IC Markets

Hey guys, thought to set up a feedback and commentary thread relating to IC Markets.

Comments, complaints, concerns, compliments, commendations, put em all here. IC Markets will be monitoring this thread in order to gauge from the MyFXBook community what it's done right and wrong; what it does well, and what it can improve upon.

I definitely look forward to hearing from you all.


Cheers,
Kyle

Hi Sur

IC markets are not well know broker. What I know is
- based at Australia
- low spreads
- low comission

I also would like know about it. if I get good feedback I will swtich to IC markets. "IC Markets will be monitoring this thread" I wonder if a representative could give here some feedback. also traders can put their experience would be great.

the only concern for me is the safety of funds. its not enough to trust a broker only due its from Australia.

walker

I'm with them for months now. So far so good, haven't try to ask for withdrawal until now. I also with another aussie broker and made few withdrawals without any problem. And for the spread Just like what advertised, and never had bad experience like off-quotes or requotes or else with my HFT ea.

thank you dunk
have you ever faced with long term platform freeze
or
high slippage( not news hours )

dunkdenk posted:
I'm with them for months now. So far so good, haven't try to ask for withdrawal until now. I also with another aussie broker and made few withdrawals without any problem. And for the spread Just like what advertised, and never had bad experience like off-quotes or requotes or else with my HFT ea.

Freeze does happens, but only few seconds during high-impact news such as NFP, which also cause gap on the chart and wider spread, but not all high-impact news will cause this, only few of them. After that the spread back to normal even when the graph moving fast. I think the freeze, gap and wide spread is normal during that kind of ocassion. And during friday on US session last-minutes and monday Aussie session early minutes, lot of gaps happen due to low liquidity (I think).

on Demo they are very good, low spread
Commission of $7/lot is not low but the total cost is low
e.g. 1 pip on EUR usd plus 7 pips commission is OK
Support is better then average.
I do not have real account but I am going to open one with them

Hey Vontogr, it is possible to get a substantial rebate on the standard commission cost per my signature. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

I appreciate all the feedback guys. I will definitely pass on the information you've thoughtfully provided DunkDenk; Angus, their head of business development, is always looking for things to improve on.

I hope I could withdraw my deposit soon, and left only the profits to run. When this happen, I'll let you know how the withdrawal process goes.

good luck 😉

dunkdenk posted:
I hope I could withdraw my deposit soon, and left only the profits to run. When this happen, I'll let you know how the withdrawal process goes.

First in First
I have no offense or defense to this broker while I am trying to get correct info about it.

I am planning to work with this broker due to
- Low Cost
- Australian company
- Regulated

So I decided to investigate & found below;

I had read nearly all bad reviews about IC Markets.
- FPA
- 100Forexbrokers.com
& some other sites I did find on Net.

I read only the bad ones (always) to get a clue about Broker.
Here are my findings;
Most Common
- Slippage
- Platform Freeze
- Manuplating Reviews

Less Common
- Bad Support
- Short of Support team

The Worst
- Misscalculation of Profits => Australia, Geoff September 20, 2011 => This is the MOST Serious accusation about broker which made me think Link : http://www.100forexbrokers.com/reviews-ratings/icmarkets/cpage-8
- Missleading support => Nasim, Dhaka, Bangladesh 2013-02-13 => About PAMM/MAM account setup Link : http://www.forexpeacearmy.com/public/review/www.icmarkets.com.au

My Conclusion:
Low Cost:
I am logging spread from live account & here are my results
Average in pips for ECN account
EURUSD 0.16
GBPUSD 0.54
USDJPY 0.30
EURJPY 0.64
USDCAD 0.57
XAUUSD 2.37
weird!

& If client open account over an IB then he/she can get direct comission discount of $1.50. Means Comission for Round turn per lot will be $5.50
Above data makes IC markets the best ECN in the market as far as I know. ( must say that I am not new in this market )

This comes like "too good to be true" yes I feel like that.

