perfect. But, Ben, that’s covered the main questions that we’ve had through. I mean, obviously there’s variations for all those, but we could go all day. A lot of it comes down to that customer service, that regulated licencing that you have and everything around that and safety of funds.

Email me if you’d like to ask Blueberry Markets another question

Andrew Mitchem:

Look, if anybody else has any questions like this that we didn’t answer, what we’d like you to do is to send me an email, [email protected]. And I can then pass that directly through to Ben, or we can do another session like this another day.

Ben:

Absolutely.

Andrew Mitchem:

But Ben, thank you very much for your time and for being here and thank you for answering those questions so kind and honestly.

Ben:

No worries.

Ben:

Mate, thank you very much for having me. It’s a pleasure and I’m happy to do this anytime.

Andrew Mitchem:

Cool. Thank you, Ben.

Ben:

Thanks again, Andrew.

Episode Title: #389: Important Questions to ask a Forex Broker

Find Out More about Trading with Blueberry Markets – Click Here

Learn More About My Course. Click Here!

If you have been trading for less than 6 months, click here

If you have been trading for more than 6 months, click here

Click Here to Download my FREE Lot Size Calculator

Click Here to Check my Recommended Brokers.

The 30 Minute Trader Trip

Watch how Andrew made a +12.79% gain on a live account during 4 weeks while trading for just 10-30 minutes a day while on holiday in the UK and France.

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE VIDEOS >>

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October 25, 2020

#389: Important Questions to ask a Forex Broker

10 minutes

Important Questions to ask a Forex Broker

Podcast:

#389: Important Questions to ask a Forex Broker

In this video:

00:22 – Joined by Ben Clay at Blueberry Markets

01:05 – How safe are your funds?

02:13 – Order types and hedging

03:30 – Can EU traders work with Blueberry?

03:56 – Can we get our money back if the broker goes bankrupt?

05:18 – What happens when you get sudden fluctuations in the market?

07:06 – Can some trades missed being filled?

08:19 – What makes Blueberry Markets different?

10:08 – Email me if you’d like to ask Blueberry Markets another question

Andrew Mitchem:

Today, we’re going to be answering your questions and the number one question that you want to ask a Forex broker. Let’s get into it right now.

Andrew Mitchem:

Hey, traders, it’s Andrew Mitchem here at the Forex Trading Coach with video and podcast number 389.

Joined by Ben Clay at Blueberry Markets

Now, something a little bit different today. We’re joined by Ben Clay at Blueberry Markets over in Australia. Hi there, Ben.

Ben:

Good day, Andrew. How are you?

Andrew Mitchem:

I’m fantastic and hope you are well too.

Ben:

Thanks, mate.

Andrew Mitchem:

Ben:

Absolutely. Absolutely, mate.

How safe are your funds?

Andrew Mitchem:

Ben:

Order types and hedging

Andrew Mitchem:

Perfect. Thank you, Ben. Second question from Antonio over in Barcelona in Spain. Do you allow pending audit trading with expert advisors, robots? And do you also allow hedging?

Ben:

Andrew Mitchem:

Perfect. Thank you, Ben. And I hope that helps for you Antonio.

Can EU traders work with Blueberry?

Andrew Mitchem:

Over to the UK, Trevor. Trevor says, “Are EU citizens legally restricted in any way from trading through Blueberry Market?”

Ben:

Andrew Mitchem:

Perfect. Cool. That’s good.

Can we get our money back if the broker goes bankrupt?

Andrew Mitchem:

Ben:

Andrew Mitchem:

And just as a question from myself, Do ASIC go through and how often would they go through your records or your accounts or anything like that? Do they go through things [inaudible 00:04:52]?

Ben:

Yeah, quite closely to my knowledge. I believe once a month, brokers need to report to ASIC on all their client funds and their client dealings. It is quite strict.

Andrew Mitchem:

Yeah. Good. Excellent. Thank you.

What happens when you get sudden fluctuations in the market?

Andrew Mitchem:

Ben:

Andrew Mitchem:

Ben:

Exactly.

Andrew Mitchem:

[crosstalk 00:06:41], New Zealand dollars [crosstalk 00:06:43].

Ben:

Exactly. Yeah. It was very risky for anyone who was trading Swiss pairs during that time when the pair was pegged, very risky, but, hey, each to their own.

Can some trades missed being filled?

Andrew Mitchem:

Ben:

Andrew Mitchem:

Just natural the amount of volume and liquidity in the market at that time.

Ben:

Exactly. Spot on.

What makes Blueberry Markets different?

Andrew Mitchem:

Ben:

Andrew Mitchem:

Ben:

I really appreciate that feedback, mate. That means the world to us, and that’s really what we strive to do.

Andrew Mitchem:

Email me if you’d like to ask Blueberry Markets another question

Andrew Mitchem:

Ben:

Absolutely.

Andrew Mitchem:

But Ben, thank you very much for your time and for being here and thank you for answering those questions so kind and honestly.

Ben:

No worries.

Ben:

Mate, thank you very much for having me. It’s a pleasure and I’m happy to do this anytime.

Andrew Mitchem:

Cool. Thank you, Ben.

Ben:

Thanks again, Andrew.

Episode Title: #389: Important Questions to ask a Forex Broker

Find Out More about Trading with Blueberry Markets – Click Here

Learn More About My Course. Click Here!

If you have been trading for less than 6 months, click here

If you have been trading for more than 6 months, click here

Click Here to Download my FREE Lot Size Calculator

Click Here to Check my Recommended Brokers.

The 30 Minute Trader Trip

Watch how Andrew made a +12.79% gain on a live account during 4 weeks while trading for just 10-30 minutes a day while on holiday in the UK and France.

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE VIDEOS >>

...more