Xenia Review by professional Forex trading experts the “ForexSQ” FX trading team, Finding out everything you need to know about the broker is in this Xenia Review.
Xenia Review
Xenia is an STP broker, which provides access to the forex market. The company charges a commission in addition to the spreads.
The Company. Security of Funds
Xenia is registered on the Cayman Islands. The company has a business license, which it claims to receive its credibility from, but in fact this is only the company’s registration. That being said the broker is not under any financially specific regulation. In essence this is an off-shore, unregulated company
You may already know this, but when it comes to the financial services sector most countries have designated regulatory agencies. The stringency of these watchdogs varies from one place to another. For instance, Australia has the ASIC, a well respected body which regulates forex brokers (as well as other financial firms). If your broker is regulated by the ASIC, they have to keep your money separate from the firms’. This is a practice called having segregated accounts. Furthermore the Commission demands forex brokers to have a minimum of AUD 1 million in capital holdings, just to show capital stability and a long term view.
Xenia on the other hand is not regulated and registered on the Cayman Islands (probably mainly for tax reasons). If you decide to trade with this broker, you will be doing it on a “good-will” basis.
Trading Conditions
Minimum Initial Deposit
Xenia does not offer any information on the minimum deposit it requires, for the opening of a new account. This is quite bizarre, as most brokers use it as marketing tool, especially if the level is low. Take IG, for instance, who claim there is no such requirement.
Keep in mind the minimum requirements shouldn’t bother you, when comparing legitimate companies. A long-term approach to trading will require a much more solid capital investment, among other things. The minimum requirement is only suitable for testing a broker’s services.
Average spreads & Commissions
Xenia offers floating spreads, which average around 1.2 pips for EUR/USD. On top of that there is a commission per side. This is rather unusual, when it comes to forex trading, as most brokers who apply commissions show them in a per trade (double-sided) basis. The rates which Xenia charges are flexible, and go lower depending on your monthly trading volume. Here is the table from their website:
Commissions on Xenia’s website, without clear explanation
Lets say you trade under 10 million currency units per month. Your commissions will be $60 for a million currency units traded. In effect we came to this conclusion after testing with the demo version, as the Xenia never explained on what bases the $60 are being charged. In essence, the effect of the commission is a widening of the spread by 1.2 pips for major pairs.
This make s the cumulative average spread for EUR/USD go as high as 2.4 pips which is quite high for today’s standards. Most competitive brokers have spreads in the 1.0-1.5 pips range for this pair. You can view a real-time comparison of spreads offered by 15 of the leading brokers here.
Leverage
Xenia offers a 1:100 leverage ratio. This is quite suitable, despite the fact some forex brokers offer 1:500 or even more, The current state of the industry should not give you false impressions about over-gearing.
Higher leverage can be very dangerous, as it amplifies both your winning and loosing trades. New traders often fall in the trap of trading too big lot sizes for their account balance. Most of the time this ends up with the account being blown. Be sure to understand the basics of margin trading and risk management before putting your capital at risk.
Trading Platforms
Xenia provides its clients with the cTrader platform. It has a great visual appeal and some convenient features. It was generally designed for an ECN environment where you can view the entire order book (depth of the market or level 2). That being said, the currency markets are probably the worst possible ones to do tape-reading on, as they are decentralized and massive orders can come in very quickly.
Furthermore cTrader has mobile and web-based versions to allow ease of access in all possible circumstances. Other useful features include cAglo – the automated trading environment and cMirror – the social/copy-trading system. They are a long ways past their MetaTrader4 equivalents in terms of popularity though.
Methods of Payment
Xenia only offers Bank Transfer and Credit/Debit Card as methods of payment. This is a rather limited pool of options. Users of e-wallets such as PayPal, Skrill or Neteller are left out.
The Broker is not a safe forex broker, Instead you can use Plus500, XM, eToro, Fxpro or AvaTrade forex brokers.
Xenia Review Conclusion
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