Your capital is at risk As online Forex brokerages go, they all claim to be highly reputable and if one were to look solely at the reviews posted by various review portals, that would indeed be the case. The problem is though that operators made out to be reputable by reviewers are often revealed to be crooked by actual users.
In HotForex’s case, this is not a problem though. The user opinions and feedback voiced through various message boards underpins the trustworthy and serious nature of the operation, and for the most part: the superior quality of its services too. Obviously, there are dissenters, but overall, the vibe is a very positive one indeed.
The brokerage is a truly global operation: having been in business for more than 7 years, it now has more than 500,000 active clients. More than 200 people work for the brokerage and over 20 industry awards have been bagged by the operator, including the Peak of Success award, from The Bizz, for 2017. World Finance Magazine has included the broker among its top 100 companies.
Long story short in this regard: it is safe to say that HotForex’s reputation is rather impressive among its industry peers as well as its users.
As of August 1st 2018 new margins take effect. You can read more about it here.
HotForex.com Regulation
The company behind HotForex is HF Markets Limited. In that form, it is licensed and regulated by the FSC (the Financial Services Commission) of the Republic of Mauritius. The company is registered in Mauritius, under number: 094286/GBL. As such, it is the possessor of a Category 1 Global Business License. The License Number is: C110008214.
In addition to being licensed in Mauritius, and governed by the applicable laws of the jurisdiction, HF Markets Ltd is also a member of the Bourse Africa, the first multi-asset exchange in the country.
To be able to legally peddle its services within the European Economic Area though, HotForex needs to be licensed in an EU country, by a regulatory agency, whose requirements assure compliance with the MiFID directives.
In HotForex’s case, that country is Cyprus, and the regulatory agency is CySEC. The local version of HF Markets Ltd is HF Markets Europe Ltd, and it is indeed the possessor of license number 183/12. The full license is available at the cysec.gov.cy website, and it is linked from the official HotForex website. It has to be mentioned though that traffic from Belgium, France and Portugal is not allowed.
Regulated by the FSCA, the local representative of the broker also offers trading services in South Africa.
HotForex is also regulated by FCA, FSCA and DFSA
With the above in mind, it is safe to conclude that HotForex’s regulatory status more than satisfies the requirements that every trader should have towards every brokerage in this regard.
Why should you make Hotforex your primary broker though?
What advantages does the operator offer over other brokerages?
The trading conditions are (and should always be) front and center, and in this case, they are indeed truly outstanding. The spreads are so tight, they start from as little as 0.1 pips on popular currency pairs such as the EUR/USD. The rollover policy is fully transparent, and hedging and scalping are allowed. Since MT4 is one of the supported trading platforms, the same goes for the use of EAs.
The maximum available leverage is a massive 1:1000(not for EU clients), which is quite peerless in the industry. It is also flexible, so it creates no unwanted risk. The broker does not accept traders from the US.
The insurance offered by the brokerage is quite possibly industry-best at EUR 5 million.
Several different account types are available, offering everyone a workable path into the world of HotForex trading. The minimum required deposit is just $50, which means it is very accessible to all comers.
HotForex Trading Products
HotForex’s trading product selection covers currency pairs, metals and energies, indices, shares, commodities, bonds, as well as cryptocurrencies.
As far as Forex goes, more than 49 currency pairs are available. While the spreads on most of them are indeed very attractive, there are some exotic pairs on offer as well, like the USD/MXN, on which the spreads can indeed be rather substantial.
The Metals and Energies section covers oil, silver and gold. Commodities on the other hand, include sugar, coffee, cocoa, palladium, platinum and cotton.
Perhaps the most interesting section is that is that of the cryptocurrencies. HotForex supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash and Ripple. USD and EUR pairs are offered on most of these. It is important to remember though that one cannot actually buy any cryptos at HotForex. These products are crypto-based CFDs and as such, they have nothing to do with actual crypto possession. Through these financial derivatives, traders are essentially trying to predict price-movements rather than adopting an acquire, hold and sell approach.
Account Types
As already stated, HotForex offer an impressive number of account types. Of these, the Micro Account is obviously the most accessible.
Requiring a minimum deposit of just $50, the Micro Account offers a maximum leverage of 1:500(not for EU clients). The spreads on this account start from 1 pip and phone trading is available on it. The Margin Call and Stop Out levels are set to 40% and 10% respectively.
With a deposit requirement of $500, the Premium Account is also quite accessible. With the maximum leverage set to 1:400(not fore EU clients), the spreads on this account start from 1 pip as well. The Margin Call/Stop Out levels are set to 40%/20%.
The VIP account calls for a minimum deposit of $20,000, so it is fair to say that this one is outside the reach of the recreational trader.
The Zero Spread account on the other hand is still very much within reach for everyone: it requires a minimum deposit of $100, it features a maximum leverage of 1:200(not fore EU clients), but it also features commissions – something of which the other account-options are free.
The other available account options are the Auto Account (aimed at the copying of trading signals) the HFCopy Account, the FIX Account and the Shari’a-compliant, swap-free Islamic Account. A free Demo account is also part of the package.
Trading Platforms
The trading platform selection offered by HotForex is based around MT4. While there are a number of options for web trading as well as mobile trading, MT4 is the flagship of the brokerage.
HotForex’s MT4 is available in a downloadable form. There is a Web Terminal available as well, not to mention several platform versions for Android, iPhone, iPad and other smart devices.
Deposits/Withdrawals
A surprisingly large selection of deposit and withdrawal options are available to HotForex traders.
Through wire transfer, the minimum deposit amount is $250. Through all the other supported methods, the minimum is $50.
Besides wire, Credit Cards (VISA and MasterCard) as well as Neteller, Skrill and TrustPay are accepted.
Customer Support
HotForex’s customer support can be contacted via a form, an email address ([email protected]), as well as several phone numbers. The main support number of the operator is +357-24-400165. Separate support emails are available for Polish and Spanish speakers ([email protected] and [email protected] respectively).
Conclusion
HotForex is a trustworthy and reputable operation (though there are certainly people out there who will tell you otherwise).
The trading conditions of the broker are good, as are its account- and tradable asset selections. The HotForex trading platforms are a very impressive bunch too. Everything accounted for, we can indeed warmly recommend this brokerage.