Slippage:
Slippage is MOST COMMON issue for all STP STP/ECN brokers. Due to latency between Retail Platform <=> Broker Server <=> Liquidity Provider
there will be slippage. There is no DUBT. But it should be symetric. But unfortunatelly most of the brokers use it to their favor. Slippage should be positive or negative.
But the super software of boston technologies called VDP (Virtual Dealer Plugin [working instead of dealing Desk & much more ;) ]) has many possible setups & brokers love to use those to their favor.
When we back out topic, I have no information about IC Markets slippage while I have no single trade with.

Platform Freeze:
is the result of
a - broker unhonesty => suspending server comunucation on news hours for some minutes!
b - short of servers on broker side => when servers are not enough they can not support news hours extra large amount of traders/orders whom are in rush

Most probably happens at news hours but again I have no clue while not traded live yet. But When I checked log files of terminal due to spread log I keep it up & running I dont see any major freeze.
This deas not mean that it will not in the future or did not happen in the past!
With my experience the notorious of platform freeze is Alpari.

Manuplating Reviews
FPA is very sensitive about that issue & tries to catch manuplating Brokers. if you check IronFX reviews on FPA site you can see clear proofs of that actions defended by FPA team.
On the other hand there are smarter ways of doing that without being catched. So if IC Markets manuplating review pages with a little sign of smart no body can catch that.
One thing I can say IC Markets is in the marketting attack. Which this is their right to do to get better portion from FX Retail Market.

Bad Support & Short of Support team:
IC Markets seems to be come togather of 2-3 people. I can put names here if they dont mind
Andrew Budzinski IC Markets Managing Director
Angus Walker ( No we are not relatives he he )
Nathan from the Account
&
IC Markets Support, no clue who is behind this title. A single person or team!?

The actions taken about review posts reminds me FXOpen. That broker also defend every single bad review posted about them. Is it bad thing?
I dont think so. If some people post bad things about me I would also defend myself.

Misscalculation of Profits:
If this is true no more comment needed about broker. But unfortunatelly I have no idea how to get if tis correct or wrong while Geoff is not poster real name.
So black information without proof.

Missleading support:
I had read about also the related document of Nasim & I found him quite right. He mentioned nearly all information before account setup.
But on the other hand while IC Markets failed that account setup, they basicly refuse to get at least 10 to 50K amount of money. If they would be a scam broker they would definetly accept that deal.




Last Issue:
Cahrt of NZDUSD from Live account
History corrupt.
http://www.mql5.com/en/charts/894625/nzdusd-w1-international-capital-markets


LAST WORD:
after all those information collection I am planning to fund account with small amount & check slippage. if its in limits then will keep working with them.
Lets see what we will get from that.

walker

Good observations Steve, thanks for collating all that data and research; I very much look forward to your slippage report.


With regards to the cost of trading at ICM, it can be further reduced by a discount of $1.55 USD or equivalent / RTL over the standard $1.50 USD / RTL per my signature. I definitely invite you to take advantage of this for your test accounts.


As a client of ICM I can tell you first hand that the platform freezes when they were an issue were due to overcapacity; the broker's client base grew too large, too quickly, and the servers were getting overwhelmed. Since new servers came online and were fully rolled out, I have noticed that the freezes that were previously complained about are no more.

So far as the support issues go, nothing especially notable has come up for me personally short of a substantial delay with Global Collect's local bank transfer service which was essentially GC's fault. Either way IC Markets is aware of this perception, whether right or wrong, and there does appear to be a genuine drive recently to step this up per my correspondence with Angus Walker.

Manipulating reviews? No idea. Can't confirm or deny it. Has anyone provided proof of this?

Hi Surrealistik
"With regards to the cost of trading at ICM, it can be further reduced by a discount of $1.55 USD or equivalent / RTL over the standard $1.50 USD / RTL per my signature. I definitely invite you to take advantage of this for your test accounts."

can you please more specific on that. I actually opened live account over IB & got the $1.50 direct dicount means I will pay $5.50 round turn per lot. Is there any other rebate over that?

The manuplating issue did not prrofed for IC Markets. I can personally say that I smell of it. But smelling is not a proof in this bussines :)
I am sure this been done by most brokers. Is it ethic? No it is not.

