Forexyard

FOREXYARD is a retail Forex broker that was established in 2004, and was acquired by the CySec regulated firm Safecap Investments Ltd. in March 2011. The broker offers online trading of seventy different currency pairs as well as stock indices and 3 commodities: gold, silver, and oil. FOREXYARD offers fixed spreads, including 3 pips on EUR/USD, and 3-5 pips on other major currency pairs. We tested the trading platforms, customer service and other aspects of this brokerage during our FOREXYARD review to help you determine whether this is the right Forex broker for you.

 

General Information
Founded in: 2004
Headquarters: Nicosia, Cyprus
Maximum leverage: 200:1
Minimum deposit: $100
Minimum lot size: 1,000 lots
Languages available: English, Arabic, Danish, German, Finnish, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Portuguese, Swedish, Turkish, Chinese, Taiwanese
Regulation: CySec

 

Trading Platform
FOREXYARD offers several trading platforms including the MetaTrader4 platform in downloadable and web-based versions and their proprietary FX Trader. They do not offer any feed for MetaTrader4 or eSignal charts. But trading with their proprietary platform and charts is fine for intraday or swing trading. They offer all the usual order types including trailing stops. What we found interesting is that FOREXYARD has both guided tours and virtual tours of its platform, but no mention is made on the site as to which platform these tours focus on. We could only find that out once we watched the tutorials that they focus on the FX webtrader. Once we made this determination, however, we did find the tutorials useful.

For the purposes of our FOREXYARD review, we focused primarily on the FX Trader, though we did also take a look at the MT4 option. For some reason, we had significant difficulties logging in to the downloadable MT4 platform, and when we chatted with the support team about this issue, the representative solved the problem by directing us to use the web version instead of the downloadable version.

We don’t regularly encounter the MT4 web trader, but we actually found this platform to be more enjoyable than the popular downloadable version because of its lighter, less crowded design. We did find that it timed out more quickly than the downloadable version, but this is a small price to pay for a more pleasant user experience. The MT4 web trader works in harmony with Adobe Flash Player and offers the same trading functionality and platform customization abilities as the downloadable version. 

The FX Trader web-based platform requires Java to run and we found it to be a perfectly ample platform. Trade executions were relatively quick and the interface is sufficiently intuitive (though the tutorials definitely helped us find our footing).  

 

Features
A range of features are available across the FOREXYARD platforms including charting tools, customizable platforms and three different types of autotrading, namely, API trading, Algorithmic trading and trading via the Forex Strategy Automator. Traders can also take advantage of the broker’s mobile trading which is available for over 50 of today’s most popular smartphones.

 

Customer Service
Available 24/5, FOREXYARD customer service is pretty good. The company can be contacted via telephone in 11 countries, email, or live chat on the website. During our tests, the live chat team responded immediately, and we received an email response in only 13 minutes, which was impressively fast. However, the email response did not sufficiently answer our question and we were left wondering what to do next. We found the support team to be helpful and transparent, except in regards to their policies about withdrawing funds, for which they representatives were a bit tight-lipped. We were especially pleased that the team was able to help us patiently with some seemingly-complex technical problems. 

 

Ease of Use
The FOREXYARD website is easy to understand and navigate and opening a demo or live account is mostly straightforward. The brokerage accepts major credit cards or bank wire transfers for depositing into live accounts, as well as Western Union Money Transfers. Credit card deposits are immediate to start trading live, while wire transfers can take up to 3 days to process. They also offer a free trading course upon registration that is actually pretty good and goes over the basics of trading the Forex market. Beyond the free course FOERXYARD also features several well-written tutorials for their trading platform and also for explaining several commonly used technical indicators. FOREXYARD is very strict about not allowing scalping trades.

The brokerage offers either a super mini account (for accounts smaller than $1000) or a standard account which requires a minimum deposit of $1000. Commodities trading is available only with a standard account. The super mini account is ideal for a beginning trader to put the minimum amount of risk on but still get the feel and practice of trading a live account. It is important to note that standard accounts have no withdrawal fees, but smaller accounts demand a $25 fee wire or Western Union withdrawals and a $10 fee for credit card withdrawals. Withdrawals require a form to be filled out and faxed along with proof of account holder and address. Process time is questionable: the website states that “withdrawal process time will take no less than 3 days” but does not state a maximum time for processing. Deposits can be made safely to several reputable banks including RBS UK, Barclays UK and National Bank of Dubai.

Finally, it is worth noting that FOREXYARD also offers institutional trading for traders wishing to deposit $50,000 or more can register for an Institutional Account which offers ECN trading with spreads usually from 0-1.5 pips.

 

Final Thoughts
FOREXYARD appears to be a solid Forex broker that offers fair trading conditions and is generally pleasant to use. Recent regulation certainly worked well to increase our confidence in the brand, and we definitely appreciated the choice of stable platforms and available customer support.