Due to platform freeze, I personally dont trade news hours. So I hope it will not become issue for me. But whlile not trading those hours , sometimes I get cought with some floatings & have to trade. we will se.

thanks for info
walker

I personally offer the $1.55 / RTL discount per that signature link. Yes, it is higher than the typical $1.50 / RTL for a final commission of $5.45 / RTL. That may not be a big difference but it does add up over time, especially if you're a high volume trader.


As far as review manipulation goes, what I would be concerned about is competition trying to slander; I'm not saying that's the case necessarily, but when these sorts of accusations come up without proof, you can be sure there's a pretty good chance that this might be happening.

Cheers,
Kyle

ok got it. but I actually opened account over an IB. so I dont think ICM will replace it with the one you mentioned.

I dont too much stuck in review issue.
I am an open person I say what I think.

what concerns me about ICM is;
1 - high slippage which is the most common issue of Australian Brokers even on Demo. I can call that a type of honesty while most brokers do not slipp on Demo but dıo on Live
why I afraid of slippage is because my trading style is intraday & very sensitve to cost

2 - Costs are too low & this comes like "too good to be true".

the only thing I can say I wish I would be able to visit their office :)

Surrealistik posted:
I personally offer the $1.55 / RTL discount per that signature link. Yes, it is higher than the typical $1.50 / RTL for a final commission of $5.45 / RTL. That may not be a big difference but it does add up over time, especially if you're a high volume trader.


As far as review manipulation goes, what I would be concerned about is competition trying to slander; I'm not saying that's the case necessarily, but when these sorts of accusations come up without proof, you can be sure there's a pretty good chance that this might be happening.

Cheers,
Kyle

from day one I had trusted pepperstone & actually trading with it. When I go back look for reasons why I did trust that way are;

- Regulated
- Australian
- No Bonus
- Straight forward Marketting. No hidden fees/tricks & good/patient support
- Very sensitive to money laundering

I see all same at ICM also. I hope I am right again :)

in the event of fail, I will be dissapointed for 2 issues
- loosing the funds
- loosing the possibility of %20 lower cost trading then my actual

- The cause between Winner & Looser is COST Only. Nothing more
above words may come meaningless/wrong to many traders. Believe me it is true. same as for all other business types.


hope I am clear

I would say we need to open small 1k account and observe.
To reduce slippage I would get VPS connected to their server so ping is about 2-3 ms
thus trades have to be under 1sec.

Same as me, been with pepperstone since 2011 and happy with them on their edge server. Now I'm also with ICMarkets just to diversify my equity. I hope the wire withdrawal process with ICMarkets could provide less fee, but I'm bit pessimist on that as ICM seems also use NAB, and wire transfer from NAB to my bank will have to trough intermediate bank (Standard Chartered - which cost me $70 and I know this from my bank when I withdrew from pepperstone which also use NAB).

stevewalker posted:
from day one I had trusted pepperstone & actually trading with it. When I go back look for reasons why I did trust that way are;

- Regulated
- Australian
- No Bonus
- Straight forward Marketting. No hidden fees/tricks & good/patient support
- Very sensitive to money laundering

I see all same at ICM also. I hope I am right again :)

in the event of fail, I will be dissapointed for 2 issues
- loosing the funds
- loosing the possibility of %20 lower cost trading then my actual

- The cause between Winner & Looser is COST Only. Nothing more
above words may come meaningless/wrong to many traders. Believe me it is true. same as for all other business types.


hope I am clear

I had real account with Pepperstone. Broker was good - the EA I subscribed to sucked.
So I cancelled the account. The point of the support was fantastic. They changed the withdrawal rules so I can use the less expensive way to get my money.

we cant balme any broker due to transfer costs. I had read many reviews about those with many broker
wire transfer costs will always be in this bussines. its banks charge us. I dont trust on brokers those pay those costs by their own means free to customer. those then will be reduced from somewhere else. in reality this must be called as hidden fee instead of bank transfer.

we should acknowledge that broker should also make profit but also surly without rubbing clients :)